I feel I have a long history/journey with my current system which is around 13 years old from a cracked tank failure. This will be mostly a picture history with hopefully some key moments I can add text to from my notes.
I'll start with the empty hole in the wall where a 20 gallon tall used to sit.
I used a Glass Holes overflow on a standard 29 gallon Aqueon tank.
It was a tight fit in the space, both horizontally and vertically. At the current time my plan was an easy softy and low light LPS using my Power Compact bulbs, two 32 watts and a 40 watt. That gave me some options on kelvin temps. I was usually a fan of white light with actinic supplements, so bulb choice usually was a main bulb of 10,000K and 50/50 actinic bulbs for the front and back.
This was a recycle and rebuild of a 20 gallon tall that was in the same space which drained to a refuge 20 tall on a kitchen counter top which led to a sump inside the cabinet. That cabinet sump was a disaster due to moisture buildup and I have rebuilt my kitchen since then for the current sump setup.
Picture of rebuild using 10 year old Fiji live rock, 8 year old Florida aquacultured live rock, dry Haitian rock and dry Marco rock. Much of this rock had been recycled through several upgrades and downgrades since 2000, but most had experienced a tank nuking event in 2002, but I never dried/bleached the rock, just cured in tank. I did add a couple of new 5 lbs. pieces of Fiji Live rock after the 2002 event, I still have one of those pieces in the current tank, still a good coralline source and has two original fan worms. So currently some of my rock is 20+ years old. This picture is from November 2010. I used putty and Marco cement for my structure placement and kept rock moist while the cement cured and did partial water changes.
This was how the tank looked soon after rebuild, early in 2011. I had been keeping frags from the cracked tank in my fuge tank during the rebuild. Our reef club was still active so I was grabbing things like mushrooms, nepthia, and colt coral from members. "ARE YOU SURE?".....they would ask me.
I'll start with the empty hole in the wall where a 20 gallon tall used to sit.
I used a Glass Holes overflow on a standard 29 gallon Aqueon tank.
It was a tight fit in the space, both horizontally and vertically. At the current time my plan was an easy softy and low light LPS using my Power Compact bulbs, two 32 watts and a 40 watt. That gave me some options on kelvin temps. I was usually a fan of white light with actinic supplements, so bulb choice usually was a main bulb of 10,000K and 50/50 actinic bulbs for the front and back.
This was a recycle and rebuild of a 20 gallon tall that was in the same space which drained to a refuge 20 tall on a kitchen counter top which led to a sump inside the cabinet. That cabinet sump was a disaster due to moisture buildup and I have rebuilt my kitchen since then for the current sump setup.
Picture of rebuild using 10 year old Fiji live rock, 8 year old Florida aquacultured live rock, dry Haitian rock and dry Marco rock. Much of this rock had been recycled through several upgrades and downgrades since 2000, but most had experienced a tank nuking event in 2002, but I never dried/bleached the rock, just cured in tank. I did add a couple of new 5 lbs. pieces of Fiji Live rock after the 2002 event, I still have one of those pieces in the current tank, still a good coralline source and has two original fan worms. So currently some of my rock is 20+ years old. This picture is from November 2010. I used putty and Marco cement for my structure placement and kept rock moist while the cement cured and did partial water changes.
This was how the tank looked soon after rebuild, early in 2011. I had been keeping frags from the cracked tank in my fuge tank during the rebuild. Our reef club was still active so I was grabbing things like mushrooms, nepthia, and colt coral from members. "ARE YOU SURE?".....they would ask me.
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