My 155 Gallon Bowfront Journey.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

I guess it's time to make one of these.

To say my experience has been a journey is a bit of an understatement. It's been more like a roller coaster and this thread will definitely show that.

Having had no prior fish keep experience, I was visiting my father one day (who had the tank I have now). This was sometime in late 2011. I had expressed my desire to have a saltwater tank one day and he told me "Merry Christmas" and told me to come back with help and a truck and load it up. He was giving me his tank. He was too busy with work and getting old enough to where he couldn't dedicate the time it needed anymore. The only stipulation was I had to keep the dog face puffer that was already in it (the only fish he had). I knew this fish well and loved him so that wasn't a problem.

I picked up the tank at the beginning of 2012 and brought it home and set up in my bedroom. My wife (at the time my gf) had her sister and her kids, plus her sister's friend and her kids living with us) let me set it up in the bedroom so it wouldn't get messed with by all the extra people in the house.

Please forgive my photos. At the time, I knew nothing of photography and was taking photos on my cell phone. We all know the potato-like quality they all had back then.

Jon Fishman · Oct 23, 2019

I love bowfronts. And That’s a nice one!

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

I felt my fish was lonely and wanted to get him a friend.

I went to the local bix box pet store and looked around. I knew relatively nothing. I saw this Niger Trigger and thought he looked cool. I bought him, took him home and acclimated him. I was excited.

Not long after this (I forget how long because I can't find any record of it at the moment) I went back bought some more fish. I remember there being a Domino Damsel. I remember this because that's where things went downhill for me.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

Jon Fishman said:
I love bowfronts. And That’s a nice one!

Thank you. Just wait. Hopefully, this will get better. I've got 7 years to catch up on.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

Within a week of these additions, my puffer showed white spots and strange behavior. I didn't know about forums or really how to look up things at the time. My computer skills were in building them some general usage. Not in research on the internet.

Later I would find out that this was ich and a result in poor practices.

I bought lots more fish and added them recklessly to the tank. Not understanding why I kept losing fish. This must be the LFS fault, right?

I eventually ended up with another dogface puffer, a stars and stripes puffer, Picasso trigger, and a few other things. They were finally surviving. Whew, I caught a break. During this time, I was also searching for my kids who I had not been allowed to speak to or see. In November of 2012, I found them and took custody of them (Through a nice court process). This is relevant for a few reasons. At this time, all the extra bodies in the house decided to move out. This allowed me to move my tank out into the living room.

After this happened, I grew tired of hauling buckets for top off (don't we all?). I had a bad back at the time and wasn't supposed to lift more than 10 pounds. As with most men, I didn't follow the doctor's orders and did what I want. This would come back to bite me in the rear.

On the other side of the wall next to my tank, was my laundry room. I drilled a hole through the wall and tee'd a hose of the water line running to the washer. I ran this under my tank and had a shutoff valve. I could now stick the hose in the sump, open the valve, and top off as needed without carrying buckets!

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

This brings us into the late Spring of 2013. I had previously gotten engaged to my girlfriend and we were about to get married. Also, we find out some of the mental baggage my kids came with.

A week before the wedding, I was doing my normal routine of getting up, going to the fish tank so I can feed them. Upon stepping onto the carpet in the living room, it squished. I had some explicative words running through my head as I panicked and started to investigate where the water was coming from. My oldest son (who was 8 at the time) decided he was going to stick my water top off hose into the sump, and turn on the water and leave it. He did this at some point in the middle of the night. He thought he was helping. Not only did I have water everywhere, but it was also dirty saltwater. Saltwater that was replaced by freshwater. I lost most of my fish and all my inverts.

My poor wife tried everything she could do to help. I was heartbroken but really upset. I think my anger was evident on my face and probably my tone. My boy realized how bad he screwed up.

While I dealt with the resulting mess, my wife got ahold of our homeowner's insurance. They sent a company out to do inspections and place bids on the repair.

