Dr. D's Deeply Dubious Mariner 100 Build

[Manose]

Update: After reviewing our credit card statement, my wife announced, “I think you should just have an empty tank with rock.”

New acronym: NFRO (No Fish Rock Only)

Tell her it's for pure education..............and tuition is expensive

 

[Dr. D]

Fluffy is handsome lad!

Build is lookin good.

She’s a girl, and very offended by your comment….

Best cat I ever had. Absolutely LOVES me and my wife, and HATES everyone and everything else!

 

[trini2debone]

Woke up this morning to learn that two Command Strips are not enough to hold up a Hydros controller.

Is this what they mean by a tank crash?

"tank crash"... Slow clap. LOL

 

[Proud]

I have absolutely no business starting a 100g reef tank. I've never had a tank of any kind, ever. My judgment is highly suspect. At home I'm not even allowed to choose paint colors for the walls. My closest friend is my cat, Fluffy, and even she seriously doubts the success of this endeavor:

Still, I've wanted a tank ever since I saw a baby cowfish in a pet store tank 30 years ago, and it's time. I doubt I'll ever get a cowfish, but perhaps I can manage a fish, or God willing a cow. Time will tell. I ordered an eSHOPPS Mariner 100 tank from FishTanksDirect for $2,499 shipped, with no tax. Part of me worries that the IRS (or somehow the FBI) will one day execute a no-knock warrant at my door, and I'll end up serving 15-to-life for tax evasion, like Al Capone.

The tank and cabinet arrived in a truck the size of a nuclear submarine, causing much excitement among the neighbors, who peeked from their caves like yellow gobies. The driver was kind enough to move the massive box into my garage, where I rushed to open it and check the tank before he fled. All was well:

The glass on this tank is 5/8" thick, so it weighs approximately 13% less than the Chrysler Building. It'll stay in the garage until Christmas, when a bunch of my ungrateful kids will be home to pay me back for everything by moving it inside. In the meantime I've been working on the cabinet, which goes together much like a piece of IKEA furniture but seems beefy enough:

While I'm pleased with the progress, Fluffy remains unimpressed:

I understand that many people believe capitalism has negatively impacted the reefing hobby... that we're lured into buying stuff we just don't need. Part of me is absolutely swayed by that thinking; I sometimes consider dumping my iPhone and going with an old-school flip-phone with no apps at all. That's when my wife looks at me and says, Yeah, right. She knows the truth: I'm a hopeless gadget freak.

I just love technology, even though I do believe (seriously, I do) that A.I. will ultimately kill us all, a la Terminator or any number of other doomsday apocalyptic scenarios. Sure, I'm a hypocrite, but let the next generation deal with existential killer robots. I'm Gen X, and we had to deal with our own demons, like Richard Simmons and Whitesnake. I want me some tank tech.

I'm super drawn to the Hydros ecosystem, and I've set up a Collective-- all I can think of is the Borg--

with a Kraken and Launch:

Now all I need is the tank.

And some fish I suppose.

To be continued...

I have absolutely no business starting a 100g reef tank. I've never had a tank of any kind, ever. My judgment is highly suspect. At home I'm not even allowed to choose paint colors for the walls. My closest friend is my cat, Fluffy, and even she seriously doubts the success of this endeavor:

Still, I've wanted a tank ever since I saw a baby cowfish in a pet store tank 30 years ago, and it's time. I doubt I'll ever get a cowfish, but perhaps I can manage a fish, or God willing a cow. Time will tell. I ordered an eSHOPPS Mariner 100 tank from FishTanksDirect for $2,499 shipped, with no tax. Part of me worries that the IRS (or somehow the FBI) will one day execute a no-knock warrant at my door, and I'll end up serving 15-to-life for tax evasion, like Al Capone.

The tank and cabinet arrived in a truck the size of a nuclear submarine, causing much excitement among the neighbors, who peeked from their caves like yellow gobies. The driver was kind enough to move the massive box into my garage, where I rushed to open it and check the tank before he fled. All was well:

The glass on this tank is 5/8" thick, so it weighs approximately 13% less than the Chrysler Building. It'll stay in the garage until Christmas, when a bunch of my ungrateful kids will be home to pay me back for everything by moving it inside. In the meantime I've been working on the cabinet, which goes together much like a piece of IKEA furniture but seems beefy enough:

While I'm pleased with the progress, Fluffy remains unimpressed:

I understand that many people believe capitalism has negatively impacted the reefing hobby... that we're lured into buying stuff we just don't need. Part of me is absolutely swayed by that thinking; I sometimes consider dumping my iPhone and going with an old-school flip-phone with no apps at all. That's when my wife looks at me and says, Yeah, right. She knows the truth: I'm a hopeless gadget freak.

I just love technology, even though I do believe (seriously, I do) that A.I. will ultimately kill us all, a la Terminator or any number of other doomsday apocalyptic scenarios. Sure, I'm a hypocrite, but let the next generation deal with existential killer robots. I'm Gen X, and we had to deal with our own demons, like Richard Simmons and Whitesnake. I want me some tank tech.

