Silentpanda619
New Member
Hi everyone! I'm excited to show off what I have going on. This is my first real post, so hopefully I manage to get the formatting down. I figured I would make this a bit of an introduction and document my new build as I get it going. Please let me know if anyone has any recommendations!
Background:
20g I purchased my first few small frags:
20g today (a little messy, but doing well):
Deciding on the Upgrade:
New MP100 Equipment Details:
New setup (cable management needs some work):
I think that's everything! Hopefully, the pictures all show up right.
Let me know what you think! Looking forward to hopefully getting a little involved on Reef2Reef!
Background:
- I have always had an interest in fish tanks and aquatic life ever since I was a little kid. I had several different iterations of the stereotypical little-kid tanks. Small, barely taken care of, freshwater setups. Unfortunately, this was before the modern internet, and my parents didn't know much or really help out much. As I got older, I learned a few things and did manage to have a little bit of success with these.
- When I was in high school, I tried to step it up a bit with a planted freshwater system. This was successful for a time, but the realities of being in that unstable period of life (high school, college, starting career, etc.) caught up with me and I left the hobby for several years.
- Several years ago, I picked it back up with a 60-gallon fancy goldfish setup. This was my favorite tank to this point, and I finally had the stability and adult time/money to properly take care of it. However, a cross-country move put that to an end.
- Fast-forward to a little over a year ago, and I got the itch to get back into the fishkeeping hobby. However, this time, I decided to look more into what I had really wanted all this time - a saltwater fish tank.
- After much deliberation, I decided the best thing for me would be to keep it as cheap as possible as a "trial run" to make sure I could figure it out. This meant a few things - it had to be small, and it had to use HOB equipment.
- After about a year of this setup, I have managed to take several tiny coral frags and have them grow a decent bit. I have had a couple that are growing much slower as well, but I am happy to say that I haven't killed a coral (yet) and I feel ready to use a bit more tech to make things more stable, and have a larger setup. I think the hammer would have grown more if the clowns weren't hosting it. The tank is generally doing great and has healthy coralline algae growth as well.
- I'm getting tired of not having an ATO
- Current fish are a pair of Oceallaris Clownfish and a Splendid Dottyback. Other livestock include assorted CUC and corals.
- Equipment includes (2) Fluval HOB filters (one as a small refugium), (1) AI Prime, AI Orbit 2, and a 200w Titanium heater ran off a controller. I had a cheap HOB skimmer for a few months, mostly for attempting to raise pH. The skimmer pump died and I never replaced it.
20g I purchased my first few small frags:
20g today (a little messy, but doing well):
Deciding on the Upgrade:
- Now for the exciting part! I started really planning for this upgrade a few months ago, and it is finally almost ready to transfer the livestock over.
- I wanted my upgrade to have enough room for a couple of larger fish (small tangs, dwarf angel, etc.) and I needed to get away from HOB. I went back and forth on if I would consider an AIO, but ultimately decided I wanted to be able to hide everything in the sump and the added flexibility of equipment. I also decided I wanted a peninsula styled tank for viewing puposes from my desk.
- I landed on the Mariner MP100 from Eshopps.
- The first problem I had to figure out is that the location I wanted to place this peninsula tank meant it was running parallel to the floor joists. Luckily, it is on the first floor and next to a load-bearing wall, so at least I had a couple things going for me. After a lot of messing around in the crawl space and measuring, I figured out the floor was supported by 2x10 I-Joists spaced 20" OC, and that the tank would be approximately centered on one of these joists, technically only supported by a single joist. Definitely needed to reinforce.
- I ended up using some 2x6 lumber supported by 3 floor jacks to spread the load between 3 joists. I then also added 2 more floor jacks and 2x10s to directly support the subfloor after the tank was placed when I noticed I could shake the tank more than I would like if I bounced my weight around with my feet right next to the stand. After thinking through what was causing it, I decided the fact it was on carpet and the fact that the leveling feet were as far away from the joists as possible was what was causing it. The new supports helped reduce this by about 50%. I would say this is now acceptable, although the paranoid part of me still wants to add even more supports.
- When the tank arrived, it unfortunately had sustained damage to a corner seam in shipping. However, the Eshopps customer service has been fantastic, and long story short, I now have a new tank with no damage.
New MP100 Equipment Details:
- Now to get to the fun stuff! Here is what I am working with right now:
- Tank: Eshopps Mariner MP100 (100 gallon display, 48"x22"x22", 30 gallon sump)
- Lighting: (1) AI Blade Coral Grow, 48" (tested par as ~500 at surface, ~200 mid, ~125 sandbed. Very impressed. Might get more down the road if needed)
- Flow: (2) AI Orbit 2
- Return Pump: Sicce Syncra SDC 6.0
- Skimmer: Not purchased yet, will eventually run one. Most likely Simplicity DC skimmer.
- Heater: 2x300w Titanium heaters controlled via IM Helio Controller.
- Refugium: Transferring from old setup. Has an IM Refugium LED.
- ATO: Osmolator 3 w/ Simplicity 10g Reservoir
- I now have everything setup, basic rockscape, and have added some bottled bacteria and ammonia, along with a few miscellaneous rocks in the refugium from my old tank to help speed along cycling. I thought about adding everything all at once immediately, but decided doing a basic cycle of the new rock would help offset problems caused by such a large upgrade. I am hoping to add everything from the old tank at the same time once ammonia hits 0.
New setup (cable management needs some work):
I think that's everything! Hopefully, the pictures all show up right.
Let me know what you think! Looking forward to hopefully getting a little involved on Reef2Reef!
