My First Saltwater Adventure - 120 Gallon Peninsula

revhtree · Jan 11, 2016

Sweet!

Renee180 · Feb 6, 2016

What an awesome tank and setup! You did a beautiful job on the cabinet too! Loved your style of writing, very entertaining

. You make comments on the difficulty of getting decent tank shots, I feel your pain, I have never been able to take a decent photo of my tank. But you do have some great individual shots of your fish,corals, etc. Love the one of the clownfish. Again, beautiful job!

Renee180 · Feb 6, 2016

Ha, one more thing, love the names of your critters. But do tell more about your anemone named "mistake". Splenda has to be my favorite. What a beautiful name for a yellow tang

fragit · Feb 6, 2016

Beautiful job especially for your first tank! Did you say you got your tank from Melves reef or just the overflow?

dbl · Feb 6, 2016

Renee180 said:
What an awesome tank and setup! You did a beautiful job on the cabinet too! Loved your style of writing, very entertaining. You make comments on the difficulty of getting decent tank shots, I feel your pain, I have never been able to take a decent photo of my tank. But you do have some great individual shots of your fish,corals, etc. Love the one of the clownfish. Again, beautiful job!

Thanks @Renee180 for the kind words. As to the photography I have all the correct gear, I simply have yet to take the time to do a nice photo shoot of my tank. It's just not been a priority. Take a look at this thread for some great tips related to photos. I'm sure there are others as well.

http://reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-take-pictures-of-your-corals-camera-settings-tutorial.7776/

Renee180 said:
Ha, one more thing, love the names of your critters. But do tell more about your anemone named "mistake". Splenda has to be my favorite. What a beautiful name for a yellow tang

I can't take credit for the names...wife and two daughters came up with them, except for the clowns and the RBTA - those were a tribute to my favorite beverage...lol.

The story behind the tube anemone named mistake is as follows...My wife and I attended a frag swap in Tampa shortly after the tank cycled and we were starting to stock it. My wife fell in love with it because it reminded her of a Dr. Suess character. Realize, I rarely say no to my wife so I bought it not having any idea what it really was, hence the name "Mistake". Believe it or not, it did very well in the tank for a little over a year. I no longer have it due to another mistake, but that's another story altogether.

dbl · Feb 6, 2016

fragit said:
Beautiful job especially for your first tank! Did you say you got your tank from Melves reef or just the overflow?

Thanks @fragit. The tank didn't come from @melev just the overflow box. I originally tried running with a direct siphon with no overflow box. It worked fine with one exception. I was off on my calculations and there wasn't enough room in the sump for a pump shutdown. Therefore, I wasn't sleeping very well at night so I called Marc and he made one for me.

He was terrific and with his help, it turned out great and fit in my tank. It wouldn't have with the deminsions I had given him!!!

Renee180 · Feb 7, 2016

dbl said:
Thanks @Renee180 for the kind words. As to the photography I have all the correct gear, I simply have yet to take the time to do a nice photo shoot of my tank. It's just not been a priority. Take a look at this thread for some great tips related to photos. I'm sure there are others as well.

http://reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-take-pictures-of-your-corals-camera-settings-tutorial.7776/

I can't take credit for the names...wife and two daughters came up with them, except for the clowns and the RBTA - those were a tribute to my favorite beverage...lol.

The story behind the tube anemone named mistake is as follows...My wife and I attended a frag swap in Tampa shortly after the tank cycled and we were starting to stock it. My wife fell in love with it because it reminded her of a Dr. Suess character. Realize, I rarely say no to my wife so I bought it not having any idea what it really was, hence the name "Mistake". Believe it or not, it did very well in the tank for a little over a year. I no longer have it due to another mistake, but that's another story altogether.

Thanks for the photo info, I will have to study that for a bit.
Lol, how come one mistake always seems to lead to another?

dbl · Feb 7, 2016

Renee180 said:
...
Lol, how come one mistake always seems to lead to another?

The second mistake was all me...plain old stupidity!!!

Essex reef · Feb 11, 2016

Sou

dbl said:
I've been enjoying R2R for several months now as I recently set up my very first saltwater aquarium, something I've always wanted. Many of you have taught me a great deal without even knowing it, and continue to do so. For that, I say Thank You. I thought maybe it was time to do a build thread. So here it goes, starting with a brief history of how I got here.

In December of last year, my daughter came home from college and brought with her a 10 gallon aquarium, filled with saltwater and clownfish. So I blame her for my newest addiction! Without any research and no clue what I was doing, I put a few more fish in there. You experienced aquarist already know how this ends - let's just say not well for the clown and his new friends. So the research began and I quickly realized to what extent this hobby will take a person if they want to be successful - so it was game on!

I purchased a used 55 gallon tank and that was going to be my first "real" tank. Turned out I was a little hasty on that purchase as it was tempered and couldn't be drilled (obviously I hadn't gotten that far in my research). At this point, I'm aggravated, my wife is wondering if I've lost my mind and just how much this is going cost us, and my daughter is ready to get back to college, even though classes won't start for another two weeks!

