IM 75 SPS Barebottom 3rd times the charm!

[Tyler White]

Hello all. This is going to be my third real attempt at a reef tank and this time I'm shooting for the moon and have taken my mistakes and struggles and approached this new tank in a whole different direction taking any and all time I need to get everything right and planning for anything and everything I can think of.

This will be my largest reef tank to date at 75 gallons in the display and 30(estimated)in the sump. My last two tanks were an IM40 nuvo all in one and a 25 lagoon that was barebottom as well and I had planned on making my sps heaven tank but between the Dinos and the realization that my aquascape was not suited for sps 6 months in I turned my attention towards an upgrade in a big way. Which brings us to the actual tank
When it arrived

This past evening while it was filling

Here is the equipment for the tank so far.

Sump is the icecap 30 reef sump

Flow:
2x Jaebo DCP 2500
2x Icecap 4k gyres

Skimmer:
TBD

Lighting: (all to be ordered)
3x maybe 4x noopsyche k7 pro II
2x reefbrite lumilite blue strip lights

Livestock:
2x clowns
Sixline wrasse
Firefish
Yellowtail damsel
Coral beauty angelfish
Tomini tang (to be ordered)
Flame hawkfish(to be ordered)

So far the only concern I have so far is that the sump is pretty loud when water enters the socks but im pretty sure the 1300 gph im pushing through those puppies is the reason and in the morning im going to run the pumps at 1/4th their max speed and see how everything reacts and go from there.
Also its got a scratch on the front pane thats super faint and I can only see with a flashlight pointed straight down. I put a light i had anyone around up top to test if I could see it under regular conditions and thank god I couldn't see a thing. So here's hoping it stays that way.

The next step for the tank will be buying a cabinet for an electrical panel/apex board and next will be shutting down my 25 gallon tank and moving the fish to a 10 gallon i have lying around for the time being and getting the 75 connected up to the apex and salted since it just has rodi for now.

 

[Tommy's Reef]

Nice tank!

 

[OutLawX77]

Hello all. This is going to be my third real attempt at a reef tank and this time I'm shooting for the moon and have taken my mistakes and struggles and approached this new tank in a whole different direction taking any and all time I need to get everything right and planning for anything and everything I can think of.

This will be my largest reef tank to date at 75 gallons in the display and 30(estimated)in the sump. My last two tanks were an IM40 nuvo all in one and a 25 lagoon that was barebottom as well and I had planned on making my sps heaven tank but between the Dinos and the realization that my aquascape was not suited for sps 6 months in I turned my attention towards an upgrade in a big way. Which brings us to the actual tank
When it arrived

This past evening while it was filling

Here is the equipment for the tank so far.

Sump is the icecap 30 reef sump

Flow:
2x Jaebo DCP 2500
2x Icecap 4k gyres

Skimmer:
TBD

Lighting: (all to be ordered)
3x maybe 4x noopsyche k7 pro II
2x reefbrite lumilite blue strip lights

Livestock:
2x clowns
Sixline wrasse
Firefish
Yellowtail damsel
Coral beauty angelfish
Tomini tang (to be ordered)
Flame hawkfish(to be ordered)

So far the only concern I have so far is that the sump is pretty loud when water enters the socks but i'm pretty sure the 1300 gph im pushing through those puppies is the reason and in the morning i'm going to run the pumps at 1/4th their max speed and see how everything reacts and go from there.
Also its got a scratch on the front pane that's super faint and I can only see with a flashlight pointed straight down. I put a light i had anyone around up top to test if I could see it under regular conditions and thank god I couldn't see a thing. So here's hoping it stays that way.

The next step for the tank will be buying a cabinet for an electrical panel/apex board and next will be shutting down my 25 gallon tank and moving the fish to a 10 gallon i have lying around for the time being and getting the 75 connected up to the apex and salted since it just has rodi for now.

ok I see
but i didn't hear anything about cycling this Brand New Tank. and your already planning the live stock? just asking.
and I see you're still in building stages As was I. It took me A year to be completely set up. I just posted the pictures and my equipment. But the one thing I have figured out over my time in this hobby is if you bum rush it it will not perform well. Forget about the live stock for now. during this time a did a lot reading and expanding the knowledge my understanding of how this life works on a chain like we all do. Get some good knowledge for the pros people with the proven reputation. Get the water quality right!! Go to drtim's web site you can cycle in as little as a week, compared to to 4/5 months but look at his videos he has out there. a lot of good knowledge about the true cycling of reef (Captive) tank on a bacteria level just saying.
rock and sand?? bear bottom?? this all has to do with how long a tank takes to cycle.
ok now that you have that under control. Start thinking about adding copepods. birds eat bugs!
fish eat bugs too. so now get this established and Now you can add live stock. but remember some fish Don't play well with others
and I promise you ll have a tank you want to have.

