Nick's Reef - The Beginning

[najluni15]

Hey everyone,

 

Although I have been lurking around for the past year and a half, I have not had a tank. I tore down my 120 gallon tank and my 8 gallon tank around 18 months ago and have now started my new tank. You can check out my old tanks in my sig, but here is the intro to my new tank.

 

Introduction:

 

A lot has happened over the last year and half. After being in law school (which was the reason I got rid of my 120 gallon tank ) and then deciding I hated it, I started grad school in environmental studies focusing on water policy. I also got married and bought a townhouse with my wife....Now we can actually have the aquarium we always wanted. After looking for spots in the house, we decided it would be nice to have a long, narrower tank along the stairwell, and thus we decided on a standard 75 gallon tank.

Our house is kind of a western look since we both love western style, have our horses etc so I wanted to incorporate that theme into the tank as best I could. I ended up building a pretty cool stand that fits into our style. It took me about 4 months to get our house live in ready, and another 2 months to build the stand, get all of the equipment, and wait until our wedding in February to finally setup the tank. Now that we are settled in, the tank has been up and running since the first week of March and is now underway

Below is a breakdown of my equipment

 

Standard 75 Gallon AGA tank

 

Aqueon Proflex 4 sump

 

DIY Aquarium Stand

 

Maxspect Gyre XF130 running on Pulse mode at 90%

 

2 Reef breeders Photon 16 LED lights

 

Reef Octopus SRO 2000 skimmer

 

Danner Mag Drive 9.5 return pumo

 

2 BRS media reactors for GFO and GAC

 

Refugium

 

Eheim Jager Heater 300W

 

Eheim Auto Feeder

 

BRS Drinking Water Plus RODI system

 

Brute 32 Gallon Trash Can Water Changing Setup

 

Reef Angel Plus Aquarium Controller

FTS April 3, 2015

[najluni15]

The Stand

My aquarium stand needed to fulfill a couple of goals:

1. It needed to have a Western look, and my wife and I decided we wanted to use reclaimed wood (thanks for the idea Urbaneks)

2. It needed to end up being furniture grade, I am not a carpenter but I have tried in the past

3. It needed easy access, with all panels being removable

 

To attach the side panels, I decided to use magnets from home depot, countersunk into the frame and door.

 

The stand is built out of kiln dried Pine 2x4" for the frame, 1x6" poplar facing, 1/2" red oak plywood veneer top, and bottom, and 1/2" plywood for the back

 

After trying to find a good supply of reclaimed wood, I came across a carpenter locally that uses reclaimed redwood fence boards for custom furniture. After touring his shop, I was sold. The furniture he makes out of the reclaimed boards is AMAZING! He told me that since I am interested in doing the work myself, I could take whatever boards I wanted and he showed me to his stockpile. I dug through dozens of boards looking for the nicest pieces with the most knots and contours that I could find. After I got a few really nice boards I went home and got to work.

 

The framing of the stand was pretty easy. Since I bought a small brad nailer, and a miter saw for the work I was doing at my house, I was pretty well equipped to build my stand.

As part of the stand, I included an electrical cabinet, and three removable doors. Once framed, and faced with poplar, I started on the reclaimed wood.

 

First, I sanded the boards lightly with 180 grain sandpaper. I then ripped the boards to width and cut them to length. I then went back over them with 220 grain sandpaper and removed any splinters. I wiped them down really well with a damp cloth and then a tackcloth to remove any dust or debris. I really like how it came out. The wood has many knots and dents that give it a lot of character. I only sanded enough to widen the contours of the wood, but left the texture of the wood grain so it is still elevated to the touch. This gives the wood a really nice look and feel.

 

I then put three coats of polyeurethane on them which took 5 days with a day in between coats. Overall, the boards came out very well.

 

During this time, I sanded the stand and filled all of the holes. I primed and then spray painted the outside of the stand semi gloss black and brushed the inside with gloss white paint. Once painted, I caulked the interior of the stand to make it water tight in case of leaks and sealed the electrical cabinet.

 

Once painted, I tacked on the reclaimed wood trim with my brad nailer using 1" nails and then made cutouts in the top and back for my plumbing and wiring.

A few more pics of the woodgrain

[najluni15]

Light Mounts:

To hang my two ReefBreeder Photon 16" lights I used 3/4 Conduit with stock 90 degree elbows and conduit hanging clamps screwed into the back of the stand.

 

I spray painted the conduit with black semi gloss to match the stand and drilled holes to put J bolts through. I then used wire hangers on the hooks attached to the photons.

 

This method worked well and was really cheap compared to some setups I have seen.

 

The only thing I wish I changed was I wish I used one single piece of conduit and a pipe bender.

 

When I was at Home Depot I tried using a pipe bender they had for sale and ended up crimping 2 sections of conduit!

[Slowtwitch]

Looks sharp! Nice job on the stand.

