正如我们都一次又一次听到的那样，耐心是一种美德，在这种爱好中，这对于长期成功而言，这几乎是必不可少的。说实话，这并不是我所闻名的美德之一。但是，当我决定将新的90加仑坦克放在一起时，我真的很想做正确的事情，所以我试图耐心等待坦克所做的一切。
现在，经过三个月的时间，我终于准备揭开它所在的位置以及我所做的事情。正如我之前写的I started with an Elos 90-galon tankas the result of seeing the craftsmanship and unique attributes of this tank at MACNA last year. Just putting the tank and stand up and having them in the area between my kitchen and family room has not only brightened up the area, but also furthered my appreciation of how much having an aesthetically pleasing tank has enhanced my home.
Now as soon as someone walks in the front door the first thing they see, and everyone who has visited has said this, is how much nicer my house looks now with the new tank in it. I guess I took for granted that most people look at what’s inside the tank, when in reality non-reef people look at the entire picture and how the tank looks in the house.
But obviously the overall look of the tank is just a small part of why I set up this tank. The tank is also quieter and much more functional than the old tank. The patented uniqueElos QuietDrain overflow systemis completely silent, which is great since it is in the family room where the tv and stereo are. So now I now longer have to bump up the sound on them so that I can hear them over the sound of the tank.
溢出不仅是完全安静的，而且还提供了泵Elos以及所有其他设备。当我看着坦克，听不到水晃动或泵的呼声时，我从不欣赏我的寂静程度。这些小东西肯定会增加我对坦克的乐趣。
因为这是一个无框坦克，所以我也最好欣赏坦克本身的工艺。每当我在埃洛斯（Elos）的完美主义者身上工作时，倾斜和抛光的边缘都会不断给我留下深刻的印象。因此，在设置坦克时，我试图变得同样完美，尽管现在不太可能是我的目标。
So unlike many of the tanks I have set up in the past I have taken my time and done things slowly with this tank and tried to be patient, which as we all know is difficult when we have a beautiful new tank like this to work with. So in this regard the first thing I did even before I took down the old tank was to start curing the live rock.
The rock I used on this tank was dry rock, some rock from my other tanks and some new Pukani rock. I placed this rock in a large tub with powerheads and let it “cure” for approximately 3 months. During this curing process when I did my weekly water changes on my 300-gallon tank I would remove approximately 20 gallons of water from the vat holding this live rock and replace it with the water I had removed from the 300, minus the detritus that I had taken out.
I did this to remove or reduce as much waste material, detritus and nitrogen from the rock as possible before it would be used in my new tank. Once the three months had passed the rock was drilled and placed on top of concrete paving stones that also had been “cured” for 3 months through which fiberglass rods had been attached to provide structure.
I did this so that as little rock as possible would be used, and also to make the rockwork as open as possible. I manipulated the rock and moved things around outside of the tank in an area that was marked off to be the size of the tank so that I could see what it looked like before it was placed in the tank. Since there would be no substrate in the tank black starboard was cut to fit the bottom of the tank and provide the look similar to substrate but that would allow for easy removal of detritus.
然而由于水箱的底部是欧元braced the whole way around I had a piece of glass cut to fill in the bottom of the tank before the starboard was placed on the bottom. I did this so that there would not be space under the starboard for detritus to accumulate. Also before the starboard was placed on the bottom a thick layer of silicone was put down to also keep any detritus from accumulating under or around the starboard.
While all of the rock was curing the tank and stand were put in place and leveled to make sure that they would not have to be moved once the live rock and water were added. Since the tank was on the second floor and my main RO unit is in the basement I decided to add a small Mighty Mite RO unit under my kitchen sink to provide the water for this tank.
I remembered, as did my back, what a pain it was to schlep up buckets of water to fill the 90-gallon tank in my sun room. I quickly found out that having this smaller unit made filling this tank with pure water much easier. However, I did find that once the tank was full of water the tank and stand did shift slightly so that it was no longer perfectly level.