 

[Tyler White]

ok I see
but i didn't hear anything about cycling this Brand New Tank. and your already planning the live stock? just asking.
and I see you're still in building stages As was I. It took me A year to be completely set up. I just posted the pictures and my equipment. But the one thing I have figured out over my time in this hobby is if you bum rush it it will not perform well. Forget about the live stock for now. during this time a did a lot reading and expanding the knowledge my understanding of how this life works on a chain like we all do. Get some good knowledge for the pros people with the proven reputation. Get the water quality right!! Go to drtim's web site you can cycle in as little as a week, compared to to 4/5 months but look at his videos he has out there. a lot of good knowledge about the true cycling of reef (Captive) tank on a bacteria level just saying.
rock and sand?? bear bottom?? this all has to do with how long a tank takes to cycle.
ok now that you have that under control. Start thinking about adding copepods. birds eat bugs!
fish eat bugs too. so now get this established and Now you can add live stock. but remember some fish Don't play well with others
and I promise you ll have a tank you want to have.

You are absolutely right!

Only reason I'm planning that far ahead is I already have the fish from my other tanks that I have going now that I will consolidate down (up) to this larger tank.

I plan to move over my biomedia from my 25 lagoon which is two brightwell bricks that have been in water for about a year to hopefully get me on the right track as far as bacteria and pods for the new rock that's in the tank. Plus some microbacter7 for good measure.

Once I get these leaks in the bulkheads fixed up im going to go pick up a heater and get this thing heated up and start getting her salted.

 

[Jimdba54]

What brand is the 75? Did you get it at your LFS or order online?

 

[Tyler White]

Innovative marine! I picked it up at marine depot plus stand plus sump on their 4th of July sale for the price of the tank stand combo regularly!

If you're in the market I'd keep an eye out for blackfriday deals

What brand is the 75? Did you get it at your LFS or order online?

 

[Jimdba54]

Thanks for the info, I’ll check the sale.

 

[Tyler White]

Update:

So after a week of the tank running on RO water tuning in the plumbing and rock placement bam the ABS/silicone bottom started to peel up on me from trapped air in there.

From there it just got worse and worse until I had to pull the plug and drain the tank.

Drained the sucker and proceeded to cut out as much of the old silicone as possible and tried it with just lying the ABS sheet down and roll like that... well... that worked until I woke up this morning and found the edges peeling up just because.

I attempted to put epoxy putty in the corners and smash them down flat to see if that works.... it didn't...

THEN I decided to do a little test between the two adhesives i have on hand here at the house which is super glue and epoxy putty.

Waited about an hour and tried to remove the ABS.

SUPER GLUE FOR THE WIN.

Here is where we are right now. Refilling the tank tonight and hopefully going to shut the 25 gallon down and move the fish (the damsel and angel) over to a temporary home. Once the 25 is shut down that frees up my apex and i can move over everything from there including my BRS 300 watt heater to get this thing cooking and cycling!

 

[OutLawX77]

I feel your pain my friend. well take a break. and regroup. been there done that.

 

[Tyler White]

TANK IS SALTED!!!

While im slowly adding salt to get to 35ppt i decided now was the time to say goodbye to the 25 lagoon and break down the scape and put the fish in their temporary home.
Took the CUC, fish, two brightwell bricks i had in the sump for the 25, some rock and some pvc caves for them to hide in into a 10 gallon I had lying around.

Going to watch the levels in their tank but im not overly worried about ammonia with all that biological filtration I have in there but I have a plan for if it rears its ugly head.

Have some time off from work for the Thanksgiving holiday thats gonna give me the time to do a temporary setup for my apex that was on the lagoon for the 75 until I find a cabinet suitable enough to use for control board/dosing container storage.

