Nburg's 170g Innovative Marine SPS Build Thread

[nburg]

Current FTS

 

Intro

My Red Sea Reefer 450 was transferred successfully to my new tank, an Innovative Marine 170g EXT tank, which is 59" long, 21" tall and 30" front to back. The glass is 3/4" thick, so that really gives me a little over 150g of water volume in the tank. I transferred over everything to this tank, all the rock, all the livestock and all the equipment, but I changed the scape so it looks significantly different and I love it! I only added one smaller rock from my 20g cube that I held on to, otherwise the extra room in this newer tank is just to make it not feel so crowded. Some of the equipment changes from my last tank:

• I now am using 3 ATI Straton lights instead of 2
• I added a Tunze Stream 3 along the back wall and a Tunze 6105 for extra flow
• I got a bigger sump, but the setup is very similar - bigger frag section, yay!

 

Here's the rundown on equipment:

• Tank: Innovative Marine 170 EXT with white aluminum stand
• Sump: Turbo Aquatics 55g sump (meant for a turf scrubber, but provides a big open chamber for my frags)
• Lights: ATI Straton LED (x3)
• Flow: x2 Vortech MP40qd, Tunze Stream 3 and a Tunze Turbelle Stream 6105
• Heat: x2 150w Eheim Jager heaters
• Return: Current eFlux 3170gph DC pump
• Skimmer: Deltec 1000i with CO2 scrubber in line
• UV: AquaUX 57w
• In-Sump Frag 'Tank': Noopsyche K7 gen 2 for lights and AI Nero 3 for flow
• Controller: ApexEL, Trident tester, DoS for 2 part
• Dosing: ESV B-Ionic 2 part (switch from BRS)

 

As with my last tank, I don't really run mechanical or chemical filtration, so no filter floss, GAC or GFO. I have the ability to run these if I need to, but not something I run 24/7. Also, like my last tank, I am a firm believer in water changes, so I change about 15g per week using good old fashioned Instant Ocean salt. 

 

My goal is to keep the following parameters:

Alk: 8-9

Calcium >400

Mag: whatever it lands at?

NO3: 5-10

PO4: 0.2 - 0.2

pH: try to keep it's lows above 7.9 and try to get it up to 8.3, but its been hard so far on this bigger tank. 

I don't really test anything else. 

 

I didn't have a lot of extra time to document the moving of the tank fully, but I have to give a big thanks to @Marley1083 and @JDS703 for helping me get this thing in here. 

Building the stand was extremely easy and I was able to fully assemble it my self in under an hour

 

The tank was really heavy, but there were five of us and 6 suction cups and 3 moving carts and we made it work! Thank god there were no stairs to deal with. 

 

I documented the actual transferring of my old tank to the new tank on video and uploaded to youtube (in 3 parts):

 

 

Its  been about 6 weeks and the tank is doing much better than I could have hoped for. I lost 2 frags, which were nice frags, and recently my pink lemonade colony decided to RTN. I have 2 frags of it, so hopefully they make it. Not sure if it was one of three things or a mix of all: 1) the tank move was likely stressful, 2) found out my refractometer calibration solution was off, so I was keeping my salinity at 37% instead of 35% and my NO3 and PO4 dropped to zero while on vacation. Also doesn't help that I probably cranked the lights up too high. Other than those, I did have to trim some burnt tips, but otherwise, 95% of my acros have never looked better!

 

[zoozilla]

Love this set up.  Very clean.  Would you happen to have a shot of the sump and plumbing?

[RJT]

Well done!  Looks great with not a lot of maintenance.

[nburg]

1 hour ago, zoozilla said:

Love this set up.  Very clean.  Would you happen to have a shot of the sump and plumbing?

Still working on cleaning up the wires but here ya go. Nothing fancy. Hard PVC drains and flex tubing for returns. 
 

Left side

 

right side

[howaboutme]

Instant reef!  Great job. Moving is always stressful.

[nburg]

Little update - everything seems to be growing well at this point. My pink lemonade frags are all dead, but it’s not a hard coral to find. I’ll probably try again with that one someday. Lost another yellow acro frag too so something weird with yellow acros in my tank. I bought a Pink Floyd frag, so let’s see how it does, lol. Also added a few other acros including a nice chunk of JF solar flare, which I’m in love with. 

