265 Gallon Mixed Reef

Hi Everyone! I just wanted to introduce myself, my name is Courtney and I have been in this hobby for 2+ years and my fiancé has been in the hobby for over 7 years. We have a 265 gallon mixed reef that is about 1 year old. It started with the contents of a 75 gallon and we have been slowly trying to fill in all the extra space. It is amazing how a coral that can look like a huge colony in a 75 can look like a frag in a 265! The tank was started with overdriven T-5 bulbs and a few months ago we converted one side to LEDs so we could compare the T-5s and the LEDs. We just finished converting the rest of the fixture and we are very excited about the LEDs.

Here is a little background information on our system. The display is a 265 gallon glass tank (7' x 2' x 31") and the sump is a 30 gallon glass tank. We run 2 MP40 vortechs on reef crest 100% as well as the return pump for flow. Lighting is 72 three watt LEDs, 36 Cree Royal Blues and 36 Rebel Luxeon Whites. The Blues have 40° optics and the Whites have 60° optics. They are driven by 6 dimmable Meanwell drivers and we have a potentiometer for each color to control them. We run a protein skimmer and filter sock for filtration and I do a 10 gallon daily water change with Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. We do not use any reactors of any kind, we rely on the water changes and a very small amount of Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium and Tropic Marin Bio-Magnesium daily to maintain our parameters. That about sums up the equipment side of our system, we try to keep things simple and effective and have found these methods give excellent results.

The livestock in the tank is still a work in progress. Some of the fish we currently have are a Powder Blue Tang, Yellow Tang, Female Crosshatch Trigger, Copper banded Butterfly, Filefish, a mated pair of Yellow Assessors, a mated pair of Maroon Gold Stripe Clownfish and several others. We still have quite a fish wish list for the tank that we are slowly working on. Corals are mostly SPS and just to name a few: ORA Joe the Coral, ORA Frogskin, Nathan's Green Milliepora, Idaho Grape Monticap, Orange Setosa, Orange Digitata, ORA Green Digitata and many other SPS frags. The LPS we have are mostly different acan lords with a few chalices as well as a basketball size colony of Purple Tip Frogspawn. The only soft corals we have are zoanthids and palythoas some of which include Red People Eaters, Candy Apple Reds and Armor of Gods to name a few.

Some daily maintenance that I do on the tank includes the 10 gallon water change, dosing the Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium and Bio-Magnesium and feeding a variety of frozen foods to the fish and corals. The fish also receive dry pellets in an auto feeder twice a day. I change the filter sock every other day and clean the skimmer collection cup and test the water parameters once a week and clean the glass as needed.

I think that about sums up everything with the tank. We try to keep everything as simple as possible and have definitely seen some amazing growth. I am very excited to see in a year or so how much more mature it will look as everything grows and fills in more.

Here are a few pictures, the full tank shot is from May 2010 and many of the coral shots are from August 2010. I will be posting more recent pictures soon.

 

Very nice system you have. I really like the scape. Very nice corals, looks like the LED's are really working for you. Looking forward to more images.

Welcome to 3 reef.

 

Very nice. Looks great.

 

Beautiful system

 

Very nice! welcome to the reef!!

 

Very nice. Welcome to 3 Reef.

 

beautiful tank you have going on there, welcome to 3 reef

 

excellent looking set up MH Courtney
more pictures please

Steve

 

Thanks everyone I will definitely be working on getting more pics taken and posted for you guys.

The FTS i posted is actually still with the T-5s on it, i will try to get another FTS soon with the LEDs so you can see the difference.

 

give this tank a year or two and its gonna be killer...great job!