Livestock

• Midas Blenny
• Mated pair B&W clowns
• Yellow Tang
• Bangaii Cardinals
• McCosker's flasher wrasse
• Tailspot blenny

Corals
I Have...
SPS: Tyree Setosa, ORA hawkins enchinata, ORA green birdsnest, ORA bird of paradise, Green slimer, seasons greetings monti, pokerstar monti, ORA Jeremy's green monti, Tyree ponape birdsnest, red monti cap, idaho grape cap, green cap, forest fire dig, pink millie, green humilus, various unk. sps

LPS: Tyree war coral, Dragon soul favia, Meteor shower cyphastrea, Miami Hurricane chalice, Bubble gum monster, emerald mummy eye, Hollywood stunner chalice, assorted acans, blastomussa, brain, fungia, aussie scolymia.

Zoas: Nuke Greens, Vivid Rainbows, Sunny D's, RPE, Eagle Eyes, Bam Bams , Pink , Green Bay Packers, Watermelons.



Paramaters

• Temp: 78.0 +/- 0.1 degrees
• Ammonia: 0
• Nitrite levels: 0
• Nitrate levels: 0
• pH: 8.2ish
• Calcium: 440
• Alkalinity: 9 dKh
• Salinity: 1.025-1.026

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FTS 5/23/10


FTS 12/10/10


1/18/11

Wow, thats a nice looking setup. Sound like a winner.

Thanks...I'm really excited to get this up and running!

Anyone have experience with Ebay RO/DI systems? I really want to pick this filter up.Link

Also anyone using D-D H2Ocean Mag Pro +? Is it worth the extra $$?

looking good.
D-D salt. I finished one but didn't like it. Got cloudy water. Just my 2 cent.

That's what I don't want...I guess I can't go wrong with Instant Ocean reef crystals.

That is one beautiful tank Medic!!!
Can't wait to follow this one!

As for the D-D salt... I think you'll be happy with it. I went through three buckets, and it was great! Just mix it for 24 hrs. prior to adding!

I've heard good things about the DD salt.

As far as the RO/DI, I went with the SpectraPure ProPlus. It's a 4-stage, 90 GPD system with a pressure gauge and a dual TDS meter included. I mounted it in my laundry room using the 3/4" hose connection. I switch between the filter and the washing machine as needed. I ran the waste line to the washer's drain. It's a great system with pretty easy installation with the stock kit. No extra connections needed.

I'll have to try some DD salt and see what it's all about then.

I think I may end up going with a Spectrapure....can't beat the quality and the price. I'd rather pay a little more upfront and save $$ and time later when it comes to changing cartridges. Can you hook up a hose to a RO/DI?

UPDATE!

Just got done with my little road trip down to OC. I picked up my new sump from John at Advanced Acrylics. All I have to say is WOW! It is such a shame this thing has to be hidden. I almost want to turn this thing into a display tank itself.

Also I picked up a Reefkeeper Lite and can't wait to get it runnning! I think I'm going to use it on my BC14 to get familiar with the settings until I mount it on my 75.

As for the corner overflow I left the tank at Advanced Acrylics for John to silicone in, but I'm going to pick it up Wednesday and will have pics of as soon as I get home.

Looks like a nice setup. The black stand makes a nice contrast. Looking forward to seeing the progress

that is a nice sump. This will be a nice setup

Dang that is indeed one banging looking sump.

Thanks guy!

So I have ran into a little problem. John from Advanced acrylics told me he was having a hard time siliconing in the acrylic overflow. So after some research I found that it is impossible to silicone acrylic->glass. Also it can be quite dangerous because acrylic will expand and shorten with temperature changes. Thus you have to leave a little space for the change in size. If you don't it can shatter your glass and your tank will end up on the floor.

