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Zach's 120 Gallon Reef Resurgence


zachxlutz

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Hey all!
First off, let me introduce myself... I’m not new to reef-keeping, but I am returning after a long absence from the hobby and I'm very excited! My girlfriend and I recently moved in together and in going through all of our stuff and cleaning things out I stumbled across all of my aquarium equipment. Look, it was an honest mistake - I was cleaning it all out, taking stock of what I had and a little spark went off... LET'S SET UP ANOTHER REEF TANK! I HAVE ALL THE STUFF... (I didn't have all the stuff, I've been buying things left and right getting to where we are today including a used 120 gallon tank/stand/hood). Ok, wait, let me back up... here's the progression of things since the beginning of my reef addiction.
I’ve had a 10 gallon nano back in 2009:
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I’ve had a 33 gallon long w/ 20 long sump in '09-'10:
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...and I’ve had a 55 gallon w/ 20 long sump in '11-'12:
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Now, we’re embarking on a new adventure… a 120 gallon (4’x2’x2’) with a 55 gallon sump/refugium in the stand. It’s going to utilize two 700 GPH glass-holes overflows on either side of the back wall as well as dual 3/4” loc-line returns in the center. The sump will contain skimmer, fuge, etc.
Build List:
120 Gallon - 4’x2’x2’ Drilled Glass Tank
Custom Stand and Hood
2x250 watt 14,000k Hamilton Metal Halide Lights supplemented w/ 2x 96w 420nm PC bubs
Coraline Super Skimmer
Danner Supreme Aqua-Mag 9.5 Return Pump
3/4” Loc-Line Returns x2
Glass-Holes Overflow Kits - 700 GPH x2
EHEIM Jäger Heater - 300 Watts x2
PC Fuge Light
RO/DI set up in water closet with 3x 44 gallon Brute Trash Cans set up for RO/DI storage, salt mixing, etc.
without further ado, photos!
07/20/16 - 120 Gallon (4'x2'x2') Tank, Stand, Hood
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07/20/16 - 55 Gallon Sump/Refugium in Stand
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07/20/16 - Setting Up Live Rock Curing "Tank"
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07/20/16 - Live Rock Curing in "Tank"
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07/20/16 - Ammonia Test - 2.0 PPM
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So, that brings us up to date. Currently, the live rock (dead!) is cycling in the trash can in the water closet in the garage. The rock has been sitting in a bucket for the past couple of years so it's dead rock at this point. I bleached the live rock, rinsed it and now it's sitting the the trash can cycling while I wait to get the tank ready and the dining room painted in anticipation of the tank. I set up the "Live Rock Curing Trash Can" last night (07/19/2016) and this morning (07/20/2016) when I checked the ammonia it was already at 2.0 PPM. We're well on our way to cycling. I guess there was more dead material on those rocks than I had figured.
Well, that's all for now, I'll keep updating as things come along. I'm currently waiting on another shipment from glass-holes for the return loc-line equipment and one more 700 GPH overflow and then I'll be drilling the return lines in the back of the tank, plumbing it, and then leak testing the whole system in the garage while we get the dining room painted and ready for tank installation.

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Checked my levels again this morning. Needs a water change asap!
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Levels this AM. 07/22/16.


It's coming along! I've been busy this week and throughout this weekend with a big bicycle stage race. I'll be racing every day through Sunday so not a lot of time to mess with the new tank.


Almost all the equipment is in the garage, I'm just waiting to drill two more return holes in the tank, plumb it up, do a leak test, re-paint and re-skin the stand and hood, and then move it inside after we paint the dining room.


Really looking forward to it!

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funny how that works - "I have all the stuff already" glad you're getting back in. I can see a trend here with the tank size..

 

The rock was sitting dry for 2 years? I'm surprised too how quickly you got ammonia. Are you going to seed it with any newer rock or just wait it out?

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  • 4 weeks later...

We're making some progress... I'm excited to fill everyone in on what's been going on.

 

Dining room progress:

 

The dining room has been painted, walls, ceiling and trim. The light fixture is going to be changed for something a little more modern to offset the older style furniture in the room. The furniture is my Grandmother’s, she lives with my parents now and my girlfriend and I decided to bring some of her furniture in to our place. My girlfriend is going to recover the old looking fabric on the chairs and once we add wall decorations and the final touches I think it’s going to be a really great looking room with vintage furniture, modern updates and a beautiful reef aquarium. The color was off putting to me at first but with lots of photographical motivation, my girlfriend has convinced me it’s going to look great.

 

The tank is going to take the place of the long serving table on the left side of the photo.

