DW66
New Member
About a year ago, I inherited a Visio 100G Reef tank (Fish, a Couple of Euphyllia, and some RBTs) from a friend who was moving across the country. I had kept a reef tank for a couple of years back in 2010-2012 but had to get out of it. Needless to say I was very excited to get back into the hobby. Well, the tank didn't have an overflow, and the sump wasn't the beast but I upgraded some things and was going to upgrade it further when I had to move. This is the old tank.
So I then found a used 130G tank and decided that I would upgrade it to what I wanted and then just move the inhabitants of the tank to the new, used tank. Well, that didn't go as planned as the move got to be too much so now that tank is sitting on my patio. I moved the 100G to the new house and somehow convinced my wife that we should just get a new Waterbox 220.6. For reasons that I still cannot comprehend, she agreed. So, I spent some time gathering gear, using a lot of the things that I had planned on upgrading the previous tanks with and soon, we were ready to go.
On June 22 the tank was filled with 140lbs of CaribSea Special Grade Sand, 140 lbs of CaribSea Rock and 175 gallons of RO/DI Water mixed with Tropic Marin Pro Salt and an AlgaeBarnRapid Cycle Kit (AlgaeBarn NitroCycle and Fritz-Zyme TurboStart).
Equipment List:
Return Pump: Reef Octopus Varios 6
Flow Pumps: 2 x IceCap 4k Gyres, 2 Reef Octopus Octopulse 2
Protein Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 200INT
Control: Hydros X4, Hydros WE, Hydros XP8
ATO: Hydros
Lights: Radion XR15 G6 Pro x 4
After testing showed that the numbers were good (0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, 40 Nitrates) I did a 30% water change and added 4 Domino Damsels (less than 1" each) on July 3. They didn't last a week, some didn't last a day. I was perplexed but now thing it was just a bunch of fish from my LFS that were not healthy or stressed from transit. Who knows. Perhaps I rushed things to much, as I wanted to get things moved from the old tank so I can break it down and list it for sale.
After adding some Macrobacter7 for a few days, I added three Pajama Cardinals I obtained from a LFS. When they were still going strong after a week, I decided to move some of my livestock to the new tank on July 17. The water parameters were good, and at some point, I just had to make the plunge and get some fish moved. So I moved my SailfinTang, two Clowns, and an RBT so the clowns wouldn't be lonely.
A week later, with all parameters testing well, I moved the balance of what was going to the new tank. It now houses 5 Pajama Cardinals, 2 Clowns, a Sailfintang, Foxface Rabbit, Coral Beauty, Marine Betta, BlueHead Wrasse and a Fiji Blue Devil Damsel, along with 6 RBT's (there were 11 in the old tank, I did not want to move them all). I have a few Euphillia frags, a hammer tip, a toadstool leather, and a soft coral I need to identify because it came with the old tank and I've never looked up what it is.
I am getting some of what I think is Cyano on the sandbed. I did another 30% water change this past Sunday when I moved the balance of the livestock and siphoned the sand bed. It was back last night so I siphoned again and ended up changing out about 20 gallons then.
There is a reddish "dust" on the rocks as well
So, the tank still has some "new tank" issues for me to deal with.
I want to hard plumb the return, as it is now sort of "jerry-rigged" with tubing shoved inside of tubing as I could not get the 1.25" pump and the DIN32 plumbing to work together nicely. I plan on using a din to the standard adapter I purchased and switch the return to standard 1" up to the gate valve. I also need to move the heater to the sump, as it's ugly. Also need to do some serious cable management as things are sort of a mess I wanted to wait until things were installed and running before "locking" things down.
As far as future stoocking, the tank will be a mixed reef, primarily softies and LPS. I'd like to add:
a school of three Anthias
some yellow Tang's,
Lawnmower Blenny
FlameHawk
Midas Blenny
BJ Trigger.....
Zoa's
Mushrooms
Some more Torch's
Yellow Toadstool
Acan's....
So I then found a used 130G tank and decided that I would upgrade it to what I wanted and then just move the inhabitants of the tank to the new, used tank. Well, that didn't go as planned as the move got to be too much so now that tank is sitting on my patio. I moved the 100G to the new house and somehow convinced my wife that we should just get a new Waterbox 220.6. For reasons that I still cannot comprehend, she agreed. So, I spent some time gathering gear, using a lot of the things that I had planned on upgrading the previous tanks with and soon, we were ready to go.
On June 22 the tank was filled with 140lbs of CaribSea Special Grade Sand, 140 lbs of CaribSea Rock and 175 gallons of RO/DI Water mixed with Tropic Marin Pro Salt and an AlgaeBarnRapid Cycle Kit (AlgaeBarn NitroCycle and Fritz-Zyme TurboStart).
Equipment List:
Return Pump: Reef Octopus Varios 6
Flow Pumps: 2 x IceCap 4k Gyres, 2 Reef Octopus Octopulse 2
Protein Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 200INT
Control: Hydros X4, Hydros WE, Hydros XP8
ATO: Hydros
Lights: Radion XR15 G6 Pro x 4
After testing showed that the numbers were good (0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, 40 Nitrates) I did a 30% water change and added 4 Domino Damsels (less than 1" each) on July 3. They didn't last a week, some didn't last a day. I was perplexed but now thing it was just a bunch of fish from my LFS that were not healthy or stressed from transit. Who knows. Perhaps I rushed things to much, as I wanted to get things moved from the old tank so I can break it down and list it for sale.
After adding some Macrobacter7 for a few days, I added three Pajama Cardinals I obtained from a LFS. When they were still going strong after a week, I decided to move some of my livestock to the new tank on July 17. The water parameters were good, and at some point, I just had to make the plunge and get some fish moved. So I moved my SailfinTang, two Clowns, and an RBT so the clowns wouldn't be lonely.
A week later, with all parameters testing well, I moved the balance of what was going to the new tank. It now houses 5 Pajama Cardinals, 2 Clowns, a Sailfintang, Foxface Rabbit, Coral Beauty, Marine Betta, BlueHead Wrasse and a Fiji Blue Devil Damsel, along with 6 RBT's (there were 11 in the old tank, I did not want to move them all). I have a few Euphillia frags, a hammer tip, a toadstool leather, and a soft coral I need to identify because it came with the old tank and I've never looked up what it is.
I am getting some of what I think is Cyano on the sandbed. I did another 30% water change this past Sunday when I moved the balance of the livestock and siphoned the sand bed. It was back last night so I siphoned again and ended up changing out about 20 gallons then.
There is a reddish "dust" on the rocks as well
So, the tank still has some "new tank" issues for me to deal with.
I want to hard plumb the return, as it is now sort of "jerry-rigged" with tubing shoved inside of tubing as I could not get the 1.25" pump and the DIN32 plumbing to work together nicely. I plan on using a din to the standard adapter I purchased and switch the return to standard 1" up to the gate valve. I also need to move the heater to the sump, as it's ugly. Also need to do some serious cable management as things are sort of a mess I wanted to wait until things were installed and running before "locking" things down.
As far as future stoocking, the tank will be a mixed reef, primarily softies and LPS. I'd like to add:
a school of three Anthias
some yellow Tang's,
Lawnmower Blenny
FlameHawk
Midas Blenny
BJ Trigger.....
Zoa's
Mushrooms
Some more Torch's
Yellow Toadstool
Acan's....
