My new 200g peninsula build!

[Caleb123]

Following along, I love these tanks! Excited to see this one come together.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Following along, I love these tanks! Excited to see this one come together.

Got what I think is the materials needed to plumb this thing over this weekend. If I learned anything from my DIY mixing station you only get 1 shot at this and messing it up sucks really bad sooooo wish me luck.

 

[Sean Clark]

HaHa, good luck.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

My tax return comes in next week. Naturally my thoughts have turned to what can I use it for this tank. Should I get a Trident with dosing system? If I did that I could potentially also add 3 XR15 lights to my T5 hybrid. Or should I invest in the Trident with analyzer with some investment in livestock??? I dunno but I do know that I want to introduce small fish first and the bigger fish later to reduce aggression issues.

 

[ninjamyst]

Save it for fish and corals

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Save it for fish and corals

Lol well its not getting saved either way Im spending it on the tank. That said I appreciate the honest feedback for sure. I will probably just buy some fish and coral then and a trident analyzer as well while waiting till later to get the lights. I have 30 days for fish in QT and 76 for coral in QT with both of those tanks cycled and ready to handle to the load. With luck my plumbing goes well this weekend and the display tank begins its cycle.

 

[ninjamyst]

I am hoping to get my tank moved and start the plumbing this weekend. As soon as it's wet, I am dumping in crap tons of fish and coral. Like instant reef. Been cycling my rocks for months now while waiting for the tank. Also have a jam packed 75g of stuff to move over.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Ok the plumbing is done for now. I left an input and output for plumbing the UV Sterilizer later. Some adjustments will need to be made once the UV is ready to be plumbed in but otherwise its at least ready to scape and fill.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Well I take it back I do have to organize the electronics before I fill it with water but otherwise its good to go.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Well I was wrong I thought plumbing would be the hard part which it wasn't easy and it took most of a day but Aquascaping has proven to be harder. I am 8 hours in to shaping my rocks and I feel like I'm only 1/4 the way done.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Here is a sample of what took 8 hours and probably shouldnt have.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

All right 3 days later my scape is done. I have included all 3 of the views of the peninsula with the scape. What you guys think? Is this tank ready to get wet?

 

[ninjamyst]

Great job!! Looks very nice. Amble room for fish to swim and plenty of hiding space too.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Well livestock is going to have to wait a lil while longer. I decided to get the trident water analyzer with the dosing system and energy bar along with several other supplies for the tank instead with my refund check. I am hoping my 2 MP60 wave pumps are enough to get the flow I need. I'm for sure getting the APEX controller system next week as it is a needed component for my flow monitor on the UV sterilizer and water analyzer/dosing automation setup. I will also like the fact I can make my T5 hybrids dim and schedule the proper lighting ramp up ramp down times with the APEX. I still also want to get 3 more XR15 lights.

As far as getting more livestock I already have the corals I got in the quarantine tank 14 days ago on Jan. 28 and its a 76 day quarantine process so that means they wont be ready for the display tank until April 14th. I don't really want to add any more corals as that would set the quarantine back to day 1 of 76 again. So with that said the first livestock that will actually make it into the display tank will likely be fish as the quarantine won't be for as long probably only going to do 14 days with disease treatments like copper.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

As I already have enough plumbed to fill my tank with water I am still hesitating for a few reasons listed below:

1. I will have the materials to plumb my UV sterilizer in this week and I want to do that without having to shut the system off. I won't be running the sterilizer while it cycles however it will be nice to turn valves and run it when I am ready.
2. I want to build in some redundancy so I will have a 2nd return pump ready to plumb in this week.
3. I want to account for evaporation so I have another small pump that I will plumb into the ATO chamber for ensuring my main return pumps don't run dry.
4. I have another controller board arriving this week which I will use to setup and organize all of the electrical components.

Bottom line I basically want to ensure the system always runs and most importantly never floods my basement. This maybe impossible to guarantee 100% but I want to build enough safe measures and do my due diligence to prevent it as much as is humanly possible.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

All right 3 days later my scape is done. I have included all 3 of the views of the peninsula with the scape. What you guys think? Is this tank ready to get wet?

I will also be adding live aragonite sand to this scape as soon as I am ready to add water.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Good morning reefers. I am starting a tank build thread for my NUVO EXT 200 Gallon Peninsula tanks which arrives next weekend. I ordered this tank in early December and it wasn't supposed to show up until the end of February so I haven't had alot of time to prepare the things I am going to need to gear it up. If you know my background this is my first attempt at a saltwater reef tank as I have done freshwater for 10 years with success in planted tanks breeding fish etc. That said I will welcome any tips along the way for this build. I will break this first post up into things I have already accomplished for my build versus the many things I still need to get done.

