Cleverbs
Active Member
Well I built my tank almost 2 years ago now. A little back ground about my reef experience before we get started. I started off with a 29g Tank that I ran for a few months. I then converted my 75g Planted tank into a reef...learned a lot. Never had a lot of luck with my 75g. I had the 75g for about 2 years and it went from reef tank to a FOWLR tank back to Reef. I just had trouble keeping corals because they would be doing well but never really growing and then suddenly everything would start dying off slowly, so I went with a fowlr tank and really enjoyed it at the time but I always felt I was missing coral. The challenge of coral just kept bringing me back to it. I then bought a new house so I decided to upgrade to a 220g. I had gotten a 7ft 210g tank and sump and stand from a guy for free The tank was in bad shape because it was terribly scratched on the fron. I then decided I could just flip it around and use the back as the front however he had hard water etch the glass causing a weird fog like hue over the glass. So after much talk I decided I would just buy a new tank. So lets just get into the build.
Current Equipment:
220g Display
30g Cube Display Frag Tank
30g Sump
Reef Octopus Regal INT250
Flowmax Return (I dont remember)
Dual Chamber Reactor for GFO/Carbon
Gyre Riptide
2x WP40's (Soon to be replaced)
72" Hamilton 3x 250W MH Radiums 4x 80W T5HO /w M80 ballast (220g Lights)
175W MH over frag tank (not sure what brand but its nice)
RW-4 In frag tank
Jebao Dosing Pump
Reef Keeper Lite /w PH, Temp, ATO
All Dry Rock!
I started my 220g as an LPS tank and am now turning it into a SPS tank. That is why I run all MH now. I just didnt think the LED's had what it took, at least the ones that I felt comfortable buying in my price range.
Here was my Planted tank that got me into the whole Aquarium Hobby
[/IMG]
Then Turned it into a reef
Here is the stand when I got it and then when I was finished with it. I stipped it down inside and out, siliconed the inside along with painting it in kilz then painted it black. also I had to ditch that sump and build my own out of a 30g breeder
The tank was then cycled and all that good stuff, Didnt take long because I had so much live rock from my other tank. At the time I was a fanboy of LED so I got 3x AI Hydras and they did ok for my LPS tank but never really got the growth I wanted. Here is a picture of the tank when it was at its best in LPS. along with a video.
[video]http://vid159.photobucket.com/albums/t137/CleverBs/066_zps2ce7bd9e.mp4[/video]
At this time I was getting Married and was super busy so water changes got put to the side. I had always done a 40g Water change every sunday. Well when I started skipping water changes things started going down hill, I had no idea why and I couldnt figure it out. I wasnt very knowledgable on the balance of Alk/Cal/Mag at the time because I had never done any kind of dosing, I was just doing water changes and it was keeping up with the demand at the time from just pure luck. My alk fell through the floor and my mag did to, I left for my honeymoon and when I got back 90% of my coral was gone. It was terrible. So I cleaned up my tank and just took a break from coral for a few months and did tons and tons of research as well as getting everything back in order. I learned a ton about dosing and what params to have. I learned what caused my problem in the first place. I then decided I would restart the tank and go for SPS, I loved LPS but I wanted to try something new. So I started collecting the things I needed to convert my tank into a LPS tank into an SPS tank and get a few things to prevent my last issue to ever happen again.
1st step: Get a dosing pump! So I got one
2nd step: Get 2part from BRS (in the future I will make my own)
3rd step: Remove sandbed (I am just a sand hater, I tried it with my lps tank and never really cared much for it)
4th step: New Lights!
5th step: Build a frag tank just because I have always wanted one
6th step: Bump up flow so I bought a Gyre
7th step: grab some sps and see how they do for a month
So the only thing I have left that I want to do is take out all my rock, remove the remains of the sand bed I had under the rocks, and put down an HDPE board.
Here is the tank as it stands today along with the frag tank by its side.
Right now it is filled with SPS and I have gotten rid of a lot of the LPS.
Current Equipment:
220g Display
30g Cube Display Frag Tank
30g Sump
Reef Octopus Regal INT250
Flowmax Return (I dont remember)
Dual Chamber Reactor for GFO/Carbon
Gyre Riptide
2x WP40's (Soon to be replaced)
72" Hamilton 3x 250W MH Radiums 4x 80W T5HO /w M80 ballast (220g Lights)
175W MH over frag tank (not sure what brand but its nice)
RW-4 In frag tank
Jebao Dosing Pump
Reef Keeper Lite /w PH, Temp, ATO
All Dry Rock!
I started my 220g as an LPS tank and am now turning it into a SPS tank. That is why I run all MH now. I just didnt think the LED's had what it took, at least the ones that I felt comfortable buying in my price range.
Here was my Planted tank that got me into the whole Aquarium Hobby
[/IMG]Then Turned it into a reef
Here is the stand when I got it and then when I was finished with it. I stipped it down inside and out, siliconed the inside along with painting it in kilz then painted it black. also I had to ditch that sump and build my own out of a 30g breeder
The tank was then cycled and all that good stuff, Didnt take long because I had so much live rock from my other tank. At the time I was a fanboy of LED so I got 3x AI Hydras and they did ok for my LPS tank but never really got the growth I wanted. Here is a picture of the tank when it was at its best in LPS. along with a video.
[video]http://vid159.photobucket.com/albums/t137/CleverBs/066_zps2ce7bd9e.mp4[/video]
At this time I was getting Married and was super busy so water changes got put to the side. I had always done a 40g Water change every sunday. Well when I started skipping water changes things started going down hill, I had no idea why and I couldnt figure it out. I wasnt very knowledgable on the balance of Alk/Cal/Mag at the time because I had never done any kind of dosing, I was just doing water changes and it was keeping up with the demand at the time from just pure luck. My alk fell through the floor and my mag did to, I left for my honeymoon and when I got back 90% of my coral was gone. It was terrible. So I cleaned up my tank and just took a break from coral for a few months and did tons and tons of research as well as getting everything back in order. I learned a ton about dosing and what params to have. I learned what caused my problem in the first place. I then decided I would restart the tank and go for SPS, I loved LPS but I wanted to try something new. So I started collecting the things I needed to convert my tank into a LPS tank into an SPS tank and get a few things to prevent my last issue to ever happen again.
1st step: Get a dosing pump! So I got one
2nd step: Get 2part from BRS (in the future I will make my own)
3rd step: Remove sandbed (I am just a sand hater, I tried it with my lps tank and never really cared much for it)
4th step: New Lights!
5th step: Build a frag tank just because I have always wanted one
6th step: Bump up flow so I bought a Gyre
7th step: grab some sps and see how they do for a month
So the only thing I have left that I want to do is take out all my rock, remove the remains of the sand bed I had under the rocks, and put down an HDPE board.
Here is the tank as it stands today along with the frag tank by its side.
Right now it is filled with SPS and I have gotten rid of a lot of the LPS.