 

My Oregon Blue Tort started having patchy STN, mainly on single coralites on the base. So I cut a few really nice branches that seemed unaffected and dipped the remaining colony in FURAN-2. Still have a few packets left. It’s expired but probably still active. I’m sure it will be fine and recover but it needed a reset. It was a weird looking colony. Otherwise everything else is back to growing and coloring up. 
 

I was toying with the idea of red Xenia for a while, since it’s not very invasive but after seeing that video of it in Sanjays tank over the weekend, I pulled the trigger and got a piece from tidal gardens.  
 

I plan on building out the cabinet and mounting the LED power bricks next weekend. So not quite done with the ‘upgrade’ yet. 
 

Here’s a FTS for Full Tank Shot Friday

Edited July 28, 2023 by nburg

[nburg]

Finally got around to building a cabinet for all my controller things since there are no walls on this stand to screw into. Turned out well - not pretty but does the job well and gets the electrical stuff off the ground. Cords are meant to be 'messy' so I can easily pull equipment for cleaning. Not trying to win any under the tank competitions, lol. 

 

Built

 

Painted

 

Installed

 

And no update should be without a FTS

[nburg]

It’s quiet here.  So here’s some glamor shots. I have been rearranging some of my aquascape and moving stuff around so I’m due for a FTS pic soon.

 

about to start kalkwasser dosing and upgrading my frag sump lighting to a radion XR15 pro.  

[WheresTheReef]

The tank is looking really nice. I’ve enjoyed watching your update videos.

[moga]

Nice!!! waiting for your YouTube contents.~

[nburg]

Been a while since updating. I have not changed anything equipment wise, although I am still not 100% on dosing kalk yet for pH stability. Using vet-grade co2 scrubbing media again and it’s way better than the crap sold for aquariums and probably cheaper. So it does a decent job. Kalk is probably cheaper in the long run but I’ve noticed much better coloration since going from BRS 2 part and ESV B-ionic which has trace elements to keep from diluting your tank with just the NaCl of the BRS 2 part, so if I dose kalk, would that throw off my balance since less 2 part is added? I don’t know. I’m kind of at the point where things are good so why change… even though I bought a doser, a reservoir and a bag of kalkwasser. 

I still haven’t put my radion over my frag sump yet, just haven’t had a lot of free time. But I want to measure my current light PAR and try to recreate the schedule. I did clear out a bunch of frags this last weekend so that will make it less impactful if I fry my frags.  
 

 

speaking of frags - it’s been a while since adding corals, so I made an order from Lazy’s Coral House. He has great stuff and decent pricing. Late to the tenuis game but picked up a chunky Tyree Superman tenuis and a JF Jolt tenuis, along with some sunny D, blue hornet and Marvin the Martian Zoas.  Killer stuff!

 

outside of equipment, I did change some rocks around, got rid of some stuff so here’s a current FTS. I need to take one big rock out to kill some discosoma mushrooms and try and kill some encrusting montis on another rock that I can’t take out… lots of epoxy needed!

 

Edited January 9, 2024 by nburg

[moga]

just watched your youtube video.. nice update!! 

[YHSublime]

Bro, your setup is always inspiring. 

[nburg]

Thanks guys!

 

 I’m not a blue light guy, but the tank does look good under blues!

Edited January 28, 2024 by nburg

[nburg]

[zoozilla]

Looking good !  The colors are surely popping.

[nburg]

It's been a while since updating, and a lot has happened in the last several months. Things were going well, had Vic from World Wide Corals come and showcase my tank, along with a couple others here. @jhOU, @YHSublime and @PupChow were also visited during WWC's trip and more recently, Graham has his tank showcased while Vic and Lou were on their way to visit Jason Fox I believe. Anyways, that was a fun experience, and a week or two after that, I started noticing some STNing on select acropora. I know a couple people on here tune into my videos I put up on youtube, where I go into more detail, but long story short... I have had one after another acropora start a slow decline from the base up. Initially I found a cracked heater with a little water inside, which I figured was the culprit since my alk, calcium, pH, nitrates and phosphates have been stable as a rock for months. Coincidently I ran an ICP test which I got for free and turns out no major metals detected.

 

My tank turned one years old, so here's a vid I made going over my tank over the year for those that may like a longer format forum. I plan on another update soon.

 

Several months pass and still no smoking gun. I can't see any visible coral pests, which leads me to believe its an infectious bacterial infection. I even changed my RO membrane and filters just in case some chloramines were getting thru. I am changing from changing my membrane every 2-3 years to every year. and my pre filteres fromm every six months to every 3 months, even tho I only make about 150 gallons a month. 

