Very First Build Thread!

[Hugh Mann]

After four months, I am starting my build thread to document my tank progress, and as of late, regression as well. Probably going to start off with a couple posts catching up to the present day.

After seeing the reef tank of a friend of mine, talking about it and minor experience with an outdoor pond and raising salmon fry, I decided to jump headfirst the saltwater game.

Picked myself up a used 55 gallon aquarium with stand, aquaclear 110, heater, 40lbs Carib Sea crushed coral, and 40lbs of dry rock off Amazon. And so began the first of many mistakes. Not rinsing the rock well enough, filling the aquarium with tap water (300 tds!!) and got it to cycling after dechlorinating.

For cycling I bought a 4lb chunk of live rock from my lfs and seeded my tank with old filter media, water and handfuls of sand from my friends tank. Cycle established in a matter of days.

A couple of weeks down the road, my buddy there offers to sell me at a steep discount 40lbs of his liverock due to rearranging his reef, and his old lights, two Mars Aqua 165w black boxes. Not fancy, but plenty enough for my purposes.

Rearranged my rock, so I now had two plastic tubes, 40lbs of crushed Coral and 84lbs of rock arranged to maximize the gaps and caves for fish. Limited due to the width of the tank of course. Fish were in, and all was good.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Unlike many build I've read where they gather all the supplies and equipment first, I got a little impatient, so I was more or less adding things as I got them.

An aquaclear 70 just packed full of filter floss to keep the water clear. A chunk of barnacles for decoration. Went from mechanical to digital timers on the lights, digital thermometers over alcohol.

And then Velvet happened. I had no QT set up and was forced to treat in my display. So out went all the rock, sand, everything into separate bins and containers. Hard reset, so my tank is now really only 10 weeks old, and back to completely bare glass, with a single surviving Marine Betta I am contemplating naming T-800 because nothing can kill it.

At the 'request' of the old lady, I moved my display to the basement after my treatment was done and set it back up. I'm now in the process of removing the copper, and am eagerly awaiting the rebuild.

 

[Hugh Mann]

I am of course, open to suggestions at this point, but here's what I am planning for the future.

Most of my rock has to sit fallow for a while as I used it to set up a rather hasty tank for my eel, as the LionKing tells me copper is extraordinarily bad for eels, and they should fight the velvet off of kept alone and well fed. Which is held true. But I am concerned that there may still be velvet present, so I am waiting for the dry rock I bought originally to drop in price a little bit, which is does about once a month, then I will just use that instead. I will be upgrading to a 210 in the future (stay tuned for that build, it will hopefully be a little more organized) so having excess isn't an issue. I also plan to experiment with cutting/drilling the rock to create tunnels and caves.

As for sand, I washed my crushed Coral, and kept it, but I am seriously considering changing it. Probably to something a little finer, I'm heavily leaning towards black or white aragonite sand. Would love some imput on this!

Filters are going to stay the same, Aquaclear 110, and I may end up ditching the 70 for a HoB overflow as this tank is made of 100% tempered glass.

Lights I currently have 1 165w on the DT, the other is with the eel, but once everything goes together I'll be running both again. I build a simple, if not very pretty wood stand to hang the lights from, as well as the powerbar/organise the cables.

Stand, I tossed the one it came with when I moved to the basement as it was starting to sag. A simple stand of 1/2 fir plywood and cinder blocks, with a metric butt load of plastic shims and I have a sturdy, level stand that doubles as a convient shelf. I laid a rubber mat under the stand and tank to catch any drips to preserve the plywood/eliminate surface irregularities.

I have yet to set it up due to copper, but I bought a used Reef Octopus 1000 HOB skimmer for $50. That should also help me keep my water a lot cleaner now than it was before, especially when I have my eel back in there.

I've got two powerheads, a Hydor Koralia 850gp/h and a chinesium 520gp/h powerhead. Currently none in the display as the two filters provid plenty of current. Once I have my rock back in, I'll add one of the powerheads to get some lateral current, but I don't know which one to use. I'm concerned about the longevity of the chinesium powerhead, which I have with my eel to provide current. The Hydor I don't know if that is too much flow for a 55 gallon?

I'm thinking this weekend too I am going to paint the back glass black too.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Great start !!

 

[Hugh Mann]

Moved the Hobs to the front and got the first coat of paint on the back glass. Outside of course, and taking extreme care to ensure no contamination. I can already see that this was a great idea. Won't see dangly cords, filter boxes, my camera likes to focus more on the tank than what's behind it, and I can definitely see bright fish and corals popping!


Going to need another coat or two to get it totally covered, but definitely no regrets.

Copper is at 0.05! So close! So very close...

On a side note, for whatever reason the brown hairy stuff that was growing vanished overnight, turned into a dandy dust. Green algae starting to grow again. Hopefully this means I can get my little Tux back before long too.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Progress! Copper is gone, substrate and some rock is back in. Not all, I still have to verify that tank is velvet free before bringing over the eel and rest of the rock.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Forgot a picture.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Finally! Exactly five months to the day I took my tank apart because of that accursed velvet, it's back together, and better than ever!

