Planet Aquariums 155 build.

[tedstalcup]

Since freight brought the tank this week I’ll document my progress..

The tank is a rimless 155 mega matrix 48”x30”x25@ with Low iron glass front, seam shields, internal overflow drilled with two 1” drains and two 3/4” returns. I’ll be running a Herbie with a full siphon and an emergency drain. The stand is a “lipless” flat top in white also by Planet Aquariums. Since I’m in California I dealt with ocean aquatics in Redlands CA who arranged to have the tank built and freighted to me in Marin. Great guys there, A+

Sump is a tideline 36x18”x15” four-chambered acrylic. Currently set up with socks but a mat is inevitable.. I’ll run a refugium in the third chamber which is 17x8”

Skimmer is a reef octopus regal 200. I’ll control the pump with the wave engine 0-10v i/o. Probably stick a hydros skimmer sensor in there one day.

Return pump is a reef breeders nautilus DC 3200. I’ll split a 1” return to a pair of 3/4” random flow generators.

Lighting is a reefbreeders Meridian 35. I suspect as things grow I’ll add an angled meridian light bar. Especially since my scape is shade-prone.

Control is a hydros launch, wave engine and XP8

Flow is the aforementioned return plus a pair of octopulse 4 pumps controlled by the wave engine.

Heating is a pair of icecap 300w titanium elements controlled by an inkbird and backed up by the hydros.

Fuge light is a Kessil Flora 160. I also found a 17x7 acrylic box to keep Fuge detritus and gravel etc contained somewhat.

Water is from a four stage RO/DI.

Aquascape is my own creation using 40lb Marcos foundation, 40lb Marcos double-sided flats, and 20lb of artificial Belize branch. I’ll do a post about my scaping adventures.

Things to be determined: dosing and auto feeding and a lid. Since nothing is living and growing in there it seems premature to feed it or dose it.

Next up: plumbing… or maybe Wednesday

 

[Linlox]

Looks great! Really like those tank dimensions and can't wait to see your your rock scape. Going bare bottom or sand?

 

[tedstalcup]

Looks great! Really like those tank dimensions and can't wait to see your your rock scape. Going bare bottom or sand?

Definitely sand but probably under 2”

 

[tedstalcup]

Since freight brought the tank this week I’ll document my progress..

The tank is a rimless 155 mega matrix 48”x30”x25@ with Low iron glass front, seam shields, internal overflow drilled with two 1” drains and two 3/4” returns. I’ll be running a Herbie with a full siphon and an emergency drain. The stand is a “lipless” flat top in white also by Planet Aquariums. Since I’m in California I dealt with ocean aquatics in Redlands CA who arranged to have the tank built and freighted to me in Marin. Great guys there, A+

Sump is a tideline 36x18”x15” four-chambered acrylic. Currently set up with socks but a mat is inevitable.. I’ll run a refugium in the third chamber which is 17x8”

Skimmer is a reef octopus regal 200. I’ll control the pump with the wave engine 0-10v i/o. Probably stick a hydros skimmer sensor in there one day.

Return pump is a reef breeders nautilus DC 3200. I’ll split a 1” return to a pair of 3/4” random flow generators.

Lighting is a reefbreeders Meridian 35. I suspect as things grow I’ll add an angled meridian light bar. Especially since my scape is shade-prone.

Control is a hydros launch, wave engine and XP8

Flow is the aforementioned return plus a pair of octopulse 4 pumps controlled by the wave engine.

Heating is a pair of icecap 300w titanium elements controlled by an inkbird and backed up by the hydros.

Fuge light is a Kessil Flora 160. I also found a 17x7 acrylic box to keep Fuge detritus and gravel etc contained somewhat.

Water is from a four stage RO/DI.

Aquascape is my own creation using 40lb Marcos foundation, 40lb Marcos double-sided flats, and 20lb of artificial Belize branch. I’ll do a post about my scaping adventures.

Things to be determined: dosing and auto feeding and a lid. Since nothing is living and growing in there it seems premature to feed it or dose it.