Now for what to use to adhere these two materials together.....Bostik Titan Bond Plus. After some more research I found this company that sells Bostik is in Australia, and is only sold to businesses. GREAT! So luckily a fellow reefer on another forum found this same epoxy is sold to a US based business and the name is changed to Mr. Sticky Underwater glue. Luckily for me this glue is sold on the biggest aquarium online store....marine depot.

So noww I have to pick some of this stuff up and glue this overflow in.

Tank looks great and it doesn't even have water yet!

Good luck with the overflow. I think I have an acrylic overflow on my sun coral tank. I don't know how they glued it though. Hopefully it was done right.

I don't think it's impossible to silicone acrylic to glass. It depends on the type of silicone used and how it's applied. I know AGE uses a special adhesive (silicone based) to join the glass and PVC bottom in their hybrid tanks. I'm assuming that they use this same "glue" to join external acrylic overflows to the glass.

Did you get a chance to use that glue?

No not yet....I am picking up the tank from John tomorrow. I just told him to forget about siliconing in the overflow as I would find an alternative method and just do it myself.

Hmm I wonder what they use? Do you have a link or contact info for AGE?

The glue that they use is probably a propriety adhesive but if you'd like to find out, here's a link to their contact info: Acrylic & Glass Exhibits

K well I tried to silicone the overflow in and got a pretty good seal and it looks alright, but John from AA offered me a deal on a tank I can't pass up.

Dimensions are going to be almost the same 48x18x20.....black acrylic back w/ external overflow and polished corners. Should be ready by this weekend or early next week. I CANT WAIT!

Today I got the call from John that my tank was all ready so I picked it up. I couldn't be happier with the quality and overall service with his company. The tank is all acrylic 75g 48"x18"x22" with a black acrylic black, rounded and polished corners, center overflow w/ 2-1"bulkheads, and a 3/4" return in the top right.



Here's the tank when I got it home before unwrapping it.







There is a paper film to protect the bottom of the tank on it. I'm going to take that off asap.







Current FTS




I started plumbing the overflow, and will probably be finished tomorrow. I'm waiting for my return pump to arrive and will get hard plumbed to my 3/4" return.

Today I received my Jager 250w heater. This thing is 17" and barely fits in my sump. One question, is it bad for a heater to be touching the acrylic. Will it warp or possibly cause a failure?

Next purchase will be a RO/DI....I'm going to go with a Spectrapure ProPlus 90gpd system. I will also be picking up 40lbs of special grade reef sand and 20lbs of Fiji Pink from marine depot will-call.

Any advice or suggestions are welcome. What should I do with this tank? I wanna hear your ideas.

Awesome tank! Another excellent build by John.

I think you should get another mp40w powerhead, place 1 on each side, and turn it into an SPS reef tank
You'll eventually have to dose or buy a calcium reactor though to keep up w/ the growth.

Thanks! John has a great thing going on and his quality is unremarkable.

Yeah I'm definitely going to get 2 of them, but later down the road $$$$. Only thing I don't like about tanks that have two mp's on......it looks like they have earmuffs.


Anyways I made a blog for my tank. Here's the link. please subscribe, post comments etc.

http://ecoreef75.blogspot.com/

You could get by with just 1 since it pushes a lot of water. I hate equipment showing so I'll be using 2 mp10s and mounting them on the rear black panel of my tank (should blend in nicely). Other than that the whole setup should look clean. Will you be using live or dry rock (marco, BRS eco, etc)?

I think I'll just stick with one on the left side for now and depending on the needs of the tank as it matures I'll see if a second one is needed.

I'm off to Home Depot here soon to finish up getting the rest of my plumbing supplies. Plumbing is a PITA
I tried to "measure twice and cut once"....it turned to to be measure three times cut three times and go to HD three times. Oh well

Here's what I've got done so far.






Sketcher- I'm really not sure what I'm going to use for my rockwork. I'm trying to find someone breaking a tank down and selling their LR. If not I'll head down to marine depot will call and pick up some dried macro.

