Basement IM 100 EXT

[harthag12]

Hey all, finally starting a build thread after being out for roughly 8 years. I previously had a 28g reef tank and a few smaller ones but once my son was born I had to give it up fast forward & my kids are older & I'm eager to show off the hobby.

In August I purchased an Innovative Marine 100 EXT and a JBJ 65 gallon AIO. I decided to redo the basement after purchasing and the tank sat in my living room. I finally finished plumbing it up tonight (it's my first tank with a sump) and am currently making water, I'll have enough water to fill it this weekend. I have not leak tested anything, it's my first time plumbing, if the tank or sump is faulty you'll hear my screams no matter the part of the country.

Equipment List:

Innovative Marine Ext100
Precision Marine Sump
Octo Elite 150 INT Skimmer
2 Cobalt 200w Heaters
2 7" filter cups
Reef Octo Various 6 return pump
2 Reef Octo Pulse 4 powerheads
48" 4 bulb Aquatic life T5 fixture
3 Kessil A360WE lights
Kessil H80 Fuge light​

Here's my tank, sump, plumbing & a picture of the rear. In the meantime I plan to play with my rock & see what I can come up with.

​

 

[ScottieB]

Looks great so far! Good luck with the filling, fingers crossed.
Keep us updated!

btw, I do the same thing with the good ole white pvc and two part purple primer/glue. I always found it worked well, only leak I ever got was a coupler I forgot to glue.

 

[steelwrap]

Looks good. Waiting for water is the hardest part.

 

[harthag12]

Looks good. Waiting for water is the hardest part.

What I learned last night is that I may need a booster pump. My water pressure of 50 psi felt like it was wasting quite a bit & this will definatly be a multi day brute trash can filling period. I guess on the plus side maybe I can figure out how to hang my lights this weekend along with getting the rock work sorted.

 

[harthag12]

Well bit of an update, it's been a few weeks and I dosed the tank up to off the charts Ammonia by accident. My Ammonia tonight just read zero, I do have Nitrites still but not overly concerned. I figure by Sunday my tank might be cycled. I have most equipment installed; I need to hang the lights (waiting on 3.5mm cables); turn on the skimmer & receive the rest of the parts I need to build / cleanup my power center (not pictured yet), build the screen lid & put some marine pure balls in the sump and install doors on stand. I think really turning the skimmer on & building the lid will allow me to get fish in the tank & start something. Updating my first post with an updated equipment list.

 

[harthag12]

Update 5/8/19 - Cycle complete - went to Petco & purchased 2 Gladiator Clowns. Floated bag & added. Both clowns ate some pellets immediately after. I turned off the return pump for 15 minutes & let the powerheads run, the fish really stuck to their corner but they found some of the food. Downside while kids were looking at the clowns they heard a loud POP. Turns out one of my 200W Cobalt Heaters blew after 1 month of use. Luckily they have a 3 year warranty, I kept the receipts from August so we'll see how they do with it. I snagged a 150w Cobalt off my 65g that isn't quite running yet fortunately to get the heater wattage back up to 350W in the tank. The kids have named the clowns Nemo & Sparky. Petco had a gorgeous Dragon Wrasse that I want but appears they will quickly outgrow this tank by a lot so no go. These really are some pretty clowns & I chose them over the very nice looking Picasso's because they were a bit bigger & I'm hoping they survive.

 

[harthag12]

Quick update on the tank. I've added my light fixture finally. Aquatic life T5 with 3 Kessil A360WE. From the picture you can see I'm having issues with the T5's. I tested the fixture back in August when I purchased it, worked fine. 2 bulbs I received were cracked however so I sent them back & got replacements. While I tested the first two bulbs I didn't test the replacements. I hung the light & turn it on and can't get the front set of lights to turn on. I can get one to briefly flicker than off so I think I might have a bad bulb. Annoying. When I had the back set of T5 bulbs running no Kessil's my clowns started acting crazy. I think maybe they can see their reflection, not sure but the more aggressive one (Sparky) got even more aggressive nipping Nemo & really bullying Nemo so I've left the T5's off. The Kessils don't seem to affect them however. My Nitrates remain stupid high despite weekly 25g water changes & Chaeto. I do believe my Chaeto is growing though one of my two Dragons Breath isn't looking so hot. I still can't get the skimmer dialed in correctly albeit I haven't tried much. Today I receive my first corals, 13 frags $20 frags from Pieces of the Ocean; I also receive 9 fish from FishyBusinessAquatics; and pods & Phyto from PodyourReef plus more test kits, 2 part ect from Marinedepot so it's an exciting & hopefully not to disastrous day. I plan to put the livestock in this morning, do a water change at night, test all my parameters & go from there. On a side note my 65G JBJ finally finished cycling so that will start to get slowly stocked. Here's a pre new livestock shot

 

[harthag12]

Few quick picture updates as I caught the fish after eating. Loving the personalities & appearance of the new fish. I also bought 2 Tisbe, 2 Tigre & 2 Phyto from Pod Your Reef to help the tank. The Wrasse & 1 Lyretail immediately knew when they hit the tank.

 

[Clayton Jessup]

Beautiful build @harthag12 ! I am totally following along on this build !

 

[CJ Monty]

Hey I just got the same tank! I am setting it up now and thinking about the sump. You have a very nice and very large sump. How did you fit in with the brace in the front? I am worrying about if I need to remove the sump after the tank is running. I assume I would need to remove it without removing the center brace.