JP's 180

[JPergamo]

So I am about a month and a half late on starting my build thread. Tank is cycled with 5 fish in and just a few frags but I will back date and post some progression.

The tank itself is a 180 rimmed pre drilled tank with a 75 gallon sump plumbed to my basement boiler room. The setup was a reef about 7 years ago then converted to african cichlids for simplicity and financial reasons.

In the beginning of March 2016, I got the itch to re start my reef and couldn't be happier with my decision! I will post a bunch of pics from the last month and a half to document the beginning of the new project.

 

[JPergamo]

It all started with an acid bath for my old fiji rock that was used in the cichlid tank. The muriatic acid really did the trick in turning it back to pretty much new.

 

[JPergamo]

Then on to some aquascaping. Used superglue on a few pieces to keep the main archway on the left stable. Some other pieces are loose just in case. I decided to go bare bottom with the system this time around out of curiosity and with a new outlook on detritus extraction.

 

[Test led]

Nice scape. Good luck on this build. Can't wait to see this one with water in it. I have a 180 that i am building a stand for now and collecting the last few things for. Once again good luck. Great rock work.

 

[JPergamo]

Some info on my sump and equipment. Sump is a DIY 75 gallon with acrylic baffles siliconed in, drilled to a reeflo barracuda for a return. The barracuda was so great to me that I replaced with a reeflo hammerhead/barracuda gold model because it has been such a tank. The photo is of the old pump used for about 10 years straight. (Forgot to take a pic of new pump I will add later)

Sump has 3 standard chambers, drain housing my aqua c ev 240 that I love, fuge center with a few pieces of rock, chaeto and caulerpa, then a bubble trap that doesn't work all that well, then the return chamber.

Last reef I had, I remember having way too many pumps for equipment so I built a super easy super cheap manifold to power a few things. Even The skimmer has been running off of it and has been working amazingly well. That is what I like about the aqua c skimmer using downdraft. The reeflo pump is so overpowered it actually benifits thr system to divert the water some.

 

[james983]

Very nice job with the aquascape. Will look awesome with corals.

 

[JPergamo]

As pictured above I have a tunze osmolator for ato, and a phosban reactor to run gfo and gac combined. I went with a finnex heater and controller with their 800 w heater backed up with a 500 watt eheim jager used for water change water also. Other than that the system is very bare bones and simple.

 

[JPergamo]

Very nice job with the aquascape. Will look awesome with corals.

Thanks! Can't wait to begin filling it up!

 

[hybridazn]

Looking good so far!

 

[JPergamo]

So this was mid march, tank was finally full after making ro water for about 4 days lol. Dosed ammonia and some doctor tims and just started to play the waiting game.

I got rid of my old diy canopy with MH and T5 combo to replace with 3 reef radiance starfire LED lights. Heat and power consumption was a major factor in my decision. These boxes were plug and play and can't say enough good about them so far. Hopefully they grow the heck out of my corals soon!

 

[JPergamo]

Nice scape. Good luck on this build. Can't wait to see this one with water in it. I have a 180 that i am building a stand for now and collecting the last few things for. Once again good luck. Great rock work.

Thanks a bunch. I'm late to the build thread concept, but I'm looking forward to documenting progression. Good luck also!

 

[JPergamo]

Fast forward the 4 weeks to about 4/11/16 and my nitrites finally started to come down, and the ugliest began. And my god were they ugly...

Started with diatoms and they actually weren't that bad, then had some cyano but that eventually dissapated as well. The final stage, and it is clearing up now finally, was the super green bloom of film algae. Tank looked like the rain forest.

 

[JPergamo]

I waited about 9 days after that until 4/20/16 to finally add some life to the super green jungle. I added 2 perculas clowns and 2 fairy wrasses and the beginning of a cleanup crew, 5 Astrea and 5 turbo snails. Snails are very ...very...well fed.

I'm a NY Jets fan but this was too much green even for me!

 

[JPergamo]

Finally up to date. 2 days ago I added a swallowtail angel, and 2 zooanthid rocks to be able to scrape some coraline off of to get it sped up. The green is subsiding greatly and my macro algae has really taken off.

The acans and candy cane were added as somewhat of a mistake because of a billing discrepancy of overcharging at the LFS, I was worried about being ready for the corals but they are doing great so far. All fish are eating like crazy and I have a large population of pods all over everything already.

Oh, and the green continues to subside little by little. Looks much better now. I will add a whole tank shot tonight to start to document.

 

[acer]

looking good- how do you like the Reeflo gold hybrid? I am looking fro a pump for a 150 on main floor with a 75 sump in basement and this pump is on my shortlist. SO, looking for opinions/experiences. .

Also what was the ratio of the muriatic acid bath to water - did you use regular tap or RODI water. How long did you let the rock sit in the bath?

 

[JPergamo]

I used regular tap water 1:10 with the muriatic acid and let it cook for about an hour. It worked very well. Just make sure it is done safely outside. The reeflo gold hybrid has been excellent so far, but I cannot say enough about the reeflo baricuda that I had running from around 2005-2016 from the basement with zero issues. That pump still works and is my backup, and that is the main reason I went back for another reeflo with my new system.

 

[JPergamo]

I suppose it is time for an update to this thread. I've moved and had 2 kids since the last update. Same tank, basically all new equipment and now in the basement of my new house as opposed to being plumbed to the basement. Have been in new house for 2 years and tank is thriving so it's time. I will be adding some Info tomorrow and following days.