corgiguy5
New Member
So we started in this hobby with a 10 gallon tank with a goldfish, and now we have 2 tanks over 100 gallons a piece. We have had a ton of fun, and a ton of heartache. With our last tank we started out with a 125 Gallon non drilled tank that I picked up off a local classified site for $200 with a cheap stand. Being inexperienced in the hobby I immediately wanted to set it up. So I did. It was a re-purposed turtle tank, and had come with two canister filters, 500 watt heater, and the glass lids. We had a 55 gallon freshwater tank that had been up and running for about 6 months and was doing great, so we figured this tank would be just as easy. So I went to my LFS and began trying to figure out how and what to do with a tank of this size. After a few days of internet "research" and 2 visits to my LFS I had the idea that I wanted to do a FOWLR tank, but eventually move into corals.
So to start this tank off I bought 100LBS of dry rock, 150LBS of pool sand at Home Depot, and a case of reef crystals. I rinsed the sand in 5 gallon buckets for about 20-30 min a piece and then poured the sand into the tank. I then placed my rock in what I THOUGHT was a good position, not knowing ANYTHING about how flow works in a 125 long aquarium, and filled it up. We started with a SunSun 305B and a Marineland Emperor 400 for our filtration and started to let the tank cycle. We were extremely impatient when letting it cycle. Since we started with only dry rock we were dosing Seed and Stability, but we never saw any signs of a cycle. Here is where the inexperience comes in. After about 2 months of this we decided to go ahead and add fish. We started with 6 clowns, and 4 firefish gobys, a longnose hawk and 5 reef chromis.
This was when the tank decided to start cycling...
We began to finally cycle, and this not only stressed the fish, it stressed us. We were able to fight and keep all our fish minus some of the reef chromis, we have never had much luck with them. And the tank soon grew into a thriving ecosystem. Next came a horrible red cyano outbreak. This was attributed to low flow from only having the two filters and nothing really moving around the sand bed. Additionally, we didn't even have a clean up crew. So it was back to the LFS for more equipment. We got 2 of the Marineland Maxi-Jet 1200's and used those in power head mode to create flow in our tank. Lastly, we bought a ton of snails, both mexican turbo and nassarius, a bunch of hermit crabs, both red and blue tip with a bunch of extra shells, and a few emerald crabs.
So now that we had flow in the tank with a capable clean up crew the red cyano receded and we decided to add more fish to the system. So we went and got a baby hippo tang, a file fish, a saddle valentini puffer, and a yellow rabbit fish. All was going well for the first couple days, until it was a perfect storm of issues. Our foxface decided to have a heart attack in the tank and passed away, then we started to see little white dots on the fins of some of the fish. We had our first ick outbreak. We were able to treat it, and luckily we didn't lose any fish. So in treating this we were going back and forth oi the LFS, and we found a used in new condition Fluval FX6 for a steal that we couldn't pass up. In discussions with the LFS they advised us to add a UV to the tank in order to fight future ick outbreaks. So we purchased a 36watt pond UV and hooked it into the flow of the FX6. We also purchased a HOB skimmer that really helped us keep the tank clean.
Well everything began to kinda just fall into place after this. Since we had lost the foxface we decided to try another rabbit fish so we purchased a baby 2 bar rabbitfish. He thrived in the tank, and quickly grew almost 3 inches. For my wife's birthday last year she decided she wanted a magnificent foxface. so I purchased one, little did I know he and the rabbit fish would have issues, again inexperienced mistake. The rabbitfish immediately started to pester and attack the foxface. to help fight some of this we decided to re aquascape in hopes of addressing his aggression. This didnt work at all, and the foxface was taking a beating. So I setup a small breeding net and caught the rabbitfish in it. He spent 3 days in "Fish Jail". When we released him back into the tank he and the foxface had no issues.
Again now that everything was going well we decided to mess things up again. We purchased a 120 gallon drilled tank and began to look at setting that up. We built a custom stand, and plumbed everything up with a custom built sump and another FX6 that we got for a deal, I like using these to add in chemical filtration and anything that I may need to add to the tank. We had the heater in a bulkhead but the temp sensor was in the tank itself. Well as we were adding water testing it, and testing our plumbing we accidentally left the heater on when we turned off all the pumps in the tank. so all the sudden the main tank was cold, but one baffle was boiling trying to keep the tank warm. The heater eventually melted and cracked the glass on the back of the tank.
