First big tank, 125-gallon

[CMarieDennison]

I originally started with a 125-gallon, 4-foot tank at the beginning of the year. My husband started filling it with the RO/DI system attached to my sink directly into the tank while I was at work. It was forgotten about and flooded...the stand was pretty warped so I didn't trust it to hold the weight and while we waited to build a custom stand for it, I started a little 20-gallon AIO (In May) My stand is almost done now (I just have to finish staining it and add cabinet doors around it) but I am starting this thread to watch the progression (and maybe get tips, tricks and advice from you all as I go!) Immy AIO I have two clownfish, two peppermint shrimp, two trochus snails, two nassarius (sp?) snails and an emerald crab. I also have some weird tiny shrimp looking things that started showing up and crawling around my sand bed a couple months ago and idk what they are so that's...a thing that's happening lol.

Oct. 24th: started filling her up with RODI water.
Oct. 25th: Realized we had some wrong plumbing parts
Oct. 29th: Received the correct plumbing parts, started gluing everything together. Silliconed the sump together (it is an ugly job but...it'll be fine)

Cycle: Day 1 (Oct. 30th): Added Dr. Tim's One and Only and ammonia chloride.
Cycle: Day 2 (Oct. 31st): Salinity 20ppt, Temp 80F, Ph 8.0, Ammonia 2 (maybe more, very dark green but the kit only reads up to 2), Nitrite 1 (again maybe more, very dark pink but only reads to 1)
Cycle: Day 3 (Nov. 1st): Salinity 20ppt, Temp 80F, Ph 8.0, Ammonia 1.2, Nitrite 1 (did not add ammonia per instructions)
Cycle: Day 4 (Nov. 2nd): Salinity 20ppt, Temp 80F, Ph 8.0, Ammonia 0.2, Nitrite 1

 

[thomas_neil]

I originally started with a 125-gallon, 4-foot tank at the beginning of the year. My husband started filling it with the RO/DI system attached to my sink directly into the tank while I was at work. It was forgotten about and flooded...the stand was pretty warped so I didn't trust it to hold the weight and while we waited to build a custom stand for it, I started a little 20-gallon AIO (In May) My stand is almost done now (I just have to finish staining it and add cabinet doors around it) but I am starting this thread to watch the progression (and maybe get tips, tricks and advice from you all as I go!) Immy AIO I have two clownfish, two peppermint shrimp, two trochus snails, two nassarius (sp?) snails and an emerald crab. I also have some weird tiny shrimp looking things that started showing up and crawling around my sand bed a couple months ago and idk what they are so that's...a thing that's happening lol.

Oct. 24th: started filling her up with RODI water.
Oct. 25th: Realized we had some wrong plumbing parts
Oct. 29th: Received the correct plumbing parts, started gluing everything together. Silliconed the sump together (it is an ugly job but...it'll be fine)

Cycle: Day 1 (Oct. 30th): Added Dr. Tim's One and Only and ammonia chloride.
Cycle: Day 2 (Oct. 31st): Salinity 20ppt, Temp 80F, Ph 8.0, Ammonia 2 (maybe more, very dark green but the kit only reads up to 2), Nitrite 1 (again maybe more, very dark pink but only reads to 1)
Cycle: Day 3 (Nov. 1st): Salinity 20ppt, Temp 80F, Ph 8.0, Ammonia 1.2, Nitrite 1 (did not add ammonia per instructions)
Cycle: Day 4 (Nov. 2nd): Salinity 20ppt, Temp 80F, Ph 8.0, Ammonia 0.2, Nitrite 1

Like the build and custom stand. Do you always run 20ppt for salinity? That seems really low.

 

[CMarieDennison]

Like the build and custom stand. Do you always run 20ppt for salinity? That seems really low.

No, the 20 ppt for salinity and 80 degrees F is just for cycling according to Dr. Tim. Once cycled, it'll gradually be increased to the 0.125 and 78 like normal

 

[thomas_neil]

No, the 20 ppt for salinity and 80 degrees F is just for cycling according to Dr. Tim. Once cycled, it'll gradually be increased to the 0.125 and 78 like normal

Oh good, didn’t mean to sound rude if I did just wanted to make sure

 

[Rmckoy]

Looks great so far ..
following along to follow your journey

 

[CMarieDennison]

Okay I'm a dumb dumb, I need Sump advice

I bought a 29-gallon tank and a FijiCube baffle kit. The way I wanted it was: the intake will drain into my filter socks, flow into the refugium, through the bubble traps into the return chamber that has my protein skimmer and return pump.

However, I didn't take into consideration the fact that because of the slits at the bottom of the filter sock chamber, the water wont rise high enough to be a refugium. This is what I have at the moment-the red circling where my refugium was supposed to be. I have an extra baffle. Could I add it like this (second pic) and still make it work?

 

[Rmckoy]

Okay I'm a dumb dumb, I need Sump advice

I bought a 29-gallon tank and a FijiCube baffle kit. The way I wanted it was: the intake will drain into my filter socks, flow into the refugium, through the bubble traps into the return chamber that has my protein skimmer and return pump.