I'm super drawn to the Hydros ecosystem, and I've set up a Collective-- all I can think of is the Borg--

with a Kraken and Launch:

Now all I need is the tank.

And some fish I suppose.

To be continued....

exciting, following along

 

[Dr. D]

Christmas is finally here and the season of free labor has begun! Adult kids are here and quite excited about the build. My daughter is an art therapist and had great fun drafting an aquascape with me executive producing. Here’s what we came up with:

Here’s a top view. The white stuff is smaller than the actual tank floor:

Comments welcome, but better come quickly because she’s keen to start gluing.

Later: tank move.

 

[Manose]

Christmas is finally here and the season of free labor has begun! Adult kids are here and quite excited about the build. My daughter is an art therapist and had great fun drafting an aquascape with me executive producing. Here’s what we came up with:

Here’s a top view. The white stuff is smaller than the actual tank floor:

Comments welcome, but better come quickly because she’s keen to start gluing.

Later: tank move.

Yeah start gluing!!! I love it!!

 

[Proud]

Christmas is finally here and the season of free labor has begun! Adult kids are here and quite excited about the build. My daughter is an art therapist and had great fun drafting an aquascape with me executive producing. Here’s what we came up with:

Here’s a top view. The white stuff is smaller than the actual tank floor:

Comments welcome, but better come quickly because she’s keen to start gluing.

Later: tank move.

that's really good, getting the kids involve.

 

[Dr. D]

Finally the tank is installed! It wasn’t bad with four of us and some glass suction cup things. The Mariner looks beautiful on its stand.

We ended up changing the aqua scape in the tank. The pic doesn’t convey it well, but it looks great in person.

Tomorrow, plumbing!

 

[Dr. D]

that's really good, getting the kids involve.

They’re actually very excited which is cool. My daughter is gluing the rocks together right now.

 

[Johnd651]

Nice. Following along. If you ever need anything or a helping hand, let me know.

 

[Proud]

Finally the tank is installed! It wasn’t bad with four of us and some glass suction cup things. The Mariner looks beautiful on its stand.

We ended up changing the aqua scape in the tank. The pic doesn’t convey it well, but it looks great in person.

Tomorrow, plumbinge Mariner looked so beautiful, congratulations.

Finally the tank is installed! It wasn’t bad with four of us and some glass suction cup things. The Mariner looks beautiful on its stand.

We ended up changing the aqua scape in the tank. The pic doesn’t convey it well, but it looks great in person.

Tomorrow, plumbing!

Loved the aquascape. Ahhh the Mariner looked so beautiful, congratulations.

 

[Dr. D]

Making some good progress today.

It's too cold outside to hook up the hose, so I washed sand in the kitchen sink in a large bowl, a few handfuls at a time, rinsing each batch a number of times until the runoff was relatively clear. It wasn't too tedious. I stopped after washing 60 lbs, since that looked about right in the tank. The package recommends 1 lb per gallon of tank, but 100 lbs seems excessive to me. I can always judge it again later.

I took my RO/DI system from its usual perch in the utility room and set it up closer to my tank. Using it is satisfying, like I'm running my own little water treatment plant. Got a 25-ft length of 1/4" tubing at Home Depot, and I was ready to make water....

My RO/DI says the water from the tap has 88 parts per million of dissolved solids. Is that typical?

In stage 2 it actually reads higher, around 90 ppm, which struck me as odd.

Luckily the final product reads zero!

This process produces way more waste water than I expected-- for other noobs, don't think you can use a trash can for the waste line and walk away. Luckily I had it draining outside.

I worry that my right-hand rock structure is too high. Are there any corals that like the light but don't grow tall, for the top of Mount Everest?

I've installed the AI Hydra 32 lights. The brackets are nice, but I don't care for the way they aren't level when installed, unless I did something wrong. I think I can remedy this by placing some rubber between the back tank wall and the vertical bracket arm inside the tank, forcing it to 90 degrees.

I've ordered two clowns and three cardinals from Dr. Reef as my initial fish, for delivery later on.

Overall a satisfying day!

 

[josh57]

Making some good progress today.

It's too cold outside to hook up the hose, so I washed sand in the kitchen sink in a large bowl, a few handfuls at a time, rinsing each batch a number of times until the runoff was relatively clear. It wasn't too tedious. I stopped after washing 60 lbs, since that looked about right in the tank. The package recommends 1 lb per gallon of tank, but 100 lbs seems excessive to me. I can always judge it again later.

I took my RO/DI system from its usual perch in the utility room and set it up closer to my tank. Using it is satisfying, like I'm running my own little water treatment plant. Got a 25-ft length of 1/4" tubing at Home Depot, and I was ready to make water....

My RO/DI says the water from the tap has 88 parts per million of dissolved solids. Is that typical?

In stage 2 it actually reads higher, around 90 ppm, which struck me as odd.

Luckily the final product reads zero!

This process produces way more waste water than I expected-- for other noobs, don't think you can use a trash can for the waste line and walk away. Luckily I had it draining outside.

I worry that my right-hand rock structure is too high. Are there any corals that like the light but don't grow tall, for the top of Mount Everest?

