ELynn
New Member
Hello Everyone!
My name is Erica and I am currently setting up a 75 gallon mixed reef tank. I spent about a year planning and researching and when we bought our house I was finally ready to get started. I live in Quebec Canada and though there is an active reef community in this area, there is the added challenge of lower availability then the states and freezing cold winters then stifling summers. My goal is to create a tank that is as automated and low maintenance as possible with lots of redundancy.
I bought a reef ready tank on sale at a pet store and found a cabinet on Marketplace. I’ve been very lucky finding good quality second hand equipment.
I started by planning out the layout of my rock work then epoxied them together in three sections and placed them in my tank.
I then went ahead and planned out my sump, it took a long time to plan and took a significant amount of googling on my part. The sump came with the cabinet I bought,
but looking back I wish I had found bigger, but I made it work. I decided I really wanted a refugium so I planned out how to build an external refugium without having to rely on a second pump. I came up with a gravity based system where my manifold pumps water in and water is fed back into the return section by gravity. I plan on adding a float switch to turn off my return pump in case the return pipe from the refugium is ever blocked. Drilling glass was an interesting experience, especially since I did not know if the small tank I had was tempered or not. Turned out great though!
With my sump all set up and plumbed I was finally ready to add water. I bought a fairly new RO/DI system off Marketplace and filled my tank. In my haste to finally see water in my tank I forgot to add my sand first, was not the funnest to add sand in a filled tank. In my second dumb move I didn’t turn off my sump before letting the sand dust settle. My lovely clean sump was then decorated with a fine layer of sand dust everywhere. I’m just telling myself it’s extra place for bacteria to colonize while the perfectionist part of me died a little inside.
I decided to use the fishless cycling method for cycling my tank and to really let the tank cycle for a month or two before adding fish. I want a strong micro biome to start this tank out and to get off to the right start. I’m nearly at 2 months now, I’ve been periodically dosing Ammonia.
My next project was to create a cabinet for my aquarium controller. I bought the Apex new and since it was one of the most expensive parts of this build I figured it should be kept in style. I decided to DIY my cabinet since I could
not find any online that suited my taste and refused to pay 400$ for the fancy piece of plastic cabinet you can buy. I used MDF board for the internal part of the cabinet where the controllers and such are mounted and bout a French cleat off Amazon so it can be hung inside the cabinet.The outer cabinet is a modified ikea cabinet. I loved the black frosted glass so the Neptune symbols can be seen through with a pleasing orange glow. I still have various pieces of equipment to buy which I’m collecting slowly mostly second hand but I don’t have anything in the tank yet so they are not required as of yet. I plan on getting a second hand iPad mini to use as my Apex Dashboard display.
The bottom of my cabinet will hold my ATO reservoir and a reservoir for kalkwasser which will be dosed using a DOS. I found a nearly new one second hand, but I won’t set it up right away as my tank won’t require dosing Kalk for a while.
Next I set up lights above my tank though I am not planning on turning them on for a while. I decided on T5’s and LED combo I currently have the T5’s hung and will eventually buy some Kessil’s as I really like the shimmer. I also have a Kessil Tuna Flora hanging above my Fuge.
Currently I just faced my first major issue with my tank. I remember hearing a fellow reefer complaining about the issue of heat with our Canadian Summers at the reef store. Despite the stereotypes it gets hot here and even worse is the humidity which impedes evaporation so the tank won’t cool. He had recommended getting a chiller to me but I dismissed that idea as unnecessary, but boy was I wrong. I bought a beautiful 1860 historic home. Despite all the charm there is the issue of no A/C. We are currently facing a heatwave in my province and my tank has heated up to a whopping 83 degrees, and it’s supposed to get hotter outside! Thank god I have no fish or Corals in the tank. For my little quarantine tank set up in my kitchen I’ve utilized fans to keep it cool but I didn’t think that would cut it for my main tank.
Until renovations in my house were complete installing A/C was not possible. Like the man in the Reef store had said I was going to need a Chiller. I wanted to cry at the thought of spending 1000$ minimum on a piece of equipment that will be used only a few months of the year. I was up all night obsessing on finding a solution (Even considered DIY’ing one out of a mini fridge) . The reef gods must have been smiling down on me though; on a whim I decided to check my good friend marketplace. I typed in aquarium chiller and no results, I then typed in water chiller and BOOM found one! A lovely lady located about 45 minutes from me was selling a 1/4 HP water chiller for 200$!! New in Box!!! I could not believe my luck. Her husband had got it buying a bulk lot of electronics as an electrician and they had no use for it. The model normally goes for 900$ before tax! I just picked up a pump from the Reef store and am waiting on some silicone tubing from Amazon so I can cool my tank, then I’ll be ready for fish.
My next project is to set up the breakout box I got from Etsy to have some redundancy float switches and some LED lighting in my controller cabinet and in my tank cabinet. Wiring electronics is a little intimidating but if I can drill glass I can do this.
