Gday All!
Name is Chris living in Tucson Arizona but originally from Melb Australia and this is my build thread for my First Reef Tank!
I grew up with a couple of freshwater tanks (discus mainly) but always wanted to do a saltwater tank so a month or so ago the GF and I decided to take the plunge and see what we could build. We looked at the house and decided on an area between two windows which will support a 4ft tank.
Tank and Stand:
A quick Facebook Marketplace search and we found a 85G 4ft long, 2ft high, 18" deep tank and stand for $100 (impulse buy as once I researched I probably would have gone for a 4ft x 2ft x 2ft tank).
Not the shiniest tank or stand out there but at the time I thought deal! Got it home, Tank in the backyard to be filled with water to test the seams and Stand in the Garage to clean and paint.
Tank was filled with water and I think has a small leak in the back right joint, looks like someone has replaced the silicon (badly) in the past, even putting some on the outside of the tank. Due to this and the unknown age of the tank I am going to remove all the existing silicon and reseal the tank. Tank is also a little scratched up so I will cover polishing that also in a later post.
I do have a question about the tank, is this a rimless or rimmed tank, it does have the trim at the top and bottom. At the bottom it sits on the trim unless there is also supposed to be a pad inside the trim. At the top the trim is just glued to the tank, and has seperated from each other at the corners.
Is this an Issue?
Anything special I should be doing with this trim(I will be sanding and painting?
Do I put a pad under the tank or is this designed to sit on the trim pieces?
The Stand we removed the doors (will replace with some flat doors as we like the modern look) sanded with 100 and then 200 grit sandpaper and painted with rustoleum epoxy paint.
Also put the tank on top of the stand and started setting up the gear to get an idea of how it would look
Equipment:
Some more facebook marketplace stalking and I ended up with the following gear from a guy 5 mins from my house:
Skimmer: Quantum Nyos 160 Link
ATO Controller: HydroFill™ Ti ATO Controller Link
ATO Pump:
Light: Aquatic Life G2 T5 HO Hybrid 4-Lamp Link
Flow Pump: Maxspect Gyre Pump XF350 (Two Pumps + Controller) Link
I then hit up Trigger Systems Blemished systems page for:
Sump: Trigger Systems Sapphire 26 Link
ATO Container: Sapphire 5 Gallon Link
Then it was time for some BRS, Coralvue and Amazon shopping to complete the equipment for now:
Circulating Pump: Hydor Seltz D DC Controllable 1000 GPH Link
Salt Mixing Flow Pump: Hydor Koralia Evolution Link
Heater: 300W Titanium Aquarium Heater System Link
RODI System: IceCap 100gpd RO/DI System Link
Aquascape:
From the local guy I also picked up 100+ lbs of old rock which I then bleached for 2 weeks.
Now in some RODI water with some Erase-CL and the koralia.
He also gave me some bags of CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink Sand so I picked up some more 20lb bags of the same so I would have enough for the tank.
Salt is Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt
Cycling:
My plan is to do a fishless cycle using the following products:
500mL MicroBacter Start XLM
Microbacter QuickCycl
then later on
MicroBacter CLEAN 500ml
That's it for now!
Any comments or questions welcome!!
Cheers
Chris
Name is Chris living in Tucson Arizona but originally from Melb Australia and this is my build thread for my First Reef Tank!
I grew up with a couple of freshwater tanks (discus mainly) but always wanted to do a saltwater tank so a month or so ago the GF and I decided to take the plunge and see what we could build. We looked at the house and decided on an area between two windows which will support a 4ft tank.
Tank and Stand:
A quick Facebook Marketplace search and we found a 85G 4ft long, 2ft high, 18" deep tank and stand for $100 (impulse buy as once I researched I probably would have gone for a 4ft x 2ft x 2ft tank).
Not the shiniest tank or stand out there but at the time I thought deal! Got it home, Tank in the backyard to be filled with water to test the seams and Stand in the Garage to clean and paint.
Tank was filled with water and I think has a small leak in the back right joint, looks like someone has replaced the silicon (badly) in the past, even putting some on the outside of the tank. Due to this and the unknown age of the tank I am going to remove all the existing silicon and reseal the tank. Tank is also a little scratched up so I will cover polishing that also in a later post.
I do have a question about the tank, is this a rimless or rimmed tank, it does have the trim at the top and bottom. At the bottom it sits on the trim unless there is also supposed to be a pad inside the trim. At the top the trim is just glued to the tank, and has seperated from each other at the corners.
Is this an Issue?
Anything special I should be doing with this trim(I will be sanding and painting?
Do I put a pad under the tank or is this designed to sit on the trim pieces?
The Stand we removed the doors (will replace with some flat doors as we like the modern look) sanded with 100 and then 200 grit sandpaper and painted with rustoleum epoxy paint.
Also put the tank on top of the stand and started setting up the gear to get an idea of how it would look
Equipment:
Some more facebook marketplace stalking and I ended up with the following gear from a guy 5 mins from my house:
Skimmer: Quantum Nyos 160 Link
ATO Controller: HydroFill™ Ti ATO Controller Link
ATO Pump:
Light: Aquatic Life G2 T5 HO Hybrid 4-Lamp Link
Flow Pump: Maxspect Gyre Pump XF350 (Two Pumps + Controller) Link
I then hit up Trigger Systems Blemished systems page for:
Sump: Trigger Systems Sapphire 26 Link
ATO Container: Sapphire 5 Gallon Link
Then it was time for some BRS, Coralvue and Amazon shopping to complete the equipment for now:
Circulating Pump: Hydor Seltz D DC Controllable 1000 GPH Link
Salt Mixing Flow Pump: Hydor Koralia Evolution Link
Heater: 300W Titanium Aquarium Heater System Link
RODI System: IceCap 100gpd RO/DI System Link
Aquascape:
From the local guy I also picked up 100+ lbs of old rock which I then bleached for 2 weeks.
Now in some RODI water with some Erase-CL and the koralia.
He also gave me some bags of CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink Sand so I picked up some more 20lb bags of the same so I would have enough for the tank.
Salt is Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt
Cycling:
My plan is to do a fishless cycle using the following products:
500mL MicroBacter Start XLM
Microbacter QuickCycl
then later on
MicroBacter CLEAN 500ml
That's it for now!
Any comments or questions welcome!!
Cheers
Chris