However, I didn't take into consideration the fact that because of the slits at the bottom of the filter sock chamber, the water wont rise high enough to be a refugium. This is what I have at the moment-the red circling where my refugium was supposed to be. I have an extra baffle. Could I add it like this (second pic) and still make it work?

The only concern with adding baffles would be the display tank has to drain somewhere when the power is disconnected . Raising the water level in the sump only reduces the amount of water allowed to fall into the sump .

 

[CMarieDennison]

Sorry for the hiatus, school got hectic and then the holidays came around and then I got three wisdom teeth pulled. I'm ready to get back into things lol.

Last I updated, I was trying to figure out the sump situation. The way I ended up doing it was the drain hoses go into the filter socks, I have one small chamber with rock rubble (just for more surface area) and the heater, the middle refugium, then the bubble traps and finally the return area that is also full of rock pieces that I'm just letting sit there until I figure out how I want to arrange them in the display. I will add a photo for reference.

Also yes, I'm realizing now that I need to clean the glass lol.

 

[CMarieDennison]

I have also since added some coral frags (two zoas, two riccordea mushrooms, and some GSP that I'm hoping to grow along my back wall.) I also added a Scopus tang, but he is super shy and very hard to get a photo of. I also adjusted my CUC. Both of my crabs died a few weeks apart from each other, no parameter swings or anything so I'm not really sure what happened there, and one of the shrimp died. So from my original CUC in the 20 g, I moved one shrimp, two trochus snails and two nassarius snails into the 120, and then added two turbo snails and five hermit crabs. Since then (this was on Jan 7), something ate one of my trochus snails :')

My stand is not finished, still, but I am working on it. I'll add a photo once the cabinets are added.

My parameters have been (roughly)

78 degrees (F)
1.024 salinity
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate (I know I need to get that up, I'm open to suggestions)

I try to keep Calcium around 420, Magnesium around 1300 and Alkalinity around 9.

I just ordered some Montipora caps, a frag of orange cloves and a Tyree rainbow stylophora that should be here this weekend. Once I get them dipped and set up, I'll post some photos.

 

[CMarieDennison]

I did try to grow some pulsing zenia on it's own rock, but it didn't make it.. I've been told that they don't handle shipping well and I also may have starved it with having not enough nitrates in the tank.

 

[Nano_Man]

That’s what you call a tank

 

[Soren]

This looks like a great start!
Check out this link to get your build thread added as a linked badge under your avatar:
Build thread badge

 

[CMarieDennison]

Quick update: Let me start with, I've learned my lesson.
There is a back and forth in the community about the pros and cons of QTing. One side says QT everything every time, and the other says that if you buy from a reputable place, watch them first etcetc then it'll be fine because QT stresses the fish so much that they die half the time anyway. So, for my first additional fish (a Scopus tang) to befriend my clownfish, I did not QT. I watched him in the store for a few days, I looked at everything else in the LFS, asked them about their QT processes etc. Everything was great! Brought him home and he immediately went to the clowns and hung out.

Fast forward a month later, I decide it's time for more. I went back to the same LFS and did the same thing, this time with a Rabbitfish and two Banggai Cardinals. Brought everyone home, dipped, acclimated, tossed them in. The rabbitfish, oddly enough, also went straight to the clowns and everyone just hung out in the corner the clowns are hosting. The cardinals went to the opposite side and ignored everyone.

For a few days, everything was fine. Everyone was eating, and the rabbitfish had resumed his bright yellow color after having faded a bit on the ride home). Then suddenly in the afternoon, the cardinals started breathing heavy and eventually were basically laying on the sand. I thought they were fighting each other because I was told that they might. So I started observing but they didn't fight, they just laid there. One was worse off than the other, and I sadly thought that the other one kicked his a**. But then I started worrying so I scooped them out (with my HANDS) and put them in a QT. Unfortunately, another hour passed and they died. I went ahead and inspected their bodies just to be nosy, and there was nothing visibly wrong with anyone. No inflamed gills, no spots or dust, no bulgy eyes or stomachs.

I chalked this up to fighting.

Until the next day, when my rabbit fish started acting funny. I immediately pulled him out and put him in a fresh QT with prazipro because I was like.. okay it wasn't fighting then. He was still swimming around and yellow but there were no signs of anything. I didn't know what to try to do if there were no symptoms and I didn't want to overload him with a bunch of medicines if he was already stressed. Unfortunately a couple hours later, he also passed away. I also inspected his body but there was just.. nothing.

SO

I ran over and eyeballed the sh** out of my clowns but they seemed just fine. I went ahead and sterilized the QT and set it back up, transferred the clowns and am in the process of letting my DT go fallow for the next 76 days

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

There is no back and forth on QT
Its a proven process that works.
Pretending you have vetted a pet shop is just pretending

 

[CMarieDennison]

There is no back and forth on QT
Its a proven process that works.
Pretending you have vetted a pet shop is just pretending

How could you possibly argue that there is no back and forth when there are literally hundreds of posts and threads and videos going back and forth. No one said the process doesn't work.