After this happened we looked around and found the Deep Blue 150 reef tank for a great price and we moved up to that. Once we got the new tank into place, and plumbed it up we decided to move everything from our current set up to the 150. We worked through another LFS and they were able to come out and help us get everything moved and topped off. We have been loving the bigger tank, and even started building a custom stand for our 125 that will allow us to use overflows and a sump to start another set-up. Here are some pics of our current 150 setup with the sump and all.
I hope to keep updating this thread as time continues and we begin to turn this into a reef tank.
So to start this tank off I bought 100LBS of dry rock, 150LBS of pool sand at Home Depot, and a case of reef crystals. I rinsed the sand in 5 gallon buckets for about 20-30 min a piece and then poured the sand into the tank. I then placed my rock in what I THOUGHT was a good position, not knowing ANYTHING about how flow works in a 125 long aquarium, and filled it up. We started with a SunSun 305B and a Marineland Emperor 400 for our filtration and started to let the tank cycle. We were extremely impatient when letting it cycle. Since we started with only dry rock we were dosing Seed and Stability, but we never saw any signs of a cycle. Here is where the inexperience comes in. After about 2 months of this we decided to go ahead and add fish. We started with 6 clowns, and 4 firefish gobys, a longnose hawk and 5 reef chromis.
This was when the tank decided to start cycling...
We began to finally cycle, and this not only stressed the fish, it stressed us. We were able to fight and keep all our fish minus some of the reef chromis, we have never had much luck with them. And the tank soon grew into a thriving ecosystem. Next came a horrible red cyano outbreak. This was attributed to low flow from only having the two filters and nothing really moving around the sand bed. Additionally, we didn't even have a clean up crew. So it was back to the LFS for more equipment. We got 2 of the Marineland Maxi-Jet 1200's and used those in power head mode to create flow in our tank. Lastly, we bought a ton of snails, both mexican turbo and nassarius, a bunch of hermit crabs, both red and blue tip with a bunch of extra shells, and a few emerald crabs.
So now that we had flow in the tank with a capable clean up crew the red cyano receded and we decided to add more fish to the system. So we went and got a baby hippo tang, a file fish, a saddle valentini puffer, and a yellow rabbit fish. All was going well for the first couple days, until it was a perfect storm of issues. Our foxface decided to have a heart attack in the tank and passed away, then we started to see little white dots on the fins of some of the fish. We had our first ick outbreak. We were able to treat it, and luckily we didn't lose any fish. So in treating this we were going back and forth oi the LFS, and we found a used in new condition Fluval FX6 for a steal that we couldn't pass up. In discussions with the LFS they advised us to add a UV to the tank in order to fight future ick outbreaks. So we purchased a 36watt pond UV and hooked it into the flow of the FX6. We also purchased a HOB skimmer that really helped us keep the tank clean.
Well everything began to kinda just fall into place after this. Since we had lost the foxface we decided to try another rabbit fish so we purchased a baby 2 bar rabbitfish. He thrived in the tank, and quickly grew almost 3 inches. For my wife's birthday last year she decided she wanted a magnificent foxface. so I purchased one, little did I know he and the rabbit fish would have issues, again inexperienced mistake. The rabbitfish immediately started to pester and attack the foxface. to help fight some of this we decided to re aquascape in hopes of addressing his aggression. This didnt work at all, and the foxface was taking a beating. So I setup a small breeding net and caught the rabbitfish in it. He spent 3 days in "Fish Jail". When we released him back into the tank he and the foxface had no issues.
Again now that everything was going well we decided to mess things up again. We purchased a 120 gallon drilled tank and began to look at setting that up. We built a custom stand, and plumbed everything up with a custom built sump and another FX6 that we got for a deal, I like using these to add in chemical filtration and anything that I may need to add to the tank. We had the heater in a bulkhead but the temp sensor was in the tank itself. Well as we were adding water testing it, and testing our plumbing we accidentally left the heater on when we turned off all the pumps in the tank. so all the sudden the main tank was cold, but one baffle was boiling trying to keep the tank warm. The heater eventually melted and cracked the glass on the back of the tank.
After this happened we looked around and found the Deep Blue 150 reef tank for a great price and we moved up to that. Once we got the new tank into place, and plumbed it up we decided to move everything from our current set up to the 150. We worked through another LFS and they were able to come out and help us get everything moved and topped off. We have been loving the bigger tank, and even started building a custom stand for our 125 that will allow us to use overflows and a sump to start another set-up. Here are some pics of our current 150 setup with the sump and all.
I hope to keep updating this thread as time continues and we begin to turn this into a reef tank.
