At the urging of our site host, I've been asked to make a 'member build' thread. Some very cool work here from extraordinary talents, so mine is modest at best, but perhaps it will provide inspiration to others.
5/31/22: I purchased the CADE1800 from AlgaeBarn and to my surprise upon arrival, the load shifted while shipping which caused some alarm, but everything came out alright for the most part. Just a couple small damaged items that bounced around in the crate probably from some gorilla driving the fork truck, but the vendor will be sending replacements.
6/1/22: Suffice to say, it took more than a little beer to bribe the 6 friends I needed to to get this thing unstacked, up onto my deck, uncrated, through the rear slider and into my den. Here's the final position. Note the 3/4" marine grade plywood treated with a 'waterproofing' coating at bottom to help distribute the weight and protect the wood floors:
6/5/22: I started the fill with TropicMarin Pro, and added 3 bags of rinsed CaribSea Aragonite and two bags of CaribSea Ocean Direct 'live' sand, then installed some cheapo Ikea LED strip lights under the cabinet for light. The skimmer and return pump were added later. At first I didn't completely fill, knowing that the rock would displace a fair bit of water, so I added a power head just to keep things circulating and start the cycle. I dosed an entire bottle of Microbacter7 over the course of a couple days to help things along.
6/10/22: Two days later, I added 200# of live rock from Dan at Gulf Live Rock. I was disappointed that it took so long to receive the shipment (I'm looking at you, Delta!), even though it was sent via air freight. Though the rock was picked on a Wednesday and dropped at the airport on Thursday morning, it didn't arrive in Newark International (the closest airport at a 2 hour drive each way!) until Friday night at 7PM after a layover in Atlanta baking in the cargo hold. Suffice to say, there was more than my fair share of die-off, but in all, not horrific. At this point, my primary concern was just getting the rock back into water. Took me until 1AM by the time I was done unpacking it all.
7/12: Now that the tank is fully cycled, I've been adding livestock a bit at a time. No ammonia spikes at all for weeks, seems there's a fairly resilient ecosystem in the tank. The lights were added about two weeks ago. Yes, I'm having the expected diatom and cyano bloom, but the algae in the refugium and cleanup crew are making a difference. I'm not happy with the Photon OEM brackets, so I'll be designing an 80/20 cantilevered gantry to suspend the Photon V2's over the tank. That'll likely be my next update.
Equipment:
CADE 1800 S2
Deepwater BLDC12 DC pump
DAS BX3 Skimmer
300W Titanium heater with controller (forgot which brand, sorry!)
Hydros WaveEngine2
Maxspect XF350 Gyres on opposing far ends
ReefBreeders Photon V2 (2 x 32")
Livestock:
Desjardini Tang
Hepatus Tang
Green Chromus x4
Royal Gramma
Flame Angel
Coral Beauty Angel
Imperator Angle (juvenile)
Foxface
Skunk Cleaner shrimp
Cleanup:
IPSF Mix-N-Match (mostly snails and worms. Remind me to never get crabs again!)
'No Crabs!' kit from Pacific East (nassarius, trochus, conch, cukes, brittle stars)
Inbound: 2000 Pod kit from Aquarium Depot
5/31/22: I purchased the CADE1800 from AlgaeBarn and to my surprise upon arrival, the load shifted while shipping which caused some alarm, but everything came out alright for the most part. Just a couple small damaged items that bounced around in the crate probably from some gorilla driving the fork truck, but the vendor will be sending replacements.
6/1/22: Suffice to say, it took more than a little beer to bribe the 6 friends I needed to to get this thing unstacked, up onto my deck, uncrated, through the rear slider and into my den. Here's the final position. Note the 3/4" marine grade plywood treated with a 'waterproofing' coating at bottom to help distribute the weight and protect the wood floors:
6/5/22: I started the fill with TropicMarin Pro, and added 3 bags of rinsed CaribSea Aragonite and two bags of CaribSea Ocean Direct 'live' sand, then installed some cheapo Ikea LED strip lights under the cabinet for light. The skimmer and return pump were added later. At first I didn't completely fill, knowing that the rock would displace a fair bit of water, so I added a power head just to keep things circulating and start the cycle. I dosed an entire bottle of Microbacter7 over the course of a couple days to help things along.
6/10/22: Two days later, I added 200# of live rock from Dan at Gulf Live Rock. I was disappointed that it took so long to receive the shipment (I'm looking at you, Delta!), even though it was sent via air freight. Though the rock was picked on a Wednesday and dropped at the airport on Thursday morning, it didn't arrive in Newark International (the closest airport at a 2 hour drive each way!) until Friday night at 7PM after a layover in Atlanta baking in the cargo hold. Suffice to say, there was more than my fair share of die-off, but in all, not horrific. At this point, my primary concern was just getting the rock back into water. Took me until 1AM by the time I was done unpacking it all.
7/12: Now that the tank is fully cycled, I've been adding livestock a bit at a time. No ammonia spikes at all for weeks, seems there's a fairly resilient ecosystem in the tank. The lights were added about two weeks ago. Yes, I'm having the expected diatom and cyano bloom, but the algae in the refugium and cleanup crew are making a difference. I'm not happy with the Photon OEM brackets, so I'll be designing an 80/20 cantilevered gantry to suspend the Photon V2's over the tank. That'll likely be my next update.
Equipment:
CADE 1800 S2
Deepwater BLDC12 DC pump
DAS BX3 Skimmer
300W Titanium heater with controller (forgot which brand, sorry!)
Hydros WaveEngine2
Maxspect XF350 Gyres on opposing far ends
ReefBreeders Photon V2 (2 x 32")
Livestock:
Desjardini Tang
Hepatus Tang
Green Chromus x4
Royal Gramma
Flame Angel
Coral Beauty Angel
Imperator Angle (juvenile)
Foxface
Skunk Cleaner shrimp
Cleanup:
IPSF Mix-N-Match (mostly snails and worms. Remind me to never get crabs again!)
'No Crabs!' kit from Pacific East (nassarius, trochus, conch, cukes, brittle stars)
Inbound: 2000 Pod kit from Aquarium Depot
