EvolutionZ's Valley Reef

[Evolutionz]

Hi guys! some of you guys may know i have re-scaped my Evoz's floating reef scape and since its an entirely different scape, i've decided to start a new thread to document this build. 

Following this build thread :

 

Tank size : 90x45x45 10mm Front crystal with Bean animal C2C Overflow made by CRA.

Sump tank : 60x40x45 6mm 2 compartment

Skimmer : Skimz SM121

Lighting : ATI 6x39w Sunpower 

Return pump : Eheim 1262

Chiller : Artica 1/5hp

Substrate : 20 - 22kg Grade 3 coral sand.

Wavemaker : Jebao Rw-8 & Maxspect Gyre 130

 

First, got to work with the scaping, took out the rocks which i had cured and soaked for 6 weeks. 

After multiple attempts, this is what i got.

Next was cleaning 3 bags of Grade 3 coral sand! these were similar in size to Carib sea special grade and they were ALOT cheaper.. these are the way to go in future!

Cleaning the sump.. it wasn't properly cleaned for months, return pump were choked, bag of siphorax had hell lot of ditritus.. it was a night mare cleaning it!

draining the main tank...

Photobucket ran into some problems.. will continue tomorrow!

 

 

[Evolutionz]

Continuing...

SPS were transferred into the blue tub! along with fishes, other corals and wave makers.. 

Tank is fully drained and i proceeded to remove the sand, and clean the tank wall.

20170315_120533 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Rocks went in first before the sand went in and proceed to fill up the tank back with old tank water from the blue tub.. along with about 20% newly salt mix water which is about 40L.

20170315_141227 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

The idea of this scape is to create as many caves and holes as possible for the fishes to hide, my previous floating scape almost provided no hiding spot for the fishes,

20170315_231342 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

After couple hours, the water cleared and i started glueing the SPS back in place..

20170317_193723 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

 

[Evolutionz]

So now its been about 2 weeks since the rescape, i was expecting lots of color loss in the SPS due to the immediate change but luckily, the did lost abit of color but are on the right track in coloring up!

My huge pearl berry colony lost most of its color, but is coming back quick

20170326_223337 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Well this is interesting.. i had this small frag of pink lemonade for the longest time i remembered it was totally brown and it grew nicely into a ball colony. about 2 months ago before i rescaped, i stupidly replaced all the AIO pellets in my reactor and causes a major dip in nutrients which caused my anemone to die. a part of the dead anemone flew around and stung quite a big of SPS. this colony of PL was one of it that got stung and STN partially, fragged what i could and to be surprise, it started coloring up after that! it didn't lose it color from the rescape and infact, the yellow tips are growing! colored polyps are starting to appear too.. so exciting

20170326_223349 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Most color loss were my reds.. surprisngly my miyagi tort remained pretty blue

20170326_223352 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

SSC lots its bright pastal color. hopefully i can bring it back soon

20170326_223358 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Red stag literally turned brown, its coming back to a deep red now

20170326_223406 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Pink hyacinthus 

20170326_223420 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Red planet turned purple.. strange..

20170326_223423 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Tri-color valida remained strong, infront of it u can see a hairy red millie, used to be blood red!

20170326_223438 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Red dragon was pretty brown too, but im just glad it survived!

20170326_223610 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

 

[iceman]

 Great job, Scaping is nice and clean.

 

[Evolutionz]

Well im not really a fish person, but without fishes any tank would look plain right? its been a really long time since i post anything about them! 

Current stocks in my tank :

Powder Blue tang, active really cute bugger, if only i could afford a bigger tank for him!

DSC09789 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

My lovely copperband, a pity it dosn't eat pellet.. but feeds mainly on mysis shrimps.. its been 1 1/2 years since i had him and the longest i had for any copperband.. 

DSC09797 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

My clownfish pair, recently bought an anemone about a week ago and they were crazy over it, started dancing and i thought im gonna see eggs.. but nope

DSC09798 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

DSC09799 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

Golden Midas, bought him more than 2 years ago before i started the floating reef.. really cute fella!

DSC09807 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

I also have a melanurus wrasse, cleaner wrasse and fairy wrasse which were hiding (probably sleeping in the sand) when i was snapping those photos. 

 

Finally, this is the current FTS.. Diatoms are plaguing the tank currently probably due to the silicate released by the sand/rocks.just did another 20% WC with AF probiotic salt last week, will be replacing AC and AF phos minus to help increase the absorption rate of silicate.

Current water parameters are :

kH 7.0

Ca 450

Mg 1300

K 380 

n03 0

p04 0.1 (yeap.. pretty high huh)

20170328_095659 by V3ns0n, on Flickr

 

Thanks for viewing! 

[JMW]

Nice job & thanks for detailing your rescape! Glad all of your SPS are still looking good or on either way back to coloring up. I have a question.. if I recall correctly, you did a dry scape with your new rocks correct? 

How long did you need to seed the bac in your new rock scape before transferring the SPS over? My thoughts are the bac population should be stabilized before the SPS are added? Could be wrong!

