My little 400G 12’ aquarium

blaxsun · Aug 31, 2022

What blows me away is that scissor jack lift supporting that tank! Beautiful tanks!

Blue Tang Clan · Aug 31, 2022

Seriously -- is that glass or acrylic?

flagg37 · Aug 31, 2022

Will you keep the other tank up and running or move everything over to the new one?

ShoreReefer · Aug 31, 2022

Wow incredible tank! What are you planning on for lighting and filtration?

JumboShrimp · Aug 31, 2022

Two Thumbs Up!

helmsreef · Aug 31, 2022

What a steal! What's your plans moving forward?

Ufjd144 · Aug 31, 2022

Part 2 Of the thread….
Once the tank was in place, it was time to get all the equipment. I am a big believer of buying used equipment. I think in my close to 10 years in the hobby, I may have bought only a couple of equipments new. There are a lot of people leaving the hobby and you can find great deals out there. I got lucky while I was patiently waiting for the set up, and found guy that was changing out most of his equipment for another monster tank. I was able to get a
Vectra L2 pump
2 MP60s
8 radion pro XR30 Gen 4 with diffusers
a bunch of square tubing for the light bracket
Icecap Kal reactor
Tunze Osmolator 3155
Kessil H380 with goose neck
All the equipment was at least 1/2 off the original price, and in mint condition. I drove 4 hours to get it, and got lucky enough that I also found a guy that was selling a huge skimmer Reef Octopus 6000 ext in the same area. Picked up a bunch of stuff on that trip to get ready for starting the tank to begin cycling.

Now, it was time to hunt for rocks. Again, staying all over OfferUp and Facebook marketplace, I found a few people selling rocks for cheap, and was able to buy about 400 lbs of dead rocks. I made sure to cure it using acid bath and a chlorine bath. Those bad boys shining after I was done… lol.

I had some fun after that trying to come up with a landscape that would work for my tank. Set it up nice on the floor, to then later realize that it was way too wide and tall. I got a little smarter and took better measurements that allowed me to get a better feel for the true real estate available in the tank for what I like. I enjoy seeing my fish swim around, and have big spaces between the rocks for good flow.

Once I found the layout I liked, I started using glue to keep the rocks together so I could move them around. After a couple of days, I was able to start moving the rocks into the empty tank. A little nerve racking having to move everything into the tank, especially that some of those set ups were heavy as hell. After all was set and done, everything was in place, and I really liked how it came up.

Now, time to bring in the sand and water. For the sand, I chose to go with Pink figi sand from Petco that I got on special. And the water I had a local Water delivery person come with the truck to the house and fill it up. I got a good deal, and $125 later, I had the 400G aquarium full of water and cycling… very exciting stuff.
Using all the square tubing that I had gotten when I bought the lights, I made a bracket that would fit 6 of the 8 lights. Since I had to piece it together with what I had, it was not perfect, and was crooked at a couple of places… lol. But since I got it as a throw in on the deal, I was going to make sure I made it work. This pic below is my tank cycling with crooked light mount.

more to come about my build….

Ufjd144 · Aug 31, 2022

flagg37 said:
Will you keep the other tank up and running or move everything over to the new one?

Sold the Red Sea 425xl last week. And more than likely will take the small Red Sea Max 130D to my job.

Ufjd144 · Aug 31, 2022

JSmith said:
Wow incredible tank! What are you planning on for lighting and filtration?

Check out part 2. I answered Those questions

Ufjd144 · Aug 31, 2022

Blue Tang Clan said:
Seriously -- is that glass or acrylic?

3/4” glass all around. Has extra support on the bottom with two additional about 6” tank length pieces

Ufjd144 · Aug 31, 2022

blaxsun said:
What blows me away is that scissor jack lift supporting that tank! Beautiful tanks!

What’s even more impressive is that the guy works by himself. He moved tank even bigger than mine with two lifts and a few other gadgets.

blaxsun · Sep 1, 2022

Ufjd144 said:
What’s even more impressive is that the guy works by himself. He moved tank even bigger than mine with two lifts and a few other gadgets.

Wow! A few weeks back some movers who "supposedly knew what they were doing" dropped a Red Sea 750XXL while attempting delivery (not my tank, just saw the aftermath). To think this guy can literally manage this by himself (or with little help) completely blows my mind.

Anyway, let's see some more pictures of your pool (looks nice!)

Ufjd144 · Sep 3, 2022

Part 3: here come the fish
After waiting for the tank to cycled for a couple of months, I started with introducing 20 chromis into the tank, I figured that a hand full was not going to make much of a difference. Lost a few at first, but about 15 of them survived. Had them there for a few weeks on their own, and then it became time to introduce my own fish that had been with me for years. I brought from my 425XL the following fish:
Yellow tang
Blue tang
Fox face
Tomato clown
Pair of percula clowns
Yellow tail damsel
Flame angel
Coral beauty angel
A couple of barlet anthiads
3 large pajama cardinal fish
Purple dottyback
Almost everything went pretty well during the move, for some reason the female anthiad died very suddenly when I was grabbing her with the net. She opened her mouth, and died with her mouth wide open on the spot. Almost like she had a heart attack or died of fear. Very weird. The rest were good to go.
Everything was going really good, all the fish were eating and behaving great. I decided that it was time to add some of my dream fish at that point. I went to a local fish store, and saw a Gem tang and a whitetail Bristletooth tang. I have been in love with those two and wanted to own them for a while. Knowing that I already had a yellow and purple tangs in the tank at home, I thought that it would be best to add a couple of additional tangs to the purchase to get a better deal and also reduce stress to a single individual. I ended up leaving the store with the gem, bristletooth, a mimic tang, a unicorn tang, and a red hawk fish. I paid around $750 for all those. I thought I had gotten a great deal….
(And here comes the stupid costly mistake. The thing that you think will not happen to you) I got home, I acclimated all the fish, turned off all the lights, and put them in there. At first there was some aggression, so I used a mirror and placed it in the middle of the tank. The following day, everyone was happy and swimming around. All the fish were eating great, and getting along… Dream come true.

