125 Gallon Office Tank

[bluecheese]

Question:

I'm doing the nitrogen cycle with fish. I added Turbo Start when the fish were put in the tank. The fish were introduced on Monday. When should I start reading ammonia? I've been testing every day, and its still reading 0ppm.

 

[ilawis]

If your using live bactirea it's possible you might never read ammonia just make sure when you put in your live bactirea you remove all your mechanical filtration and make sure your skimmer and UV is off (can't remember all that you have on your system) for at least 2 hours otherwise your filtration will just remove all the stuff you added.
So just keep adding it as the bottle directs and if you feel like it needs a little more don't be shy to add it, because too much won't hurt anything

 

[bluecheese]

Funny thing, I started reading ammonia today. It's at 0.25.

 

[bluecheese]

This Sicce pump is pretty cool. I finally got around to playing with the app. Once I switched everything from metric to imperial, I discovered something; what I thought was the working temperature of the pump is actually the water temperature. I thought that was a nice touch. I assume the pump's thermometer is more accurate than the cheap thermometer I picked up from PetSmart.

I'm tempted to snag 2 of the Sicce SDC powerheads so I can have them attached to the app and synced with the pump.

Question: the pump has different modes, like Lagoon and Reef Crest, which slow down and ramp up the flow. Right now I just have the pump at 100 percent with no variation. So, would it behoove me to have the pump on a more cyclical mode, or just leave it as is? Also, should I have the pump ramp down at night?

 

[ilawis]

Nar as a return pump its best to have it constant otherwise your overflow will rise and fall and make lots of noise, also it's not going to do your filtration any favours it could change your water level on your skimmer and other parts in your sump.
The purpose of those settings is because some people use them as a plumbed in wave maker on a close loop.
So that's where wave makers come into play there are the 2 different flow ratings one is through sump flow rating (usually between 2-8x ) and in display flow (20-110x as far as I understand them to be some people are outside those flows but it depends on your inhabitants to help determine the flow rate in display)

 

[bluecheese]

Nar as a return pump its best to have it constant otherwise your overflow will rise and fall and make lots of noise, also it's not going to do your filtration any favours it could change your water level on your skimmer and other parts in your sump.

That's what I figured. Thanks.

 

[bluecheese]

Yeah, so Hurricane Ida rolled through and kicked the hell out of us. No electricity, and the power probably won't be on for three weeks.

The wind sheared the door off our warehouse

The roof was ripped off

And water cascaded into the office.

Yet somehow the fish survived.

We are running the pump and powerheads off of generator power for 8 hours a day. I hope the power gets turned on soon.

 

[JumboShrimp]

The town was jinxed but the tank was blessed!!

 

[bluecheese]

Picked up 8 Green Chromis.

 

[James_O]

Yeah, so Hurricane Ida rolled through and kicked the hell out of us. No electricity, and the power probably won't be on for three weeks.

The wind sheared the door off our warehouse

The roof was ripped off

And water cascaded into the office.

Yet somehow the fish survived.

We are running the pump and powerheads off of generator power for 8 hours a day. I hope the power gets turned on soon.

That’s crazy man! Glad you and the fish are ok. Is the tank damaged?

 

[bluecheese]

That’s crazy man! Glad you and the fish are ok. Is the tank damaged?

It really was amazing. I was evacuated with my family, but the boss stayed behind. He was able to keep the fish alive in my absence. Even still, I thought I'd be coming back to two floating fish.

 

[James_O]

It really was amazing. I was evacuated with my family, but the boss stayed behind. He was able to keep the fish alive in my absence. Even still, I thought I'd be coming back to two floating fish.

That’s an awesome story. Kudos to your boss!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Ok, that makes you our Green Chromis Test Tank. Eight (8) going in alive on 10-5-21!

 

[bluecheese]

Ok, that makes you our Green Chromis Test Tank. Eight (8) going in alive on 10-5-21!

