First reef build

[BigBadBonham]

Figure since I'm new around here I can show you guys what I'm working with. I first bought this 90 gallon used with the stand and canopy, a wet dry setup, HOB overflow, coralife skimmer, and I believe it is a pump mag 12 return pump for a couple hundred bucks. The rims were cracked and I didn't really like the look of the silicone so apart it came. I removed the top rim and began to razor blade the silicone. I cleaned everything out wiped down with some alcohol and just like that I resealed my first aquarium. My frames were on back order for some time so that gave me a little time to get some of the stuff i would need together. I ordered a Trigger triton 34 sump, Synergy 16" shadow overflow, plumbing in 1" pvc dual 3/4 loc-line returns and 1" bulkheads. I purchased a BRS 5 stage RO/DI used and installed the 150 gpd upgrade kit and booster pump. I filled the tank for the first time yesterday and it has been running for about 24 hours now leak free. I should have my powerheads in the next couple days as well as a different return pump because this pump is far too loud for my liking. I am going to give the Jabao DCP-10000 return pump a try for the price I thought it was worth a shot. I am waiting on the icecap gyre 3k which I plan on using for my main in tank circulation with 2 hydor koralia nano 565 pumps on the back glass to create a little turbulence controlled by the smart wave pump controller. I feel like I might be missing something but all will be covered. If you manged to read through all of this and are still interested I hope my picture uploads work! thanks for reading and I will keep you updated as I move forward. OH! My goals: since this will be my first salt water tank in general I will be fish only for a while until I have a good feel for keeping trace elements and salinity balanced and I will move onto softies and LPS.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Sounds like it will be a nice build! I have a new Icecap 3k just waiting to get wet in mine. Almost there! Looking forward to the pics!

 

[BigBadBonham]

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I see some good times in your future, congrats on the build!

 

[BigBadBonham]

thank you! Im really excited and just as nervous at the same time! hahaha

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I'm in the same boat, but these people are all willing to help you along the way. Ask questions!

 

[BigBadBonham]

I plan too! I have a lot to learn yet.

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

Following along, this is going to be a fun build

 

[BigBadBonham]

Little update not much but this is what I got done today. Received the return pump wave controller a refractometer with calibration fluid today. My hydor power heads will be here tomorrow and I can set them up and play with the controller. My icecap gyre 3K will be here in the next couple days. I have to say guys, this return pump I'm super happy with. The pump is rated for 2500gph or so. I have it set to 65% and tuned it in. Honestly this thing is DEAD SILENT! I couldn't be happier with my 100 dollar DC return pump. the only thing I hear is the trickle of water from my overflow and the trickle it makes in the sump when the water flows into the return pump chamber. Which I am undecided on if i want to add more water to the system or not to fix that. I included a picture of everything the pump came with in the box. Aside from the soft tubing on the barb fitting, That is from my system. I am very very happy with it. It has only been running for 20 minutes or so, so I cant say much longevity but as of right now, extremely happy. I also included a shot of the 40lbs of dry rock I purchased from my LFS as well as 40lbs of live sand. I feel like im jumping the gun here but I also ordered a 175 gallon bucket of red sea purple bucket salt 8oz of dr. tims one and only as well as an extra 40lbs of rock from BRS (reef saver). im trying my hardest to wait here but things are really falling together and I think I will try and get salt in this thing in a week or so and start my cycle. Someone tell me I'm crazy so I can throttle back hahahahaha. I'm just too excited right now. I am also undecided on a light. I know I want LEDs but as far as what I'm torn. I was originally thinking 2 Hydra 26's or possibly 1 kessil AP700. But the more I read about these SB reef lights the more I think I will try them out. I emailed them last night for a little guidance as to what fixture and how many but have not heard anything back yet. Maybe someone can give me a little guidance here. Again my goals with the tank are to eventually get into LPS and softies but will be FOWLR for a while until I get the hang of things but I dont want to have to rebuy another lighting fixture when I do decide to dive into corals.