Next up: plumbing… or maybe Wednesday

So, after years of watching videos on aquascaping, I set out to make a scape.

I started with 20lb of manmade Belize branch from caribsea, 40lb of Marco foundation and 40lb of Marco double-flat shelf. I bought masonry blades for my reciprocating saw but after a few cuts I realized the man-made branch rock breaks in a very controlled manner with just a sharp whack on a concrete step. Incidentally if anyone is thinking that stuff will substitute for dry rock in terms of filtration? It won’t. It’s super dense and solid.

Not knowing any better I tried to use gel CA glue, Marco powder and aquaforest stone fix. This was… not a success. I’m sure it’s my fault and not the stone fix but it was either too liquid or too dry and when I followed the instructions and made a toothpaste consistency it had such a narrow window of usability that it was hard to gauge when it would hold anything. The gel CA glue was also the totally wrong thing… no magical exothermic reaction.

A shipment from star-bond later I was in business. I ended up redoing my first effort because the structures broke under their own weight.

The Marco powder plus thin CA clue works incredibly well. I spent a few afternoons building my sort of Reef by Dr Seuss vision and then after a couple days I went back and filled various crevices and dodgy joints with more powder and excitingly exothermic glue. I think I went through 20oz of glue and three bags of Marco powder. Fun fun stuff.

Note that these towers can be moved around and that some of them have an extra set of flats on the bottom to elevate them over the sand bed whereas others do not. I think that once they’re arranged and get some growth it’ll look pretty cool. I’m guessing this aesthetic is not for everyone but it’s what I had in mind from the pencil and paper stage of the build.

We will be arranging them differently in the tank and I’ll post that.

 

[tedstalcup]

Since freight brought the tank this week I’ll document my progress..

The tank is a rimless 155 mega matrix 48”x30”x25@ with Low iron glass front, seam shields, internal overflow drilled with two 1” drains and two 3/4” returns. I’ll be running a Herbie with a full siphon and an emergency drain. The stand is a “lipless” flat top in white also by Planet Aquariums. Since I’m in California I dealt with ocean aquatics in Redlands CA who arranged to have the tank built and freighted to me in Marin. Great guys there, A+

Sump is a tideline 36x18”x15” four-chambered acrylic. Currently set up with socks but a mat is inevitable.. I’ll run a refugium in the third chamber which is 17x8”

Skimmer is a reef octopus regal 200. I’ll control the pump with the wave engine 0-10v i/o. Probably stick a hydros skimmer sensor in there one day.

Return pump is a reef breeders nautilus DC 3200. I’ll split a 1” return to a pair of 3/4” random flow generators.

Lighting is a reefbreeders Meridian 35. I suspect as things grow I’ll add an angled meridian light bar. Especially since my scape is shade-prone.

Control is a hydros launch, wave engine and XP8

Flow is the aforementioned return plus a pair of octopulse 4 pumps controlled by the wave engine.

Heating is a pair of icecap 300w titanium elements controlled by an inkbird and backed up by the hydros.

Fuge light is a Kessil Flora 160. I also found a 17x7 acrylic box to keep Fuge detritus and gravel etc contained somewhat.

Water is from a four stage RO/DI.

Aquascape is my own creation using 40lb Marcos foundation, 40lb Marcos double-sided flats, and 20lb of artificial Belize branch. I’ll do a post about my scaping adventures.

Things to be determined: dosing and auto feeding and a lid. Since nothing is living and growing in there it seems premature to feed it or dose it.

Next up: plumbing… or maybe Wednesday

Cycling my tank!

Well, not quite. Since the tank just got uncrated today how can it be cycled? Since I had several months between paying for the tank and getting the tank (like ten weeks mostly due to the sump being on backorder) I got out a 50 gallon stock tank that my wife and I used to hold ice and drinks at a post-Covid house party. I set up the RO/DI and filled the stock tank, I put a bag of instant ocean in it and then two of the cheapest circulation pumps I could get off Amazon plus a similarly budget heater. Interestingly people use these tanks as ice baths so a perfectly fitting cover that belts around the edge was really cheap. I put 40lb of sand into two topless Tupperware containers and 3Kg of maxspect spheres in mesh bags (included with each kg.. cool, thanks maxspect). Then I turned on the pumps and heater, dosed the tank to about 4ppm with Dr Tim’s ammonium chloride and dumped a bottle of microbacter start in.

