- Joined
- Jan 7, 2017
- Messages
- 136
- Reaction score
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Hello,
This is my first build thread. It’s going to a little long winded because I want to document everything, successes, failures, mistakes and the funny little quirks. I also want a log because one day when this thing becomes what I want it to be I can look back and think maybe all that frustration anger and swearing was worth it.
My history (Skip this if you want it’s not really pertinent except to document my lack of patience). I started my first 20-gallon saltwater tank in 2015. I quickly upgraded from that to a 40, then a 75, then a 120 in the span of about a year. My 120 was up for about 3 years and got moved once when I bought a house. I really did enjoy the 120 however I ended up fighting dinoflagellates for about 5-6 months towards the end. The tank went largely unkept, besides feedings, because of this. It was to the point that I couldn’t even see through the glass because of the algae. During that time I continued to look through the forums and marvel at what these tanks can actually become. It started to peak my interests again.
I always enjoyed 1) the rimless tank look and 2) the 180 gallon footprint. The length allows more room for larger fish and more rock-space to get creative. I started looking at the water box and Red Sea reef aquariums and spent months comparing and contrasting that vs a standard vs a custom tank (I can dream but there was no way I was going to be affording that).
This is where the build thread actually starts.
Finally after sitting and staring and websites I placed my order July 9th with a 4-8 week backorder… Enough time to get equipment planned and purchased.
I was deathly afraid of introducing anything from my old tank into my new tank because I thought it would bring dinoflagellates and bad luck. I started with all new equipment. My list started as:
2 Ecotech MP40WQD
ATI Sunpower 8x80W
CAD lights Hanger
Super Reef Octopus 3000-INT skimmer
3 Eheim Jager 300W heaters
Tunze Osmolator
Jebao DCT return pump
80 pounds of Marco Rocks
80 TB saltwater Live rock
40 Lbs Fiji pink dry stand
40 Lbs Special grade dry sand
I already had an APEX on my old tank that I was going to use
My previous stock included:
Copperband Butterflyfish
Biota Yellow Tang
3 Lyretail Anthias
1 Banggai cardinalfish
1 Melanarus wrasse
1 Dwarf lionfish
I acquired equipment which sat, and sat, and sat. Weeks went by with no tank. I am not a naturally patient person so it was killing me I couldn’t do anything with my new tank. I started to pay more attention to my other tank which, once scraping the sheet of algae off the front glass, actually had become stable and dino free (Amazing what some time and patience can do). The fish were fat as all get out (the auto feeder was allowed to run wild, I also would drop cubes in about every other day.
October rolls around and I finally get a message that my tank is shipping. Awesome! Now Let me tell you one thing that I did not account for is that these tanks are heavy. I read all these posts about it taking 4-5 people to carry these and for some reason my brain was like “nah I can get like one person to help and we got this.” Yeah… that’s not the case. That’s okay. I have time to place my order with TB saltwater for my rock.
A week later stand was assembled. Now I have a stand and a hanging kit set up for the tank however I’ve got to assemble the crew that’s going to haul this thing down to the basement. It took myself, my coworker, a bodybuilder and my girlfriend to get this thing INTO the house. Luckily the basement is a straight shot from the garage. Using an SUV to hold the pallet it came on in place we slid it down the stairs and then carried it the whole 12 feet from the stairs to the stand. It took 2 hours. I’m not allowed to ask them for help anymore.
Tanks on the stand, looking clean. I’m giddy like a kid on Christmas opening a Nintendo 64 (you know the video). Now I need to get this thing plumbed and wet. It took about 2 full day and 1 carefully monitored one for my 75 GPD to fill this bad boy. I filled it up and checked the plumbing (Because that’s what you do….fill er up straight away with RODI and hope it all works….). Lucky for me it ran like a top. Now its time to put the Marco rock and sand in. Guess who didn’t account for that neat thing called DISPLACEMENT. So after putting the sand in this came across my mind. Crisis averted. Sand in, rocks in, salt in. Feeling pretty good.
I ordered my TBS rocks. From order to delivery took about two weeks. Gave the tank some time to sit and me some time to put together the controller board.
November 1st I went to pick up my rocks at the airport for the receptionist to tell me “Someone already picked them up.” Now I live in South Dakota. There aren’t many people here who would be picking up rocks at 10 am. Turns out they got sent with a local shipping company who handles all the LFS shipments. They call him back and I get my rock. Go home and open the boxes, put it in the tank, stare at it all.
There is a lot of cool stuff on the TBS rocks. Macro algae, Pistol shrimp, Barnacles, crabs. Its good for me because I get to watch these things run around while I wait for the tank to “cycle” (Mini-cycle?). I didn’t have much die off even though I used straight ammonia to feed the cycle. In this time I also got lucky and got myself a Neptune Trident!
I let the tank cycle for about 2 months. This is when it could handle a larger amount of ammonia in a short amount of time. It was time to tear down the old tank and put my fish into the new. The fish went in Dec 15th.
Fish in, looking good. Not too much for algae growth yet. Thought I was ready to go. Let it sit for about a month before I started to want to add corals. Found some local guys selling SPS and decided to add them. Also added a Regal angelfish. They did pretty well. This brings us to the end of January.
