My New Salt Water Set up

[Reefer_kano]

For a long time I've always been facinated with Salt water Aquariums and Everything that comes with it.
Ive had Fresh water aquariums for quite some time and ive had and have from nano fish to monster fish when it comes to that side of the hobby. But even after having couple of 300 gallons systems running at the same time it started to get a bit boring for me.
I was skeptical to get into salt because i thought it was gonna be very difficult and because of the cost but after realizing how much money i had already spent on Fresh water i figure might as well go into salt since its what ive always wanted, for the challenge and i was already in the thowing money out the windown path of the aquarium hobby lol

I started this build back in early jan after my girlfriend got me the tank set up and the RO/DI set up as a xmas present.

Here is the list and some of the upgrades i done so far.

BRS 6 stage RO/DI
Red sea Reefer 425 XL
Octo classic 202-S
Corallife turbo -twist 6x
Radion XR15 Blue with difffuser and tank mounts
AI prime fuge with mounting arm
Neptune ATK
Mighty jet XL return pump
Maxspect MJ-GF2K Gyre flow pump
Along with a couple of run of the mill power head i had laying around from my fresh water set ups.

I will be upgrading my return pump and the power heads very soon.

I wasn't taking constant pictures of the set up as it went along but i will be starting from now on lol

So here is what i got. Any feed back will be well appreciated.
The last picture of it its from a few weeks ago, ill get an updated one tomorrow.

 

[KrisReef]

Got pics of your gf? She’s gotta be awesome in my book! Tank looks brilliant as well!

Nice transition to the high salinity system.

 

[Reefer_kano]

Got pics of your gf? She’s gotta be awesome in my book! Tank looks brilliant as well!

Nice transition to the high salinity system.

She is awesome but wont post her pic lol
Thank you

 

[Reefer_kano]

Ill get some pics of the corals more up close later on today.

 

[KrisReef]

She is awesome but wont post her pic lol
Thank you

I knew it you lucky dog!

 

[Reefer_kano]

Just some of the corals...

 

[Reefer_kano]

Love the cors on this guy.

 

[Reefer_kano]

So, it's been quite a while since I posted here lol
I've learned quite a bit in the last yr or so where finally I'm able to say that my tank has been balancing out quite well and I'm able also to trouble shoot most issues that have come up.
Lack of patience has definitely showed me quite a bit too smh but everyone has different ways to learn new things I guess lol

So one of the mistakes I made was scratching the glass of my current tank quite bad with the magnets of a acclimation box and I didn't realized it till it was too late and that it's the main reason why I started this built.

So it was time to start the built close to the original size I wanted my tank to be.

The new system is going to be a Marineland 180g with a triton 44 sump.

Full disclosure...ive been taking my sweet old time with this built smh lol

I started this built back in June with the stand.
I wanted the stand to be spacious so I could put all the gear I need and not worry about space and also have extra storage space and a small testing/work area.

The stand is 98"L x 37"H x 27"W (roughly). Which gave me roughly filtration area of 65"L x 31"H x 22"w.
Plus a side "cabinet" space for storage and wire management.

I did screwed up and instead of using 3/4 " paneling, I used 1/2 " not thinking so now I have to work around the fact that whatever I want to screw to the walls it will pierced the all the way thru ‍‍‍.
I can still make it work tho.
Here are some pics of the stand...

I'm not a master carpenter but I'm still proud of my work lol

The tank in the background got sold so and I had to rearrange the living room to make space for the new tank.

YES...I water tested the tank in place, I did had about 2 weeks off from work so I was able to keep a close eye on things in case anything would happen.

I couldn't go with fancy colors plumbing lol.
Here is the final plumbing layout.
I went with a inline manifold to hopefully not need extra pumps for reactors.

I might do a separate refugium for the system since I have the space but not 100% on that idea. It will all depend on how much space I have available once I finish hooking everything up when I do the transfer.

Lighting.
I wanted alot of coverage when it came to Lighting and also have it in a way that it would be easy to move out of the way when I need to work in the tank.
So it needed to be hanging and strong enough for all the light fixtures.

I went with 80/20 railing. It took me a while to figure out what size railing I wanted to use and what would work best for me.
Then I had to figure out how to mount the fixtures to the railing.

It took me a bit to figure out what parts I needed because I wanted the lights to easily slide across the railing.

Once it's all done, it will be 4 xr30 blues and 1 xr30 pro in the middle.
Wires will run tied up along the railing once I get them all mounted.

While testing the lights I realized that they were going to be shining right at my face when I would be sitting on the couch to I had come up with a way to prevent that.

Luckily I have a friend at work that does 3D printing, and after seeing what some ppl is charging for the light shades, I asked him and he was able to print out some for me. He did at a fraction of the price. Also he will be teaching me some 3D printing so stay tuned for that also

I definitely wanted this guys out of the way lol

I forgot to mention. I've been getting a butt load of rock for a while.
So back in July I started a 90g tank in the basement, loaded with rock that I had cleaned earlier in the spring time, cycling....

I made the mistake to put too much food in the rock to help out cycle it so the phosphate levels went thru the roof.
I put a reactor with rowaphos for a while and after a few water changes I was able to bring them back down.
So today I will be putting about 80g of water in the tank, salt, and get it mixed so I can start bring the rock from the basement and getting it in the tank.
I'm gonna put some powerheads in the tank to keep the water moving till I do the main transfer next weekend.
Thank you for reading and
Stay tuned....

 

[Reefer_kano]

Cleaned up throughly and ready for water.

 

[Reefer_kano]

So it begins...
Got out of work at 7 am to come home and wait on the couch for all the packages from BRS.
Sadly I didn't get anything extra beside 3 10 dollars discount card, oh well.

So I've been up practically going on 30 hrs with out sleep so I can get the 180 up and running this weekend (fingers crossed)

Just filled up about 70 gallons into and getting salt mixed in it. Going to set up the RS 1200 in the sump and make more RO over night just incase I need more water tomorrow once I empty the current tank.

 

[Reefer_kano]

This was a very long weekend for me.
Very lil sleep and now start my work week smh.

Saturday started transferring the cycled rock and placing it in the tank.
Then all day Saturday into this morning I got about 95% or everything done.
I still have to clean up some wiring in the sump area and move the coral from the frag racks to the rock.
I'm pretty happy how everything came out.

I still need to clean and straighten a few things up but gotta go and make some money lol

 

[Gumbies R Us]

This was a very long weekend for me.
Very lil sleep and now start my work week smh.

Saturday started transferring the cycled rock and placing it in the tank.
Then all day Saturday into this morning I got about 95% or everything done.
I still have to clean up some wiring in the sump area and move the coral from the frag racks to the rock.
I'm pretty happy how everything came out.

I still need to clean and straighten a few things up but gotta go and make some money lol

Tank is looking amazing!

 

[Reefer_kano]

Tank is looking amazing!

Thank you!. It's been alot of work but we'll worth it

 

[Reefer_kano]

Things seem to be stabilizing and mostly everyone are enjoying the new set up.

Since I got stood up lol I figure I'll try to get some close up pics of some of the corals.
I need to get a better camera soon so I apologize for the crappy pics

I do love how in less than 3 weeks the rock is already getting covered with coraline

Most of the SPS pics came out really crappy so hopefully by next time I'll have a better camera.
If you guys have recommendations for taking better pics or cameras please let me know.

 

[Reefer_kano]

This are some of the Sps I picked up during the last @SBB Corals sales.

I'm still trying to find space on the rocks for all of them smh lol

 

[Reefer_kano]