70 Gallon intro to reef tank

LTC0405

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Hello everyone

I am starting this build thread to document a tank I am building out for my brother. He has talked for years about starting up a tank but never got around to it. Then a few months ago my sister in law asked me to hunt a tank down for him for their family to give him for Christmas. I have had the tank a few months and done a bunch of upgrades along the way that I will keep track of on this thread until I can him over this user name then he can continue his set up with the help of reef2reef.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone is able to give him!
1fastrock
 
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LTC0405

LTC0405

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These are some pictures of the tank before I picked it up. It is a 70 gallon tank that came with the stand sump pump light and heater. I stripped the old black paint off the back and repainted. After I got it repaint I went back and forth on resealing the tank. After thinking it over I decided to reseal it so my brother doesn’t have any problems with it down the road.

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LTC0405

LTC0405

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After the reseal and paint I tackled the stand. It needed a good cleaning and once I did I noticed the floor was a little rough. I decided to paint the inside white and grey on the walls to brighten up the inside of the stand. After paint I tackled the floor. I stripped it all done then waterproofed it with shower waterproofing. After that I layed white subway tile on the floor. I was worried about grout getting nasty with spills so I taped off each tile and grouted with black silicone caulk. This seemed to seal up the floor pretty well.

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LTC0405

LTC0405

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Now I am working on the plumbing. I am plumbing the sump feed and return with pvc. On the sump feed I included a master shut off as well as another valve so he can do water changes easier from the feed. The return also has a valve to turn off and I included a few inches of soft tubing to isolate any noise from the return pump. I will add some pictures as soon as I get the new bulkheads in to replace the old ones. I am going to try to keep this thread update until my brothers wife and kids give it to him on Christmas!!
 
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LTC0405

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Finally got some time to finish up the plumbing and check if it holds water. It had a few small plumbing leaks but noting that wasn’t fixed by some tightening of unions. Hopefully the next time this thing sees water it’s in my brothers house.
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LTC0405

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Tank is in my possession. Had my brother come on New Years Eve and help me get everything set up. I purchased some things that are going to help me out. Bought an Inkbird Wifi Heater controller and an auto top off system. I have RO water in my house already so I ran a line from that to the tank. Bought a Rubbermaid Cereal container and put a float valve that keeps that topped off and also ran the ATO pump into it. I got some live sand for the tank bottom and 40 lbs of shaped rock for inside. I started the process of cycling the tank finally and can not wait to get fish in it.
 

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LTC0405

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Everything is up and running. Cycled the tank with a shrimp from the grocery store. Ended up never dying an ammonia spike. I had purchased bio blocks and had them sit in my brothers tank for a chunk Kyle of weeks so I attribute no spike to well seeded bio blocks. Ended up with some problems with some lights in the stand that we put in there to be able to see. They were sticky taped to the top and fell off into my sump. This m made the water very cloudy but my water tests all came out good and my fish survived it. Got a Vectra S2 pump from my brother that I am waiting for fittings to make it work. Ended up just picking up a Reed octopus 150 skimmer also yesterday on r2r and waiting for that to get shipped. I love having this tank and am waiting to put some bigger fish in.
 
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