Then I seen’t them…… Dinoflagellates.
This is my first build thread. It’s going to a little long winded because I want to document everything, successes, failures, mistakes and the funny little quirks. I also want a log because one day when this thing becomes what I want it to be I can look back and think maybe all that frustration anger and swearing was worth it.
My history (Skip this if you want it’s not really pertinent except to document my lack of patience). I started my first 20-gallon saltwater tank in 2015. I quickly upgraded from that to a 40, then a 75, then a 120 in the span of about a year. My 120 was up for about 3 years and got moved once when I bought a house. I really did enjoy the 120 however I ended up fighting dinoflagellates for about 5-6 months towards the end. The tank went largely unkept, besides feedings, because of this. It was to the point that I couldn’t even see through the glass because of the algae. During that time I continued to look through the forums and marvel at what these tanks can actually become. It started to peak my interests again.
I always enjoyed 1) the rimless tank look and 2) the 180 gallon footprint. The length allows more room for larger fish and more rock-space to get creative. I started looking at the water box and Red Sea reef aquariums and spent months comparing and contrasting that vs a standard vs a custom tank (I can dream but there was no way I was going to be affording that).
This is where the build thread actually starts.
Finally after sitting and staring and websites I placed my order July 9th with a 4-8 week backorder… Enough time to get equipment planned and purchased.
I was deathly afraid of introducing anything from my old tank into my new tank because I thought it would bring dinoflagellates and bad luck. I started with all new equipment. My list started as:
2 Ecotech MP40WQD
ATI Sunpower 8x80W
CAD lights Hanger
Super Reef Octopus 3000-INT skimmer
3 Eheim Jager 300W heaters
Tunze Osmolator
Jebao DCT return pump
80 pounds of Marco Rocks
80 TB saltwater Live rock
40 Lbs Fiji pink dry stand
40 Lbs Special grade dry sand
I already had an APEX on my old tank that I was going to use
My previous stock included:
Copperband Butterflyfish
Biota Yellow Tang
3 Lyretail Anthias
1 Banggai cardinalfish
1 Melanarus wrasse
1 Dwarf lionfish
I acquired equipment which sat, and sat, and sat. Weeks went by with no tank. I am not a naturally patient person so it was killing me I couldn’t do anything with my new tank. I started to pay more attention to my other tank which, once scraping the sheet of algae off the front glass, actually had become stable and dino free (Amazing what some time and patience can do). The fish were fat as all get out (the auto feeder was allowed to run wild, I also would drop cubes in about every other day.
October rolls around and I finally get a message that my tank is shipping. Awesome! Now Let me tell you one thing that I did not account for is that these tanks are heavy. I read all these posts about it taking 4-5 people to carry these and for some reason my brain was like “nah I can get like one person to help and we got this.” Yeah… that’s not the case. That’s okay. I have time to place my order with TB saltwater for my rock.
A week later stand was assembled. Now I have a stand and a hanging kit set up for the tank however I’ve got to assemble the crew that’s going to haul this thing down to the basement. It took myself, my coworker, a bodybuilder and my girlfriend to get this thing INTO the house. Luckily the basement is a straight shot from the garage. Using an SUV to hold the pallet it came on in place we slid it down the stairs and then carried it the whole 12 feet from the stairs to the stand. It took 2 hours. I’m not allowed to ask them for help anymore.
Tanks on the stand, looking clean. I’m giddy like a kid on Christmas opening a Nintendo 64 (you know the video). Now I need to get this thing plumbed and wet. It took about 2 full day and 1 carefully monitored one for my 75 GPD to fill this bad boy. I filled it up and checked the plumbing (Because that’s what you do….fill er up straight away with RODI and hope it all works….). Lucky for me it ran like a top. Now its time to put the Marco rock and sand in. Guess who didn’t account for that neat thing called DISPLACEMENT. So after putting the sand in this came across my mind. Crisis averted. Sand in, rocks in, salt in. Feeling pretty good.
I ordered my TBS rocks. From order to delivery took about two weeks. Gave the tank some time to sit and me some time to put together the controller board.
November 1st I went to pick up my rocks at the airport for the receptionist to tell me “Someone already picked them up.” Now I live in South Dakota. There aren’t many people here who would be picking up rocks at 10 am. Turns out they got sent with a local shipping company who handles all the LFS shipments. They call him back and I get my rock. Go home and open the boxes, put it in the tank, stare at it all.
There is a lot of cool stuff on the TBS rocks. Macro algae, Pistol shrimp, Barnacles, crabs. Its good for me because I get to watch these things run around while I wait for the tank to “cycle” (Mini-cycle?). I didn’t have much die off even though I used straight ammonia to feed the cycle. In this time I also got lucky and got myself a Neptune Trident!
I let the tank cycle for about 2 months. This is when it could handle a larger amount of ammonia in a short amount of time. It was time to tear down the old tank and put my fish into the new. The fish went in Dec 15th.
Fish in, looking good. Not too much for algae growth yet. Thought I was ready to go. Let it sit for about a month before I started to want to add corals. Found some local guys selling SPS and decided to add them. Also added a Regal angelfish. They did pretty well. This brings us to the end of January.
Then I seen’t them…… Dinoflagellates.