lostmyz 72 gal reef tank build

[lostmyz]

have decided to upgrade my little biocube 29 to a 72gal bow front! Here is my build




The Tank

The drilling! - Glass-holes.com 700gph overflow box

The Sump - standard 29 gal with baffles

The Goods
Coralife Turbo Twist 16 UV sterilizer
BRS Dual Stage Reactors (with Phosban and Nitrate pellets)
Reef Octopus NB110
Chiller - AquaEuroUSA
Tunze Osmolator
Ecotech MP40

Ecotech Radion XR30W

My little puppy wanted to get in the shots!
My pumps:
Ma9 9 - Return
Aqueon 2500 - UV sterilizer


The sump all set up

And the finished Tank!
I used 80lbs of Argalive Indiopacific black sand
30lbs of Tonga
40lbs of dry rock

I am going out of town so for now its just going to cycle.
Just ordered an MP10 and another Radion XR30W

 

[lostmyz]

The tank has actually been cycling for about a week now. I re-did some of my plumbing and cut out the Maxijet 1200 and the Mag3. I have the aqueon 2500 running in parallel to with the UV sterilizer and the BRS dual stage and than in Series from the UV sterilizer to the Chiller... I wanted to run everything in parallel but the angles wouldn't work. But I am able to shut the chiller off and have the Sterilizer drain into the main chamber of the sump. I have a question cause I am fairly new to sumps/refugiums or well its been a super long time since i had a large tank about 12 years. I have my BRS draining into my last chamber (the return chamber) and my sterilizer/chiller draining into my middle chamber (refugium). Should I have them both drain into the return chamber? Also my evaporation for the past week seems like it was coming from the return chamber and not the refugium chamber? I haven't set up my Tunze unit yet so I wanted to know where the best place to set everything up for that would be. Any suggestions on anything in my tanka and set up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[revhtree]

Tank is looking good!

I wouldn't have anything drain into my return chamber because it just causes more micro bubbles in the display. Doesn't hurt anything just doesn't look as good.

 

[Aquaph8]

How about some updates bud.

 

[lostmyz]

Hmmm what have I been doing with this tank.... Current Updates....

1) MP10wES
2) Bought a new BRS BioPellet Reactor and used the GFO/Carbon Reactor the proper way.
MY Nitrates and Phosphates are Zero but **** does my skimmate smell like ammonia remover solution (that you put in freshwater tanks) when i clean it now (your suppose to have the biopellets empty towards the skimmer)
3) Installed my radions... Made a custom floating shelf (its not fully finished yet... need to paint it)
4) Got a Calcium Korallin 1502 reactor with 7.5# CO2 tank, Also got a Kalk reactor.... Just need to plumb it and get a CO2 regulator.
5) Added my fish and coral.. Added a small Purple tang and my mystery wrasse. I havent seen my black capped basslet in about 2 weeks, but that doesnt mean hes dead because i didnt seen my YWG and the pistol for 2 wks till the other day and they are doing fine. But I will give the black capped a month and than consider it dead (sad I really loved that fish... they tend to hide like nobodies business.. very shy fish and well i dont think my wrasse and my tang are bothering him bc when i saw hi m before they werent.... and my helfrichs are always out and well lets face it... I'd pick on those first if i was an aggressive fish)
6) I added some more live rock for hiding places and LOL I have some more TOnga that i need to add to give myself some more surface area on the back for coral placement.... I just got a bunch of rare sps: Nick's pink dahlia, Nick's Blueberry Bush Nasuta , Yellow Suharsona , Tyree $500 Efflo, Rainbow Granny, Tyree Undata, Upscale Microclados, Tyree LE Lovelli, Leng Sy Cap. Also got a nice sized Torch peach with white tips for my clowns. Because I am really tempted to remove my rose anemone (its not a bubble tip) because it decided to up and start moving around and is making its way across the tank through the SPS patches. Its an amazing deep red and I love it but I love my SPS a little more!


