75g Mixed Reef Upgrade!

[hockeyhead019]

Alrighty, well it's time, the basement is finished and now I can swing my attention towards building the upgrade tank!

I'm coming from a 20g long mixed tank and have been eyeballing a 75g tank but the footprint is a little too big for where I want to put it, so when I saw the dimensions of the 65g tank it was perfect!

UPDATE: The plan has changed, I'm going to move a light switch that was going to be over the tank and just take up the whole space! So a 75g it is. I'm going to wait for them to go onsale at petsmart on black friday. One of the workers said the stand/tank combos go on sale every year for 50% off so I'll be taking advantage of that. I'll need to check it's drillable first so that might be interesting

I'll hang onto this first post for updated FTS

9/19/22 Updated FTS
FTS 9-19-22 by Jim , on Flickr

Stocking:

Fish:
Purple orchid dottyback
2 O. Clowns
One spot foxface rabbitfish

Corals:
Frogspawn (2 colonies)
Duncan
Green acan
Various zoas
Purple Sytlo
Blueberry Acro
Orange monti
Birds of Paradise

 

[hockeyhead019]

Equipment list:

Flow:
2 550gph (older) Koralia Powerheads
Syncra Pro 800gph return pump (I'll de-tune slightly)
Possibly run the Hydor wave maker, but we'll see

Skimmer:
Planning on running skimmerless for the time being, I've always ran my tanks like this (20g and a 55g before this) and haven't had major problems

RODI water will always be used

ATO is undecided. I might make it a push button refill style with a reservoir, the truly ATOs have bit me before where they overfill the sump leading to water on the floor.

Heater: BRS titanium controlled by a controller

Controller: Reefpi unit. I'll edit this thread with the link to that build

Lighting: Black box (Vipraspectr) LEDs x 2

 

[Dub_G]

I look forward to seeing the progress on your thread with some pictures.

 

[hockeyhead019]

I look forward to seeing the progress on your thread with some pictures.

Thanks! The plan is a petsmart/co Aqueon tank/stand combo (their stands look pretty sharp for the most part) but I need to make sure that they're not tempered glass. The internet has yielded quite the mixed back of responses. So I plan on heading over there this week to check it out with a polarized filter and the laptop method. Fingers crossed I'll get lucky out of the gate, but we'll see. If that doesn't work out it'll be back to scouring craigslist and FB marketplace

 

[count krunk]

typically the back glass won't be tempered and the bottom glass may be.

What overflow do you have in mind?

A slim bean animal is working very well for me. Super quiet, extremely reliable. Takes up very little in tank space. Requires tank to sit a few inches off the wall.

 

[hockeyhead019]

typically the back glass won't be tempered and the bottom glass may be.

What overflow do you have in mind?

A slim bean animal is working very well for me. Super quiet, extremely reliable. Takes up very little in tank space. Requires tank to sit a few inches off the wall.

I snagged an eShopps medium eclipse. I believe it's a herbie style with the dual drains, one primary and one emergency.

Thanks for the info on the glass, it matches the responses from the companies after calling them directly instead of relying on 4 year old internet posts lol. I'm waiting for black friday when the tank/stand combo is 50% off and then I'll pull the trigger and check when I get there to make sure it's drillable.

The eshopps kit came with the hole saw bit to drill the glass with so that'd definitely a nice plus.

 

[hockeyhead019]

The eagle has landed! Snagged the 75g tank with stand for 50% off on black friday from petsmart and got it into the basement. Still working on where it's going to end up in the room but here's the obligatory tank with equipment to be used pic lol



Tank by Jim , on Flickr


Next comes the drilling and plumbing. Looking at around a 45g sump tank. I'm still up in the air about what to make baffles for it out of acrylic DIY or just have a glass shop cut some panels for me. Any thoughts are welcome! My sump plan is very simple, no skimmer, just a section to catch bubbles from the drain, then a refugium running chaeto and then the return section.