 

[BigBadBonham]

Alright guys so I got my other pumps in, got the sand and rock in the tank and kinda playing with scape. I really like the way this came out but Im not sure if Ill regret it somewhere down the line for coral placement. Id really appreciate some input here. my Hydor pumps are currently in the sump keeping things stirred up down there to catch in a filter pad I threw in before the return pump. The gyre I may move to the other side or possibly leave it on that side and place it longways to push water cross the back wall. Again undecided I think its something that I will just have keep playing with to find a system that works the best. The gyre I will say is pretty loud even on 50% but I've read that they tend to quiet down over time so we'll see how that works out. Im thinking today Ill get some salt in the tank and monitor evaporation daily over the next few days to get on a good top off schedule until I get an ATO. Luckily its a long weekend! Hope you guys enjoy the time off, I know I will!

 

[NY_Caveman]

I would try the gyre vertical with that aquascape. Along the back as you said. It should break in and be quieter.

I would make one of the structures less high. Either one. It will give you more room for growth and not look so even across the tank.

Unless you glued them already, then I love it. LOL!

 

[BigBadBonham]

Not glued yet just playing with it. I was thinking of taking the top rock off the left and connecting the 2 together with it.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I personally like the separation, but you get to look at it the most. I think I would lessen the right one, again, just me, by removing the two rocks to the left on that structure.

 

[BigBadBonham]

Well guys after some thought I decided to join the 2 islands together for more coral placement down the road. I'm pretty happy with it. Just giving it some time, probably another week or so until I test water to start chasing my cycle. I have a bottle of Dr. tims but I'm not sure if I'll use it or not. as much as I would like to get fish tank right away I really don't want to go through all the stress of the new tank syndrome with fish in the tank. We'll see if I can hold off. hahahaha.

 

[BigBadBonham]

okay guys sorry for the delayed update ive been quite busy with work and things around the house on top of getting the tank going its just been a lot. so heres the rundown of whats been going on since the last updated about a month ago. I did a fishless cycle with the dr tims and used the ammonia from dr tims. cycle did not take long at all I think it was less than 2 weeks. I left the lights off while cycling. I got the kessil h80 tuna flora that im using as a light for the fuge set on the lowest intensity at the moment on the grow spectrum running 24 hours a day. Im running a reef octopus classic 150sss skimmer. It was basically the only one I could find that would fit in my sump and be enough for the water volume and I still think its small. I have all my controllers mounted inside the cabinet except my return pump is mounted on the outside (please excuse the cord mess I will be taking care of that tomorrow). I dont know why I did it that way but they're all velcro so can be moved if I want. Im also running 2 16" vipar spectra led fixtures off amazon. I figure they'll get me by for the time being and I really like the built in timer feature. Trying to get the lights about 8" off the water was what I tackled today. I built a pvc frame to stand off about 12" off the stand. for the fixtures I did 2 90 degree bends up into the canopy and mounted the canopy on top of the pvc frame. Tomorrow I plan on painting the frame black and figuring out how to get the lights to hang basically tight on the pcv so that they are completely tucked into the canopy and then I can cut the legs of the pvc about 3-4" and bring it down some. Right now the lights hang about 10" off the water I'm really happy about how the whole thing came together for a couple hours of work. I didnt take much pictures of the frame while building it but if you guys want to see better pictures of it just let me know I can take some when I'm painting tomorrow. I have the lights programmed to run 10 hours throughout the day. whites are on for 6 hours during that time. The pictures I took today looked a lot better on my phone but don't look that great on my computer with the blues on. I'm sorry. Ill take a couple of the tank tomorrow during the day when the whites are on and hopefully they come out better. Oh the best part! I got my first fish about a week ago A pair of clowns from my LFS. They have been doing great, feeding pellets and mysis alternating days once a day. everything has been going great so far. I haven't had any algae since I cycled lights off just a little build up on the silicon but nothing on the rockscape. Since I switched my lights over a couple days ago I expect to see something come up in some time at which point Ill go get myself a CUC. Im afraid to add them right now with nothing for them to eat so I'm holding off. Well I think that's about it for now. Again I'm sorry if the pictures don't look that great, but here ya go!

 

[hwntunda]

Looking good! But if your tank has been running for around 2 weeks, I doubt it truly cycled without having some sort of a diatom/algae bloom. I’d give it more time before really doing anything else.