Unfortunately I think I overdosed the ammonia because my test kit was like British racing green 8ppm. I let it run anyway and after a couple weeks I gave up and did a 50% water change. At that point the cycle truly kicked off and in about a week it was consuming 2ppm in 24 hours. Nitrates were an eye popping 75 on the hanna HR so I did another water change. Getting a brute and making salt water in there then pumping it in with another cheapo pump makes it pretty effortless.

Since then I’ve just been dropping some Dr Tim’s ammonia in every week. Once the display is plumbed and tested and refilled, I’ll move the maxspect sphere bags to the sump and add the 40lb cycled sand to 80lb of dead sand. Hopefully my display will be ready for pods in 48-72 hours..

 

[tedstalcup]

Since freight brought the tank this week I’ll document my progress..

The tank is a rimless 155 mega matrix 48”x30”x25@ with Low iron glass front, seam shields, internal overflow drilled with two 1” drains and two 3/4” returns. I’ll be running a Herbie with a full siphon and an emergency drain. The stand is a “lipless” flat top in white also by Planet Aquariums. Since I’m in California I dealt with ocean aquatics in Redlands CA who arranged to have the tank built and freighted to me in Marin. Great guys there, A+

Sump is a tideline 36x18”x15” four-chambered acrylic. Currently set up with socks but a mat is inevitable.. I’ll run a refugium in the third chamber which is 17x8”

Skimmer is a reef octopus regal 200. I’ll control the pump with the wave engine 0-10v i/o. Probably stick a hydros skimmer sensor in there one day.

Return pump is a reef breeders nautilus DC 3200. I’ll split a 1” return to a pair of 3/4” random flow generators.

Lighting is a reefbreeders Meridian 35. I suspect as things grow I’ll add an angled meridian light bar. Especially since my scape is shade-prone.

Control is a hydros launch, wave engine and XP8

Flow is the aforementioned return plus a pair of octopulse 4 pumps controlled by the wave engine.

Heating is a pair of icecap 300w titanium elements controlled by an inkbird and backed up by the hydros.

Fuge light is a Kessil Flora 160. I also found a 17x7 acrylic box to keep Fuge detritus and gravel etc contained somewhat.

Water is from a four stage RO/DI.

Aquascape is my own creation using 40lb Marcos foundation, 40lb Marcos double-sided flats, and 20lb of artificial Belize branch. I’ll do a post about my scaping adventures.

Things to be determined: dosing and auto feeding and a lid. Since nothing is living and growing in there it seems premature to feed it or dose it.

Next up: plumbing… or maybe Wednesday

Proposed stock list:

Mixed SPS and LPS. Maybe some zoanthids in the shadier areas. Not planning on a shroom or soft coral garden.

2x ocellaris clowns.

Maybe true Perculas? Are there any significant differences? I’d love a gold-stripe maroon but the reputation for nastiness isn’t very encouraging. I’m not doing any anemones so if they host it’ll be a euphyllia.

1x Tomini Tang.

The CA academy of sciences in San Francisco where we’re frequent visitors (it’s 25 minutes driveway to parking) has bunches of Tominis in its 212,000 gallon reef and I love their activity level and flame orange fins. Diligent grazer as well.

1x Buan’s Sleeper goby.

This captive bred goby seems to be a great sand sifter and has the added advantage of being aquacultured and likely to accept pellets. I suspect I’ll need a lid first? Anyone have experience?

1x Mandarin dragonet.

Always wanted one but I thought importing them then watching them starve for a year was unethical. With this tank I’ll be seeding pods for six months at least before trying a captive bred mandarin. Hopefully my fuge and rocks will harbor many delicious pods.

2x Springeri damsels

I love how they look and if they want to hunt flatworms then that’s an unnecessary bonus.

