Taqpol's 220 gallon custom Miracles tank!

[Ninja1]

The pipefish is awesome! How is it doing with the other fish?

[Taqpol]

Originally Posted by psteeleb

awesome pictures Alex - looking great

Originally Posted by drummereef

Great pic of the Singapore Angel. Awesome fish!

Originally Posted by MyMonkey

Impressive!

Thanks guys!

Originally Posted by jathack

Wow nice setup. I hope to have a fish closet when we move to a new house. Looks like that may be a long time but you got my mind going now.

Planning everything out was the most fun I had, so take your time and do it right the first time! Having a closet for sump tanks is good, having an entire room would be even better!

Originally Posted by patrickbush

Looking good, Love that Singapore Angel!

Its a great little fish.

[Taqpol]

Originally Posted by Ninja1

The pipefish is awesome! How is it doing with the other fish?

I was about to mention that after my vacation I haven't seen the pipefish... Of course, he could have just gone down the overflow so I'll check the sump when I get home.

They are supposed to be pretty hard to feed. The LFS owner I bought him from suggested I feed phytoplankton daily but I haven't because I was already having a nutrient issue with my mini cycle at the time.

[fishmonkey]

Wow. Loving the tank! Awesome corals, and fish. I am going to be borrowing a lot of ideas for my own LED build from you. You have done an awesome job. Subscribed for sure!

[salali]

I am sure there are huge updates

[Padrino]

Alex,
How about a FTS?

[Taqpol]

Originally Posted by fishmonkey

Wow. Loving the tank! Awesome corals, and fish. I am going to be borrowing a lot of ideas for my own LED build from you. You have done an awesome job. Subscribed for sure!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by salali

I am sure there are huge updates

See below.

Originally Posted by Padrino

Alex,
How about a FTS?

I don't know if you guys would want to see a FTS right now, my corals have started going downhill quite rapidly and a series of events have left me disenchanted with the fish tank right now. Right now I just have the tank on autopilot mode and I've been trying to do weekly water changes to try and get my chemicals back in check.

A few of my SPS corals have been receding on the bottom sides where they dont get much light. To rectify this I have switched out all my optics to 80 degrees (up from 60 degrees) and left some LEDs completely optic-less to try to get more light bouncing off the glass and onto the underside of the corals, coupled with slowly increasing my light output up from the 50% power I had them at before. Already some corals started showing negative side effects of too much light (the monti caps) so I am slowing down on that until they get adjusted. Unfortunately I don't believe that my main problem is the lights.

When my corals last looked like crap my tank looked pristine and I had zero nitrates. After an aggressive regimen of dosing AA's along with feeding the fish more frozen food all of my corals made a drastic turn around and within two weeks were looking amazing. Their decline from that state has been slow, but it correlates with my increase in nitrates to 10ppm, 15ppm and now even 20 (!) ppm. I've been trying my best with water changes and maintaining a rationed yet healthy feeding regimen, but considering I can't let my alk raise too high without fearing disaster from my bio-pellets I've been limited in the number of 11 dKh Instant Ocean water changes I could do. Given my frustration with the bio pellets obviously not working for me and their restriction on my water changes I have completely removed them. Almost immediately I saw better polyp extension in my corals (especially my acans that looked atrocious), but since then I have not seen a drop in nitrates or the crazy amount of nuisance algae that has popped up.

Lastly, and most heart wrenching, has been a series of fish losses. Awhile ago I added a gorgeous and healthy convict tang to the tank. Unbeknownst to me or the owner of the fish store, while an employee was catching him the tang jumped out of the tank and crashed >6' face first onto the concrete floor. The employee thought he looked fine so he bagged him up and sold him to me anyways, without saying a word. The next day I noticed that the tang had a massive infection on his lip and was breathing heavily. By the time I got him into the QT tank he was already dead. If that was the end of it it would have been sad, but two days later my Blonde Naso tang had a cut and infection on his lip. He was so fat I was going to let him fight the infection on his own in the comfort of his tank, but the next day he died as well. Other fish have passed away of mysterious causes since then as well, including one of my pair of tailspot blennies and a rare Kuiteri Leopard wrasse I had picked up along with the Convict Tang. The Naso hit me the hardest, as it would have been one year with that amazingly gorgeous fish in just a few more days.

[aquaph8]

Sorry to hear of the bad news, I hope things turn around for you soon man.

[psteeleb]

ouch!!!

[drummereef]

Wow, Alex so sorry for all the losses. Can't imagine how you must be feeling right now.

[salali]

That was a painful story. I am sorry Alex but hope your tank will be better.

[maik1]

Alex I feel for you. So sorry to hear your bad news.

Maik1

[jdantunes]

Originally Posted by Taqpol

Thank you!

The next day I noticed that the tang had a massive infection on his lip and was breathing heavily. By the time I got him into the QT tank he was already dead. If that was the end of it it would have been sad, but two days later my Blonde Naso tang had a cut and infection on his lip. He was so fat I was going to let him fight the infection on his own in the comfort of his tank, but the next day he died as well.

I'm very sorry, Alex. But let me understand something..

I though that you quarantine your new fish before putting them in the display tank?

How the Blonde Naso cut himself? against rocks?

[kudora]

ugh sorry to hear that bro

[Padrino]

Alex,
Sorry to hear about your losses! Don't get discouraged by this. I'm confident that your tank will bounce back and it will be gorgeous again! Are you going to MACNA this year? If so, I'd like to finally meet you,

Rob

[Taqpol]

Than you for the condolences everyone. Its so frustrating because my previous tank was much smaller, less fancy, and way more overstocked, yet the corals grew like gangbusters and looked absolutely gorgeous, even though the tank did start reaching 15 ppm Nitrates near the end due to my slacking on water changes and overfeeding. As of now I'm just trying to return to simplicity. I might even try and do a major 50 gallon water change in the next few weeks to really just kick these nitrates in the shorts.