I've installed the AI Hydra 32 lights. The brackets are nice, but I don't care for the way they aren't level when installed, unless I did something wrong. I think I can remedy this by placing some rubber between the back tank wall and the vertical bracket arm inside the tank, forcing it to 90 degrees.

I've ordered two clowns and three cardinals from Dr. Reef as my initial fish, for delivery later on.

Overall a satisfying day!

I think your mountain is too high too. It looks taller than my tallest rock and I feel like mine is too tall too IMO.

 

[Dr. D]

I think your mountain is too high too. It looks taller than my tallest rock and I feel like mine is too tall too IMO.

I worry about that too. I blame it on my daughter.

 

[Manose]

Making some good progress today.

It's too cold outside to hook up the hose, so I washed sand in the kitchen sink in a large bowl, a few handfuls at a time, rinsing each batch a number of times until the runoff was relatively clear. It wasn't too tedious. I stopped after washing 60 lbs, since that looked about right in the tank. The package recommends 1 lb per gallon of tank, but 100 lbs seems excessive to me. I can always judge it again later.

I took my RO/DI system from its usual perch in the utility room and set it up closer to my tank. Using it is satisfying, like I'm running my own little water treatment plant. Got a 25-ft length of 1/4" tubing at Home Depot, and I was ready to make water....

My RO/DI says the water from the tap has 88 parts per million of dissolved solids. Is that typical?

In stage 2 it actually reads higher, around 90 ppm, which struck me as odd.

Luckily the final product reads zero!

This process produces way more waste water than I expected-- for other noobs, don't think you can use a trash can for the waste line and walk away. Luckily I had it draining outside.

I worry that my right-hand rock structure is too high. Are there any corals that like the light but don't grow tall, for the top of Mount Everest?

I've installed the AI Hydra 32 lights. The brackets are nice, but I don't care for the way they aren't level when installed, unless I did something wrong. I think I can remedy this by placing some rubber between the back tank wall and the vertical bracket arm inside the tank, forcing it to 90 degrees.

I've ordered two clowns and three cardinals from Dr. Reef as my initial fish, for delivery later on.

Overall a satisfying day!

Some really nice encrusting sps like a burning banana Stylocoeaniella would be perfect on the tall rock.

 

[Dr. D]

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT TO FUTURE BONEHEADS:

It helps if you install the lights properly, with the arm on the outside of the tank...

 

[Dr. D]

After a complete bonehead moment re. my RO/DI system (note: you actually have to install the membrane cartridge), I was finally able to fill the tank, add salt (Reef Crystals, the only brand available within an hour's drive), and add a bottle of Dr. Tim's critters/ammonia yesterday. Here's the current view, with a modified aquascape. It's hard to get a good pic, but the left-side mountain has a nice arch, and there are various caves available all over:

I've installed my two heaters. Originally I had them connected to an INKBIRD controller, but I found it confusing to have three levels of control: 1) the heaters themselves have a dial-control, 2) INKBIRD, and 3) Hydros. I removed the INKBIRD and now set the heaters themselves to 78, and the Hydros to a broader safety range. I like to have as much as possible hooked up to the Hydros, whose lights and cables impress any visitor who doesn't know my limitations. I like to sigh and say, "Yeah, it requires a certain level of electrical engineering knowledge, but it's no big deal." My wife and Fluffy then roll their eyes.

I've gone all-in on the Hydros ecosystem, which really appeals to me. Currently I have the following in a Collective:

• a Kraken, hooked up to a 100AH marine battery backup
• a Launch
• a Wave Engine

I finally see why some people have so many controllers-- I already need more sense ports and electrical outlets. I've ordered an X8 and XS, which should keep me covered for a time. I've enjoyed figuring out the tech. It's certainly not Apple-level simple, but what is? I've found Coralvue support extremely responsive and helpful, so I feel confident enough to dive even further into automation.

I've upgraded my RO/DI setup a bit. It's around 90 feet away from the tank in a utility room:

I added an auto-shutoff float to each BRUTE can. Each has a pump inside to force water through hoses to my tank. Since I'll be so far from the electrical outlets when I need to start and stop water flow, I installed two amazon smart plugs, which I can now control by voice from anywhere, as in "Alexa, turn on Salt Pump" etc.

I'd like to install one or two retractable hose reels, with plastic fittings and appropriate tubing installed, so I can easily schlep the hose(s) to and from the tank about 90' away, and up a half-level. I've posted questions in other threads to see how others have achieved this.

My Avast Plank feeder arrived, which was cool. It's quite beefy, and makes me wish I knew how to use a 3D printer.

Now I just test the water as I cycle the tank, in anticipation of my first fish late next week!

 

[Dr. D]

Realized that while I thought I’d purchased every test kit imaginable, I neglected to get one for Ammonia. FedEx was supposed to deliver one today, but didn’t. Cycling blind until they arrive.

 

[Johnd651]

Realized that while I thought I’d purchased every test kit imaginable, I neglected to get one for Ammonia. FedEx was supposed to deliver one today, but didn’t. Cycling blind until they arrive.

You can grab just test strips at petco in town

 

[Dr. D]

Thanks— I never considered that they might have something