100 Gallon Reef Tank

[Zack]

Overview:

The time has finally come for me to upgrade to the 100 gallon club! I got an offer from Justin about picking up his setup when he upgrades to his new 6 footer from Salty Fish and the price was perfect so now onto, the planning stage. I've always wanted a large tank, and almost jumped on this last year when cutewow210 was selling it, so now I'll finally have my shot at one.

Equipment:

I have a few ideas in mind regarding equipment, but for now, here's what I have to work with:

"Purchased"

100 gallon reef ready 48" x 20" x 24"
Beautiful stand and canopy with tons of neat modifications including a holster for a turkey baster.
A few bonsai pieces of live rock

Needed

Lights
Sump
Skimmer
A new rodi unit
Apex


Stocking:

Stocking wise I'm unsure exactly what I'll be doing but know at the very least I'll be doing a few Fiji lyretail anthias (2F 1M), as well as a ton of Lps. Gary over at South Seas always has some beautiful anthias in stock so when I'm ready I'll have him order them for me. My tomato clowns will be moving into this tank and I'm considering a few flasher wrasses and/ or a springers dottyback.

Dosing:

For dosing, I’ll be using the thrive program using Red Sea test kits to do my readings as it's worked very well for me in the past. For lighting, I'm unsure what I want to do. I'm thinking of trying to snag two Vegas or hydras or maybe even a few primes. Hydra 52s would be neat but out of the budget, especially since Vegas can be had around $200 on several sites. I'm leaning towards the Vegas as they have the ever so important 5w white leds in them which is going to come in super handy with a 2’ deep tank.

Planning:

This build as per usual will be very slow, I won't be picking up this tank from Justin until around May/ June but it'll be nice to have some ideas on here and to bounce them off of everyone.

[Justin]

Welcome to the light middle weight league of sorts!

The tank will be perfect for you guys and your clowns will absolutely love the extra swimming room. As you have a pair already, I'm not too sure if you would like to put in at the beginning as I think they will assume the whole tank as their territory and harass your other fish. The lyretail are awesome and Gary does have some really nice small ones that you can watch grow up into the beasts they are. Since my rock is already seeded, with some asternid snails, I would try to keep the wildlife on it for seeding purposes. I love flasher wrasses but be sure to keep at least two males or create a harem for them to keep their colors. Its really tough to get females and I eventually ordered mine from vivid aquariums. I ordered two females for my stud but sadly one of the females died the day before she was supposed to come out of qt.

As for equipment, Lyretails do best when they are fed fairly frequently. In the wild they are constantly being delivered food particles that are swept by the currents at the top of the reef. I would suggest you invest in either the Eheim Autofeeder or since you are planning on getting an Apex, get the Automatic Food Dispenser. I have yet to upgrade my software on my Apex to support the one I have, but I look forward to having the feeder dose food and the Apex telling my Ecotech Pumps to go into Nutrient Transport Mode or Night mode. Such an awesome concept.

Good luck man and post some photos!

[Zack]

Yeah dude I'm super excited! I'll probably post some stocking ideas and inspirations here. I was at Raven's store, World Class, and they had some sick gold Octo-Spawn, so something like that would make a nice addition to my ASD aussie LPS.