Thanks for reading if you got this far!! I plan on continuing to update as my tank develops, and I’m excited to start adding life to my tank. If you have any suggestions, or tips I’d be glad to hear them, no amount of googling can beat the raw experience many of you have!
My name is Erica and I am currently setting up a 75 gallon mixed reef tank. I spent about a year planning and researching and when we bought our house I was finally ready to get started. I live in Quebec Canada and though there is an active reef community in this area, there is the added challenge of lower availability then the states and freezing cold winters then stifling summers. My goal is to create a tank that is as automated and low maintenance as possible with lots of redundancy.
I bought a reef ready tank on sale at a pet store and found a cabinet on Marketplace. I’ve been very lucky finding good quality second hand equipment.
I then went ahead and planned out my sump, it took a long time to plan and took a significant amount of googling on my part. The sump came with the cabinet I bought,
but looking back I wish I had found bigger, but I made it work. I decided I really wanted a refugium so I planned out how to build an external refugium without having to rely on a second pump. I came up with a gravity based system where my manifold pumps water in and water is fed back into the return section by gravity. I plan on adding a float switch to turn off my return pump in case the return pipe from the refugium is ever blocked. Drilling glass was an interesting experience, especially since I did not know if the small tank I had was tempered or not. Turned out great though!
I decided to use the fishless cycling method for cycling my tank and to really let the tank cycle for a month or two before adding fish. I want a strong micro biome to start this tank out and to get off to the right start. I’m nearly at 2 months now, I’ve been periodically dosing Ammonia.
My next project was to create a cabinet for my aquarium controller. I bought the Apex new and since it was one of the most expensive parts of this build I figured it should be kept in style. I decided to DIY my cabinet since I could
not find any online that suited my taste and refused to pay 400$ for the fancy piece of plastic cabinet you can buy. I used MDF board for the internal part of the cabinet where the controllers and such are mounted and bout a French cleat off Amazon so it can be hung inside the cabinet.The outer cabinet is a modified ikea cabinet. I loved the black frosted glass so the Neptune symbols can be seen through with a pleasing orange glow. I still have various pieces of equipment to buy which I’m collecting slowly mostly second hand but I don’t have anything in the tank yet so they are not required as of yet. I plan on getting a second hand iPad mini to use as my Apex Dashboard display.
The bottom of my cabinet will hold my ATO reservoir and a reservoir for kalkwasser which will be dosed using a DOS. I found a nearly new one second hand, but I won’t set it up right away as my tank won’t require dosing Kalk for a while.
Next I set up lights above my tank though I am not planning on turning them on for a while. I decided on T5’s and LED combo I currently have the T5’s hung and will eventually buy some Kessil’s as I really like the shimmer. I also have a Kessil Tuna Flora hanging above my Fuge.
Currently I just faced my first major issue with my tank. I remember hearing a fellow reefer complaining about the issue of heat with our Canadian Summers at the reef store. Despite the stereotypes it gets hot here and even worse is the humidity which impedes evaporation so the tank won’t cool. He had recommended getting a chiller to me but I dismissed that idea as unnecessary, but boy was I wrong. I bought a beautiful 1860 historic home. Despite all the charm there is the issue of no A/C. We are currently facing a heatwave in my province and my tank has heated up to a whopping 83 degrees, and it’s supposed to get hotter outside! Thank god I have no fish or Corals in the tank. For my little quarantine tank set up in my kitchen I’ve utilized fans to keep it cool but I didn’t think that would cut it for my main tank.
Until renovations in my house were complete installing A/C was not possible. Like the man in the Reef store had said I was going to need a Chiller. I wanted to cry at the thought of spending 1000$ minimum on a piece of equipment that will be used only a few months of the year. I was up all night obsessing on finding a solution (Even considered DIY’ing one out of a mini fridge) . The reef gods must have been smiling down on me though; on a whim I decided to check my good friend marketplace. I typed in aquarium chiller and no results, I then typed in water chiller and BOOM found one! A lovely lady located about 45 minutes from me was selling a 1/4 HP water chiller for 200$!! New in Box!!! I could not believe my luck. Her husband had got it buying a bulk lot of electronics as an electrician and they had no use for it. The model normally goes for 900$ before tax! I just picked up a pump from the Reef store and am waiting on some silicone tubing from Amazon so I can cool my tank, then I’ll be ready for fish.
My next project is to set up the breakout box I got from Etsy to have some redundancy float switches and some LED lighting in my controller cabinet and in my tank cabinet. Wiring electronics is a little intimidating but if I can drill glass I can do this.
Thanks for reading if you got this far!! I plan on continuing to update as my tank develops, and I’m excited to start adding life to my tank. If you have any suggestions, or tips I’d be glad to hear them, no amount of googling can beat the raw experience many of you have!
