Montiman's Late to The Party 75 Gallon Tank

[Montiman]

I have been a frequent Reef2Reef user for years and never done a build thread. In 2019 my wife and I bought our first house and I got 1 new tank and moved my small nano. The new tank did well but over the course of 2020 the nano suffered.

No build thread in 2020. I was working full time while getting my MBA at night and had no time to do a thread but now that things have calmed down I want to start one on my newest tank.

My nano tank did very well at first but as life happened I paid less attention to the tank and had a bad Byropsis / Hair algae outbreak. I was able to get it under control but it felt like every 3 months or so it would come back. I was doing weekly 75% water changes and it still would come back. I eventual felt that this little nano was more work than my 180 gallon main display. Managing algae was a horrible pain. I decided to run an experiment where I took all the algae covered rock out of the nano put it in my 180 gallon display. Within 3 days my tangs had eaten all of the algae and the rocks were pristine. I decided that the problem was that there were no grazers in my nano. I then replaced all the sand in the nano, move the rocks back, and added an urchin. The urchin kept the tank clean for 3 months until it died of starvation. While there was algae there wasn't enough to sustain an effective grazer. At this point I began the planning for my new build.

Pic below was of the nano before all of my struggles. Stay tuned for more.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Following. What size is the nano? It looks looong

 

[Brad_95]

Following. Looking forward to everything!

 

[Montiman]

Following. What size is the nano? It looks looong

It was a Mr Aqua 12 long.

 

[Montiman]

My first step in planning the new tank began with me clarifying why I have 2 tanks in the first place.

• Sometimes things are going too well.
  • It may sound strange to new reefers but after a tank is up for 5 years I have gotten a little bored. Everything is growing well. There is no new livestock and no challenges. Having a second tank has been a way I get something else to play with while keeping the reef tank I worked so hard to get stable.
• Sometimes things aren't going too well.
  • Other times I have really struggled with my tank and even had tank crashes. During these times it is great to have another successful tank to keep my spirits up and help me not to feel like a failed reefer. I also keep frags of my favorite corals in both tanks so I have less risk of loosing them in a crash.
• Somethings don't get along.
  • There are just so many reef animals out there. I have often used my second tank to keep a different kind of clown fish than in my main display, inverts when I have a wrasse in my main display, or harlequin shrimp when I had seastars in my main tank. Having the second tank just opens up more livestock opportunities than having 1 big tank.
• Some animals require different environments.
  • In addition to compatibility problems some animals just require different environments. NPS tanks vs high light SPS, Anemone tanks don't do well with many un-screened powerheads ect.

Keeping these factors in mind I began to pick what I wanted for the next tank.

1. The tank needed to fit in a particular wife approved space. The space was by a walkway so the tank could not be more than 18in front to back and I wanted to push the tank as far against the wall as possible. My wife is a music teacher and the room with the tank could be used as a waiting area if she ever is able to accept at home piano students again, post covid, so the tank would need to be child proofed. I also really enjoy when kids enjoy the tank so I want my livestock choices to reflect this.
2. I needed a tank large enough to keep tangs and algae eating fish. This was the problem with my nano. I couldn't keep grazers and didn't want to do the manual work needed to keep up with algae.
3. The tank needed to be low maintenance. I am happy to put lots of effort and gadgets on my main display but I don't have the time to do that with two tanks.
4. I wanted to keep different animals than in my main rimless display. Namely I wanted a lid. I hate the look of mesh lids on rimless tanks so I don't use them but I miss wrasses, jawfish, and eels.

A variety of things happened that led me to my current 75 gallon tank.

I was maintaining a planted display at my church in the preschool area for the children to enjoy. I really liked keeping the tank for the kids, but after covid the church locked down and no one even saw the tank but the air-conditioning needed to stay on and the tank was costing the church hundreds of dollars a month so the tank came down.

The tank was over 20 years old so it went away. I really don't believe silicon is supposed to last much longer than 20 years so I wasn't comfortable keeping the tank. I did keep the stand and light to use on my new reef build. The planted tank was a standard 90 gallon and the light was a 6 bulb Aquaticlife t5 perfect for corals or plants. This left me with a 48 x 18 stand and a light but no tank.


Pic of the planted tank below.

 

[Montiman]

For those who don't know. I do work in the aquarium industry but I don't advertise it on the forums as I don't want my forum presence to be a big infomercial. I like to enjoy my hobby as a hobby on Reef2Reef.

That being said, I tell you I work in the industry because otherwise it wouldn't make sense to say we had a 75 gallon reef ready tank sitting empty in the office break room for 3 years. I asked if I could buy the tank but my bosses were just happy to see it go. So now I had a tank that fit the stand.

Once the tank stand and light were picked out I started to accumulate the rest of my equipment.

• Tank
  • 75 gallon Aqueon Tank
• Lighting
  • 6 lamp AquaticLife t5 with ATI Lamps
• Sump
  • Fiji Cube 29 Gallon DIY Sump
• Skimmer
  • RedSea RSK600 Skimmer
• Pellet Reactor
  • Lifegard Medium TopFlow Reactor
• Fuge Light
  • Tunze EcoChic LED
• Return Pump
  • Hydor Seltz D500
• Water Movement
  • Tunze Stream 3
• ATO
  • Icecap ATO

I really wanted to keep the tank simple and I hoped this set up would accomplish my goals. I decided to use a glass lid on the tank to reduce evaporation, keep fish in, and stop kids from getting stuff in the tank. Cabinet doors were given child proof locks and the Stream 3 being the only pump means no magnets on the side glass for kids to pull off. I also really like not having anything on the sides.

To scape the tank I went with TLF Stax Rocks. These looked really cool at MACNA a few years ago and I was excited to try them out. Here is what my scape looked like before filling the tank.

 

[Montiman]

Equipment Pic

 

[Montiman]

So I moved the rock over that was in my nano after cycling with Brightwell start XLM. This was the fastest cycle I have ever had. This is what the tank looks like after the rock move.