Just got my Reef Octopus 2010 Skimmer from FedEx. I am very pleased with how easy it was to set-up. I probably had it assembled and ready to run in 5 minutes. Hopefully it's as easy to break in as it was to set up. I got it in my sump. Had to break it into a couple pieces and put it back together inside, but wow is it a tight fit. Its going to be a little harder for me to empty the cup but that's Ok I don't mind. Anyways enough talking more pics.

It felt like Christmas.....in March


Not sure what the difference is between 2009 and 2010


In sump pic



I sold my 75g glass and I'll be heading down to marine depot will call next week to pick up 80lbs of Caribsea Special Grade Reef Sand and a Spectrapure ProPlus 90gpd RO/DI. I'm going to bump up the ETA on this build to mid April. Hopefully a couple overtime shifts will keep it on track.

I love your tank, makesmine looking like child"s play lol. And your sump, never seen one looking so good. Great choice on your p. skimmer.
Doing great so far

Thanks a lot! Hey your in better shape in I am....my tank doesn't even have water in it yet! But it will soon!

I just got my RO/DI unit from a fellow reefer from my local club IEMAS. He bought someones tank that came with a unit and since he already had one he sold it to me for $50. Now i know its not a spectrapure or 72 stage maxpure, but it works and for the price I couldn't beat it. I got it up and running and so far I've made about 4 gallons in an hour.

Here it is... it's a Purewaterclub 100gpd 6 stage RO/DI. I don't have a tds meter for it so I'm probably going to buy one off ebay. How does this one look? Link





Tomorrow I'm going down to Marine depot will call to pick up 80lbs of Caribsea Seaflor special grade reef sand.

good deal on the RO unit.
I need to find one at that price

Redkneecoral-Yeah I was happy I didn't have to pay an arm and a leg for one.

So I got my TDS meter (HM-EZ) off ebay, and just tested my water. My tap water was reading at 157ppm, and my RO/DI unit was reading 10ppm. Questions....

Is it bad to use water that is 10ppm....I know 0ppm is ideal, but what's going to happen?
Should I replace all the filters?

Alright well I'd say I'm about a week away from getting this thing wet finally!

I just got back from Marine depot will-call and picked up a bucket of D-D H2Ocean +, (2) 40lb bags of Caribsea special grade reef sand, and Microbacter7.

I bought all new filters for my RO/DI unit and am now running 0ppm so all is good in that department.

I still need to buy my light fixture which will be purchased next pay check. I plan on going with a 1 month cycle using Microbacter7. First 2-3 weeks will be without lights. I've got about 30lbs of dead rock....I want atleast another 50ish or LR. I'm going with a two pillar aquascape w/ shelf plates at the top.


Anyways I wanna hear some of your ideas for livestock (coral, fish, CUC). I've got to start thinking about this stuff now. YAY!

Alright finally I've got this baby up and running! I made water from about 9am yesterday till about 3 am this morning to fill the tank up. I was exhausted!




How do you like my scape?


I picked up another 50lbs of LR from a fellow reefer and pretty much cherry picked all the pieces and made my aquascape at his place. I'm not 100% set on it, but I got the concept of what I was going for. I'm taking inspiration from a tank I saw on RC which was amazing when everything grew out. What I really want to do here is keep it as clean as possible with no ugly rock wall and plenty of space for swimming.





I plan on running with a 2-3 week cycle. I'm dosing microbacter7 to give it a little jump start.

As you can obviously see I have no lights which I'll be ordering next week. I figure there's no need for lights yet since it's cycling. After that I'm going to pick up a new Vortech mp40w ES....am I glad I didn't pull the trigger on an old version!

Here's my external overflow with the herbie overflow! Thanks Tigahboy for all the info here on NR!



Here's a picture of my sump. I filled my tank up with RO and am mixing my salt in tank, you can see some in the bubble trap. FUNNIEST thing though....this is my first skimmer and when I first turned it on there were barely any bubbles I was like WTF...soon to find out that skimmers don't work in freshwater and since I had RO in there it was making like 5 bubbles haha! Now its working wayy better.