Mid-January, I found a system that had been taken down the middle of last year and I bought the RR 120 gallon tank and equipment. So I bring this monster (compared to the 10) home and it assures my wife that yes, I have in fact lost my mind. However, she quickly jumps on board by saying "Wouldn't it be great if we could use the tank as a room divider, separating the dining area and the family room". Well, the game just went in to overtime and it was time to strike while the fire was hot. The wife is now excited and on board, the budget just grew a little (because she's on board) and our new peninsula build is born. I ended up trading the used RR tank with corner overflows in for a brand new 120 drilled on one short end for the peninsula set up.

I put the mistake buy 55 to work by using it to cure the 150 lbs. of now dried live rock from the other system. Scrubbed it all as best I could and started soaking it in saltwater. I'm in SW Florida so I did this inside, out of the heat. Lost a little ground with the wife due to the smell the first couple of weeks, but both the smell and my wife backed down. Now it was time for the DYI stand.

As you will see in the pictures, the stand is likely overbuilt - if I'm going to end up with water on the floor, which everyone says I will at some point, it's not going to get there because I didn't build the stand strong enough. I could lie and say I came up with the design on my own, but I based it off a design I found during one of my many midnight online searches. If I could remember, I would give the person their due credit. I adapted the design and integrated canopy to our specific needs. All panels are removable and held on with magnets, as I have a tendency to bump my head on open cabinet doors. Besides, it makes for great access. Didn't know it at the time, but it really is an asset when doing tank chores.

Jump to the first of April, the live rock has cured for 2½ months, the stand is ready, I have volumes upon volumes of printed out research, and it's finally time for water. Not wanting to use the simple wet/dry filter from the used system, and instead of pushing the budget committee for a new sump, I converted the mistake buy 55 in to my sump. I baffled off four sections - drain/skimmer, return, refugium, and top-off reservoir. Got everything plumbed and put the new live sand in, aquascaped and started filling with saltwater. At this point I was feeling pretty cocky and didn't even do a leak test with freshwater. Other than a ball valve not being tight enough, I got pretty lucky. I let it cycle for another month and a half and on May 17th, I put the first forms of life in the tank. I said this was going to be a brief history (apparently I lied) so I will wrap this up for now.

I cannot begin to tell you just how much I have enjoyed this process. Yes, this hobby can be frustrating, time consuming and expensive, but gosh is it rewarding. To come home every day and get to enjoy a little piece of the ocean right in my family room is pretty awesome. And through all of this, I now have something I've wanted since I was a young lad, my daughter graduated college, my other daughter started college, and my wife hasn't left me (although she's still pretty sure I'm nuts).

I will end this with the equipment and livestock listings and a few pictures. The first picture is my favorite - it's of me and my favorite "fish", who happens to be the one I blame for getting me in to this hobby (see above). I appreciate your taking the time to read this (assuming you've gotten this far) and look forward to any comments and or suggestions you may have.

Again Thank You for all the help you've unknowingly provided and Ha

Essex reef · Feb 11, 2016

Essex reef said:
Sou

Sounds like my wife she unfortunately is not on board but I'm hoping she'll come round to it cos when the aquarium was delivered Saturday last her first words were omg that's huge it's only 400 litres I relpied

dbl · Feb 11, 2016

Essex reef said:
Sounds like my wife she unfortunately is not on board but I'm hoping she'll come round to it cos when the aquarium was delivered Saturday last her first words were omg that's huge it's only 400 litres I relpied

The best advice I can give is to get her involved early on. Let her be a part of the build process and she'll likely come around. My wife still pretends it's not her thing, but heaven forbid if something to happens to her colony of Rastas:mad:. In fact, I loaded the Apex Fusion on her phone last night so she can turn off the beeping when I forget to fill the ATO reservoir...lol!

RobinsonReef · Mar 5, 2016

Nice build!!! Love your stand and aquascaping. I will be picking your brain about adding things onto plumbing as my tank grows.

dbl · Mar 5, 2016

Thanks @RobinsonReef, I appreciate the comments. Happy to help in anyway I can, so don't hesitate.

dbl · Mar 14, 2016

FINALLY AN UPDATE...

I can't believe it's been nearly two years since I first put life in this tank. It's been a terrific journey thus far and I've enjoyed some wonderful success despite myself. I've ended up with a nice (at least to me) mixed reef. I'll keep the verbiage to a minimum since I filled my quota in the beginning - those that have read this will understand!

So let's just get on to the pictures even though they stink. I have the equipment, I just haven't taken any time to dial things in. Here's a few that came out a least decent (read not good). I'll start with the full tank shots, both sides, then share the few coral shots. Thanks for looking and happy reefing. I'll see you in another two years!!!