Eric's 120G build

[E_reefer]

So check out why arrived today!!

Unfortunately I had to run to an appointment so I wasn’t able to open the crate yet but the crates themselves are in damaged so that’s a good sign.

 

[E_reefer]

Opened it up and no damage! The crate was packed very well.

Very well built and nice clean lines. I went with Starphire glass on the front and sides, with reinforced corner seems, and flush euro-brace around the top and bottom.

 

[E_reefer]

More unpacking and leak test.

Also got this bad boy out!

And most importantly, the skimmer fits!

 

[NY_Caveman]

The tank looks really solid. I am starting to like the eurobrace concept for a larger tank. Was the 240 eurobraced?

 

[E_reefer]

The tank looks really solid. I am starting to like the eurobrace concept for a larger tank. Was the 240 eurobraced?

Yes- it had two cross sections across the top as well which made it a pain with big rocks.

 

[E_reefer]

Well I haven’t been able to setup the tank yet because we are getting our house painted. The painter we are using can’t start our house for a few more weeks [emoji30] so I started to just do the wall that I am putting the tank against- will do second coat tomorrow so I can start setting up the tank this weekend (hopefully)!

Stay tuned!

 

[E_reefer]

Oh and here is the nano- terrible I know I feel like a neglectful parent or something, the clown bites me harder than usual I’m sure because I’ve left her stuck in this algae infested cube. Kinda tough to keep up with it with only relying on water changes and hardly even doing those. [emoji52]

Hang in there, not too much longer little fellas!

 

[E_reefer]

Tank is in da house! Thanks to my salty neighbor, Jeff!

 

[E_reefer]

Made some more progress. The tank didn’t work on the wall we originally chose so we decided to put it where the old tank was. So yep more painting, but this wall is much smaller so no big deal.

And I kind of like painting- very relaxing and satisfying for me.

I will say- these setups are almost truly plug and play- I will only need to glue like 7 pieces- no measuring or cutting or any of that it is all already done! This thing should be wet in a few days!

I have to say the ease of setup for this feels a bit unfair- all of me previous setups were there own little version of hell setting up- especially the 240- it took me probably a whole month working on nights and weekends to hook up the sumps and plumbing with the proper configuration- so many leaks and long nights yo get it going right. And here with this new one its literally just put the glue the 3 drains, push the hoses onto barbs and boom- done! [emoji16]

I still need to create the light bracket for the canopy, I was originally going to use the rms setup from echotech but I cant fit the arms and don’t have the space for hanging it in the hood so I will be picking up some aluminum or steel tubing from home depot to whip up something simple.

Going to go fast now!


Oh one last thing- I saw this years ago on reef central- anyone else add silicone to the bulkhead threads?

 

[E_reefer]

Finished plumbing- I had to finish the bean animal setup.

I like the idea of all the unions for future maintenance, buuuut I can pretty much guarantee there will be a few leaks once its all running- just hoping the bulkheads are good because those will be the biggest pain to tighten. I also realized once the pipes were glued, everything was about an inch higher so I had to cut some blocks to bring the sump up

Added sand and rocks and started to fill er up!

[emoji898][emoji482][emoji225][emoji226][emoji225][emoji886]

 

[E_reefer]

Well I guess I jinxed myself, note to self: brag about ease of setup after the plumbing is done.... so the return bulkhead leaked pretty bad so as I was trying to fix I mangled the nut pretty badly. Then I took it out and as I was trying to get the barb fitting out I damaged the flange so I needed to order a new one which will arrive tomorrow.

On a positive note The display tank is full so I was able to fire up the mp40s to begin mixing salt. Rockscape is not complete but I kind of like how this initial setup looks.

I was also able to begin working on the light bracket. I decided to stick with the RMS because I already purchased the holding brackets an I like the versatility of the system as opposed to a fixed setup. I picked up some aluminum tubing from Home Depot, there will be 2 cross sections that I will mount the main light bracket to. going pretty simple with this but definitely not going to say it will be easy. [emoji854]

 

[E_reefer]

New return bulkhead is in and we have no leaks!!

Finally got to fire up the m1 and I could not believe how quiet it is. The skimmer will definitely be the loudest piece of equipment but its a pretty dull hum.

I need to increase the height of the stand pipes for the drains, as it is now there is a waterfall in my living room[emoji23]

I also made some progress on the light bracket- went pretty basic here but happy how it will be low profile as the canopy is not very high so I wanted to mount the lights as high as possible. I might paint the bracket, not sure on that yet. I just need to fasten the rail to the two cross pieces then snap the lights right to the rail.

I also added ammonium chloride to start the cycle.

 

[E_reefer]

We are off and running with the cycle, I had this api test kit for a while and it says it expired last July so I picked up a red sea ammonia test kit, It had good reviews so went for it. It has a nice color chart and super easy. I decided to also do the api as well to see if it is still reliable.

This was yesterday

Then today

It looks to have decreased for both tests, it is tough to see much difference with the api but the red sea definitely showed a drop- the color was more pale greenish than bluish so I added some more ammonia. We are heading out of town for the weekend so I will check again on Sunday and see where we’re at

 

[E_reefer]

Light bracket is done! It came out pretty nice- Was harder than I expected (motto for this build) but I like how it turned out. Im not going to paint it right now- the unfinished metal looks good to me.

One of the guys from my LFS has a bunch of branchy Tonga rock for sale, so I asked him for 30 lbs- which he should be dropping off later today.

I am thinking I am about 2-3 weeks until cycle is complete so I started thinking about what fish I want, and some of the more docile smaller fish, which we’ll call round 1 fish are: Royal gramma, longnose hawk, a few purple or red firefish, small group like 3 or 5 blue chromis, and some anthias. Also my cousin is a marine biologist and works for ORA and she told me she can get great deals on most fish they breed, especially the following clowns:

I really like picasso, snowflake, and gladiator. I’ve had a maroon and a tomato before and boy were they mean! The maroon would flip his tail in the sandbed and make the whole tank cloudy- and you could see little clownfish size bites out of other fishes fins so needless to say, both of those were re- homed to the LFS.

Fish I have now are: ocellaris clown, green coris wrasse, and pj cardinal.

The round 2 set, which is a couple months out, includes: potters or flame angel- I would like both but I think they would eventually fight- any experience with both would be much appreciated, kole tang, yellow tang (maybe- I tried 3 different times unsuccessful in 240) 6 line wrasse,

Round 3 - much later: mandarin, copperband butterfly (doubtful I will actually try one of these) perhaps a goby or blenny.

 

[NY_Caveman]

This is really coming together well!

 

[E_reefer]

This is really coming together well!

Yes it is!

I got the additional rock today

As you can see some of it is dry and some was recently pulled from a system. The partially live pieces should help move the cycle along. This is some excellent rock and it is closer to 40 lbs pounds total- all tonga and pukani.

I will try to get a tank shot with lights on tomorrow. It took me over an hour to configure the radions with the apex [emoji52] I tried to calibrate the ph probe but it didn’t work, I will look into it tomorrow, hopefully it will be OK to reuse the open calibration solution.

 

[E_reefer]

Full tank shot

I also did some wire management. I found some brackets for the echotech drivers on amazon.

 

[Dmsick]

Wow, very nice setup. super clean. I like it.

 

[E_reefer]

Wow, very nice setup. super clean. I like it.

Thank you! Yes, clean and modern were mandatory for my wife to be on board with a new setup.

 

[E_reefer]

Couple more iPhones pics

These lights are awesome!