CUC:

Snails
Banded sea star
2x strawberry conchs

Other possibilities:

A leopard wrasse. I know this will definitely need a) a lid and b) well-established pods. So not a near-term fish.

A pair of Azure damsels. Hopefully this is a large enough tank with broken sight lines to allow four damsels?

 

[tedstalcup]

So… plumbing was an ordeal.

The guy who installed the tank did a white pvc tangle with purple glue everywhere, zero unions, and the cheapest ball valve money could buy. It not only looked bad but it leaked. Not naming names but maybe tank plumbing isn’t a service he should offer?

I ended up cutting out the entire mess including bulkheads and reordering the pvc with the correct number of unions, a quality ball valve for the main siphon, good gate valves for flow control and black pvc for the weir. Truly doing the plumbing right, using Fuzion clear pvc cement was only a one day job. With the unions the whole thing comes apart in minutes.




However the bulkheads continued to leak. I spent like three solid days under my tank trying to figure it out, making a mess with silicon etc. I finally gave up and started calling aquarium service companies. This is when I discovered that they don’t like to touch anything they didn’t sell or install. One guy said “I’m not in the business of fixing other peoples mistakes.” Great. I finally got a hold of a really great guy from Prime Aquatic in Vallejo California. Jan walked me through some troubleshooting steps and when that didn’t work we set up a time for a service call. He came and walked me through properly installing bulkheads and my plumbing has been bone dry ever since.

 

[tedstalcup]

After completing the plumbing;

I moved my aquascape pieces into the tank. I then added 80 pounds of washed special grade aragonite sand. That stuff arrives absolutely filthy and took me hours and hours to wash clean. I made 200 gallons of RO/DI with reef crystals.

I then added the 40 pounds of ocean direct that’s been cycling in my stock tank for months. They say not to wash live sand but those 40 pounds turned my tank opaque for about 12 hours and clogged two filter socks. I moved the three bags of maxspect media that’s also been cycling into an acrylic basket in my refugium section. Instantly cycled reef. In time the dead rock and sand will be colonized but for now the ceramic is more than enough for 195 gallon system volume.

 

[tedstalcup]

Once the cycled media had been given a couple days to sit in the refugium basket, i added a seven-species copepod mix from reefs by Steele. At that point I turned off the pumps and put 8oz into the refugium and 8oz into the display. I assume something is alive but I’ve yet to see a living thing. Because my expensive but entirely theoretical copepods need to eat, I started dosing 30ml phytoplankton into the return pump section. Having yet to see anything alive, I added 16oz of a four-species mix from pod your reef to the refugium section with the pumps off two hours. Nothing. Maybe they’re too small to see, maybe I spent $120 to add 32oz of water to my tank. Weary of spending money for invisible critters, I ordered a pair of captive bred ocellaris. They showed up, spent 30 minutes being acclimated (float method plus water addition) and then moved in the 155. They’re as cute as buttons, maybe an inch long and eat like pigs.
View attachment 20251004_155435_4306DB94-3C03-4B2F-B52C-5030DAECF2AB.mov

 

[tedstalcup]

After running the tank almost two weeks without a skimmer, i unboxed the Regal 200 INT I bought used right here on R2R. Jeezbus it’s big. I gave it a good scrub in fresh water with a dish brush and an old toothbrush. After an air dry, I managed to get it into my sump. Right now it’s running off its own reef octopus controller but i intend to go to 0-10v control with a hydros in the future. Already I can see a wire management project is becoming a priority. The skimmer fired right up and tuned very easily. Per posts here I put the controller at setting 3. It’s making nice dry foam. It’s very quiet for its big size. I also added some Etsy sock silencers so the tank is pretty unobtrusive.