Inspectors came to the conclusion that all the carpet, padding, subfloor and 12 inches up the wall had to be replaced in the flooded areas. I paid my deductible of $500 and insurance paid the rest. We even talked them into paying for a new tank stand since the old one was now waterlogged and structurally unfit to hold the tank again (it was sagging when I had to drain the tank and move it).

Thus began the discussion on where the tank was going to go. We kept it in the living area but moved it across the room. This left me on vinyl flooring instead of carpeted floor. I had heard about remote sumps and really wanted one. This allowed me to pitch my idea of running the plumbing through the wall that would behind the tank's new location and into the garage. I pitched that if the sump did flood again, it was out in the garage and would cause little to no damage except to any boxes that might be on the floor. Everything was off the floor. This she agreed to.

My wife's dad does countertops and had this large pallet I could put my tank on for the time being.

These pictures below are the inside of the stand.

I got some bids from a local cabinet shop for a new stand. The price was agreed to by insurance, and the took the old stand as reference to get the curve of the bowfront correct. Here's a rendition of the stand before I approved the design.

And the delivered stand.

This was their first aquarium stand and he said he overbuilt it. He didn't want there to be any issues with his work. If anyone in east Idaho is needing a stand, I recommend them. Here's their card.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

After all this, the wedding, the honeymoon, and getting the house put back together the wife expresses she wants more color and movement in the tank. I didn't have the proper lighting to even think about adding corals. It's not somewhere I thought I would be in keeping this tank, and here's my wife basically ordering me to do it.

I grew a lot as a person and in my research skills. And research I did. I found some lights that I could both afford and could keep basic corals. This moved me into the realm of LED lights. Not expensive units, but I was broke, recently married, and upgrading this tank.

I also learned about quarantine. During this, I ended up losing the last of my fish to ich. I think the stress of everything was just too much for my poor puffers. Losing them helped the move to keep corals as I knew they weren't reef safe. Previously, I had attempted to keep an anemone. My stars and stripes puffer ate all 3 I got in one day. He looked really grumpy after but lived through it.

As I'm getting things together, I let my tank sit fallow for a good 12 weeks. I also ran the tank warmer for good measure. I also vowed to NEVER get fish from my local big-box pet store. Every time I went in most of the fish were just covered in ich. This is not something I want to experience again. This led me to finding someone local on Facebook that sells fish. When it was time, I got fish from him and started probing him on beginner corals.

One day I went to visit his shop and he wasn't there, but his helper sold me some Kenya Tree Corals and said they were great for beginners. Boy was he right, and I've never regretted adding something to my tank so much in my entire life. THESE FREAKING THINGS REPRODUCE LIKE MAD AND ARE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO KILL!

I don't wish this coral on anyone. It should stay in the ocean.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

Over the next few years, things were going well. I was successfully keeping corals and this gave the wife the colors she wanted. Mostly everything was soft corals. I did eventually start keeping a few harder than beginner level corals. I learned about calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. I learned about testing and dosing 2-part. I found BRS and their videos on YouTube. I also found R2R where I've lurked through lots of threads learning as much as I could, but rarely commenting or posting. Things were looking up.

I also discovered a passion for photography. I bought a DSLR and added a giant lens for taking pictures of one of my sons who was playing football. I also specialized in concert photography. The biggest challenge though is photographing through the curved glass of the bowfront.

Reesj · Oct 23, 2019

Looks amazing!

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

I was also learning about carbon dosing. Since I had young kids with some approaching teenager years, vodka wasn't an option. I tried vinegar. I think it was going ok. My biggest issue was I had to manual dose. I couldn't afford a reliable doser. I had used a Jebao DP-4 but wasn't happy with it.

