Ben A's 105 DSA

[Ben A]

 

So last July my wife and I moved out of our 900 sqft condo in Oakton, into a single family home out in Warrenton, VA. Needless to say moving the 120 gallon display and all the corals/fish pictured below was not easy.

 

 

The move required me to empty the tank into a Rubbermaid, move the tank to my parents house, set it back up only to find that moving it cause the tank to spring a slow leak, re-empty the display into the Rubbermaid, move the Rubbermaid with all fish/coral into my new house in one day, and find a new tank to replace my old 120. All of this while trying to close on the sale of our condo, close on the purchase of our new house, and moving everything else we owned into our new place.

 

Surprisingly after all the moving, I only lost 2 fish in the entire process. Both of which were wrasses that managed to jump out of the Rubbermaid in the process of all the moving. Not sure how many corals I lost, the ones I can say for sure that I lost were my gold torch, orange monticap, purple monticap, and button coral. So once we settled on the condo and purchase of our new home, I started looking for a new tank. Lucky for me, YHSublime decided he didn't want his DSA105 setup anymore, so I jumped at the opportunity. I purchased the tank and stand from him and with the help of epleeds, moved it into my new house.

 

The new tank went into the finished portion of our new basement, and thankfully, I had a large unfinished portion on the opposite side of the wall. THis allowed me to plumb my filtration threw the wall, giving the entire system a cleaner look, and allowing me to increase the size of my filtration system without any complaints from the wife about looks/noise.

 

So, this is the start of my new build thread.

 

Tank: DSA 105

 

Sump: ADHI Acrylic 36" sump

 

Refugium: 150 gallon stock tank

 

Equipment:

      Neptune APEX (WXM Module, B/O Box)

      ATI 8 Bulb 48" SunPower T5  (3 Blue+, 3 Coral+, 2 Attinic)

      Two MP40wES Vortechs

      48" Reefbrite XHO (Blue)

      Quantum NYOS 160

      Eheim Return Pump

      Apex controlled ATO

      Jager 300 Watt Heater

      FINNEX 800 Watt Heating Element

      AquaFX Media Reactor

      3 Home Depot Reflectors with LED Bulbs (Refugium)

 

Fish:

    Yellow Tang

    Flame Angel

    Gold Nugget x Gold Flake maroon pair

    Bali Aquarich Onyx Picasso x ORA Onyx Picasso Pair

    2x Lyretail Anthias

    Blue Chromis

    Flame Hawk

 

Anemones:

    Red Carpet

    Purple Long Tentacle

    Rose Bubble Tip

 

Corals:

    2 x Ausi Elegance

    Splatter Hammer

    Branching Hammer

    Duncan

    Torch

    Lots of different zoas/palys

    Blue Ridge Coral

 

Total System Volume = 235 Gallons of water (290 gallon capacity)

 

Display:

 

Filtration:

 

 

 

You cant see it in the photo, but the sump drains into the 150 gallon refugium to the left. The emergency drain on the main display drains directly into the refugium so that it doesn't overflow the sump.

 

Gold Nugget x Gold Flake Pair

 

 

Current Issue

-Bubble Algae, lost all my emerald crabs during the move and waited to long to get new ones in the tank. So now I will be fighting bubble algae for a while

-Hair algae, lost to much of my clean up crew during the move and waited to long to replenish.

 

My refugium is just getting going, andI don't have enough macro algae to really help me fight the algae in my tank yet. So between adding clean up crew, my refugium macro algae catching up, and running GFO, its only a matter of time before I get these issues under control.

 

I have plenty of other photos on my phone that are to big to upload to the forum. So once I get those on Photobucket, I'll link them to this thread.

 

Future Changes:

I will be adding a clownfish breeding system consisting of one 10 gallon breeding tank and one 20 gallon grow out tank. This is a new venture for me in the hobby so it will be interesting to see how it goes. This will not be a large scale breeding system, it will only consist of 2 pairs of clowns at most and will only be starting out with a single pair.

 

I have an order of fish currently being filled by ERC. Fish I will be adding are:

-Burgessi Butterfly

-Mystery Wrasse

-Yellow Corris Wrase

-Couple Blue Chromis

-2 Female Lyretails

 

My Maroon Pair is starting to get a little bullish towards the Onyx Picasso Pair. Once I have the breeding tank set up, I will probably move them into it with a divider between them and the pair that I will be breeding. There is a good chance I try to find a new home for the male and find a new Bali Onyx Picasso to pair with the female. I've also considered moving the maroon pair into the breeding system instead, but they are just so beautiful hosting their RBTA in the front of my tank.

 

 

Edited March 3, 2016 by Ben A

[YHSublime]

Finally! Love it man! Great system, turn your sump into a FOWLR

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[matt]

How is that skimmer working for you? Great setup 

[WCorbin82]

Awesome post I just brought the same tank DSA 105 and I plan on moving all my livestock over from my 50 cube I'm following your footsteps

 

 

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[Ben A]

Skimmer is really well made and works really well. Very easy to clean, the cone body is detachable from the base making it easy to clean the body and get access to the pump. The screws attaching the body to the plate are titanium, and the air intake has its own control. My only complaint is that when it is brand new, it can be a little difficult to remove and reattach the skimmer cup because the tolerances are so tight. Once you do it a couple times though, it smooths out nicely.

 

[yauger]

nice to hear everything worked out, dope tank and love the rockwork. let me know if you need that replacement gold torch!

[s2nhle]

Tagging along.

[PUFFY_SANCHEZ]

What LED bulbs do you use in your refug?

[Lowefx]

Looks like a great set up. I too live in Warrenton. If you ever need help, let me know. I have a 120 but not set up at the moment because I just moved down from NY.

 

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[Ben A]

What LED bulbs do you use in your refug?

They are just basic LED lamp bulbs from Home Depot, I believe they are 60 watt replacements

[Ben A]

[Ben A]

Added a 10 gallon clownfish breeding tank to my system. The female is a Bali Aquarich Helmet Onyx Picasso, the male is a Bali Aquarich Onyx Picasso.

 

 

Female:

 

 

Pair:

[Ben A]

Still planning on adding 2 female Lyretails, a yellow corris, and a few chromis.

 

The yellow tang was moved to the 150 gallon rubbermaid refugium.

 

I also moved the right vortech to the back wall, the flow seems to be much more random in this configuration, but we will see long term. I was thinking about selling the vortechs and replacing them with the Neptune WAV pumps, but decided to just upgrade the vortechs to the QD.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Ben A

[Ben A]

Video of my tank in Feb. of 2016

Edited March 19, 2016 by Ben A

[Ben A]

Videos of my tank today:

 

Turned the reefbrites off to get a better video:

[YHSublime]

Tank is looking really nice. I like how all those zoanthid colonies are coming together. Well done! That purple tang looks like it's king of the castle.

[Ben A]

New plumbing, added a new overflow bulkhead to the acrylic sump draining into the refugium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[surf&turf]

How about an updated FTS please.

[Ben A]

 

 

Replaced my skimmer with a RO Regal 200-INT. The Nyos was not big enough for my system.

 

 

Update video:

[cpu933k]

What happened to your burgessi?

[Ben A]

Unfortunately I had to find it a new home. It picked on my RBTAs and I sisnt want to wait for it to start on my Carpet. THats the risk you take with butterfly fish.

[cpu933k]

I have a burgessi and he picked on a tiny RBTA I had but leaves the large one alone. I removed the small RBTA.

[Ben A]

Yeah, I just wasnt going to risk a $400 red carpet.

[surf&turf]

Updates?

[Ben A]