A College Reefer's Dream Tank

[TDS1]

So I just got back into the hobby a couple of months back starting off with a 12 gallon fluval edge. I still have that tank set-up in my living room, but I absolutely hate working in it. So now it is just a super low maintenance softy tank, with one little hammer coral. I ended up finding a 75 gallon high on cl, that was fully set-up, but all said and done, $400 bucks worth of headaches! I did end up getting 95% of the pests that had overtaken the tank out. I ended up getting a 140 gallon custom acrylic tank and sump with matching stand and canopy with a porcupine puffer, Christmas wrasse, vlamingi tang, and a couple of damsels. I got a 50 gallon reef set-up from the same guy and ended up moving the live-rock and corals from the reef into my 75 gallon. Needless to say, that definitely filled up that tank! I ended up finding an awesome deal on an 8 ft. ~160 gallon acrylic tank and refugium. It took me and my boyfriend a few days to get the stand all put together and get all the plumbing supplies together to get it filled up! I have it and my 140 gallon in our garage, which has now become my fishroom LOL.

Tank:

8’x2’x16” (roughly 160 gallons) acrylic DT w/ a blue back. Dual Overflows going into an acrylic refugium/sump.

Equipment:

 

Lighting:

Display-(2) Dual 250 watt metal halides with 14k bulbs, and 4 54 watt T5 actinic bulbs, blue led moonlights -1432 watts total

Refugium- 24” dual T5 with one actinic and one daylight bulb

 

Flow:

I haven’t calculated out exactly how much flow I’m getting from the return pump

(2) Koralia 2’s I believe

One other powerhead that I can’t quite recall the name of, but it is twice as powerful as the 2’s

………….I know, I know. I suck at this LOL

Filtration:

Approximately 150 lbs. mixed base and live rock from established aquariums

Approximately 80 lbs. of seafloor grade aragonite

(2) Empty filter socks, basically just to polish the water lol

Bubble Magus Protein skimmer

250 GPH dolphin return pump

 

I’m going pretty simple on this tank…..I will be adding an gravity fed ato here in the next couple of days when I get the time. I also have a calcium reactor, that I have absolutely zero ideas how to use LMAO, that is eventually going on the tank once it becomes a necessity! Oh I also have a uv sterilizer that I will be putting on the tank eventually also!

 

As far as livestock goes:

FISH

Sailfin Tang

Hippo Tang

Pink-Tailed Trigger

Lawn-Mower Blenny

(9) Green Chromis

(3) Occelaris clowns

Maroon clown

 

INVERTS

Derasa Clam

Flower Anemone

(2) Emerald Crabs

Peppermint Shrimp

CB Shrimp

Coco-worm

Featherduster

 

 

CORAL-

 

SPS

Unknown Green w/ Blue tip Acro colony

Unknown Brown and Blue Acro colony

Unknown Seafoam Green Acro colony

Millepora colony

Oregon Blue Tort

Green Slimer

Joe the Coral Acro

Borealis Acro

Blue German Acro

Scripps Green Acro

Ponapes Birdsnest

Bird of Paradise birdsnest

Green birdsnest

Rainbow montipora

Green w/ Purple rim Monti

Red monti cap

Pinkish Monti "cap" (Not sure what it is, but was told it's not a cap)

Electric Green Monti

Montipora Lantana

Idaho Grape Monti

Green Monti Digitata

 

LPS

Orange and Teal Lobo

Large Galaxae colony (MAKE OFFER I DON’T WANT IT ANYMORE!)

Kryptonite candy canes

Red and green candy canes

Blue-green candy canes

Green and pink Duncans

Aussie Hammer?

Pink hammer

Green hammer

Torch coral

Pipe organs

Orange plate coral

Awesome bluish pagoda cup!

Hollywood Stunner Chalice

Bright Red Chalice

 

Zoas/Palys

Valentines day massacres

Tangerines

Pink bullseyes

Pinwheels

Fire and ice

Hawaiin PE

Lord of the Rings

Armor of God

Green bay packers

Dragon eyes?

Eagle eyes?

Green death

Yellow polyps

And about half a dozen or so that I have no idea of the names of them, including some deepwater red and blue ones

 

Softies (Majority will be leaving this tank)

Rainbow? Yuma

Orange ricordea

Green and white shrooms

Small cabbage frags

GSP

 

I’m sure I’m missing things, but I will add them as I go HAHAHA…….

Ok now that the boring part is out of the way here are a couple of crappy pics I will try and take some better ones here soon, but between work, college, and actually taking care of the fishtanks it’s hard to find time lol!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let me know what you think, but please don't be an a**hole! It's kind of cloudy in there because I had just finished putting in the last of the aragonite a couple hours before!

[TDS1]

So in those pictures, you can obviously see that the right side is a lot dimmer, and more blue than the right.........The right side was running on some generic ballasts, and the left was on ice-caps. I couldn't stand how drastic of a difference it was, not to mention how little par I was getting out of the generic ones (literally like 400 as opposed to over 800 on the left!), so my amazing boyfriend picked me up a couple of dimmable lumateks

 

The brighter fixture had a T5 ballast that had blown, so I am now anxiously awaiting its arrival so I can get my fixture all put back together and back on the tank. Also the fan wasn't working (Gotta love CL purchases ) but thankfully I had an old computer fan to toss in there that actually works way better than the stock one!

 

We got around to installing the auto-top off the other night, so now my protein skimmer actually works like it should lol! The only problem I am running into now is that the tank is running a little cool.......when I got out of class it was down from the usual 78 to 75!!! I'm thinking that I need to add an extra heater to the first part of the sump, and one in the display tank behind the rocks, seeing as how the tank is so big and the fact that it is in my unheated garage.

 

I did a couple of tests on my water yesterday also:

 

Ammonia 0ppm

Nitrates 0ppm

Calcium 480ppm

Dkh between 9 and 10

Specific Gravity 1.027 (a little high, but I'm going to fix that tonight!)

 

So ya........That's it for today

[TDS1]

I added in an extra 350 watts worth of heaters the other day, which has stabilized my temperature thank god! Went to Barrier Reef and picked up a few SPS colonies, a derasa clam, and a flower anemone. I'm really not sure what the Acro colonies are that I got.......There is a seafoam green one that has a small number of polyps that end in little "hairs", There's a millie, a brown and blue acro that looks kind of like a tort, a ponapes birdsnest, and a frag of Idaho grape monti! The clam is so fricken cool....... Can't wait to get more

I'm hopefully going to borrow my roommates Rebel today so I should have actual full size pics posted this afternoon........It is so crazy how just a few colonies can make a tank look so much more full!

[Mitch619]

Was that 160 gallon a frag tank? It seems really shallow. I would raise the lights up since its so shallow. Other than that, it looks like an awesome tank!

[TDS1]

Was that 160 gallon a frag tank? It seems really shallow. I would raise the lights up since its so shallow. Other than that, it looks like an awesome tank!

 

Thanks man! The water is only 22" deep, so ya it's pretty shallow.......makes it waaaay easier to work in! It was a sale tank at a store that shut down LOL. It's kind of cool, because if I ever want to section it off it has grooves to put 3 dividers in, which sounds amazing for trying to catch a fish HAHAHA! I'm going to be (and by that I mean my boyfriend will be ) building an arm above the tank to hang the lights from. We've checked the par throughout the tank though and made sure nothing is going to burn where they are for the time-being. I did kind of bleach my Birds of Paradise birds nest, but it is starting to get some color back to it's tips thankfully!