[Evolutionz]

14 minutes ago, JMW said:

Nice job & thanks for detailing your rescape! Glad all of your SPS are still looking good or on either way back to coloring up. I have a question.. if I recall correctly, you did a dry scape with your new rocks correct? 

How long did you need to seed the bac in your new rock scape before transferring the SPS over? My thoughts are the bac population should be stabilized before the SPS are added? Could be wrong!

Thanks! basically the rocks were treated and in a tub soaked for more than 6 weeks with bacteria added, Water change were done weekly and the water used was from the main tank. on the day of the rescape, the rocks were taken out from the tub and immediately stacked and scape in the main tank, tank water went in and sps went in immediately! it was a risky move considering the sand were new, none of the old rocks were re-used. The only media reused were siphorax. 

However, the new rocks were well seeded with the same bacteria from the main tank ( i xfered some siphorax into the tub). days following the rescape, my ammonia didn't raise at all so i guess things worked out the way i wanted it to be.

[Evolutionz]

2 hours ago, iceman said:

 Great job, Scaping is nice and clean.

 

thank you bro!

[blackghost]

nice tank bro. keep it up!

love your pictures. marine fishes colors really vibrant!

[JMW]

17 hours ago, Evolutionz said:

Thanks! basically the rocks were treated and in a tub soaked for more than 6 weeks with bacteria added, Water change were done weekly and the water used was from the main tank. on the day of the rescape, the rocks were taken out from the tub and immediately stacked and scape in the main tank, tank water went in and sps went in immediately! it was a risky move considering the sand were new, none of the old rocks were re-used. The only media reused were siphorax. 

However, the new rocks were well seeded with the same bacteria from the main tank ( i xfered some siphorax into the tub). days following the rescape, my ammonia didn't raise at all so i guess things worked out the way i wanted it to be.

Thanks for sharing this bro, very informative & I must say, your transfer was executed really well with advance planning! 

[Patrick]

Nice read, bro. New rockscape is more natural... nice..


Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

[Evolutionz]

21 hours ago, blackghost said:

nice tank bro. keep it up!

love your pictures. marine fishes colors really vibrant!

Thank you bro! are you still in the hobby?

6 hours ago, JMW said:

Thanks for sharing this bro, very informative & I must say, your transfer was executed really well with advance planning! 

Thank you! can be done so long you know what you are doing and well prepared for it!

5 hours ago, Patrick said:

Nice read, bro. New rockscape is more natural... nice..


Sent from Singapore Reef Club mobile app

Thanks bro! i love the new scape too!

[blackghost]

2 hours ago, Evolutionz said:

Thank you bro! are you still in the hobby?

sadly nope, just decomm last week to freshwater..

cant juggle work and maintenance.. become too much of a chore.. but i still keep some of the equipments.. hopefully can jump back in later

[markietan]

Nice scape. Thanks for sharing how you transferred the livestock. Can share what tubes you are using for the t5?

does AC n phos minus help with diatom? I had those previously when started with dead rocks but they just go away with frequent water changes. Diatoms are the brown hairy stuff on the glass, rocks n sand ya?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Xtrader]

Like your copperband shot!

Are you using DSLR to shoot this?

May I know your settings and lens used?

[Jairus]

interested to know camera settings too!

[SubzeroLT]

Enjoyed the write up on cleaning the rocks.

Nice set up as always:)

 

[Evolutionz]

On 3/29/2017 at 3:09 PM, blackghost said:

sadly nope, just decomm last week to freshwater..

cant juggle work and maintenance.. become too much of a chore.. but i still keep some of the equipments.. hopefully can jump back in later

Sad! hope you'll be back soon!

On 3/29/2017 at 8:54 PM, markietan said:

Nice scape. Thanks for sharing how you transferred the livestock. Can share what tubes you are using for the t5?

does AC n phos minus help with diatom? I had those previously when started with dead rocks but they just go away with frequent water changes. Diatoms are the brown hairy stuff on the glass, rocks n sand ya?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks! ATI tubes were coral +, Blue +, Purple +, Blue +, Blue + and coral + front to back respectively. 

AC and phos minus will help as diatom is mainly due to silicate leeching out from new rocks and sand. Yes they will go away with Frequent WC due to u removing them.. i added turbo and astrea snails and they ate most of the diatoms on the rocks! 

On 3/29/2017 at 9:30 PM, Xtrader said:

Like your copperband shot!

Are you using DSLR to shoot this?

May I know your settings and lens used?

Thanks bro! only the fish shots are taken with DSLR, Sony A550 with 50/f1.8 price lens. Really old DSLR though haha..

On 3/29/2017 at 9:47 PM, Jairus said:

interested to know camera settings too!

As above! ISO 200, aperture is at F2.8, forgot about the shutter already. 

On 3/29/2017 at 9:58 PM, SubzeroLT said:

Enjoyed the write up on cleaning the rocks.

Nice set up as always:)

 

Thanks bro! 

[Puncak82]

Nice Setup