Upgrading my 10 year old 75 to the Mega matrix 180

[Richard baker]

You get a new bigger tank, your bride gets some new flooring....sounds like a great partnership!!! Good luck this weekend getting everything situated.

I finished the floor this afternoon moving the 75 out so I could do the floor under it kinda stressed everything a little bit so I’m waiting a few days to move it back right now it’s in the middle of the living room and being about a month out for the 180 I gotta move it back to where it was

 

[dbl]

Looks nice.

 

[Richard baker]

So I finally got a tracking number the 180 is on its way Meanwhile I have made some additional purchases for it I purchased one more radion gen 4 pro for the additional length so that will be 6 six picks over the 72 inch tank I went with a gen 4 because my other ones are gen 4 and I wanted to keep them all the same . I have made some rock purchases because I know the 75 has no where near enough for the 180 I went with some from Caribsea and some from real reef I’ll take pictures once those arrive everything should be hear this week so next weekend I can begin the build

 

[Richard baker]

So the caribsea life rock showed up this morning it was very well packaged I had one broken rock that was on the very bottom but nothing major I fixed it with some glue . I’m happy with the color and shapes it is really impressive for manmade rock . I have attached some pictures so others can see this is the 20lb box of life rock shapes

 

[Richard baker]

So I woke up excited to go to work today because I knew I would be leaving early, so I could inspect the mega matrix when it arrived I normally work 7-5:30 today was 7- 3:30 and it seemed like the longest day ever . So here it is I was extremely impressed with this kit from planet aquarium and the stand is gorgeous still smells strongly of fresh paint . I will begin the install this weekend but I’m going to attach a few pictures of when it arrived and I was inspecting it

 

[Richard baker]

I do have a question of a tank this size I keep hearing about placing some sort of Mat or something under it to help level it can anyone shed some insight on this to me

 

[Richard baker]

So today I have the tank in the house had to buy some appliance dollies to roll it from the garage to the front door then had a friend of mine and my son help me pick it up to place it on the stand tonight I’m starting the plumbing and beginning to fill the tank with Rodi water so when my plumbing is done tomorrow I can fill it all the way check for any leaks and fix if I have some hopefully I won’t . Once that all test well since my current mixing station is so small and my rocks are curing I plan to mix the first batch of saltwater in the tank itself then put the rock and sand in to begin the cycle I know a lot of people put the rock in then the sand then the water lol but I wanna test for leaks with just rodi water first . I would rather have a leak with fresh water then saltwater lol so yes it’s a little backwards but it will work for me

 

[Richard baker]

So I started the plumbing today since my sump is black and white I went with white pipe and painted the fittings black this also keeps any painted pvc out of my water column . I decided to run all my accessories off of its own designated pump reactor uv chiller and my algae turf scrubber . None of that is in the picture because I want to get the basic system up and running by the end of today

 

[Richard baker]

This is what the final plumbing looks like all glued and put together I’m still waiting to finish filling the tank I did not have no water premixed or filtered through the rodi so I’m at the mercy of my 7 stage brs rodi

 

[Richard baker]

So it’s been a long two days you never realize when you have a apex and other accessories and you add them to your tank over time just how much stuff you have until you have to move it all lol . Thursday night I was up till 2 am moving all the lights over and all of the equipment accept the old return pump so Friday when I woke up I could begin to move the coral fish and spike the snowflake eel . I finished Friday around 6 pm started at 9 am everything transferred over with no proublems accept a few sps breaking off during the transfer . This morning everyone seems extremely happy . I wanted to note my old return pump I am using to power my uv and atf then plumbing it into the other return pump to act as a redundancy plan in case of a failure . I mounted the pentair 40 watt UV last night using the mounting brackets from brs they where kinda expensive but are extremely well built and easy to use . This is what everyone look like this morning.

 

[Richard baker]

So it’s been a few days since I posted , when I went bigger I thought maybe with fans I could loose my chiller but in Florida even tho my house is 74 with all my equipment it was hovering around 81 my tank has been 78 for many years so I hooked the chiller back up it has got the temperature back to 78 but the chiller runs constantly so I think it may be undersized it’s a pacific coast imports CL280-1/10 hp it’s 7 years old but maybe time for a new one .i also retired my brs dosers and got another apex dos for my ca and alk my other tank the brs dosers where art perfect so when I got my first dos I used it for acro power and coral ab plus .

 

[Richard baker]

So I have finally added a trident to my system this weekend, last week I added a few additions to the tank a Naso tang , powder brown tang , a Ora neon dotty back and a six line wrasse everyone is getting along great my yellow tang was a little aggressive the first day but he chilled out pretty quick .

 

[Bosreef]

Awesome man killer new tank!!

Looks like the move went smooth as butter.

 

[Richard baker]

Awesome man killer new tank!!

Looks like the move went smooth as butter.

Thank you very much it was years in the making lol . Everything seemed to transfer really well my coral colonies look smaller and more spaced out now so that’s a difference I have to adjust to lol but the rock arches I added vs a rock wall like I had before is night and day and I have no dead spots .

 

[LRT]

Nice upgrade.

 

[Richard baker]

Nice upgrade.

Thank you it was well worth all the work

 

[Richard baker]

It’s been a while since I have posted . I wanted to add some updates and new additions. All of my corals have exploded in this tank and my fish are doing so much better in a 180 then a small 75 . My newest addition is this gorgeous lemon tang . He has been in my qt tank for 5 months I got him and he was covered in white spot and I actually got it free from petco because they where sure it would die in a day or two . I nursed him back to health and this tang is gorgeous. He is currently in a acclimation box in my 180 he will be in there for a few days to help the others get used to him . I recently added a gro to my fuge I have had my h380 on it but it does have a lot of spread and would build up algae in places not desirable. So I desided to try out the gro . So far it it growing chato the first few weeks seemed to have shocked it and made it very brittle and light colored but it slowly got better and seems to be growing good as of this week and I cleaned my sump when I put it online to remove the algae in undesirable places and it has not returned .

 

[Richard baker]

 

[Richard baker]

Since I did not make it to rap this year I went online to top shelf and got some frags I have been wanting . I seen palleta do a inboxing with most of these and loved them . There prices are kinda high for the frags sizes the average customer gets but they are beautiful.

 

[Richard baker]

Built this breakout box several years ago would anyone be interested in these for there apex .