[najluni15]

Thanks. I went a little overboard with the stand. My old stand for the 120 gallon was just made out of poplar 1x6 and plywood and held up great, this one is SOLID

[Slowtwitch]

Can't wait to see it stocked

[najluni15]

Funny you should mention that....I have started stocking with fish over the last couple of weeks.

 

Here is my current livestock:

Yellow tang

Kole tang

Melanarus wrasse (male)

2 bangai cardinal fish (captive bred)

4 dispar anthias (1male and 3 females)

2 green clown gobies

2 green chromis (3 died in the overflow which I have since blocked, and 2 were fighting a lot and are now hiding

2 skunk cleaner shrimp

 

Future plans when the tank is more stable:

Potters angel

5 red spot glass cardinal fish

A handful of damsels of varying species

Midas blenny or bicolor blenny

Prawn goby of some sort

[najluni15]

My sump is an Aqueon Proflex 4. At first I really didn't think that I would like it but since it was included when I bought the tank used, I figured I would give it a try. So far I really like it. I run it without the 3 filter socks for now since they get dirty a little too fast for my liking, and skim out valuable pods and nutrients for my refugium. I also use a reef radiance led refugium light that gives me great growth for my macros. In all the size of the chambers in the sump are perfect and the last chamber fits all of my equipment with no problems.

[Juuls]

looks great, I do love these DIY people and what they can do to stands for the tanks

[najluni15]

Thanks! I'll take more pics tonight of the stand. If I did it over again I think I would sand a tad more and add either another coat of poly or a wax to get a smoother and more sealed finish. It was a trade off of having the wood grain look and feel versus having it fully sealed.

[najluni15]

My skimmer filled up in one day! This thing pulls an amazing amount of gunk! I love reef octopus skimmers!

 

On another note, my kole tang managed to clean all of the rocks in the tank of diatoms in one day as well. He cruises around all day eating and leaves perfectly round bit marks on the rock.

 

Here is a pic with some of the fish in the current after feeding my frozen concoction

[najluni15]

This week has been rather stressful between work and school and then a few fish passed away

All of the chromis are gone. I'm not sure why but I have never had luck with chromis. They always die one by one. I think my melanarus may have eaten them since he was chasing them and bit at least ones tail. One anthia also died. It was the only one that would constantly hide. And lastly, a green clown goby died. Likely from starvation. I never saw that one eat and he was very thin to begin with. I did a large water change last Sunday and tested the water and everything checks out so not sure what happened. Luckily I pulled all of the fish except two chromis that I couldn't find out before they decomposed. I'm going to get the tank stable before I add anything else.

[najluni15]

I've been busy the last few weeks but have still been working on the tank. Not doing to well in the fish department....after the first five chromis died I added 5 more and within 2 days those died and I have no clue why. When I was getting them the lfs had a thin mandarin that they have me for $5 since it looked like it was in bad shape. I thought I could get it back to health since my tank has had an explosion of pods. It also died within a few days. My yellow tang has a bad case of ich but is getting better. The kole tang randomly died with no signs of ich or anything. So what I have left is my 3 dispar anthias (the male has a bacterial infection on his upper lip that looks nasty, he had it when I got him and was getting better but now it's pretty bad but they're all eating like pigs still), the tang, and my awesome melanarus wrasse.

 

I also added a fed corals. Now I have:

Elegance coral

Lime Green tabling acropora

Bonsai acropora

Some sort of blue acropora

Gsp

Ricordea and a red mushroom

A few zoas including Rastas

 

Also tested water and nitrate and ammonia are both zero. Diatoms and macro must be taking care of it

[najluni15]

I have done several large water changes, setup a permanent qt tank, and added a few more corals. So far all is goin well. My tang is back to normal and 2 dispars and the wrasse are still healthy and fat. Now the key is to maintain stability. Hopefully I'll start stocking with more coral and get some fish in qt soon

[RC1313]

Hey! Just checking, did you by any chance leave your tank fishless for a while after some fish displayed signs of ich? Also did you remove the fish that survived and treat them? Ich can lay dormant for a pretty long time and I don't want you to have to put all those new fish in after QT to only have it in your tank.

[najluni15]

Hey, I almost forgot I had a build thread haha.

 

I removed all my surviving fish and Qt them with cupramine and prazipro for 4 weeks. The DT was dormant during that time to kill the ick.

 

I am now using a qt for every addition (I have a potters, coral beauty, Nd two anthias coming Tuesday)

 

Thanjs

[RC1313]

Okay just wanted to check! Didn't want you to lose those fish, I hope four weeks works out for you, I found the recommended to be 72 days.

[najluni15]

Yeah I have heard both. Cupramine was dosed quite high and none of the fish showed signs prior to being qtd so hopefully it worked. My water quality is very good so that should prevent it coming back as well.