The 92 Gallon Corner Bow-Front Set Up

The tank has basically three areas of filtration. The first area is the Rena XP-2 Filstar that I got used from the guy I bought the tank from. It's a canister filter for tanks up to 75 gallons, but I don't really use it as such. All I have in there are a few micron pads which I clean out every month or so. It does a nice job of keeping particles and other crud from floating around in the tank.

The bulk of the filtration is provided by the in-sump ASM-G2 filter that I bought from a guy off reef central. The G2 uses a needle-wheel Sedra pump (usually a 3500, but the guy I got it from had already upgraded the pump to a 7000.) It sits in a 29 gallon tank made into a sump. The problem with the corner tanks that is that they don't leave a lot of room at the bottom for a sump. This fits nicely, but it's not that easy to get to, so I'm happy that once set, the ASM requires no priming. Water is returned through a Mag-Drive 9 pump on the other side of the sump.

Biological filtration is provided solely by the live rock and live sand in the tank. In my experience, live rock, live sand and a good protein skimmer are the best way to maintain strong water quality. Biowheels and other media used to grow bacteria tend to increase nitrate production, which can get out of hand quite quickly in a saltwater tank. Unfortunately I only have about 60 lb of live rock, and I really should have about double that. That is something I'll have to get to at some point. Notice the nice piece of tonga rock in this photo.

Most of the rock is Bali live rock. It's nice because it's not too dense (unlike the tonga) and it has a lot of holes for the fish to swim through. There isn't a ton of coralline growth yet, but I'm beginning to get some. I'm hoping that the rocks will be covered in it within the year. My only concern with the rock is how I set it up. Although I think I did an admirable job aquascaping, I feel like it's only a matter of time before my diamond goby disrupts the sand bed to a breaking point and all of it falls.

At the bottom of the tank I have about 80 lb of Live Aragonite sand. The 80 lb gives me a 2-3 inch sand bed across the tank, which I'm quite happy with. I wouldn't necessarily call it a DSB (deep sand bed) but it's doing a nice job. The sand is white but needs constant movement to keep it clean and free from dead spots. To do this I have the help of 6 hermit crabs, a coral banded shrimp, and most importantly, a diamond goby. Although the diamond goby does eat a lot of what's in the sand, there's plenty of critters to go around.

This is the tank fully set up. You'll notice that I bought two Odysea EX250s and mounted them on the inside walls of the tank to get some water movement. The EX250s are rated at 250 GPH, but I sincerely doubt that's what they are doing. In any case, they were cheap and you get what you pay for. The lighting came with the set up: it's an Odyssea Power Compact fixture with four 65 watt bulbs. That gives me about 3 watts per gallon, which has been enough to support some green star polyps, xenia, and other softies. If I really get into coral, I'm going to get a metal halide fixture.

That's it for now. I'm working on a new Kalkwasser drip method, where I've plugged the bottom of a gallon jug with a plastic air flow valve. It's working fine, the only problem is that I haven't figured out where to put the thing to let it drip the Kalkwasser. I've been leaving on top of the glass top for now, but I want it to drip into the sump because it doesn't look very good having a gallon jug sitting on top of the tank. I have noticed some coralline algae growth though, so I'm pretty excited about that.

I'd also like to start a refugium somewhere along the lines. I'm thinking I can do it in the sump where I have the return pump. The problem though is that the MagDrive 9 is simply too big and powerful. Putting a light in there might also be kinda complicated.