Quarta's 120g Reef Tank

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Upgrade time!

Things were starting to look a bit cramped after a little over 6 years in the 24x24x18 45G cube (45G Cube Build Thread), I'm moving upto a 48x24x24 120G!

I've already ordered 2x Ecotech XR15 G4 Pro's, and bought the Elite aquatics Overflow, which I'm very impressed with so far, seems incredibly well built.

The overflow and return will be on the right end panel. The front, back, and bottom are tempered.

The overflow won't be centered , instead it'll be closer to the back panel so it lines up with the bulkhead in the room(next to the 45G now). My return and drain lines also pass through the floor to the basement sump inside that bulkhead wall, so it would be nice to have a straight shot down.

I plan on using 3M adhesive vinyl to cover the back wall and a portion of the side with the overflow.

I have a vortech mp10 and a gyre xf130 to start, I'll run those at 100% and see what kind of flow/noise we're dealing with... and spend more money accordingly, hah.

I'm pretty excited about all this extra space, I'll have a lot more flexibility than I've been previously accustomed to when it comes to stocking.

There will be 2 clownfish, a six line wrasse, chromis, and a small yellow tang moving from the old tank... Need to start thinking about some new friends for them. Suggestions? I'd like a small one spot foxface, probably another tang and wrasse, still undecided though!

...it begins!

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Progress!!

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Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

The 120 has been squeezed into its new home.
A quick drain of half the tank made it light enough to slide out of the way, then a quick refill and some longer hoses attached to the basement plumbing got the old tank out of the way but still running 100% until the swap is ready to be made.

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Lots of work to be done before I can call it 'finished', but things have been moved... Doesn't quite look like it did when it was in my 45G, lol... Next hurdle will be some aquascaping... I like the look of the Caribsea Shapes Liferock Dry rock... I'd like to do a few separate islands, maybe with a long branch or two.

Things went very smooth today with the tank swap. everybody seems to be happy still.

...now if only the dang lights would show up!

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Lights..... CHECK!

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Picked up a gorgeous Powder Brown Tang over the weekend!

He's in quarantine for now, getting ready for the display.

He's on cupramine at the moment, eventually I'll switch to prazipro, then if all's well he'll get to join his buddies.

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Finished the scape!

This is probably about 70lbs of Caribsea Life Rock and Shapes, bonded with reef safe cement. (Emaco GP and Acryl60)

There are a few main structures bonded together, while other rocks are still 'loose' to let me move/remove corals if necessary.

Although I need to wait and see what it looks like in the tank, I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Hopefully everything stays solid while being moved *fingers crossed*

Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

Sea of Duncan

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Quartapound · Mar 21, 2018

You can see a LIVE stream of this tank almost every day from 10am-10pm Eastern.
https://www.youtube.com/user/quartapound/live

Fishable · Mar 21, 2018

Looking great! Quite the update

TheEngineer · Mar 22, 2018

Congrats on the new tank!

Quartapound · Apr 5, 2018

Skimmer Upgrade!
The curve 5 from the old 45g was making a valiant effort, but my stocking plans for the 120g necessitated more power!

I ended up going with a slightly less well known skimmer, the IceCap K2-200.

This beast packs a lot of power into a very small footprint. It's powered by an Italian Sicce PSK1000, so it should be quite reliable *knock on wood*.

So far it seems very solid and robust, thick acrylic, titanium hardware, and gate valve for control.

1WildBill · Apr 5, 2018

Nice job so far.

Quartapound · Apr 7, 2018

Break in period? ..... what break in period?
...New skimmer is absolutely destroying DOC's only 24hrs after installation.

Ahbaloch · Apr 8, 2018

Quartapound said:
Finished the scape!

This is probably about 70lbs of Caribsea Life Rock and Shapes, bonded with reef safe cement. (Emaco GP and Acryl60)

There are a few main structures bonded together, while other rocks are still 'loose' to let me move/remove corals if necessary.

Although I need to wait and see what it looks like in the tank, I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Hopefully everything stays solid while being moved *fingers crossed*

How did you put the scape together?
Glue or cement?

My rocks are wet and curing

Quartapound · Apr 8, 2018

Ahbaloch said:
How did you put the scape together?
Glue or cement?

My rocks are wet and curing

...I mentioned it in the first sentence of the post you quoted

"This is probably about 70lbs of Caribsea Life Rock and Shapes, bonded with reef safe cement. (Emaco GP and Acryl60)"

...I decided to put the scape together before getting the rocks wet but it should works just as well with wet rocks (they actually say to wet the rock where the cement is being applied anyways), after allowing an hour or two for things to set it can be moved into the water where it will finish curing.

Good luck!

Quartapound · Apr 13, 2018

Update time! Good news, bad news....

Good news: 2 new Vortech MP40QD's have been added to the DT for flow! this is in addition to the Gyre xf130.... This freed up the MP10, which has now been moved to the frag tank.

Bad news: my Jebao DCP 8000 was starting to fail

Good news: It's been replaced with a Vectra M1!

Bad news: the tank has Ich. several fish were showing it.

Good news: I was able to catch ALL the fish without tearing my tank completely apart... They're all now in the hospital tank with cupramine.

Bad news: Need to wait out the fallow period

Good news: I'll be able to focus on finishing the rock-scape and placing the corals I already have (just sitting on the bottom of the tank) into the scape.