 

[tedstalcup]

I got the Meridian 35 lighting fixture I bought out of the parts collection and installed it with side mounts. Seriously gorgeous packaging and workmanship on this thing. I will definitely be ordering a pair of back-of-tank arms. The side mounts work but they just don’t match the elegance of the fixture. My tank is also in a corner with only two viewing panes so the legs are a visual distraction. Setup on the meridians is simple. Note that of your home WiFi combines multiple frequencies into a single SSID, then setup won’t work until you separate out the 2.4ghz channel at least temporarily. The App is a breeze to use and you can apply other people’s schedules with a couple screen taps. Personally I found that people like glowing blue a lot more than I do. I’m a moderately skilled PADI diver and I asked ChatGPT to use the 7 channels to recreate the lighting as it might be seen in 10 meters of water off Laughing Bird caye Belize. That nightclub glow is just not what a reef looks like. To each their own. ChatGPT gave me percentage settings for all channels at ten time points each. Data entry is really simple once you’ve done the first channel. You simply hit the copy from button and it moves the time segments over. Since I’m a ways from sessile inverts I had ChatGPT do the numbers at half power. I’m still figuring out photo filters but the tank looks more realistic than the default blue light that’s popular.

 

[Sgt. Cacique]

Beautiful setup,

I have been looking into their aquarium radius series the 110 corner bowfront. How is the quality on their cabinets?

 

[tedstalcup]

Beautiful setup,

I have been looking into their aquarium radius series the 110 corner bowfront. How is the quality on their cabinets?

The cabinet is rock solid. It weighs a lot and was a bear to cut for the bulkheads. It’s very very sturdy.

 

[tedstalcup]

Some current front and side shots with the aquascape in place and the meridians at 65%

 

[Euphyllia098]

So what exactly was the issue with the plumbing?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Some current front and side shots with the aquascape in place and the meridians at 65%

Very nice! Looks like a great place to start a reef of the month! ;)

 

[tedstalcup]

So what exactly was the issue with the plumbing?

Turned out my bulkheads were defective and when tightened would pop off the threads. Not having dealt with the ABS bulkheads before I thought they could be tightened down but apparently not. If the threads pop they’re useless. I’d have preferred schedule 80 bulkheads but the tank was drilled for 40s.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Some current front and side shots with the aquascape in place and the meridians at 65%

Loving the aquascape!

 

[tedstalcup]

So I added some goodies from indo-pacific sea farms in Hawaii. Great communication and everything got here alive. They won’t deliver to your house so prepare to drive to the nearest fedex office. I got 6 baby bristle worms, 6 micro brittle stars, a lot of tiny hermit crabs, some littorid snails, some nerite snails (doubt they’ll last they keep trying to suicide), plus live sand activator, nitrifying bacteria culture, and wonder mud. I acclimated it as instructed (it’s a float collar method) then sprung everyone with the pumps off, skimmer off and socks out. I left the skimmer and socks out of the system for 24 hours and pumps off for 3. The hermits and snails went right to work on the small amount of cyano in my immature system. The bristle worms come out only at night but appear intent on doing their jobs. I haven’t seen any brittle stars yet but they’re nocturnal so it’s a matter of time. The live sand activator is coral pebbles that give the substrate a very natural look (at least to this scuba diver it looks like an actual reef environment). The wonder mud did cloud my system overnight but it cleared up. It came with even more tiny hermits and snails. Is my tank as bio diverse as when we used to get live rock flown in from halfway around the world? No but then I have much more control over what’s in there.

 

[tedstalcup]

So I set up a quarantine tank. Why? Because I got a tomini tang sent from live aquaria. This is a 10 gallon petco (hey, it holds water), a cheap HOB filter, and a cheap heater. The heater did a great job keeping my cycling stock tank at 77F for three months of dark cycling so it can serve here. I’m adding an $8 air pump plus stones, and an $11 LED, and a 4” PVC T as a hide. I took 5 maxspect nanotech pellets from my sump and put them into the HOB. Instantly cycled tank. The tang arrived alive and started eating almost immediately. I’ll feed it for 3-4 days then do a course of praziquantel before adding it to the display. I haven’t seen any indication it needs copper. So far it’s accepted nori, hikari seaweed extreme, hikari marine S pellets, and vitalis extruded marine feed. Not a real finicky eater. Tominis aren’t the flashiest fish but I like the flame-orange fins and the ones they have at the Academy of Science reef display in San Francisco (25 min drive) are very active and fun to watch. It also won’t get too seriously out of scale with my 155.