So the water was drained and shims were placed under the stand to bring it back to level. Once this was done the water was pumped back into the tank and then all of the equipment was run for a couple of days so that I would check for leaks or and that it ran properly. Then Tropic Marin Pro salt was added over the course of three days to get the salinity right.
I used this salt since this is going to be a Triton run tank and that is their recommendation of the salt to use. The tank was then run for three weeks with nothing in it but water, which was a real test of my newfound patience. After 2 weeks the first chamber of the sump was filled with Caulerpa on one side and Chaeto on the other and a 6500k LED bulb was placed above the chamber in a reptile light reflector.
I used this as I found that not only is it less expensive than an LED fixture, but it also runs cooler and the amount of light produced really produces strong growth. The light is left on 24/7 to keep the Caulerpa and Chaeto from going into dark reactions which is when the yellowing compounds are produced which also keeps it from sexually reproducing.
At this point the protein skimmer and media reactors from Ultra Reef were added to the sump of the tank. These devices were chosen as they are simple to adjust and maintain and my goal on this tank was for it to be easy to maintain once it was set up since it would be next to me every day and if things were simple I would be more likely to do them and I wanted to be able to work on them without making a mess.
Since this is a Triton tank, aGHL Doser 2设置为每天将Triton化合物添加到油箱中。我选择了这个剂量，因为它易于编程，对我来说必须是必须的，甚至有警报可以在我需要重新填充瓶子时通知我。再次，我希望这辆坦克都很容易做。最后，在水箱旁设立了一个5加仑的水库，上面有淡水，带有Elos顶部关闭系统，以添加水以蒸发。
This was attached to the Mighty Mite unit and twice a week when I am having breakfast I simply flip the switch from the unit and the reservoir is full by the time I am done eating. Again easy to do. So once everything was in place and working the tank was ready for the addition of live rock. At this point the rock was taken from the holding vat, remounted on the rods and placed in the tank.
The rock was moved around and placed so that none of it would touch any of the sides or back or the tank to allow for easy cleaning of the glass anywhere in the tank. This was the first time that I had not had rock touching any glass and it did make the tank look more open. Once the rock was placed in the tank, the LED lights were added and adjusted over the course of a week.
当我在300上使用Radion LED时，我想对此尝试不同的灯光。我喜欢辐射，但我想看看不同的LED如何影响珊瑚的颜色和成长。我特别想看看不同的珊瑚在这些灯光下的表现更好还是更糟，因为我们发现一些珊瑚，例如Acropora Millepora不要像在LED下那样快速或健壮的LED生长，因此这是一个很好的测试，可以看一下它们在不同的LED下的行为是否不同。
Since I am constantly tinkering and experimenting I thought that this new tank would be a good chance to try out a new light, so I chose one from my friend Cruz Arias and his engineering team at Sixth Elements Systems to custom build lights for me. These lights have 9 programmable channels including 7 different colored LEDs with each of these channels being able to be changed as I desired.
They also have sunrise and sunset functions and pretty much all the bells and whistles found on other lights, although I do not really use any of these. The lights have been programmed to mimic 14,000K halides initially but they can be changed easily if I desire. Hey are currently set to run 12 hours per day. So once all of this was in place the real fun of having a new tank began.
在这一点上，我再次尝试表现出耐心，而不是做我通常做的事情并添加了很多东西，而是只添加4个蜗牛和两个Springeri damsels测试水并确保它适合生命。一旦他们活了四天，我就添加了“测试”片段。我添加了两个片段蒙蒂托拉andAcroporaand waited ten days to make sure they did not bleach.
一旦这些碎片显示息肉延伸，并且没有死亡，就会从我的碎片罐中取出大约20个碎片，并粘在水箱中。我为这个坦克使用的碎片不仅来自我的主坦克，还来自桑杰，独特的珊瑚，樱桃珊瑚，珊瑚礁，内陆珊瑚，战斗珊瑚，沉船珊瑚，世界各地的珊瑚和杰森·福克斯以及其他一些，如果我有我的话忘了给你起名字，我道歉。
I have tried to select a wide range of different colored corals from a lot of different sources to see how they all do. My plan was to grow all of the sps corals out from frags. Since I also want this tank to look appealing, I did place some chalice and other small slow growing colonies on the bottom of the tank in order to hide the paving stones. Given how slow most of these corals grow I did not want to wait for them to grow in to cover the rocks in order for the tank to look good. Yes I still am impatient.