Things I have already accomplished:

I just completed the plumbing on my DIY saltwater mixing station (photographs attached). The mixing station is 4x 44 gallon Brute trash cans 1 to hold the waste water which I will use for my fresh water fish water changes, 1 for RODI and 2 for Salt mixing. The waste bin is independent from the other 3 and just collects waste from the RODI unit with an emergency overflow hard plumbed into my waste water. The RODI bin has a float valve to stop production once its full and is hard plumbed into the 2 saltwater bins via an external pump which can be used to bring RODI to either of the two bins or to a garden hose attachment. I can also utilize the ball valves to bring just salt water to the garden hose attachment. I have wave makers and heaters in the bottom of both salt bins.

I have setup a quarantine tank which will also double as a hospital tank for fish and coral. The tank I choose was a cheap 40 gallon breeder with a simple hang on back filter a small wave pump and a 100W heater. I will start cycling this quarantine tank this weekend where I will use carbon/biological filtration in the hang on back during the cycle but once I start medication and quarantine treatments I will remove the carbon. I have a very nice clipped on radion XR15 for lighting the quarantine tank which cost more than any of the rest of the quarantine tank setup.

Things I need to accomplish:

So as I mentioned before my 200g NUVO arrives this weekend. I am in no shape prepared financially to get this tank up and running anytime soon. I literally have nothing for this tank yet so when it arrives I will fight the battle to get it into my fishroom basement with the help of friends. My greetings post from last month has a nice pic of my fishroom https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/greetings-from-virginia.879645/

I will build the tank stand and get it placed but leave the plumbing until I decide on what sump I want to get etc. My thought on this tank is a want some bigger fish like a Tang or two and perhaps an angelfish. I also mostly want to have clowns that are hosting an anemone. I want corals but am interested in having only a few that are allowed to grow out quite large vice the majority of tanks I see pictures of where corals are crammed up against each other.

Here is my thoughts on the gear that I think will work to get me where I need to be (this stuff is so expensive it will certainly be an all of 2022 project). 40 watt UV sterilizer plumbed into the return flow from the sump. ICE Cap 36XL pre built sump with baffles etc. I doubt the tank comes with a sump and after building my saltwater station I done with DIY for now. RSK 900 reefer internal protein skimmer. 24" XL arch life rock, shapes life rock times 2, liferock tree aquakit, shelf life rock. 60 lbs of either live sand or crushed coral (I originally thought sand but am now leaning crushed coral because I do want so corals that require higher flow like acro). 3 Radion XR 30's. Apex controller and dosing system. Ecochic refugium light by tunze with a medium chaeto starter kit. 1200 watt titanium heater. 4 MP 40 wave pumps. 2 mighty jet return pumps and a battery backup.

That's probably forgetting some other things I will need but I've priced my total build cost out to near 15k which is a huge chunk of change granted one large expense the tank itself has already been purchased and the ancillary requirements like quarantine tank and salt water mixing station have also been taken care of. It will be 30 days until my quarantine tank is cycled and my hope is to begin executing on some of these other expensive item requirements for my display tank with my tax refund.

It is already funny going back and looking at this with all the things I thought I was going to do versus what I actually did. Initially only planned on 2 Brute cans and wound up with 4. Initially thought I would go with 4 mp40 wave pumps but to try and minimize cords and make the display look as natural as possible decided on 2 mp60's instead. I now have the sterilzer but didn't realize how huge it would be or the extra effort necessary to make sure it does the job right. Chaeto starter kits cant even be found online right now waiting for supplies of that to come back to setup the fuge. I initally wanted to get a LED hybrid kit but to cut costs went with the T5 hybrid and still need to buy the XR15's to fully have lighting good to go.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

Allright. I got the tank wet!!!! Holy cow reefing is nutz. I spent 3 days doing the final plumbing touch ups and dear lord electrical cord management is awful. Of course it wouldve helped if my basement had walls but I choose to have everything managed within the sump. Heres the pics. Just got wet so the sand is cloudy but it will clear out quickly Im sure.

 

[Sean Clark]

"I spent 3 days doing the final plumbing touch ups"

Lol final... that is funny.

 

[hawkeyejp82]

"I spent 3 days doing the final plumbing touch ups"

Lol final... that is funny.

Good point I do have more plumbing to do on the dosing system down the line but otherwise I think Im good. Plumbing isnt too bad though the electrical cord management on the other hand was super annoying.