Originally Posted by jdantunes

I'm very sorry, Alex. But let me understand something..

I though that you quarantine your new fish before putting them in the display tank?

How the Blonde Naso cut himself? against rocks?

All of my past fish purchases have been from a single fish store that buys all of his fish straight from the collectors, not wholesalers. Because of this, his fish are truly more healthy then any other fish store fish I've ever seen and as such I've been adding them straight to the tank in the thought that not stressing them out with QT would keep them healthy. Obviously in this case that was a HORRIBLE mistake. I have a 38 gallon QT tank constantly setup for just this reason, and its about time I make use of it.

I have no idea how the Naso cut his lips. A rock is quite likely, but the tangs were doing a little bit of scuffling due to the new additions.

Originally Posted by Padrino

Alex,
Sorry to hear about your losses! Don't get discouraged by this. I'm confident that your tank will bounce back and it will be gorgeous again! Are you going to MACNA this year? If so, I'd like to finally meet you,

Rob

Thanks Rob,

Unfortunately I won't be able to make it to MACNA this year so you'll have to tell me how it went!

[prop-frags]

Alex, this is terrible news.
We are troubled to hear of this bad fortune. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to help out! Hang in there and don't give up. The community is behind you and we need your wonderful participation!

[canyousee]

Alex keeping a reef tank at times feels like pushing on a string you try and fix on part and it makes another part worse. The problems never seem to me, to be one dimensional there's always multiple concerns. Having followed you for some time I know you can get your tank back on an even keel. I like your approach of water changes and maybe simplifying some aspects of the set up, good luck in the coming weeks.

[salali]

Are there any new pics for the amazing corals?

[darkdrako]

So sorry to hear about your recent events. I love looking at this tank and using it as inspiration for my own.

[looneytunes]

Sorry to hear about the problems your having. Now to be a little selfish I am waiting for my custom miracles tank and was wondering if they gave you the warranty with your stand. I have been in contact with Derek and told him my plans based on Rocketengineers plan. Sorry to ask at this time and I hope this ? doesn't bother you too much. I am sorry for your loss but thank you for sharing. It is good for a newbie like me to know what we're in for reading the experiences you guys have had.
thank you,
christine

[jjstecchino]

Alex I haven't been on the forums for a while and one of the first threads I usually catch up with is yours. I am very sorry for the losses you are having. It looks like that sick fish introduced an infection that then affected the other fish. You must feel boomed at this time but keep your wits together fix all the basics and hopefully the tank will turn around.
Sorry again for the losses.

Claudio

[Taqpol]

I'm scared to use a phrase like "things are starting to look good", so instead I'll say "There is a chance that my corals are potentially starting to recover". Still, to try and speed up this process and keep the corals healthy I decided that I might not be giving my SPS the flow they need due to my pump situation in my tanks footprint. To rectify this I purchased two more (four total) Vortech MP40w's, but now I need help deciding how to position them. I posted a thread over in the SPS Keepers forum for their expertise, but here is the gist of my conundrum:

Originally Posted by Taqpol

After having trouble keeping SPS in my tank I finally broke down and thought that maybe having only two Vortech MP40W's in my 6ft x 2.5 ft footprint 220 gallon might not be cutting it. To rectify this situation I bought two more MP40w's to stir things up a bit. Since we all know how important flow is for SPS corals in particular, I thought I would post in this forum to see if any one here had some opinions on the best way to sync four MP40w's in a system such as mine.

Currently I've been trying to get a gyre type flow so I've kept the pumps unsynced and on lagoon flow to give the gyre enough time to build up. Here is the current pump layout:


One thought was to continue to have a gyre flow, and I thought this setup might work the best (using sync and anti-sync modes in lagoon):


With four pumps I could also try and do a standing wave in my tank. It is a custom Miracles and could probably withstand the stress, but besides aesthetics would a wave type flow really help coral growth?:


I could also try and put the vortechs on the back to get a slightly my random/even flow:


Let me know what you guys think! If you would personally do something different, just let me know. A picture is worth a thousand words, so feel free to use my template.

Template:


Thank you!

[prop-frags]

I like setup #2, Alex.
But no matter how you choose to go about it, the important thing is to generate turbulent flow around all your rock and corals. We are seeing really nice results with the closed loop outlets (lower third of the height) pointing at the backside of the 'scape towards the front of the tank, and along the mid-front pointing at the sides of the tank and inwards. Then, we have our four stream pumps (upper third of the height) providing flow from the four corners pointing inwards.

A picture would be better. I used my awesome drawing skills to show the closed loop flow in red, with the tunze streams in green:

[Padrino]

I have both the vortech mp40W and the tunze nanostream 6055 both of which are controlable. The vortech is nice however it is only capable of linear flow which can be a major downfall. Tunze stream pumps allow you to rotate and better direct the flow where you want it.

If it was me, I might try and set up all the vortechs on one side and create a true gyre instead of having pumps on both sides. I foresee flow patterns colliding in the center and creating issues such as sandstorms, ect.

Using a wave is cool however, how would your overflow do with that? I guess it depends on the size of the wave, but potentially you could see an increase in gurgling from your overflows.
play around with it and see what works best for your corals, you may need to relocate some of them as you experiment with flows.

Cheers
Rob