我想说我所有的计划nd patience the reef gods smiled on me and everything went perfectly and according to plan. However they are a mischievous bunch, so despite everything I did a couple of things that happen to new tanks still occurred. First, soon after the lights were added an algae/diatom bloom occurred even though the water tested completely negative for nitrate, or phosphate.
This was taken care of by the addition of snails and urchins and time. Then after the tank was seemingly “clean” and the first batch of frags added, a cyano bloom occurred that was a real pain. This was a type of cyano I had not encountered before in that rather than growing in the usual easy to remove sheets, it grew in more difficult to remove threads and was everywhere including where the current in the tank was strongest.
由于这是一个痛苦，因此消除了将近两个星期的时间，因此我不得不诉诸于化学处理以消除它。我将谈论Cyano并在将来的作品中删除它。幸运的是，一旦被淘汰，坦克就准备好了。
At this point an additional 25 frags were added as well as the first batch of fish. I know over time the tank will be as packed as most of my tanks once the frags start to grow out, but this is how I like my tanks to look. The frags are placed so that there is at least 3-4” between them, so there is a lot of space for growth and right now the tank looks empty to me.
So to make up for the current lack of interesting corals, I have made up for it but adding what I think is an interesting mix of fish. Currently the tank houses the original pair of Springeri damsels, a true Peppermint Hogfish, (Bodianus opercularis) a Katoi Wrasse, a Pintail Wrasse, an Earl’s wrasse, 2 pairs of tank raised clownfish (only tank raised will get along), a Desjardinii tang, a Foxface rabbitfish, a pair of Helfrich’s firefish, 2 flasher wrasses, and the stars of the tank a pair of Marshall Island Multibar Angels and a Pair of Joculator Angels. I know 20 fish is a lot of fish for a 90 and eventually the tang and the rabbit and a pair of clowns will be removed, but for now they are helping to keep any algae from getting established, which can always be a problem in a new tank until it reaches and equilibrium.
Because I am keeping wrasses and firefish, both of which love to jump from a tank, I built a custom screen for the top to keep them from becoming fish jerky. Also a ReefBrite Actinic strip has been added to my lighting as I still like the pop that these lights bring to my corals, which is really impressive in the evening when the Sixth Element lights are in sunset mode which really brings out the reds in the fish.
The tank came with a 6000 liter per hour return pump, which in most applications should provide more than adequate flow, however due to the cyano outbreak and my desire to have as little detritus as possible settle on the floor of the tank, a Ecotech MP-40 was added to enhance the flow. And since none of the wires need to go over the top of the tank it did not detract from the overall tank’s appearance.
And since it now employs the quiet drive motor, it has not added any increased noise from the tank. Since the tank is right in the main traffic area of my house I not only get to see it all the time, but I also now feed the tank small amounts five or six times per day, which in my opinion is a good way to not only keep the fish fat and happy, but also keep nutrient levels low due to there being little wasted food.
Even though the tank has now been up little more than 3 months I am already quite pleased with how it is progressing and how it looks. Since I have tried to be patient in setting it up and taking things slowly and since it is in the main area of my house, I do not plan on tinkering and experimenting on it like I do with many of my other tanks.
My hope is that within a year the corals will have all grown out and filled the now empty spaces and that the colorful assortment of fish that are now in it will thrive and grow in the stable environment that the Triton system promises. In this regard the first test on the water that I sent in showed that all of the parameters were within their optimal ranges. I hope to keep you posted as to if this changes over time without there being any water changes done on the tank and with the only supplementation being the addition of Triton solutions. It will also be interesting to see how fast and with what coloration the corals grow in this system.
For me this tank is far different than any tank I have done in the past, not only because of how long I took to have it up and running, but also because it won’t be constantly tinkered with and it is using a system where I have to trust the manufacturer. So time will tell and over time we all can be the judge as to how well it works, which should be interesting.