On August 28, 2017 I was doing my vinegar dosing and really had to go to the bathroom. I rushed it and ended up placing the bottle of vinegar on top of the tank. I got distracted and was doing something else in the house when I looked up and noticed my powder blue tang acting strange, and that's when I noticed the bottle in the tank. I rushed to take it out and found the lid off. It appears in my rush, I did not secure the lid and somehow the bottle fell in the tank. It was placed on one of the 2 braces. Perhaps it wasn't on all the way? This caused the tank to become very acidic. I performed several water changes and even tried adding baking soda to help neutralize the acid. In the course of 30 minutes, several fish already died. I quickly set up my 40-gallon breeder and caught all my fish and put them in there. It was all too late. I watched helplessly as my fish died. Fish, inverts, corals. All gone.

Here's a short clip. You can see my yellow tang breathing heavily and parts of him turning white.

Here's a damsel where his eyeball began popping out of his head.

Despite losing my fish to ich and mistakes my son made, I think this was the hardest for me to handle. I was really attached to the fish and their personalities. The corals I spent all my free time caring for and getting them to grow. I wanted to throw everything away and never come back to the hobby. Even after all this time, writing this up and seeing the evidence of my screw up is hard. The suffering they must have experienced with my carelessness.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

My wife being the wonderful woman she is (how'd I get so lucky) convinced me not get give up. Take a break if I must, but not to throw it all away. Not only did she see the joy it gave me in being successful, but also the joy it brought to our kids. You see, all 4 of our boys are special needs. Having this tank brought them joy and gave us something to bond over. Additionally, my dad, that gave me this tank had passed away. This is one of the few things I had left of his.

Yes, a break would be what I needed. This gave me time to try and heal, to learn, and to financially try and save up to bring this back to life.

I've got the time to set this up the way I want. I wanted to do this right. Every time before had been rushed to get fish back in it from buckets. So began the cleanup.

I decided I was no longer going to use the hang-on overflows. I checked to see if I could drill the back of the tank for an overflow. I could. I had never drilled a tank before and was super scared. Especially on this big of a tank with 3/4" thick glass. I watched a lot of videos on this subject. Eventually, I worked up the nerve, but only after trying on a smaller junk tank.

This also turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I discovered the seals were not in the best of conditions.

I removed all the old silicone and resealed the tank. Strangely, I don't have any photos documenting this process.

Over a 2 year span, I drilled the tank, resealed and leak tested in my garage. Additionally, I wanted to work on my scape. I had kept the rocks (though threw out all the old sand) and taped up the dimensions of the tank on an old table and came up with a scape that I was happy with. Then I cemented it all with MarcoRocks E-Marco-400 Aquascaping Kit Pink from BRS.

h8edpurdie · Oct 23, 2019

In trying to do this while at work, while working, I seem to be posting duplicate images. Even editing and deleting them doesn't seem to be helping, so I'm sorry.

The tank has been up with saltwater for several weeks now. I ended up rescuing a 12-year-old maroon clownfish, toby puffer, and coral beauty angel from my sister who really wanted to get rid of the tank. I plumbed her 55 gallon into my sump. BRS Salt video came out just in time. I ended up starting the tank with Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. I used to use Instant Ocean and it did what I needed, but I'm really liking this salt and will be using it on my display. I miss the 200-gallon box mixes though.

For my overflow, I ended up with the Synergy Reef 16" Ghost, but I am having issues with it. I can't run my dc return pump at max. I can only use it at 10 watts from it's rated 80 watts. I get lots of noise and salt creep if I run it at full power.

Return is a Jebao DCP-10000. The sump is just some generic acrylic sump I bought used from someone local.

I am working on a stocking list for both fish and corals. I'm saving up for one additional light and mounting system for the lights (I have no lights above the tank at the moment). I'm also looking at some macroalgae as soon as I can justify it.

Future plans are to frame in my fish room in the garage and get it insulated (It gets cold here during the winter) and this will hopefully help me save some money and not run so many heaters.

I'm sure I've left some things out, so if it's unclear and you have questions, feel free to ask away.