My 75 gallon reef

[Fishy888]

A few hours ago I picked up a 75 gallon tank that came with 2 emperor 400s, 2 air pumps, a gravel vac, several heaters (I think there are 4), a ton of decorations and rock for a freshwater setup, and a piece of limestone dry rock that has to weigh 15 lbs or so. There was a stand with it that was built with 4x4s (not 2x4s but 4x4s) It's so tall the Jolly Green Giant would have to stand on his toes just to see the sand on the tank's floor. The tank itself must be very new. The silicone is clear and the tank looks brand new.

I have many plans for this tank. I will share them here before long.

 

[tbrown]

A few hours ago I picked up a 75 gallon tank that came with 2 emperor 400s, 2 air pumps, a gravel vac, several heaters (I think there are 4), a ton of decorations and rock for a freshwater setup, and a piece of limestone dry rock that has to weigh 15 lbs or so. There was a stand with it that was built with 4x4s (not 2x4s but 4x4s) It's so tall the Jolly Green Giant would have to stand on his toes just to see the sand on the tank's floor. The tank itself must be very new. The silicone is clear and the tank looks brand new.

I have many plans for this tank. I will share them here before long.

Awesome! Keep us posted.

 

[Fishy888]

After getting the tank Friday night I went through everything that came with it. Everything looked to be in good shape so I cleaned the 2 emperor 400s and put them on the tank on Saturday. I then cleaned the tank and filled it then added the salt. I waited overnight for the water to clear. I cleaned the sand and added my dry rock and a few pieces of live rock on Sunday. I still have a good 50 lbs of rock to get but I am making progress. Tomorrow I should be getting a 6600 gph circulation pump in the mail. As for now I don't have a sump but that will be coming around New Years day as well as the overflow box. Now the tank is not reef ready so I will be getting an overflow box with a u-tube. Once I get the sump running I might use the emperor 400s in there to run charcoal.

 

[Fishy888]

The wavemaker came today and it is amazing. In fact I have an aqua-nado in the front left corner and no sand there. The stream is focused up and to the sides. Once I get time I will readjust things. I am just glad I spent the 4 or 5 hours cleaning the sand yesterday or I'd never see past the front one inch lol. With the two emperors and the new wavemaker I have 100x per hour of turnover. That should make for some happy sps down the road.

 

[Idech]

It’s coming along !

Is the sand you added new or was it used in the tank you bought ?

 

[Fishy888]

It's new. It would probably have taken a lot longer to clean if it had been used. Even though there is no sand left in that one corner once more rock goes in the flow dynamics will change. In the mean time I will readjust things once I get home. It will be great to have detritus kicked up where it can be pulled out via a skimmer and via an algae scrubber I plan to build. I already have some of the parts for it but I need some acrylic and I need to figure out how to mount the lights. Otherwise I should be set.

 

[Fishy888]

This pic shows how much sand was moved around. I readjusted things and so far so good. The only thing is I have many bubbles floating around. I obviously have no livestock in yet but I do have some live rock. Will the bubbles be a problem at this stage? This tank is going to be sps dominated but I also want some pulsing xenia as well as some LPS. In fact this will be my first foray into keeping an SPS tank so I will likely be asking some questions from time to time.

 

[Idech]

What filter do you plan on using ?

 

[Fishy888]

I plan on building an algae scrubber. I also want to get a skimmer although I don't know which one I want yet. In addition to that I intend to run carbon. I hope to use the two emperor 400s for that purpose. If that is a bad idea I'll just buy or diy a reactor.

 

[Idech]

I plan on building an algae scrubber. I also want to get a skimmer although I don't know which one I want yet. In addition to that I intend to run carbon. I hope to use the two emperor 400s for that purpose. If that is a bad idea I'll just buy or diy a reactor.

If you want an internal skimmer, check out the Tunze comline 9012. That’s the one I bought for my 75 gallons. It’s not in use yet so I can’t tell you more.