 

[BigBadBonham]

Thanks! That's my plan. Although at the end of 2 weeks I was converting 4ppm of ammonia in 24 hours. After the test today pH 8.2 ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 2 with fish in for a week feeding them a full cube of mysis every other day. When I feed the pellets I only feed what they consume. The way it has been going I'm pretty confident its cycled. Like I said I cycled with the lights off and only set up these 2 lights a few days ago. The only light the tanks seen in the last month is the sunlight that enters the room. I'm still going to wait a few weeks before adding any other live stock I just wanted to be clear as how I went about it. The tank was lifeless for a little over a month before adding livestock.

 

[seitzjh]

Well guys after some thought I decided to join the 2 islands together for more coral placement down the road. I'm pretty happy with it. Just giving it some time, probably another week or so until I test water to start chasing my cycle. I have a bottle of Dr. tims but I'm not sure if I'll use it or not. as much as I would like to get fish tank right away I really don't want to go through all the stress of the new tank syndrome with fish in the tank. We'll see if I can hold off. hahahaha.

Your aquascape looks good.

 

[BigBadBonham]

Thank you! I'm really happy with how it turned out, just needs to get a little more mature hahahaha. All in good time.

 

[BigBadBonham]

Well guys if you're wondering how this dumpster fire has been going, its been going hahahahaha. Ok so as hwntunda said I would, I had my diatom bloom shortly after I posted last. It lasted like 5 days I wanna say. But I figured hey ya know what ill go get some hermits at least and see how it goes. I picked up 10 red leg hermits and after the diatom bloom was over everything still looked good and all my levels have been steady (testing with red sea kits.) And of course temptation got a hold of me. So a trip to the LFS and I picked up a red fire fish and a cleaner shrimp. I couldnt help myself, the frags looked so good. I got 1 zoa rock a hammer and a frogspawn and an acan. They were in there for about a week or so and I saw a guy in my local reef club had zoa frags for sale so naturally I went over to check them out. awesome guy to deal with beautiful frags so I picked up 6 more frags from him. Now the whole reason I wanted to build a reef tank was because I fell in love with torches. Something about them just drive me nuts. I havent found them anywhere. He had some indo golds in his display and was nice enough to frag me off a head right there. I was extremely grateful. Well I try and target feed the frogspawn hammer and torch with mysis whenever I feed mysis which is almost every other day. sometimes they eat sometimes they dont. Now I picked up some reef-roids and ive been feeding the zoas and acan about twice a week maybe half a tsp. The other day im sitting in front of the tank and im seeing brown starting appear on the sand. thinking to myself mmm maybe another diatom bloom? didnt think much of it. this was friday. Saturday rolls around and its a little worse again nothing really too alarming. Still doing my regular feeding. Well sunday comes and now its pretty evident in the sand and starting to appear on the rocks. like okay ill back off on feeding. I go to work today and on my lunch break Im browsing around on algae barns website and start reading reviews on their pods. I see a review of a guy who said he bought these pods to help with a dino outbreak and they worked great. So im like whoa whats dino maybe if I get some pods to seed the tank I wont have to deal with that. Well as you can imagine I start putting things together. I find an article that began by saying "I overfed my corals" and right there it hit me. I have dinos. research more and more and more. The entire ride home im freaking out I get home and sure enough there are the bubbles all over my rocks. Well okay instead of losing my mind over it I know what caused it I know where Im at Its not absolutely terrible, its not good, but it can always be worse. In the article I read they were remedied by utilizing the fuge. So thats the approach I'm going to take. I will be running only my blue lights. I have already aclimated my cheato to the h80 on full intensity. I still just have a small ball maybe softball sized but it has become quite dense from when I first purchased it. I wont feed any phyto. I picked up some coral frenzy pellets that I will feed the acan during this time something I can manage is my thought rather than blowing phyto all over my tank. I dont want to dump any chemicals in the tank I dont want to dose peroxide. I want to see if I can use just the fuge to pull through this. If you guys have any suggestions Id appreciate it. Everything ive read is that this can be a very difficult process. But from my reading today I believe that this is a good approach. Here are just a few pictures I have. I have more but everything is blue and I know the last ones didnt turn out that great for you guys. So I wont flood them in here.