Lastly here's a picture of my DIY jawfish house I made. I'm so excited to get one of these in here! My GF said she's going to buy me one for my B-day!




Well that's it for today! Thanks for checkin my tank out!
Now plans for CUC What do you think?

I like the little jawfish house The tank is coming together nicely

looking good

Thanks! I just cant wait to get some coral in there!

Well everything is running great so far no leaks or anything. I'm going to be buying my light next week.

What config should I go with on my 6x54w? I'm looking for something with good PAR and something that will make my colors pop.

ATI Blue+
ATI Blue+
KZ Fiji Purple
GE 6500k
ATI Blue+
ATI Blue+

I would stay away from 6.5k bulbs, they take so much blue to balance them out (although thats what your planning on). I would opt for having 2x 12-14k bulbs and supplement 1:1 blue and add on a pure actinic actinic. This will give you more balanced look overall and more light throughout the tank instead of a peak just under the 6.5k bulb.

Something like
blue
12k
blue
actinic
12k
blue

Looking good!!

You'll like the NW110, I run one myself and it's awesome! The only difference between the 2009/2010 model is half the body in the 10 model is cone shaped. In the 2009 model, it's only about 1/4 the the length of the body. So it should help to increase dwell time. They run very quiet, and very efficiently.

Good buy on the RO/DI. I bought the same unit when I first started reefing over a year ago. However, within a few months, I completely re-built the unit with Spectrapure parts. The membrane and filters from the PWC system are very poor. And the horizantal DI chamber was a poor design too, as the water will create veins around the DI resin. I ended up making the third cartridge into the DI chamber and re-plumbed it to run chamber 1 (sediment) - chamber 2 (carbon block) - membrane - DI.

Which fixture are you going to buy? I picked up an Aquactinics fixture and was really impressed by the output. I've heard good things about the Tek fixtures as well. And there's always ATI

My fixture is only a 5 lamp, but I run the below combo, and REALLY like it!

Blue+
Blue Spezial
KZ Fiji Purple
Blue Spezial
Blue+

Hmm thanks Phil....Maybe I'll pick up an ATI aquablue special 12k. I'm probably going to pick up a couple so I can mess around with configs. Any other good 12k bulbs?

The NW110 is awesome so far it's super quite and has pulled out some nasty stuff so far. I can't wait to see it running when it's fully broken in and there's some livestock in my tank.

As for the light fixture I'm still deciding. Sunlight Supply is going to be at the MAX expo next weekend and I'm waiting to decide until I see their display and talk to some reps. If not I'd love to have an ATI or Aquactinics constellation but $$ doesn't go on trees and I still need to save up for an MP40.


What do you suggest for cleaning an acrylic tank? I'm so scared of scratching this tank!

UPDATE:

So the tank has been cycling for 11 days now. I've been dosing Microbacter7 and feeding my tank some flakes once a week. I've been putting water from my BC14 in there after water changes and so far everything is going great. I did my first test today...

Ammonia - 0.25ppm
Nitrite - 0.25ppm
Nitrate- 0

I've been running my skimmer for the past 2 days and it's still breaking in. I've pulled out some light green nog.

Anyways this week is MAX I'm hopefully going to be getting some nice corals. I expect to have my light by the end of next week. And my first fish and CUC in about 2 weeks!

IM SO EXCITED!

Does the right pillar kind of look like E.T?

I'm going to be changing up my aquascape a little bit....I want more area to place sps at the top.
I need your opinion on my aquascape I feel like it could be so much better. I've got about 20lbs of dead rock I can play around with.

Ha Ha it kinda does look like E.T. LOL If you need look at other peoples scapes in their threads to get ideas. If you have that extra rock play around with it.