 

[Fishy888]

If you want an internal skimmer, check out the Tunze comline 9012. That’s the one I bought for my 75 gallons. It’s not in use yet so I can’t tell you more.

I will get an in-sump skimmer. This tank isn't reef ready so I will have to run with a u-tube overflow box. It might not be the quietest but it'll get the job done. The algae scrubber will be a good size. I am building it in a 13 gallon trash can. It is a fairly sturdy trash can by modern day standards so it should hold up well.

 

[Idech]

I will get an in-sump skimmer. This tank isn't reef ready so I will have to run with a u-tube overflow box. It might not be the quietest but it'll get the job done. The algae scrubber will be a good size. I am building it in a 13 gallon trash can. It is a fairly sturdy trash can by modern day standards so it should hold up well.

That’s one way to go. I decided to go without a sump. I’ll follow your build thread as I’m curious about other possibilities.

 

[Fishy888]

Starting to see diatoms now on rocks it wasn't on before. I don't have a ton of rock in there yet. I probably have 25 lbs all together at most but I will have more after the holidays. I also have to get proper lighting on this tank. In the meantime I will be concentrating on getting as many strains of good bacteria, coralline algae, and the types of creatures that used to come in on true live rock, as I possibly can. There will also be pods. Many, many pods. The two pics I attached are of the three rocks most covered with diatoms. The acropora skeleton is much darker than any diatoms I have ever seen though. If anyone can tell me if the darker algae are diatoms, a different algae, or if it is something different, like some kind of encrusting sponge or something, please let me know. In the meantime I will do some more research on this.

 

[Fishy888]

A couple days ago I discovered that my wavemaker quit working. I took it out of the tank to clean out the impellers thinking maybe debris got inside. What I discovered was that the plastic around the impeller housing buckled and even melted in one spot. Several of you helped me out when I posted about it in the general discussion forum. I wanted to thank you for setting my mind at ease. As a result of what happened I am going to be looking at brand names. There are some decent name brand circulation pumps out there that are still affordable. I also decided that I will buy two smaller pumps instead of one big one. That will help minimize dead spots and provide some redundancy. Thankfully I have the 2 emperor 400s which are giving me plenty of surface agitation. I added another small piece of live rock yesterday from a LFS that has probably 15 or 20 lbs of Fiji rock left. Once that's gone I doubt there will be more. The good news is that I now have some rock that actually came from the reef which will help my reef look more natural. On the other hand it is a great thing that little to no more collecting of rock from living reefs will occur. The less damage we do to the reefs the better for us all the way around. While I will continue to purchase the mined Florida rock for this build I am also sourcing Fiji rock. Reefers breaking down their tanks as well as LFSs that may still have some Fiji rock left are the most likely sources at this point. I am going to be using GARF grunge to seed both sand and rock. I am also thinking about using some of the bottled bacteria for diversity. In the meantime the diatoms in the sand bed is growing thicker and even the base rock is turning brown too. I am looking forward to seeing pods on the glass. I have always seen them bloom right around when the green algae types show up.

 

[Fishy888]

The diatoms are spreading like wildfire on the rocks and the sand. I am about two weeks in now so I am at least a third of the way if not halfway through the cycle. In a few weeks I will get a master test kit. I usually find that the cycle is complete once diatoms start giving way to green algae of various types. That is why I am waiting to get my test kits. That said my attention is turning to what kind of cleanup crew I will need once the cycle is done. I want to start with snails and hermits. The thing is that I don't want to have my pods eaten. I want to build the pod population up. IME I have never seen hermits or snails go for pods. Right now blue and red leg hermits seem like a good bet. For snails trochus and cerith are the two I want to start with. Eventually I will add others but it will be a while.

