90 gallon rock wall mixed reef

[mellophanic]

I've been wanting a larger tank and finally picked up an unused 90 gallon reef ready aqueon tank from someone who never set it up.

Current tank is a 3 year old 20g long with a HOB refugium. Lots of coral and inverts. Black clown, Mandarin, and a Banggai cardinal.

New tank plan is to create a 90g mixed reef with a 40g breeder diy sump. I have this idea for a rock wall built up the glass using rocks that have 1 flat face, like stax or fountain rocks.

 

[mellophanic]

I built a RocketEngineer 2x4 stand, then found out my floor is slanted away from the wall. The front of the stand needed to be lifted about 3/8 inch. I ended up attaching a 1/4 thick strip to the front rail to raise it up before shimming.

 

[mellophanic]

I got the drain plumbing in. I did have the mega overflow kit that comes with the tank, but I decided to go with the Herbie drain as outlined by gmacreef. Main drain with a gate valve, and an emergency drain with no valve and set to around the overflow level. Also, I didn't glue on the upper pipes so I can fine tune those lengths later on. I would have put in the return plumbing as well but I needed to recut the length and reglue.

Oh and the sump kit from marine biosytems arrived. The aqueon kit fits my marineland tank perfectly. I'm planning to go without mechanical filtration, and want to maximize space for rocks and a refugium. Of course I forgot to buy silicone... So now I get to wait for that.

 

[kevgib67]

I look forward to following along with your new build!

 

[mellophanic]

Got the diy sump in -- silicone was pretty challenging but luckily it will be out of sight. Feels like there needs to be a good way to hold the baffles vertical and keep them from sliding. Maybe I would have done the silicone in two steps, just the corners to get the positioning right, then going back later to fill in the gaps.

And I started planning the aquascape. The idea is to put a bunch of rock on the back wall as if the back wall is a vertical slice through some islands. So what you're looking at is the core of the back wall plan, and I'll accentuate with rubble. The wood is the overflow box.

From what I've been able to dig up on the forums it should be OK to silicone the rock to clean glass, building from bottom up over multiple sessions. I'm also inspired by this video:

I splurged for marco foundation rock to have a flat rock surface to adhere to the glass. Along the way I'll also add epoxy and rubble so the weight is partly held up by the base, and to build some more tunnels. I also think it would help to have more of an L shape like so, but I need to order more rock. Might even be able to throw in a small arch.

Once the wall is up, I'm also thinking of wrapping the overflow with a "spiral staircase" of small rocks to add depth. Then, some of the rock from my current tank could be transferred over to become islands in the new tank.

 

[mellophanic]

Couldn't wait, first rocks are in! I used a lot of silicone, like half a tube for these three rocks, and pressed rocks against the glass. The rocks are also touching the bottom glass at a few points.

 

[mellophanic]

Aquascape mostly done! Silicone seems to be pretty solid with holding the big rocks against the glass, as long as they as are supported from underneath during initial curing. I might add a few small arch features on the right side. Lots of room to eventually transfer a few rocks over from the current tank and still leave space for some sandbed LPS.

 

[reefmaster70]

wow..I really like that idea of gluing them to the back. Very cool. Can't wait to see it all put together.

 

[Coral&Cocktails]

This scape is so cool and making me rethink ideas I had for mine!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[NanoSteam]

This ones going to be fun... following along.

 

[mellophanic]

Well this is odd. I started adding some water to the sump and some ants appeared! There are no ants in our house that I know of, so I assume they were hiding in the rocks. I guess this is one way to get the cycle going... here's one that is trying to survive underwater off an air bubble.

 

[mellophanic]

Water is in and one light is up! I'm adding a few gallons of rodi at a time along with a random scoop of salt. I'll adjust salinity once the return is running.

I also picked up black corrugated plastic for the back since I didn't paint it, and I found some vinyl corner trim to protect the corners and also hide the corrugated edges in the back. I like how the covered edges match the black rim.

I'm excited to add some life soon. Planning to seed bacteria using a few rocks cooking in my other tank. I don't feel confident trying to skip cycle and move everything over all at once since I have so much dry rock in the new tank compared to what I'd be moving over.

 

[mellophanic]

Several hours of hectic moving later... And everything's transferred!

I ended up dumping in a big bottle of Dr Tims then moving everything over after 12 hours, so essentially skipping any cycling since my live rock should be able to handle nutrient processing.

I have to reset some timers on dosers and lights, but the hard part is done. Fingers crossed everything survives the move!

Next up on the list is to wait for stability before adding more coral. I figure the new rocks have to develop some biofilm and coralline first.

 

[mellophanic]

Added new fish a couple weeks ago, all at once. No aggression issues at all.

• Widebar gladiator clown
• Davinci clown
• Yellow tang
• Tomini tang
• Orange backed wrasse
• Springeri damsel
• Tailspot blenny (died after 2 days)

And just a couple days ago I added some coral from top shelf. I've been wanting to try to grow out a lobophyllia/acan pachyspeta. One I got came with shipping damage with septa sticking through flesh on the left side. Kinda hard to see in the picture, but I was nervous because I've lost all other lobos with such damage. When lights went out I could see the mesenthelial filaments going to town on the exposed skeleton. But two days later it's mostly healed!

Day 0:

Day 2:

Along the way I also discovered the tank is devouring alkalinity so I had to adjust dosing, but all is well now.

Couple of fish photo attempts:

 

[PacoPetty]

I've been wanting a larger tank and finally picked up an unused 90 gallon reef ready aqueon tank from someone who never set it up.

Current tank is a 3 year old 20g long with a HOB refugium. Lots of coral and inverts. Black clown, Mandarin, and a Banggai cardinal.

New tank plan is to create a 90g mixed reef with a 40g breeder diy sump. I have this idea for a rock wall built up the glass using rocks that have 1 flat face, like stax or fountain rocks.

I love, love, love that Coralline algae!

 

[mellophanic]

Speaking of coralline, I noticed the first specks of it growing on the glass today. So it took 4 weeks for coralline to start spreading from my previous rocks/inverts.

I just added a tuxedo urchin and a couple conchs to combat this algae that's growing very well. For algae control, I am also looking to get an abalone, but no one has one in stock. I had one that did well against hair algae in my last tank until I had a mini crash.

 

[mellophanic]

Oulophyllia looking really happy these days. I love the night/day transition. The pitho crab also likes camping out here.

 

[HJCRUZER]

Looking Great!! Following along

 

[mellophanic]

Woke up to 3 dead fish, I think it's a velvet outbreak :(. I don't think it's realistic to catch all the fish given the tunnels and caves in the rocks siliconed to the back wall.

Regardless, I don't have a quarantine tank set up yet, and will need a week before I can get one up and running since I have work travel in a couple days. The mandarin looks like it is struggling a bit, has something on is skin, and is just idling in the sand. Fingers crossed it pulls through.