Pickupman66's 180 GC build

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

Hey everyone. I am fairly new to this site, but I have been reefkeeping since college. for the past 10 years, I have had a 75 gallon tank that went from nothing to our family prize possession. it was a mixed reef with leathers, a football sized frogspawn and lots of sps. I saw WAS be cause this past April, I sold it as we moved to a new house about an hour away. the tank was very well settled and it was time for a new challenge.

here are a few of my old tank before I get on to the new one for you guys.

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

hehe.. sorry for those photos..

OK. so now the new tank. ill make this short and sweet. I got an awesome deal on a Glass cages 180 with starfire glass. it was 10 hours away. I loaded up and got it by myself. we drained it, put the live rock in a 150 rubbermaid tub along with the two fish that were in it.

we cleaned it and put in the house.

while we were getting the plumbing up, we had teh rock that came with the tank in the tub. I also combined my old rock in there as well. it was dried for a 3 months and then introduced into this live rock.

The plan for the build was to have the tank in our dining room converted into a fish room, and have the sump out in the garage. there is a good sized crawl space so this was a fairly easy undertaking. all of the plumbing goes down thru a hole the size of and HVAC vent. in this photo, the closed loop is the two pipes in the back and the sump drain and return are in the front. 1.5" for the loop and 2" all the way to the garage for the sump.

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

Sand was aquired, washed and put in along with the rock and the two fish that came with the tank. a clown and a goby.

so at this point, let me tell you about my tank.
it is a 180 with a 150 sump. I baffled the sump out for bubble control.
the main pump is a Reeflo Barracuda with a dart closed loop. I also have a pair of Koralia 4's for circulation.

The barracuda drives my MRC MR2 skimmer, MRC Cr5 Calcium reactor, Custom Coil denitrator, Bio pellet reactor, GFO reactor, UV and Chiller. I have a custom built manifold for them all. Overall, I like the way it has been setup and it works for me. simple, one main pump and a bunch of valves. I love to tinker with plumbing so this was a fun build.
here is the sump as it sits

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

OH, so you want to see more photos? a full tank shot?

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

the tank was established august 1, 2010. I had some water quality issues as of late, and dont have alot of coral. we are in the process of bringing it back up to par. hopefully after this weekend, we will have about 10 new corals for the tank along with a new Emperor Angel.
fish in the tank now are:
Sohal Tang (Boss), Purple Tang (Enforcer), Naso Tang, Pyramid Butterfly, Bangaii Cardinal, Black Onyx clown, Six line wrasse and a pink spot sleeper goby. I have plans to add another cardinal or two, another clown and two more butterflies.
I LOVE SPS so the tank will be DOMINATED with SPS with a few LPS and others that the angel will allow.

If you have any questions or want to know more about anything in the tank, or more of the whole story (5 weeks of hyposalinity in the whole tank), please let me know. I am a very Lazy reefer and anything I can do to make it easier, i will do. on my last tank, the water was not changed for 3 years. I plan on doing the same here with this tank.

Zef004 · Jan 19, 2011

Good work pickupman let's see some of those new cOrals. LOL
Good to see you on r2r

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

all that has survived my alkalinity issue are:

Tinkerbell acro,
Green table acro
Pink stylopora
frogspawn
candy coral
leathers
the zoa's in the photo. we will get photos of the new ones when I am lucky enough to get them.

subielover · Jan 19, 2011

That is a black and white ocellaris, not onyx. Good looking tank, and looking forward to seeing it progress for you.

pickupman66 · Jan 19, 2011

Subie,

I dont know my clownfish that well. how do you tell the difference? I was told it was a true onyx.

OK. let me rephrase it. it is an Australian black percula.