Alright well I just got back from MAX. Great show! A lot of vendors. I talked with reps from sunlight supply, digital aquatics and Rod's food who all had some great advice. I wish there were more frags but overall still a very well put together expo.

I picked up some really nice frags at MAX I'll have pictures up later.

I just bought the Sunlight Supply Tek elite 6x54w t5ho fixture from tbaquatics. After talking with the sunlight supply reps it seemed better to go with the elite. It has slightly higher output and is air cooled which will help my bulbs last a little longer and there will be less heat transfer to my tank. I also bought these bulbs.

ATI Blue+
ATI Aquablue special
ATI Blue+
KZ Fiji Purple
ATI Aquablue special
ATI Blue+

What do you think?

Update: Here are the corals I got at MAX in order from bottom to top:
ORA Red planet
ORA Hawkins enchinata
Tyree Setosa
Seasons greetings monti
Tyree Tri-color Valida
ORA Pearlberry
Purple tip tenius

Tomorrow my lights come! Too bad I work tomorrow. (24 hours)
My cycle is all finished up and I'm going to do a 10g water change this weekend and get this baby ready for some livestock.

I ran into a small bump....I was focusing so much on cycling the tank and getting all my equipment tuned I never thought I'd have to dose to maintain proper calcium. I mean nothing is in there! Before I knew it my calcium was down to 360. That was quickly taken care of compliments of blue life calcium.

Anyways here's my new aquascape. I love it! There is so much swimming space and the left pillar is perfect for SPS. I'm going to fill it in with a nice rock filled with rics and some zoos. I'll post some more pics of my tek light coming in Saturday!

Where is the love people? Guess I'm just talkin to myself in here haha.

My lights came in yesterday and I've got to give mad props to tbaquatics. I'm very pleased with their business I will definitely buy there again. Their prices are great and I got free shipping.

Anyways my light is finally running and I LOVE the color combo! It's nice and blue which is what I wanted.
I ended up arranging my bulbs from front to back

Blue +
Aquablue Special
Fiji Purple
Blue +
Aquablue Special
Blue +

I've got it hooked up to my RKL running the outside blue + bulbs from 11-8 and the inside bulbs from 12-7 for a total of 10 hours. This might change and I might run it for 9 hours depending.

Here are some pics....not like you care.

Top





FTS





On another note...my cycle isn't over yet. UGhh it's been 3 weeks.

Ammonia 0.5ppm
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5ppm
ph 8.2
Calcium 440
dKh 9

Hopefully I can move over my corals next week!

Looks, good. Thats a good light combo six bulb fixtures are harder to get the right combo then 5 bulb fixtures.

looks good, are there 5 functional fans on the light? Or are some of them vents. lemme know when your ready for sps. I have some nice chunks of setosa for ya.

Sweet light. Nice setup. Can't wait to see what you do with livestock

Thanks Tony.... there are just 3 fans running. I've already got some of your setosa from when I traded you the rics. How are the rics doing?

What fish should I get first? Blue Hippo tang?

Nice setup. I am in the process of getting a tank built by John at AA. He sure seems to do wonderful work. I am going to have to have him model my sump after yours .

How do you like the euro bracing on an open top? That is the trouble I am having. I want a 36 long but I want rimless, without the euro bracing the price on the tank goes way up.

Does the euro bracing on your open top bother you?

Are you planning on adding any sand/macro algae in your sump?

John does great work! If there is one thing I'd change about my sump it would be to attach an ATO reservoir. I think it would look so clean to just have one already on there.

What size tank are you getting?

I like the euro-bracing a lot! There are several fish that I want that are jumpers, and I'd hate to have to cover the whole tank with a screen. With the euro-bracing all I have to do is make 2 small screens. Also evap on an open tank is probably insane....right now I'm losing about 5 gallons a week.




That was the original plan but I'm not really sure anymore....I'm debating between using a DSB/macro or going with vodka dosing. I've been following AJtsin's 57g shallow and he's had great success with vodka dosing.