 

When I cut healthy parts of the coral and dip in iodine, they cut frags have actually done well for the most part and are incrusting. Some colonies will have slow recession of the base from the edge inward while the whole colony still has healthy, visible growth tips. Alk consumption has not been affected. Coloration is largely unaffected. Most acros are still very colorful. 

 

So I think without intervention, I would loose most of my acropora. No other corals are affected. LPS, other non-acropora species and zoas are growing like mad as usual. Even about half of my acros are completely fine and growing super fast. My plan going forward is I am going to try an oxolinic acid treatment, which is an antibiotic like cipro, but a little more narrow scope, so shouldn't affect the biofilter too much and its not used in humans (most commonly used in Koi farming). Many stick heads said it stopped their STN and didn't have much in the way of side effects. I figure its worth a shot since I think I will continue to loose corals without doing anything!

 

 

[YHSublime]

Ugh. There’s always something. That’s why I’ve resorted to the approach I have. Hope you can nip it!

[gws3]

@nburg Did you already treat with OA? If not, I think it would be good to do aquabiomics before and after. It may identify a coral pathogen in abundance. It will also give you a before and after picture of the microbiome to know if the OA has the narrow scope of impact that you anticipate. You could also consider much stronger OA or Cipro baths for individual corals.

[nburg]

14 minutes ago, gws3 said:

@nburg Did you already treat with OA? If not, I think it would be good to do aquabiomics before and after. It may identify a coral pathogen in abundance. It will also give you a before and after picture of the microbiome to know if the OA has the narrow scope of impact that you anticipate. You could also consider much stronger OA or Cipro baths for individual corals.

I have not, but wouldn’t running UV 24/7 kind of screw with the bacteria in water concentrations? Only thing I’m worried about with those are the price of running a couple tests and the lag time between ordering, sending back and waiting for results. 
 

I may try a bath for 3 colonies that have some issues now since I think I can remove those from the rock. Not all of my colonies are removable tho unfortunately.  

[gws3]

1 hour ago, nburg said:

I have not, but wouldn’t running UV 24/7 kind of screw with the bacteria in water concentrations? Only thing I’m worried about with those are the price of running a couple tests and the lag time between ordering, sending back and waiting for results. 
 

I may try a bath for 3 colonies that have some issues now since I think I can remove those from the rock. Not all of my colonies are removable tho unfortunately.  

 

Playing devil's advocate here... but if the UV was effectively killing bacteria in the water column then how could bacterial pathogens be spreading from coral to coral? I completely see your logic though. I've been reading and watching more videos about the microbiome lately, and it's so complex it generates way more questions than answers for me.

 

I know Eli (Aquabiomics) has observed a strong correlation between people that run UV and greatly reduced pelagibacteraceae populations. That would indicate to me UV is more effective at killing certain bacteria populations than others. I believe the population is based on the water column sample only, and the swab is used for pathogens. I could be wrong here.

 

You could also swab the effected corals. I think there's a reefbuilders article by Paletta where he did this to determine what bacteria was acting as a pathogen on his sps with necrosis. That article is a good read as it discusses how different bacteria require different strength antibiotics.

 

 

[nburg]

2 minutes ago, gws3 said:

 

Playing devil's advocate here... but if the UV was effectively killing bacteria in the water column then how could bacterial pathogens be spreading from coral to coral? I completely see your logic though. I've been reading and watching more videos about the microbiome lately, and it's so complex it generates way more questions than answers for me.

 

I know Eli (Aquabiomics) has observed a strong correlation between people that run UV and greatly reduced pelagibacteraceae populations. That would indicate to me UV is more effective at killing certain bacteria populations than others. I believe the population is based on the water column sample only, and the swab is used for pathogens. I could be wrong here.

 

You could also swab the effected corals. I think there's a reefbuilders article by Paletta where he did this to determine what bacteria was acting as a pathogen on his sps with necrosis. That article is a good read as it discusses how different bacteria require different strength antibiotics.

 

 

I would imagine the UV will not kill all waterborne bacteria as it doesn’t kill all the water at once but it may skew the results of what’s happening locally at the coral tissue/water barrier. Probably more effective to do the swab in this case vs water sample. Maybe the UV slows the spread as it can be weeks to months before I see the next coral have issues.

 

I listened to Palleta on ReefBum talk about this and how Vibrio was killed off then another, more aggressive strain filled the empty path. Not sure what to go with at this point, maybe just a Hail Mary and see if something works. Or do nothing and hope for the best.