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Plumbing progress shot:

 

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Completed plumbing:

 

120REEF-081416%20-%20Plumbing%20-%20Prog

 

Manifold plumbing for future expansion:

 

I’ll be adding a carbon reactor, a gfo reactor and likely some form of calcium supplementation system via this manifold. I’m also considering some way of automating water changes via this system, going to have to do some more research on that front.

 

120REEF-081416%20-%20Plumbing%20-%20Prog

 

Completed plumbing with lighting doing a leak test:

 

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Leak test report: I’ve got two small leaks from the bulkheads on the right side. I believe the main leak on the overflow is from over tightening the nut. The gasket seems to be bulging. I’m going to loosen the nut a tad and try and get the gasket to take it’s original shape back rather than bulging out.

 

The other two leaks appear to be from the return line 90’ that screws into the bulkhead. I hand-tightened it what I felt was appropriate and used teflon tape but i’m still getting a leak.

 

Options to fix: Seal the connection with a PVC/acrylic cement without disassembling or cut the PVC, add a coupler/union and try and reseal/rethread in the 90’ elbow. Same goes with the 90’ on the overhead. Not really sure how to go about this now. Thoughts? Opinions?

 

Remaining steps in order to bring tank inside:

  • Waterproof/paint stand before skinning.
  • Paint all plumbing black.
  • Paint back of tank black.
  • Repair broken center brace using acrylic cement and strengthen using acrylic sheet.
  • Add new fans and grills to hood.
  • Modify hood to include doors at front for easy access to tank for feeding, etc.
  • Make +/- 150 gallons of ro/di water and subsequently turn that in to saltwater.
  • Aquascape using cycled dead rock.
  • +Many more steps…
That’s all for today folks, thanks for reading along!
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Leak Test Part 2 Update:

Last night I went home and disassembled the return lines and the drain lines at their respective unions. I added two new unions to the 3/4" return line directly below the 90' elbow out of the bulkhead. This allowed me to easily disassemble the whole plumbing situation and get a grip on the leaky bulkheads and threaded elbows. I removed the existing teflon tape and used a non-hardening TFE paste thread sealant on the elbows. I loosened the bulkhead nuts a little to help with the distortion in the gaskets from over tightening and then reassembled the whole shebang.

I turned the return pump back on, did a quick wipe down of the plumbing and crossed my fingers. I checked it a couple of times throughout the night... no leaks. I checked it again this morning... no leaks. Just checked it again on my lunch break... no leaks.

LEAK TEST PASSED!

Here's a photo of the back of the tank (again!) showing the two new unions I added at the return line 90' elbows:

120REEF-081516%20-%201.jpg

I think it looks pretty good for my first time plumbing up a more complex system such as this.

Thanks for tuning in again!


This is my response to someone on my local forum asking about the overflows:

 

Thanks! The overflows are from glass-holes.com. Each of them is rated for 700gph. They are fairly noisy at the termination of the drain pipe in the sump. Trying to think of a solution to that. Not sure how far under the water line they should terminate. Still fine tuning.

Here's some pics.

 

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These seemed fairly well documented and is a huge upgrade over the original overflow situation the tank came with. The original setup was just 90' elbows coming through the holes with overflow strainers. The original owner of the tank said "it's quiet and you can just rotate to adjust the water level.". It was unsightly, seemingly going to be loud and really not what I had in mind.

 

The glass-holes overflows are really well built, they came with all the right parts and tools. The overflow in the tank is very quiet, I just need to get the drain pipes to quiet down where they terminate into the sump.

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WE HAVE PAINT!

 

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Last night and earlier today I put a couple of coats of gloss black paint on the plumbing and on the back of tank. It really turned out great aside from a few areas on the glass that I apparently didn't clean well enough. I'll be lightly scuffing those areas and applying a little more paint to hide the imperfections. The blue on the valves offsets with the black and creates a visually pleasing aesthetic that shouldn't be too obtrusive when viewing the tank from the sides once it's in place in the dining room.

 

Every day we get a little bit closer to bringing the tank inside and getting things going. I'm getting very excited!

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The project is on hold for a bit while I wait for a new tank to be delivered. I'm just not happy with the scratches on this one from the previous owner. I'll re-drill the holes for the bulkheads in the same spots so I should just be swapping all the plumbing over and then bringing it inside... Fingers crossed.

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Friday Update:

 

I picked up a new Marineland 120 gallon 4'x2'x2' tank last night from Shac at Reefshac. It looks great and free of the scratches that have been driving me crazy on the used tank I bought. I'm heading out to Chattanooga in the morning for another big bike race and won't be back until Sunday evening. I'm going to drill the bulkhead holes Monday night, hopefully. That should put us right back on track. I'm thinking if I can get that done, plumb it back up and do a leak test I'm not too far off from bringing it inside from the garage and getting things rolling!