Zef004 · Jan 19, 2011

Pickup onyx have orange with black running across there body. But still a beautifully clownfish.

skinz78 · Jan 19, 2011

Great looking tank so far, keep the pic's coming!

pickupman66 · Jan 20, 2011

Zef, i called the guy I got the tank from. it is an Aussie Black Perc

arnaldo · Jan 20, 2011

Nice tank!!!

pickupman66 · Jan 23, 2011

Here are my scores from the swap. there are a few I need help from.

Pearlberry - CEE
Pink Lemonade - CEe
Blasto Merletti - Jennie
Larry Jackson - Harry's
Grape Sherbert - Harry's
Valentine Poci - Harry's
Green MIlli - Meisen ---need true ID
Rose Milli - ZEF
Blue TIpped Acro - Smyrna Reefer - need true ID
Stag with blue tips - Susan Council - need true ID
Blue Indigo stag - Gflat
Ebay Poker stat - Zef
Large Green acro - Tksimmons
neat green Gonipora from Reefkoi (still gettign placement right so no photo yet)
some mystery Zoa's from Dr mac that Jay and I found floating in the tank as we drained it.
Orange Urchin - Midwest Saltwater
yellow tail dwarf angel - Lighthouse Corals (camera shy)

pickupman66 · Jan 31, 2011

Hmmmm... I know I posted on this thing today... thats odd.

anyways, I wanted to give an update. so far, most of the frags I got are doing very well. the Goni is not opening well yet. its just not happy. Oh well. several have found a permanent home, some still on the plugs moving around to find the happy spot.

now to combat this HA problem. either get a Sea hare to demolish it or use some Algae Fix to nuke all the algae in the tank. once that is done, I know I can outcompete the green for the remaining phosphate in the tank. Opinions welcome.

skinz78 · Jan 31, 2011

The frags look great!

I wouldn't use any chemicals to remove algae, you just don't know what they will do to the rest of the tank. I say get the sea hare.

pickupman66 · Feb 15, 2011

OK ok, so its been just alittle while since I posted on this thing. Here is an update. 4 doses into the Algaefix, and the tank is looking 90% better! I went from at least 75% rock coverage from teh HA to less than 5% so far. it is dieing and coming off so easily. coraline still looks sharp and the tank as a whole is looking better. now the bad news. Stupid Saliftert Alkalinity kits read LOW! like 1.3KH low according to a brand new Hanna meter. UGH!!!! my freaking KH was at 6.6!!!! no wonder things werent just taking off. SO, we are dosing it up now. CA is at 420 YAY! Going to dose some baking soda diluted in Ro/DI water. poured in 1 gallon with 3 tsp last night. (about 1/3 of the dosage) and will check and do so again tonight and then tomorrow night. hopefully we should see some results. it appears this is the last bit of chasing I will need to do as this is an easy one to correct and everything else is in perfect line. Salinity is 1.026, PH is 8.18, ca 410, phosphate 0.04 (hanna ppB meter), nitrates are undetectable.

Oh and I thought two of my bulbs were color shifting but that was not the case. it was the rock that was colored due to the HA. anyways, ordered warranty replacements from the bulb company. 1000bulbs.com. they are great customer service. and yes, I am using the plusrites.

pickupman66 · Feb 16, 2011

So as many know, I have been behind on what seems like EVERYTHING on my tank. it has been a terrible battle and just after the swap, I was about to sell the entire setup and rip it out. I was so MAD!!!!!! My tank had become overrun with Hair Algae and was so UGLY, I didnt want to look at it. the ONLY thing that kept me into it was the fish, and barely.

well I stepped out on a limb and bought some Algae fix. I had overstripped the phosphate with the GFO so I knew this could be the last ditch effort.

well, what do you know, I can look at my tank and see potential again. Here are some photos

This is what Bart called the Tinkerbell. as of today, it is the only SPS that is growing, and it is doing so DAILY.

FTS

video (turn sound down. ive been sick and my nose is stopped up)

dougers31 · Feb 16, 2011

Is that hair algae or byropsis? How well is the urchin helping out with the unwanted plant life? I am toying with the idea of getting a blue tux and am curious...