Took far, far longer than it should have due to schedule, observation, and verifying the eel was velvet free after its isolation.

Started at 12:00pm and finished right at 5:00. Moved all my livestock to a bin, airstones, heater, and went to work.

Added substrate to give enough depth for nassarius to burrow, CaribSea crushed Coral, then got started on the rocks. 80lbs of Nature's Ocean Dry Rock, and a 4lb chunk of live rock. Started with the biggest, heaviest rocks, working with a rough idea what I wanted. Maximum number of caves and hides, with free swimming space up front, with two piles on each end, with an arch connecting them. I used Reef Crest Aquaweld to stick everything together, a semi permanent, reusable thermoplastic. Rock work is super solid.

After it was all assembled, I let it run to eqalize the temperature with the holding tank, and filter out all the kicked up schmoo, despite a thorough rinse of all rock and substrate.

Then came the reintroduction of the live stock.

Eelijah, a greyfaced moray. A survivor from my original tank.
Alpha, a marine betta. Another survivor of my original tank.
Joker, a gold dot maroon clownfish. Got him a couple months ago, quarantined without issue.
Six black mollies. I used as canaries to verify the eel was free of any lingering velvet, having only been quarantined, not treated due to copper sensitivity. They are great algae eaters, and will inform me early if any other infection gets in the tank.
Tex, a blue tuxedo urchin.
Three nassarius snails.
Two bumblebee snails.
One hermit crab.
Two brittle stars.
Three bristle worms (at least that I saw)
One tiny mantis or pistol shrimp hitchhiker.
One 2" frag of green star polyp, glued to the back glass.
One 1" frag of aussie star polyp, set up with good flow and light.

My equipment is
Aquaclear 110, with a sponge and stuffed with filter floss.
Aqueon Pro 200w heater
Reef Octopus 1000 HoB Skimmer
Two Mars Aqua 165w lights linked to a digital timer
Chinesium 528 gp/h powerhead I will set up once the fish have calmed down and settled into the tank.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Wow,

Rock work looks great. I would suggest not waiting on turning on the wavemakers. The aquaclear and skimmer could use the extra help on water circulation and surface agitation for O2 exchange. Keep us updated

 

[Hugh Mann]

Thank you.

Everything settled into their territories pretty quickly, so I set it up, angled towards the surface. The mollies seem to really like it, schooling in the current.

 

[Hugh Mann]

All my livestock are now in the Display, some are still refusing food unfortunately. Powerhead, skimmer, filter are all working fine.

Heater broke in the On position, caught my tank at 81f on my lunch break. Swapped it out for one of my spares. I really need to get myself a temperature controller.

My water is crystal clear, the fish have that "floating on air" look to them, though my camera doesn't quite capture it. Nitrates are between 5-10 running the skimmer 24/7

 

[Hugh Mann]

New heater after the old one got stuck "on". Only good for heating water changes now. It's just some off brand, and jumped up to 300 watt as my basement temperature is pretty low compared to the tank.
Connected it to an inkbird temperature controller, finally. Hopefully won't have to worry about baking the tank now. It's got dual heating outputs, so I am considering running two heaters in case one quits.

Added a work lamp with a blue light just in case I want to look around after lights out.

I also really, really need to organize the ratsnest of cords. Become a bloody mess it has.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Proof that there is always one more piece of equipment to add. 24w UV-C sterilizer. Got it to help try to manage ich, though the more I read on the subject, it's woefully underpowered. But my Hippo hasn't had spots in 5 days. Correlation or Causation?

And a wifi security camera to monitor the tank while I am away. Can store several days of footage both on an SD and the Cloud.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Proof that there is always one more piece of equipment to add. 24w UV-C sterilizer. Got it to help try to manage ich, though the more I read on the subject, it's woefully underpowered. But my Hippo hasn't had spots in 5 days. Correlation or Causation?

And a wifi security camera to monitor the tank while I am away. Can store several days of footage both on an SD and the Cloud.

Correlation. My bet is that the ich cysts fell off, and in a week or two, you'll probably see a few back on the tang again....

 

[MERKEY]

Great build, thank you for sharing.

I hope you get ich under control. It seems so far the UV is helping!

 

[Hugh Mann]

Correlation. My bet is that the ich cysts fell off, and in a week or two, you'll probably see a few back on the tang again....

That's my guess too. I've been checking her as close as I can, still a very skittish fish, and haven't seen anything yet. I'm really hoping it stays gone, or very minor. At least until I can figure out a permanent solution. Leaning towards hyposalinity of the DT, move the inverts into my 20 gallon once it matures a bit more.

That, or tank transfer once I have my 230 Gallon set up.

My only other option if it keeps coming back is to give the Hippo back to my lfs. They say they'll take her if I can't manage/eradicate it.

If I haven't said so before, I hate ich.