Min's 180 reef

[Min]

I setup my first saltwater tank in about 2003 and had it up for about 3 years but had to move so I ended up selling everything and never had the chance to setup another till about 4 years ago. Started off with a JBJ 28 cube, then setup a 55 mixed reef a few months later, about a year after that bought a 120 and moved everything into there. I started off with LEDs, after about a decade out of the hobby they were new to me, back when I had my previous tanks, I was running metal halides &t5's. At first I thought the LEDs were great, didn't use up alot of electricity, didn't generate a ton of heat and seemed bright enough but all my sps ended up bleaching & dying or browning out and never growing. I did that for about 6 months before adding some t5's and things started improving then decided to ditch all the LEDs and go with halides and t5's. Not looking to start a debate or anything like that, just sharing my experiences.

I upgraded from a 48x24x24 120 gallon to a 72x24x24 180 gallon, it's mostly all finished aside from some minor stuff (wire management, touch up paint, etc), but I took alot of pics during the setup.

I made the sump out of a standard glass 90 gallon aquarium and is also going to double as an area for frags. I also did all the plumbing, stand and canopy myself. I epoxied some of the base structures together with dry rock but alot of it is just stacked together, there was about 100 pounds of rock from my 120 and I added an additional 40 pounds of dry rock when I set it up, there is also about 8L of seachem matrix in my sump.

This was my 120 gallon, I don't have many pics of when I set it up, but started taking more pics as everything started growing. All my corals were bought as 1 to 2 inch/head frags

Sump


I did make some changes, I redid the rock work a few times and added a frag area to the sump, changed out the light in the sump to a halide as well.

A couple months before I took it down


Sump/frag area



Some more random shots





More to come later

 

[Min]

As you can see I was running out of room, and my fish were getting too big, I bought a used reef ready 180 gallon in almost perfect condition off of craigslist but didn't have the time to set it up for awhile, a couple weeks ago I started building the stand, I made it 40 inches tall, I don't like it being cramped in the sump area or having to bend down to view the tank.

I used 2x4's and 2x6's to build the frame of the stand.


Then wrapped everything in 1/2" plywood

 

[steelwrap]

Welcome to R2R. Nice job on the 120, the other 2' on the 180 will be a good fit

 

[BeardedMcG]

Welcome. I’ll be following along with your build. Looks exciting.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Welcome! Very nice, can’t wait to see the new build. That frag tank has some pretty big “frags” in it!

 

[Min]

I ordered most of my PVC parts online but I ended up needing more and had to get the rest from Lowes/Home Depot



Building the manifold



I used 1/4" glass for the baffles, had a local glass shop cut them to the sizes I wanted and drilled the holes myself for the filter socks and bulkheads.

 

[Min]

The stand on my 120 didn't have a panel on the bottom under the sump, and whenever any water leaked out it got on the carpet, so this time I put down a 1/2" piece of plywood and sealed it so it would contain any spills.

I bought regular 1" PVC pipe from Lowe's and spray painted it red with Krylon Fusion, but if I had to do it again, I would have just bought the red PVC from BRS, but I think it came out nice.

From the left side



From the right

 

[Reefpuck]

Looking good!

 

[BeardedMcG]

I ordered most of my PVC parts online but I ended up needing more and had to get the rest from Lowes/Home Depot



Building the manifold



I used 1/4" glass for the baffles, had a local glass shop cut them to the sizes I wanted and drilled the holes myself for the filter socks and bulkheads.

Impressive seeing all the parts lined up like that.

 

[Min]

Filling with tap water to check for leaks



I made my canopy with 1x2's, I ended up making a rack for the lights first then building the canopy (adding the panels & doors) onto it. I made the structure in the tank out of PVC with alot of dry live rock rubble epoxied onto it but couldn't get it to work with my current scape.

Filled with RO/DI & salt



I bought about 40 pounds of dry rock and epoxied it together to make a few structures







I was going to make a panel and somehow put it on the wall next to the tank, but I found this cabinet on craigslist for $15 so I used that instead, I think it turned out pretty good! I have a RO/DI line with a float switch going into my ato, it's a 10 gallon brute, I really hated having to carry buckets every other day to refill my top off tank, I'm evaporating about 4 to 5 gallons a day.



