Cliff’s in wall reef

[Cliff]

U want some confusa Luke? I have lots

 

[Luke_L]

Please... let me know if you want money or trade...

 

[seeks]

I am running cheap Chinese leds supplemented by t5

What t5 bulbs and colors are you using and what are your led settings %white/%blue?

FYI this tank is amazing in person!

 

[Cliff]

I am using 4 basic Sb reef light led fixtures
3 60” blue plus and
1 60” actinic.
t5 are on for 6 hrs a day and led’s are staggered start 8 hrs a day

 

[Cliff]

Blue led at 100% white at 30%

 

[seeks]

Blue led at 100% white at 30%

Thanks Cliff, your tank is absolutely amazing!

 

[Cliff]

Thanks for the kind words. I look at my tank and just see so many things I would like to change LOL

 

[Cliff]

I thought it would run through some things that I’m using on my tank; I think something will be surprised on how budget you can run a SPS tank. As I said here is the picture. The moon lights on the tank are cheap $99 black box leds. Supplemented by T5 of course.

 

[Cliff]

As for my skimmer. I spent years with super expensive skimmers. Euro-reef; royal exclusive; Deltec etc. I think all this time I was using a skimmer that was way too big for my tank. Eventually I settled on a 215 Reef octopus. If anything it’s slightly undersized. But it works amazingly! Definitely the best skimmer I’ve ever had! And For a third of the price of many other ones I’ve owned. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a super expensive skimmer. This was a hard lesson learned for me. Honestly I think this experience showed me that I didn’t have to spend massive massive money on this hobby. And just because something super expensive doesn’t always mean it’s the best for your tank.

 

[Cliff]

The next thing I find that saves me money and just works. It’s an old-school external barracuda pump. I run two return pumps on my system. My huge barracuda that does everything. It’s supplies a manifold that puts water through my ATS and refugium . It also supplies water to my frag tank; and is my return flow through the main display. I run a second wave line pump at very low speed just as a back up. In case something happened the second pump is on a separate circuit breaker and would at least keep circulation in the main display.
The barracuda pump has been unbelievable! i’ve been running it for over five years now and it was used when I got It. I put new bearings in it and a new seal in it when I started to use it and it’s been running flawless ever since. Previous to this I had many high-end controllable pumps and constantly having problems. This thing was $150 used and it’s a champ!

 

[Cliff]

Third thing that saves me money. And is one of my best pieces of equipment is a horizontal algae turf scrubber And a large refugium. The algae turf scrubber is a tank that I had from years past it’s only about 3 inches wide and about 5 feet long I put some mesh in the bottom of it and removed the glass cap from one end. I run water down the trough and it flows into the refugium. The algae this things grows is pretty impressive. I light it up using a strip light from Amazon pink red colors. It grows algae like a champ. Next in line is a 40 gallon refugium. In there I grow Cheeto and razor leaf. to light this I have two white UFO LED lights. Again from Amazon. These are probably three or four years old and they also work great. I Find find with this mixture of ATS and Fuge I very rarely have to use GFO. I honestly hate using GFO because it’s so bloody expensive. If I want my nitrates down I harvest some more algae. Mind you my phosphates are never at zero LOL but they’re low enough for me.

 

[Cliff]

Just wanted to add some current pics of the tank. As you can see it desperately needs some trimming and care. It’s been on autopilot for the last six months

 

[Luigi]

Wow Cliff!! For an autopilot its very impressive

 

[Limey]

YES!! WOW Cliff tank looks amazing I will definately be hitting you up when you are ready to thin out need new stock for my new clean!! tank

 

[seeks]

So how does the ordering work on your trimmings ahhaha. Tank looks amazing.

 

[Andrew D]

Beautiful Cliff, amazing growth. Any time you want to do so me trimming I'm sure people will be standing in line, me included!

 

[Niagarafirecorals]

Tank looks amazing Cliff I have always loved the mature look of your tank.

 

[Luke_L]

Just wanted to add some current pics of the tank. As you can see it desperately needs some trimming and care. It’s been on autopilot for the last six months

I'm actually starting to think my tank does best when it's on autopilot hahaha

 

[Andrew D]

Funny you should say that Luke. We were out of the house for most of the summer with a main floor reno and I'm now working up north 4 days/week and my tank has never looked better. Lots of growth, with the only losses really due to over crowding. Had a scare the other week though, my daughter called me Wednesday afternoon to ask if my tank was supposed to be that noisy. Was in the middle of somethng so I couldn't talk but when I called her back 45 mins later I had lost about 20% of my system volume, my pumps were running dry and a few of my corals were 1/4 way out of the water. My overflow of my in-line mantis tank was all gunked up so the water started to overflow. I walked her through what to shut off and had her siphon water from my frag into my display to stabilize things, and then high-tailed it back home to do the rest. I've never had something like this happen and I'm lucky it wasn't much worse. Now I've added a few extra steps to my maintenance routine!

 

[Luigi]

Yes we always add more steps..