illumnae's SPS shallow reef

[Limited]

Nicd

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[teck4300]

Very nice scape..

[illumnae]

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

[cedricang]

Nice scape especially on the right side !  

 

 

[chercm]

On 11/08/2016 at 10:16 PM, illumnae said:

After struggling for 8 months with live rock that wouldn't stop leaching phosphate, I decided that enough was enough and decided to restart my tank from scratch.  Very grateful to the bros that helped me hold my corals for the past 1+ months while I redid everything.  Went with 100% dead DE Rocks this time around.

 

Sorry for the poor white balance - picture was taken with handphone camera

bro did you soak the rocks for one week before putting into the display ?

[Bunster]

On 07/12/2016 at 11:18 AM, illumnae said:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Thats a very nice shot

 

[illumnae]

It's been a long time without an update.  Long story short, I battled and lost against a very persistent strain of dinoflagellates.

This was what the tank looked like last Christmas:

Very unluckily, on the first day of Chinese New Year, super ugly dinoflagellates started to invade my tank and blanketed everything.  I tried every possible solution in the book (except the experimental to dose bleach with livestock still inside method) and nothing got rid of the dinoflagellates.  I even lost all my algae eating fish and invertebrates to the poisonous dinos.

After 2+ months I finally threw in the towel and here's my tank as of 2 weeks ago:

I bleached everything including all my equipment to get rid of the dinoflagellate spores and am starting afresh.  Tank has been cycling since 2 weekends ago, and I just ordered a new sump as well - decided to go old school this time and include a refugium to cultivate more microfauna in the system and hopefully the chaeto will outcompete nuisance algae as well.  Inspired by recent BRS videos on the power of chaeto!   Waiting for the new sump will also give me the patience to go with a longer cycle this time as well to allow the tank to stabilize fully before adding livestock. 

[illumnae]

Oh, if you could tell by the blue hue in the Christmas FTS, I also changed the lights in the meantime!  I absolutely HATED the ATI and so decided to go back to the look I liked best - LEDs!  I know many of you out there swear by T5HOs and worship ATIs, but this is my personal preference la.  I was impressed by the reviews of the spread of Radions (the only issue with my previous Hydra52s was spread - which is why I bought into the hype and went with ATI T5HOs) so I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the change - after all why have a tank if every time you look at the light over the tank you get angry (I cannot forget the piss poor service from the distributor of this product)?

Before:

After:

I'm so so so so much happier with the new lights  

[Mathan Hari]

.. all the best for your rebuild bro!!


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[iceman]

9 minutes ago, illumnae said:

Oh, if you could tell by the blue hue in the Christmas FTS, I also changed the lights in the meantime!  I absolutely HATED the ATI and so decided to go back to the look I liked best - LEDs!  I know many of you out there swear by T5HOs and worship ATIs, but this is my personal preference la.  I was impressed by the reviews of the spread of Radions (the only issue with my previous Hydra52s was spread - which is why I bought into the hype and went with ATI T5HOs) so I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the change - after all why have a tank if every time you look at the light over the tank you get angry (I cannot forget the piss poor service from the distributor of this product)?

Before:

After:

I'm so so so so much happier with the new lights  

 

The coral will love it as much as u do.  

[Dechew]

Thats really sad but happy for you with a fresh start and avoid past mistakes. Happy reeling!

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[Sam Yong]

May i know you did mention the scape is done by steven. Did you do up together with him?

How big your tank?


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[illumnae]

180 x 70 x 50 cm

[Bunster]

Looking good bro... all the best for your reboot

[Harlequinmania]

Not many people like you have the courage to restart everything back and many would choose the easy route to decomm.

Welcome back ! That's the fun of this hobby, we always have new things to learn along the way.

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[SubzeroLT]

It was nice meeting you a couple of months back at one of the LFS.

Look forward to your tank build updates.

[sherman]

Sad to hear about your lost. 

But nice to see you come back stronger

[illumnae]

Thank you friends for the encouragement  I was actually very close to switching back to freshwater and keeping a planted discus tank instead but a few close reefer friends persuaded me not to give up.

More updates coming over the next few weeks!

[hansolo]

Fall down 7 times get up 8!


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[vakeros]

good luck for your new reef tank

[illumnae]

So in my aim to get rid of all things related to AM in my reef, I got a new toy...

Last item to remove is the calcium reactor.  Any recommendations for a good one with a small footprint?  Hope to be able to get one before I replace my sump in 2 to 3 weeks.

[Patrick]

So in my aim to get rid of all things related to AM in my reef, I got a new toy...

Last item to remove is the calcium reactor.  Any recommendations for a good one with a small footprint?  Hope to be able to get one before I replace my sump in 2 to 3 weeks.

AM...What's the reason? Thanks for sharing your experience it's inspiring.


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[Tee]

Give u 2 weeks when shipments come in, it'll look the same as before I bet

[illumnae]

2 hours ago, Patrick said:

AM...What's the reason? Thanks for sharing your experience it's inspiring.


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Horrible horrible customer service.  I'll never buy anything from them ever again.

11 minutes ago, Tee said:

Give u 2 weeks when shipments come in, it'll look the same as before I bet

Haha slowly la

[illumnae]

Getting ready for the new sump!  I have a Geo calcium reactor on the way too