 

[count krunk]

Does that overflow allow for 1" drains? If not I would return it and get one that does.

 

[count krunk]

If the sump is glass you can get thin glass from home depot or lowes, you can cut that yourself pretty easily and use that for your sump. That is what I did. My sump is just three sections, so only needed two baffles

 

[hockeyhead019]

If the sump is glass you can get thin glass from home depot or lowes, you can cut that yourself pretty easily and use that for your sump. That is what I did. My sump is just three sections, so only needed two baffles

Good to know! I was thinking about cutting acrylic but that's also an appealing option. As for your 1" comment, what's the reason behind that? The two drains are 1" fittings though.

 

[count krunk]

1" will give you all the room you need, something less to worry about. You can really only do it now, so reason to go with 3/4".

I have 1" drains and 3/4" return on my 40b. Plenty of flow and no worries ever about flooding.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Finally back to putting this together. My wife and I welcomed our daughter to the world last January and life has been a little crazy with this being our first kid lol

Anyways, update and picture time!

I bought a sump kit from ebay for my 29g tank that I'm using for my sump:

20220105_193432 by Jim , on Flickr

It came very nicely protected and in one piece. Install is a snap with some silicone.

20220108_132207 by Jim , on Flickr

Also finished up dry fitting the display tank drain lines. 1" lines confirmed to give plenty of flow. I'm still waiting on my gate valve so I can adjust the flow and keep it quiet.

20220117_210446 by Jim , on Flickr

20220117_210441 by Jim , on Flickr

I'm still waiting on the tubing and a couple barbs for the return plumbing and then the tank will be ready for a soak test to make sure everything is water tight.

After that it's onto coming up with some fun rock structures to take advantage of the size of the tank.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Water is in, no leaks thankfully! Going to drain and start mixing SW and getting ready with the rock work.

Still kicking around a stocking plan but definitely leaning towards having more smaller fish as opposed to a couple larger fish from a bio-load perspective. The rock work I have in mind leaves plenty of swimming room though in case I want to change gears.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Water is mixed, rock and sand are in and now we cycle! I pulled a rock over from my 20g setup to get things rolling. Hopefully that bacteria can start spreading and getting the numbers down so I can move the live stock from the 20g into their new home.

FTS 4-2 by Jim , on Flickr

 

[hockeyhead019]

Guess I skipped a couple updates.

Cycling finished about a month ago but since I'm transferring stock, I wanted to make absolute sure so I ran some additional time and testing.

Stock going in:
1 Purple Orchid Dottyback
Frogspawn coral (about 7 heads)
Duncan coral (about 9 heads)
Acan coral

Not too worried about the coral but I want to make sure the dottyback does ok.


Full Tank Shot by Jim, on Flickr

Got around to building the lighting hood (still isn't finished black, but I wanted to get the livestock transferred over) And then finally got everything swapped over. The corals aren't thrilled but they're starting to open slowly more and more.

I suspect that the corals are grumpy from new placement in the tank with slightly different light settings since they're coming from a 20g with the same light (singular) much higher off the water line and less intensity. But time will tell if I need to back off the power of the light some or mess with the flow.

Next steps are to get some more stock in there, still trying to figure out what I want to start with and what the final stocking list target is going to be, but right now I'm still leaning towards more smaller fish as opposed to some larger ones.

The dottyback is in and eating fine so all signs are pointing towards success right now.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Welp, the ugly stage has arrived. Nothing but diatoms, but my nice fresh rock and sand now has that wonderful brown-ish tinge to it lol.

I was hoping that all the existing rockwork I added from the original tank would help with this, however it's still here. No worries. Forging along as planned, it's time for a good WC anyways.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Next thing to figure out is why I'm getting so many air bubbles in my return, I don't know if I spaced the baffles too far apart in my sump or what, but there is a significant amount of air bubbles hitting the DT.

