chazde3 Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Hey fellow nano-reefers. Many of you may remember me from over the past 7 years. I've been out of the hobby for a little less than a year due to some ups and many downs in my personal life. Well I'm jumping back in feet first. I found a killer deal from a reefer an hour and a half away on a 110g breakdown. I ended up picking up his entire setup minus lighting and skimmer for $375!! That included probably 200 lbs of rock that had been in the tank for 10 years. This tank will be set up in one of the doorways into my living room as a peninsula tank. I'm currently refinishing the stand in an antique white to better fit the room. I also had the pulls the bottom trim off the tank because it was disintegrating. Luckily my lfs had a replacement piece and I am only waiting on a top trim piece. The tank also needs to be drilled since he was previously using an overflow box and im not a fan. Planning on doing a 1.5in drain and 2 3/4in returns all on one end of the tank. The tank will also be getting the beastly led fixture I built a few years over it after I do some work on it. I will be cutting the heatsink in half and re-wiring the strings so that I half 2 smaller pendants instead of one large pendant. Door way the tank is going View from the hall to the front door. Tank will be flush with this wall Sump that came with the tank, basically the size of a 20high New 29g getting ready for baffles, much better. Stand after a coat of primer Stand after a coat of heirloom white, store only had one can and that only covered part of the stand and it needs a second coat. Going to add seashell or starfish bronze knobs to the doors. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 Did a little work yesterday. Put the stand in the doorway to see how it will fit up. Still need to find 2 more cans of the paint I'm using so I can finish painting it tonight. Also added all the baffles to the 29g sump. Turned out pretty well for the first full sump I've ever built. Link to comment
Bella's Reef Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 Welcome back fellow MI Reefer! I myself am just getting back in after 5 years of being out. I will be following this build! Link to comment
chazde3 Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 Welcome back fellow MI Reefer! I myself am just getting back in after 5 years of being out. I will be following this build! Thanks bella's. I remember you from back in the day. Didn't know you got out 5 years ago. Crazy that at 25 I feel like one of the old guys from both here and m-r lol. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted March 25, 2014 Author Share Posted March 25, 2014 So I should have payed more attention to the instructions on the can of paint for the stand. I tossed a second coat on where I could see some primer poking through. Apparently I needed to wait 48 hours in between coats because the paint started to crackle in a few spots. So I have to sand those spots down and repaint to patch it up. Overall the stand looks darn good in heirloom white. Also just bit the bullet on a glass holes 1500 overflow kit and 2 3/4in loc-line return kits. I need to figure out how I'm going to configure the overflow and returns. I'm thinking the overflow on one of the short sides of the tank and the 2 returns on the other short side of the tank. I think that along with a couple wp-40s should provide great flow. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted March 26, 2014 Author Share Posted March 26, 2014 So I'm trying to figure out how I want to light this bad boy. I've got my old Diy 52 led fixture that I plan on reusing but it needs a modification. I'm torn whether I should cut it in half length wise to have 2 pendent style fixtures or width wise to have 2 strip style fixtures. Since this tank will have a tall column of rock down the middle with corals going up both rock faces in leaning towards making it into 2 strips. That would allow me to add another strip down the middle eventually as well. The fixture is roughly 8.5wx32l. Thoughts? Here's the pictures of the light when I first built it fit reference. And this is the tank I'm pulling inspiration from. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted March 28, 2014 Author Share Posted March 28, 2014 Got to work tonight cleaning up the 110g and drilled the overflow holes tonight. I still need to drill the dual returns. How the tank has looked at my house Got dem holes drilled. 1/2" glass takes awhile to drill through Test fitting the glass-holes 1500 overflow. Looks pretty good to me. Its offset to one side due to proximity of the wall where this tank is going. Had to offset it to clear the wall. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 Last holes drilled and I got the 110g up on the stand by my lonesome last night. Should be working on the plumbing tonight. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Last holes drilled and I got the 110g up on the stand by my lonesome last night. Should be working on the plumbing tonight. I spy, with my little eye, something built by... me! PAR38 still working out for you? So I see a pair of Chinese units above the tank. Didn't feel like working with your old setup any more? Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 I spy, with my little eye, something built by... me! PAR38 still working out for you? So I see a pair of Chinese units above the tank. Didn't feel like working with your old setup any more? I actually just got that par38 this weekend from someone up in petoskey. It looks killer over the nuvo8. That tank needs to be moved to the other side of the couch now though. I also got those Chinese lights from the same deal and think they will give me a better clean look to the setup. My old light is about to be cut down the middle and widened to give me a better spread over a 48x24x12 frag tank that's going out in the garage still never figured out the pwm dimming on it lol. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 8, 2014 Author Share Posted April 8, 2014 The slow process of filling the tank with 110g of ro/di water has begun. I've got 20g in it now and a 30g barrel full of water to put in tonight. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 Well I bit the bullet and picked up an apex controller for this tank. I need to pick up a board to mount it to along with some zip ties and a label maker to keep everything organized. I also had to replace all the files in the ro/di system that I got. I went from 180 on the tds to 0 in a matter of minutes. The wife was unimpressed lol. I'm hoping to get the rest of the water in the tank so I can toss the salt in and get it mixed up and sand put in by this weekend. Link to comment
frankdontsurf Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 Why not add the sand now to limit some of the dusting later? Looks good. Thought you said you were out of the hobby for a while? You look stocked up. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 Why not add the sand now to limit some of the dusting later? Looks good. Thought you said you were out of the hobby for a while? You look stocked up. Reason for not adding the sand right now is because I am going to mix the initial saltwater in the tank so I can get all 110g mixed at once. It's harder to do that when there is sand in the tank. I was out of the saltwater game for close to a year but I kept most of my equipment. The nano was started around a month ago. And the big tank off to the side is my 65g Tanganyikan Cichlid tank. The wife also has a 37g column fw planted tank. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 A sand storm to end all sand storms. Picking up my rock from my friends house tonight. Link to comment
Chris! Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Looks like you got a good start goin man! Which LED units are those, and how do you like the coloration so far? Pics look purple but pics don't mean shit lol Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 14, 2014 Author Share Posted April 14, 2014 Looks like you got a good start goin man! Which LED units are those, and how do you like the coloration so far? Pics look purple but pics don't mean shit lol No name Chinese led units. I will have to wait until the cloudiness goes away to dial in just the right colors. And yeah my phone doesn't take pictures worth a crap under leds. I need to take some sump shots and pics of my cord organization once it's all done. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 15, 2014 Author Share Posted April 15, 2014 Initial rock work in the blind worked out well Link to comment
frankdontsurf Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 That's a lot of rocks! I love it. So many bare scapes (including mine) it seems. Kick ass. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 15, 2014 Author Share Posted April 15, 2014 Thanks. I need to do some moving around but it looks pretty good for the first try. Nice thing is everything is in the center so I can place coral on both sides. Link to comment
chazde3 Posted April 15, 2014 Author Share Posted April 15, 2014 nice to still see 07'ers I know, that's crazy. I was 19 and dumb back then lol. And I'm one of the old guys around here now at 25. Link to comment
Bella's Reef Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 That scape is sweet! I dig the centered two sided viewing, lots of placement options for coral. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.