My plans
1) Im going to get a RO/DI system and plumb it to fill my top off tank.... I hate going to get ro/di water and nothing else from the store. And I calculated it out and its cheaper in the long run. Kinda like my Radions. I live in an apartment so this should be fun! Going to connect it to my washing machine and carefully run the line through the walls to my pucket. I only use less than 5 gals a week so I will just run it when i need to. Looking at a 75GPD BRS 6 stage chloramine remover with a TDS meter and the whole shebang because I'd rather get one i will use later when i upgrade again.
2) Neptune Apex controller
3) Going to redo some of my plumbing so its easier to get to my UV Sterilizer and I bought a 4pin DIN quick connect I am going to connect to the sterilizer so that it makes changing the bulb easier... hahaha wish i did this to start with. But than again the next build is always better than the previous one!

Here are some pictures I will post more later today when my lights turn on and I can snap coral photos...
Here is the day i put the radions up

 

[Aquaph8]

Looking really good man. Buy the RODI unit, it'll be the best thing you ever did after hauling bottle around forever. I recently kicked my nem out as well, it didn't move around but go so big it could lean over and really mess up some SPS colonies. I love black caps, they are a little cryptic though, Im sure he'll show up for you eventually. That sounds like a nice group of SPS you have there, looking forward to some more pics. Be sure to post up a new FTS in the Tucson forum when you get a chance. Thanks for the update.

 

[lostmyz]

Whats the best way to get rid of my Anemone? I heard Ice cubes at its foot.... I can't take the rock out and chip it off too much coral all over the place and well i dont wanna do that anyways i love my tonga.

 

[lostmyz]

I also will feel really bad for my clowns..... they love that thing they used to love my duncan in my old tank but i moved it and now they are... eh to it and its up a lil higher in more flow and also doesnt open up as much. I think I might move it down a lil and hopefully into a place where they like it more and maybe they will take to my torch. However I might buy a few more heads so its a little bigger when fully opened for them

Also I'll have to find someone to purchase it hahah

 

[Reef Breeders]

WOW, great build, definitely top of the line equipment, I would go 150-100 gpd on the rodi,but everything looks great, good work!

 

[lostmyz]

Thank you! But why 100-150gpd?

 

[Aquaph8]

It was hard for me to take mine away from the clowns too but I didn't have a choice. They have moved into the frog spawn for now. I removed the whole rock it was on, I've removed them from rocks before too though. I gently just work their foot off with one finger until they let go. This approach should be done really gently and it takes some patience. As far as the RODI, 75 GPD would work fine for your tank but a 150 would make your water a lot faster.

 

[lostmyz]

Here are some full tank shots.... I just added some more tonga rock in the back from my original set up so I would have more placement for coral

I have my lights set to 20k and 14k.... i am tempted to switch it up to 18k and 12k.... the glory of radions! What do you think. My colors are really good and my growth isnt bad but i dunno why my purple stylophora is more lavender than purple

 

[lostmyz]

Bye bye rose anemone! I traded you for a aussie orange/red wall hammer! You clowns better ******* like this thing! I am tired of putting random LPS in my tank for you!

 

[lostmyz]

Bye bye rose anemone!  I traded you for a aussie orange/red wall hammer!  You clowns better ******* like this thing!  I am tired of putting random LPS in my tank for you!

I just checked all my levels in my tank....

Salinity 1.025
Temp - 78ish
pH 8.0
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates - last week were 0, but this week 5-10 (i recently changed my bio pellet reactor... i was committing a cardinal sin according to BRS i was running GFO and BioPellets in their dual stage.... So I blame that)
Ca2+ - too high i stop counting the drops after 30 from the test kit
Phosphates - 0 according to my drop kit and 0.11 (according to my Hanna kit - however this **** has only once ever given me a low read out of 0.04 i think its defunked)
Mg2+ - 1420 (Salifert kit)
KH - 7.5 AHHHH!!!! I hate KH! need to start dosing!!! or get my reactor going but thats going to be a few more wks (atleast)