Figuring out a filter floss insert might be the next step to see if that helps clear it up, but I don't see any noticable bubbles entering the pump section of my sump. Gotta sit and watch it for a while and see if there is any smoking gun

 

[hockeyhead019]

Looks like the air bubbles were just some air bound up in the return line, hopefully just somewhere near the Y check valve.

Some testing results while I try and figure out why my frogspawns and duncans don't look thrilled. Everything else looks ok, the zoas and the acan both happy as can be.

pH: 8.2
Temp: 78 degrees
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm (this one I don't trust completely but I'm thinking my algae in the DT might just be eating it all immediately
Alk: 4dKH (too low, will be adding a buffer most likely to help get this up)
Calcium: 400 ppm

I don't have a phosphate test kit either, so I should probably look into getting one of them.

Other than that, pretty status quo in the tank aside from adding in two O. Clowns. They're happy and eating away, time to look for my next addition. I'm between a lawnmower blenny or a lemonpeel angel. I know the angelfish can be a little tricky sometimes with the reef tanks but I've always had decent luck with the angels in the past.

Also, I fragged my frogspawn apart, so I'm not sure if that's contributing to the grumpiness or not, just remembered I did that. It was well below any live tissue though so no concerns about causing a problem because of that.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Got my hands on a One spot Foxface Rabbitfish, he went into the DT yesterday and seems to be adjusting fine, if you've never seen them change colors at night for camoflouge, it's pretty awesome looking! Gonna get some photos in here soon.

Update on my dKH issue, I dosed with some 2 part reef additive and it brought the level right back up to 7 and change. Still a little low for sure, but good to see it back up. I'll wait a little before adding more just so I don't shock anything.

 

[hockeyhead019]

A little photo dump since most of the corals looked decently happy today lol

The new foxface!
One Spot Foxface by Jim , on Flickr

He's been doing good and has started mowing down the hair algae on the back of the tank and on some of the rocks. He's also eating flakes and dried mysis so that's a great sign.

Can't have a reef tank without a clown pair, and I'm a sucker for the classics among all the designers I see these days. The interesting designer ones are very cool looking, don't get me wrong, but the classic O. Clowns are always fun.
O. Clown Pair by Jim, on Flickr

The acan colony that's been with me since the 20g Long tank. It's a trooper, been through lighting changes, completely ignoring the tank when we had a newborn and now chugging along in its new home.
Green Acan Colony by Jim, on Flickr

My duncans are doing good and continue to multiply, but the tentacles aren't extending like they used to. I'm not sure if it's still adjusting to the light since I lowered it two weeks ago or still coming back to form or what. Hasn't been shrunken up or looking unhealthy though, so I'll take that at least.
Duncan Colony by Jim, on Flickr

Some zoas that I snagged on an impulse buy when I went to grab my clowns. They're doing pretty good so far, no new heads but the smaller group looks like they're about to pop two new ones.
Zoas by Jim, on Flickr

And finally, my frogspawn that I fragged. Everything looks ok after fragging, it was far enough from the live tissue to not worry, however the tentacles haven't been extending like I see at the LFS or have had them extend in the past. I think it's a flow and a lighting solution really, I have them in lower flow areas after fragging and they already seem happier, I'm still tinkering with the lighting intensity as well. If they don't open up more, I'll kick back the lights a little more.
Frogspawn Colony by Jim, on Flickr

Frogspawn Colony by Jim, on Flickr

I also just participated in the live sale from Tidal Gardens, so I'm waiting on those corals to arrive on Thursday and then I'll get some photos up of that as well!

I'm tinkering with my A7r III and lens combos. I used to shoot Nikon and had a dedicated macro lens and I haven't pulled the trigger yet for the sony setup, just using a combo of a tele-photo lens and a 28-75 f2.8. I have an 85mm that I can use with some extension tubes as a budget macro solution, so I'll probably tinker with that over the next couple days to get some more photos in the thread.