 

[Fishy888]

I have done some research on various snails and hermits since my last journal entry. I came across some forum posts on diatoms and how people consider a tank to be cycled when diatoms appear. I have two emperor 400s with bio wheels and while I only have 25 lbs at most, I do have a sand bed that is 3/4 inch on average. I also have a little bit of cyano going on. As a result I bought a single blue legged hermit crab and added it to the aquarium. I gave it a 3 hour long acclimation first. Once that crab went in it went right to work. That was on Saturday evening. Since then it (most likely a male since it is a good half inch, minus the shell of course) has eaten almost all of the diatoms on one of the smaller rocks. That rock however had the thickest coats of diatoms and cyano out of all the other rocks in there. Seeing how much this crab eats I would never buy as many hermits as are recommended by stores that sell cuc packages. They would certainly starve at half the numbers recommended in most cases I would think. Admittedly I should have waited until I tested my water before adding the hermit crab but I don't always have the patience I should have. While I realize this is a build journal I also know that other people are reading this, including beginners. As a result I will post both my successes and my failures here. In doing so it is my hope that others will learn from my successes and my failures. I consider myself to be intermediate at most when it comes to reefing. I am certainly no expert yet but I will work towards becoming one. There are many here who are more seasoned than I am. If any of you feel something I am doing or proposing will cause more harm than good or is just downright dangerous please post it here so that others learn from it as well as me. I have attached some photos. The first one is of the hermit about 5 minutes after he went in. The second one shows the trail he blazed through the tank. It took him about 7 hours to get that far but you can see how much he ate in that time. The last pic is a close up shot at the end of the "trail".

 

[Fishy888]

I now have three blue legged hermits. All are doing well. There is more cyano now but the hermits have been eating it the best they can. I am running a single t8no lamp currently since there won't be coral right away. I am looking into lighting but I am tempted to get metal halide lighting because it is pretty much plug and play. Even though it isn't as efficient energy wise, by the time you buy LED hybrid lighting, a PAR meter, etc you are at 1000 bucks plus the fact that the t5s will need constant replacement. The halides will be maybe 500 and that is with the 200 dollar reflectors! Yes there will be a bigger electric bill but oh my it won't be nearly as expensive as LEDs right now. I found complete core and coil ballasts with capacitors for 20 bucks each. Plus if I upgrade in the future these lights could move to the new tank unlike the 1000 dollar hybrid lights. It may be different if prices ever go down on LED hybrid fixtures but in an era where you have to take out a second mortgage to buy a pound of hamburger I don't see it happening. I know that the companies that made metal halide lamps aren't really making them anymore but I figure if I could get enough lamps to last 5 years even that would help me save up for the LED hybrids I would want. I found at least one place that still carries them. I also started looking at controllers for my heaters today. I like the inkbird controllers so far but I want to look at others too. I know many here swear by Apex. I will consider them as well. As I think about it I thought there were controllers that could control heaters, ATOs, etc and could monitor temp, ph, all, water level, etc. I will look into that. If I were to get a controller that could monitor everything would it be a good idea or should I go with multiple controllers so that if one malfunctions the others would still be able to do their jobs. I am looking to get the best bang for the buck and the most peace of mind at the same time.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Look at Noopsyche lights

 

[Fishy888]

Noopsyche does have some nice lights so I'll keep them in mind. Although it has taken some time the 3 hermits are making a dent into the cyano. I also think the diatoms are starting to run out of silicon. Things look better but it still has a ways to go. I am kind of surprised that there is not a single copepod or amphipod to be seen. I have enough rock that I should see something somewhere. Then again pods want green algae to eat and I don't have it yet.

 

[tbrown]

Noopsyche does have some nice lights so I'll keep them in mind. Although it has taken some time the 3 hermits are making a dent into the cyano. I also think the diatoms are starting to run out of silicon. Things look better but it still has a ways to go. I am kind of surprised that there is not a single copepod or amphipod to be seen. I have enough rock that I should see something somewhere. Then again pods want green algae to eat and I don't have it yet.

There's 2 giveaways for Noopsyche lights going on right now.