Until a week later…. . I first noticed that the bristle tooth was not eating like before. Then I started noticing some spots in my fish. I was thinking that it was a little case of ick, so I just wanted to keep them well fed. A couple of days later, even more dots started coming up, some of the fish started dying, very quickly too. Instead of ick, what I had was velvet. I took a day off from work and with the help of the wife, we transfer all the left over fish to a tank to treat it with copper. Many ended up dying, only the blue tang, the fox face, a clown, the damsel, and the cardinal fish survived. Sad week for sure. I ended up leaving the big tank without fish for about 12 weeks, and then transfer the survivors back again. By then a had purchased a couple of damsels and some more chromis. Those did get quarantined. Last week, I found a guy selling a tank for $1500. It had 2 large yellow tangs, a big blue tang, a huge unicorn tang, a marine Betta, and a pair of clowns. What’s even better, is that the tank has amazing equipment. It came with a new Arctica 1/5 Hp chiller, 2-64HD AI Prime lights with the bracket, 2 reefwave 45 pumps with controllers, a RSK protein skimmer, and a solid 500W heater. I cleaned everything very good, and noticed that all was in perfect condition. I am in the process of selling them all. I am truly expecting to be able to recover the $1500 and end up with the beautiful fish for free. Here is my tank today…

EricR · Sep 3, 2022

...and you already have your family Christmas card for this year. (last pic)

Ufjd144 · Sep 3, 2022

EricR said:
...and you already have your family Christmas card for this year. (last pic)

Lol. Missing a few humans

New&no clue · Sep 3, 2022

Ufjd144 said:
Part 3: here come the fish
After waiting for the tank to cycled for a couple of months, I started with introducing 20 chromis into the tank, I figured that a hand full was not going to make much of a difference. Lost a few at first, but about 15 of them survived. Had them there for a few weeks on their own, and then it became time to introduce my own fish that had been with me for years. I brought from my 425XL the following fish:
Yellow tang
Blue tang
Fox face
Tomato clown
Pair of percula clowns
Yellow tail damsel
Flame angel
Coral beauty angel
A couple of barlet anthiads
3 large pajama cardinal fish
Purple dottyback
Almost everything went pretty well during the move, for some reason the female anthiad died very suddenly when I was grabbing her with the net. She opened her mouth, and died with her mouth wide open on the spot. Almost like she had a heart attack or died of fear. Very weird. The rest were good to go.
Everything was going really good, all the fish were eating and behaving great. I decided that it was time to add some of my dream fish at that point. I went to a local fish store, and saw a Gem tang and a whitetail Bristletooth tang. I have been in love with those two and wanted to own them for a while. Knowing that I already had a yellow and purple tangs in the tank at home, I thought that it would be best to add a couple of additional tangs to the purchase to get a better deal and also reduce stress to a single individual. I ended up leaving the store with the gem, bristletooth, a mimic tang, a unicorn tang, and a red hawk fish. I paid around $750 for all those. I thought I had gotten a great deal….
(And here comes the stupid costly mistake. The thing that you think will not happen to you) I got home, I acclimated all the fish, turned off all the lights, and put them in there. At first there was some aggression, so I used a mirror and placed it in the middle of the tank. The following day, everyone was happy and swimming around. All the fish were eating great, and getting along… Dream come true.

Until a week later…. . I first noticed that the bristle tooth was not eating like before. Then I started noticing some spots in my fish. I was thinking that it was a little case of ick, so I just wanted to keep them well fed. A couple of days later, even more dots started coming up, some of the fish started dying, very quickly too. Instead of ick, what I had was velvet. I took a day off from work and with the help of the wife, we transfer all the left over fish to a tank to treat it with copper. Many ended up dying, only the blue tang, the fox face, a clown, the damsel, and the cardinal fish survived. Sad week for sure. I ended up leaving the big tank without fish for about 12 weeks, and then transfer the survivors back again. By then a had purchased a couple of damsels and some more chromis. Those did get quarantined. Last week, I found a guy selling a tank for $1500. It had 2 large yellow tangs, a big blue tang, a huge unicorn tang, a marine Betta, and a pair of clowns. What’s even better, is that the tank has amazing equipment. It came with a new Arctica 1/5 Hp chiller, 2-64HD AI Prime lights with the bracket, 2 reefwave 45 pumps with controllers, a RSK protein skimmer, and a solid 500W heater. I cleaned everything very good, and noticed that all was in perfect condition. I am in the process of selling them all. I am truly expecting to be able to recover the $1500 and end up with the beautiful fish for free. Here is my tank today…

What type of dog is the gray and black one?