I appear to be missing something. Are green chromis not easy fish to care for?

 

[JumboShrimp]

They have a reputation for killing each other off, 1 by 1, through bullying. As in 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, perhaps. But you do have a 125-gallon, and you are introducing them all at once, so I’m pulling for your success! Keep us posted, and best wishes, as they are quite beautiful.

 

[Just a Wrasse.]

Figured I'd start this now, even though it may be a while before the tank is set up.

I work for a commercial contractor in the New Orleans area. We started building our new office about a year ago. During the planning stages, I asked the owner if it was ok if I set up a small aquarium in my office. I have a 30 gallon sitting around my house unused, so I was going to maybe do a Fairy Cichlid tank.

Being the guy that he is, his answer was "no, you're not putting a 30 gallon tank in your office. We're going to put a 100+ gallon tank in the wall." Pretty cool, huh?

The tank will be viewable on two sides: one from my office, the other from the conference room.

Here's the conference room view:

This is the view from my office:

We had a time of finding a tank that would suit our needs. The boss bought a used reef setup off of Facebook Marketplace without consulting me first. He got a real good deal on it, but after looking at it, we realized that it didn't really suit our needs.

So I ordered a tank from American Aquariums. We received it last Wednesday. The dimensions are 72x18x22. I haven't taken it completely out the box yet, but here's a shot of the top:

The tank has an overflow on each side. This is a problem, I soon realized, because of the sump we ordered from Seamless Sumps. The sump we got only has one filter sock. We will need two filter socks since there will be two overflows. I ordered a magnetic holder online. We'll see if it works out, I guess. My first thought was to just have one overflow lead to the sump, and have the other just deal with the returns. But that would leave an overflow full of stagnant water, which is something I don't want.

I should take this moment to mention that I have zero experience with saltwater tanks in general. I come from the high tech freshwater planted tank world. So, I've been doing a lot of studying. I've picked up a lot of info from here and other areas, but I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Anyway, this is the sump. We chose the Seamless brand because of space limitations in the cabinet. They are custom made (without any input from me; I really wish the boss would stop doing this to me). Because there is no way that I'd be able to get a full sized tank under the tank with those vertical braces, I needed something modular that I could put in and take out piece by piece. Seamless fit the bill.

So, on to the equipment I have to work with. Like I said, the boss picked up a used reef tank, which came with all the equipment. I need to study up on what we have to see if it will work in our situation.

Heater controller

Wave Maker

Lights ramp timer

Return pumps. We have three of these, which seems like overkill. Do yall have an opinion on these?

We have two of these powerheads

And two of these powerheads

I believe this is a UV sterilizer with pump

Around 120 pounds of dry rock I bought new

We also have two Current USA lights, which I believe are Marine Orbits that I didn't get a picture of.

Well as soon as we have some free time, we need to drill holes for the overflows and returns, set the tank on the stand, and start plumbing. I'll try to update this as we progress. My hope is to have the tank on the stand by the middle of next week. But with our hectic work schedules, it's hard to say.

Any suggestions, criticisms, well-wishes, and general bufoonery are certainly welcome in this thread.

I just realized how blurry some of my pictures are from my phone's potato camera.

Seems like a well planed out tank, good luck!

 

[Just a Wrasse.]

I appear to be missing something. Are green chromis not easy fish to care for?

Not that hard.

 

[Just a Wrasse.]

They have a reputation for killing each other off, 1 by 1, through bullying. As in 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, perhaps. But you do have a 125-gallon, and you are introducing them all at once, so I’m pulling for your success! Keep us posted, and best wishes, as they are quite beautiful.

True, but they are amazing

 

[bluecheese]

New fish survived the night.

 

[bluecheese]

So the tank has been cycling for over 2 months now. Ph 8.0, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5ppm nitrates At what point can I add shrimp to the tank?

Also, when should I start considering adding macroalgae to the fuge?