MarineLand 75

[Lalaallieu]

So I picked up a 75 gal tank and stand from petsmart for $250 on Black Friday. I’ve been slowly buying stuff for the past few weeks. I’ve decided to DIY a 20 gal long sump with a fiji cube baffle kit and hard plumb. I was going to buy the colored pipe but am going to spray paint with reef safe paint. Going with a reef octopus 4” 110 internal skimmer and will do a fuge if needed with a reefbreeders fuge light and plan to run my normal chemipure and for the return pump I chose the 1022gph Lifegard 4000. Overflow I chose the 800gph fiji cube two drain Herbie style overflow. For lighting I’m going to run two AI primes for now. Brs says they have 24x24” spread but ideally I’d like to upgrade to a reefbreeders light as well. For sand I went with Tropic Eden the 1.8 Tonga Pink and the reefflakes. For rock I’m doing foundation rock and a negative space aquascape with 50lb of live rock and planning to hopefully incorporate my live rock from my current tank. Today I’m chiseling up the dry rock and plan to start on my aquascape so I can get it cycling. I’ll post pictures in a few. My current tank is 1.5 years old and so I’ve got a ton of coralline on the rock. I’m hoping incorporating that live rock will seed the rest but while it’s curing/cycling could I add some of that bottled coralline algae to speed up the process? I’ll be building the aquascape and then curing and somewhere in between the curing and into tank I’ll incorporate the live rock I have. I just don’t want to break my tank down this very minute to incorporate the live rock.
I look forward to everyone’s opinion and help
Lauren

 

[McCarrick]

Sounds like you're off to a good start!

 

[Lalaallieu]

Chiseled up 53 lbs of dry rock and then I have foundation rock to glue it on for the NSA. Made a guide out of an old moving box! There’s the 75 excuse the laundry basket I refuse to deal with.

 

[Lalaallieu]

I’ve been steadily working on Aquascape the past few days and have this. Underneath is the guide for dimensions of my tank. I’m not done by any means yet

 

[Lalaallieu]

I finished the sump and baffle kit. I drilled my own tank and spray painted the back matte black. Then I did my loc line and got it installed and then I’ve begun plumbing. Just waiting on the return pump to get here. Not sure where to go from there.

 

[guntercb]

Lauren,

Looking good. I bet your rock work will look great. If you already have live rock with coraline, I would scrap off that coraline and not buy any bottled coraline.

What live stock do you plan to put in the tank?

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Looking great, keep up the great work

 

[Lalaallieu]

Lauren,

Looking good. I bet your rock work will look great. If you already have live rock with coraline, I would scrap off that coraline and not buy any bottled coraline.

What live stock do you plan to put in the tank?

I do have live rock but have noticed some light GHA patches so I was unsure if I should put it in my tank. I also had a lot of corals die on my but I had an actual window frame from a window that was thrown outside on top of my tank to keep fish from jumping out and we thought it was leeching metals into my water. Either way. I took it off and did a 90% wc and things are looking great and stabilizing. I'm just afraid of seeding my tank with bad stuff. What's your opinion on how long to cycle dry rock for?

Well I just got my lid kit today and it's metal. I thought it'd be plastic so I'm a bit nervous about cutting it to size. I was going to keep my two clowns and peppermint shrimp. One day I'd like to add a clam. Yellow tang if possible. I'd like some chromis, but I heard they carry diseases. I'd like a dwarf angel and definitely a goby. Lots of corals of course LOL

 

[Lalaallieu]

Plumbing is done. I leak checked the other day. There's a very small drip from one 90 on my way down into where the return pump is. As I was filling the water started going in through the loc line and filled the sump. When I did emergency shutoff to make sure the sump could handle the load, the sump overflowed, but I learned if I raise the locline high the tank will only drain so far. Is this normal, or how do I need to fix this? I also don't know how high to have my sump. I have a skimmer and we turned it on during the fill to see if it'd change levels. With it on the return pump chamber was the only one that pulled water. So that was weird. Any advice is helpful.

 

[Nick Steele]

You can drill a small hole in the loc line right below the water line in the tank. That will stop a siphon from forming and will limit the amount of water going back into the sump. Do it on the underside so water doesn’t spray upwards and remember to do it to all your return lines

 

[cwerner]

Following. I also have the 75 Marineland that I built out.

I'd recommend including a Check Valve in the Return line so that theoretically the water can't drain down that line, or at least will do so very slowly.

 

[Lalaallieu]

I ended up adding a check line! Now I'm just working to make water. It's a struggle though. I'm not downstairs enough to really focus on the water and make sure it doesn't flood lol. I thought about buying water, but the nearest place that has great water is honestly an hour and a half away and I'm unsure if my car can handle that amount of weight as I'd be getting about 80 gallons. So I'm just slowly trying to make enough water and mix it and dump in the tank. I only have two buckets so that also seems to complicate things. Will update soon with pictures of the setup tank! Don't think I've done that yet!