In the meantime I may use a janky cardboard box to keep the furry demons off everything

 

[Tyler White]

Added ammonia and my biobrick from my 25 lagoon. Next day I had no ammonia reading and some nitrate so I went ahead and added the CUC my damsel and coral beauty angel.

I'm in love with watching them swimming in and around the arches and branches in the scape!

I'm gonna give it a couple weeks to stabilize some and move over my other fish in the meantime im watching ammonia heavily and feeding a bit on the heavy side to simulate the other fish being in there but im not too worried about ammonia rising with those bricks in there where they were so "seasoned"

 

[flyfisher2]

Watching you do this!
One word of advice as I see you've tried this twice before. Take your time. Do your homework, understand it, AND take your time. Good luck

 

[Typhon]

Tagging along. Just purchased a IM 75g Ext. Just waiting for delivery.

 

[Typhon]

How do you like the build quality of the IM tank?

 

[naterealbig]

Update!

 

[Tyler White]

Really sorry everyone. With work it's been crazy! Just got a promotion to process operator here at work so it'll be easier to get to my phone to do some on the fly updates off these 60+ hour weeks .

Tank is just vibing right now. Trying to get everything I can automated that I'm able. Currently my ato reservoir auto refilling and I will soon be having my water changes automatic. Only downside is having to run everything through cord hiders with command strips since I'm renting.

The cabinet I have turned out to be a tad small but will suit my purposes. For the time being hopefully...

This next weekend I will complete the cabinet and wire everything up (dreading this) but once it's done it should be pretty legit looking I even have a tablet holder for quick maintenance on the system.

Fish have changed around a bit and my current stocking is as follows.
2 clowns
Yellowtail damsel
Coral beauty angelfish
Yellow tang

I had ordered a lyretail anthias with the yellow tang but unfortunately the anthias didn't make it from what I can only assume we're intestinal parasites. I'm not quite sure what else to add to the tank at this point fish wise. I would like that tomini tang but I wouldn't like them to fight although I have read that fighting happens mostly when the tangs are the same species. Some advice or suggestions would be appreciated

Really don't want to turn this into one of those threads that die after a few months and want to keep it going so everyone can learn from my mistakes and hopefull successes.

Pictures will be soon!!!

 

[Tyler White]

How do you like the build quality of the IM tank?

Love it!!! Seams are perfect and the overflow box is 10/10 The only thing I'll tell you is to look for scratches before you fill it up with water. Luckily the one on my front pane is invisible to the naked eye when water is inside but there are two on the sides of the tank that I know from being in the glass industry are handling defects.

 

[SPS2020]

A Bristletooth should be fine with the Yellow Tang...mine have no issues. The Bristletooth is really a better cleaner than the Yellow.

Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew! ;-) As others have said, take your time.

Looking good...love the 'scape!

 

[Tyler White]

And there she is. You can tell it's a work in progress up top.

I'm hoping to get my lighting in order sometime soon but first things first.... getting my auto waterchange set up. Finally got the cabinet put together and rewired up.. still have some sensors to wire in again but when I hooked my DOS up to power it went haywire.. apparently the right prime button was faulty or something along those lines cause it just kept running... a little setback but once it makes it back to BRS I'll get a replacement soon enough and be back to rocking and rolling.

I also have my water reservoir tapped into my Rodi system now on a float valve so no more flood anxiety.

In other news I need to do a sump cleanout... works been wild and maintenence got away from me for a while and my floss compartments got a little.... backed up.... and let through a bunch of crud. The good news though is the sponges that came over on my biobricks loved it but aesthetically pleasing it is not.

In other OTHER news finally added dart frogs to my vivarium I've been getting ready for a while

I don't know why I can't find an inexpensive hobby!

I'll hit this thread back up with an update as soon as something changes or I get a major part of the system up and running.

In the meantime if you all have any questions or suggestions let me know! Or even DC skimmer suggestions that won't break the bank. Currently looking into the simplicity line of skimmers but not ready to pull the plug yet.

 

[Tyler White]

Simplicity dc skimmer has been installed. All the lighting has been ordered. Trident installed... auto water change set up and running.

Here in about a month we'll have the first corals in the tank