Finished cabinet



Wiring almost finished

 

[Min]

Unfortunately during my upgrade, about 90% of my sps died & the ones that did make it were either bleached or only had small sections of it that were still alive. Most of the ones that did make it were the ones that I really didn't want anymore or had way too much of, but a few of the nicer looking ones also made it. Fortunately I pretty much just gave out frags of anything I had that grew to any decent size to several people and they were happy to give me frags back when I told them what happened.

I plumbed together three 40 gallon bins to hold everything during the upgrade, the 180 had to go in the same spot the 120 was in so there was no way I could set it up first then transfer everything over.

 

[Min]

After I finally got everything in, started playing with the aquascape



Finished the canopy and got the doors on



Canopy




Right side



Left side



Sump



Cord/tubing management inside stand





I put the carbon/gfo reactor (only running carbon) on the side if my stand for easy access/changing media



Some frags from a random frag pack I bought online & some that I got from friends

 

[Min]

And finally, picked up these 2 frags yesterday,

 

[Min]

My tank currently houses :

1x naso tang
1x blue tang
1x lawnmower blenny
1x spotted mandarin
1x coral beauty angel
1x flame angel
1x banggai cardinal (had 2, one jumped during the upgrade)
1x yellow watchman goby
1x bicolor dottyback
2x picasso clownfish
2x engineer gobies

The naso tang is probably my favorite fish, he's extremely friendly and eats right out of my hand/tweezers & follows me when I walk from one side of the tank to the other. It also seems like he just sits there and stares at me whenever I'm standing in front of the tank, although he probably just wants food, lol.

As far as inverts I have
1 big skunk cleaner shrimp (had 2)
1 coral banded shrimp
2 black longspine urchins
2 to 3 each of emerald & acro crabs
A handful of hermits, various snails and a couple fighting conches

I lost a few fish during the upgrade, but plan on buying them again.

I keep my :

Salinity at 1.025
Temp at 76
Ph stays around 8.0 (night) to 8.2 (day) (probe)
Kh at 9
Cal at 420ppm
Mag at 1400
No3 at 2 to 5ppm
Po4 at 10 to 20ppb (hannah ulr)

All tested with salifert kits unless otherwise noted.

The only thing I dose besides cal, alk and mag is KZ zeovit sponge power, strontium, and acropower.

 

[Min]

Picked up some new frags today (first 2 rows on the right)





Will try to get some better pics tomorrow with all the lights on. Any tips for taking good close up pics with a cell phone camera?

 

[Min]

Mounted alot of the frags, new fts:



Left side:



Right side:

 

[najer]

Nice work, looking good.

 

[Roc83]

My tank currently houses :

1x naso tang
1x blue tang
1x lawnmower blenny
1x spotted mandarin
1x coral beauty angel
1x flame angel
1x banggai cardinal (had 2, one jumped during the upgrade)
1x yellow watchman goby
1x bicolor dottyback
2x picasso clownfish
2x engineer gobies

The naso tang is probably my favorite fish, he's extremely friendly and eats right out of my hand/tweezers & follows me when I walk from one side of the tank to the other. It also seems like he just sits there and stares at me whenever I'm standing in front of the tank, although he probably just wants food, lol.

As far as inverts I have
1 big skunk cleaner shrimp (had 2)
1 coral banded shrimp
2 black longspine urchins
2 to 3 each of emerald & acro crabs
A handful of hermits, various snails and a couple fighting conches

I lost a few fish during the upgrade, but plan on buying them again.

I keep my :

Salinity at 1.025
Temp at 76
Ph stays around 8.0 (night) to 8.2 (day) (probe)
Kh at 9
Cal at 420ppm
Mag at 1400
No3 at 2 to 5ppm
Po4 at 10 to 20ppb (hannah ulr)

All tested with salifert kits unless otherwise noted.

The only thing I dose besides cal, alk and mag is KZ zeovit sponge power, strontium, and acropower.

Nice fish, I'm starting my 180 a build and my stock list pretty much matches yours for the exception of I want a few green chromis. How does the flame and CB do together, the last time I put that combo in my tank it didn't go so well.

 

[Min]

Thanks, I added them in my 120 at the same time when they were both pretty small, a little over 1" and I never had any problems with them, one stayed on one side of the tank and the other stayed on the opposite side. If one of them went over to the other's side, it would get chased away but that wasn't too often, they seem to be doing the same thing after I upgraded.

 

[Irishman]

Nice looking tank. Can’t wait until my finishes cycling