SCA 150 Build

[1guydude]

Make sure your bulkheads tighten down to the tank and not your stand. This will insure they are flush and flat and seed perfectly. Rubber inside wet side. Doih. Lol.
Hths
D

 

[Sqwertyl]

Well, I let the tank sit dry while we went on vacation to Atlanta to see the aquarium and I came back, gave everything a snug turn and filled her back up, going on 3 hours no leaks. Maybe I got lucky, but I'm just grateful I don't have to do it again.

I hung up my extra Noopsyche and the other two will follow on tank transfer day.

Right now I'll be making RO water for the next century to fill the tank while I finish the doors and get them installed.

Thank you everyone who gave me some tips and whatnot.

 

[Sqwertyl]

Well today's the day. I've been at it since 1030 am and it's now 5pm. Gotten everything transferred over and I'm waiting on about 30 or so gallons of water to top her off.

I'm surprised at how much water these jebao slw20s are pushing, I thought for sure I'd need to upgrade them, but I don't think I will.

I redid my drain plumbing because I had a cheap valve on it and it was super hard to turn, and my ocd was kicking in having a different valve than my manifold lol.

Only thing left after all that is to put the doors on! (And mop the floor)

Will be aquascaping something new in the future, for now it'll be a little bit bare.

 

[Sqwertyl]

She's running!!! 24hrs, no leaks, everything is alive and open, couldn't be happier. A little organizing to do but the hard work is over!!

Pics of complete setup:

 

[Zach B]

Looks great!

 

[BirdGuy21]

Looks good! I like how you built the canopy.

 

[JumboShrimp]

A very, very nice final product. Love your side-access controller board, too. Personally I would make one change, now, or down the road-- and it's all personal preference: I would go with black loc-line and nozzles. The blue and orange, to me, says "tropical fish" and not "saltwater fish." But keep up the excellent work. Can't wait to see your salty creatures!

 

[zukihara]

Looking very nice indeed.

 

[Sqwertyl]

Haven't updated in a while, but since the last post I've done a little to the tank.

Upgraded to a Simplicity 320dc skimmer, I don't have the bioload to support this yet so I don't have much to comment about it.

Added an 8x8x4 marine pure block to the sump.

I said I wouldn't, but I saw the icecap gyres on sale, so I upgraded to the 4ks.

Had 50lbs of rock laying around so I decided to see what I could do with that, and ended up doing arches (pics below, tell me what you guys think of it, I'm on the fence)

Outside of all that, I'm still waiting on Heaters and my China led bars.

Been wondering what my goal is for stocking. I was thinking about:
Blonde naso
3 more chromis (7 total)
Fairy wrasse of some kind
Kole or Tomini tang

Anyhow I'll try to update more as new things happen. (Also ignore my diy power filter, these rocks are messy lol)

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Great build, thanks for sharing. Like it

 

[benapilot]

I like the arches!

 

[BirdGuy21]

How are you liking the Icecap 4K’s?

 

[Sqwertyl]

How are you liking the Icecap 4K’s?

It's my first time using mid-high end powerheads, and so far I'm not disappointed. Connecting to wifi is honestly barbaric, but I expected that based on reviews I have read. Also not sure why the cables are like 5ft long on something designed to sit on either side of something 5-8ft long lol, and extension cables are $20 and of course out of stock. Functionality though they're pretty good, limited functionality as far as fine tuning presets but the flow easily covers my tank, and is much better than the jebao I'm used to using. Also for $330 shipped new, can't complain.

 

[Sqwertyl]

Got the new 48" led bars from China in. They're in a blue plus spectrum from 410nm to 480nm. I don't have a par meter, but the tank looks amazing with them on it, very few shadows and the bars fill in all the darker spaces between my noopsyches. $120 shipped as opposed to the $400 I would've spent going with orpheks.

 

[BirdGuy21]

I’ve read the reviews on the wifi connectivity as well for the Icecaps. I have the older, smaller model on my 45 gallon and am leaning toward picking up the 4K’s for the 150.

The tank does look great with the light bars adde!

 

[Sqwertyl]

Haven't done much of an update in a while, figured I'd just update with a FTS.

Everything seems healthy, except I'm pretty sure there's a brownish bacteria covering my original rocks that I haven't quite sourced yet, just seems to be preventing any coralline growth on them and makes them appear black under blue lighting. I did add a few more Chromis. Saw an ad for a free 5" Melanarus wrasse that I picked up and he's doing great.

Also caught someone shutting down their tank and scooped up a great deal (4 Sunkist Bounce Shrooms, a colony of Halle Berry Zoas, bunch of orange shrooms, green discosomas, clove polyps, 8 headed colony of a green hammer, some green shrooms with blue dots and some other misc shrooms. All of which were on seemingly healthy base/tonga rock for $150).

Anyhow that's really all I can say that's taken place in the past month or so aside from water changes.

Future plans are adding a few tangs, most likely naso, kole, and maybe another zebrasoma of some sort. Not much as far as LFS here in Gainesville FL so I'll probably have to order when I catch a decent sale.

(Pic is pretty bad, tried the DSLR but I'd be lying if I said I knew how to use it lol)

 

[JumboShrimp]

Excellent way to spend $150.00!

 

[Sqwertyl]

Added the first few bigger fish yesterday, yellow mimic tang and a sailfin tang, both seem very healthy and immediately adapting to the tank swimming with each other and the other fish in the tank. Still waiting to find a healthy naso and foxface, but those two fish are always sickly looking in my LFS. Here are some pics:

 

[Zach B]

Looks awesome!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Starting to look more and more like the ocean everyday!