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New Marineland tank... I took very careful measurements of the previously drilled holes in the old tank as I only wanted to drill holes this time around (measure twice, drill once!). I had no intentions of changing up the plumbing work:

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Thankfully, I made all the plumbing very modular in the event I needed to change one part here or there... This made things infinitely easier in the dissasembly of the previous tank and reassembling here:

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IT FITS! (I had my fingers crossed the whole time):

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Paint applied to back of tank:

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Filled with water for the leak test:

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Shiny! No scratches or haziness:

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Thoughts:

I'm a little disappointed I had this setback, but I know I'm going to be much happier in the long run. The leak test appears to be going smooth. It ran all night last night with no leaks. I assume I'll come home after work today to the same scene as I saw this morning. 170-ish gallons of water still contained within glass walls.

 

If all goes smoothly, I'll disassemble everything again and being working on reinforcing and painting the structural portion of the stand. I'm going to paint it with white appliance epoxy paint for a strong, somewhat waterproof coating. I'll be painting the inside of the canopy with the same white epoxy paint as well.

 

I need to get in the crawlspace under the house and add a few supports for under the tank and then I'll be bringing it inside to start filling it with water, salt, sand and live rock.

 

I'm getting excited! I placed an order today for new canopy cooling fans, live sand, refugium mud and a silicone insulation mat for the return pump to help keep the noise down.

 

Question:

I'm running 2x250w Metal Halide Lights in the canopy along with 2xPC lights. It's going to be hot. I'm thinking of running the fans in tandem. One on each side. One pulling air in and the other expelling air out. Does this seem like the best solution or would it be better to have them both pushing air into the canopy?

 

Oh! Also, I'm picking up a Reefkeeper Elite system from my local reef club next week. This should help me get the whole system automated and hopefully make for a very clean install!

 

Temp, pH, Salinity and 3x power strips. SCORE!

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WE HAVE A TANK INSIDE THE HOUSE!

First things first, here's a picture of the system in it's final resting place:
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Here is a quick run down of the latest steps I've taken to get it inside:

I painted the inside of the canopy with gloss white Appliance Epoxy to give the wood a nice uniform finish as well as provide a small amount of water resistance. The paint sets up as a very hard epoxy finish and will, fingers crossed, give me an easy surface to wipe down and keep clean. I also cleaned and re-mounted the lighting fixture inside the canopy. Previously it had wood screws holding it in and wasn't very secure so I drilled holes in the top of the canopy and used machine screws, washers and nuts to attach it. It's very easy to remove now if I need to service anything.
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Sprayed and rolled with this product, Rust-Oleum Appliance Epoxy:
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I also added some more 2x4s to the stand to create a safer and more stable base for the tank. After adding 5 more 2x4s I continued with the epoxy paint to, again, create a smooth uniform finish and provide some water resistance.
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I painted the bottom with the same epoxy paint, but the plywood base was very porous and dry and wouldn't allow the epoxy to form a thick barrier like I had hoped and ended up looking like this:
120REEF-0900616%20-%205.jpg

That wasn't going to work, so I set off to Home Depot in hopes of a solution. I found some 12"x24" self-stick vinyl tile in a white marble finish. Turned out better than I hoped:
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Here you can see it through the bottom of the sump, as well as testing locations for the heaters and my fancy silicone pump insulation.
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Finally, some more pictures of the tank it's final position:
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Regarding the fans and cooling inside the canopy, I've got two 120mm fans pulling air from outside the canopy and directing it over the two metal halide bulbs. The air is exhausted through the opening in the back of the canopy. Initial tests (sticking my hand inside the canopy) point towards this being the best solution and the fans won't be subject to pulling hot, humid, salty air through themselves and risking a higher chance at corrosion.

I've got 150(ish) gallons of salt water mixing in the garage at the moment. I just need to go into the crawlspace tonight and add some supports under the joists to keep everything safe and then we'll be bringing in the live rock, sand, fuge mud and water and we'll be all set!

After we get the tank going and I'm comfortable with the way it's running, I'll add the skin and cabinet doors to the stand and put a final coat of paint on it.

We'll be adding another cabinet to the right of the tank to store the controller, power strips, etc as well as a 5-10 gallon auto top-off/kalkwasser container.

I'm so excited to get this thing going!

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So, a couple things have happened since I last posted.

 

I picked up the ReefKeeper Elite, which I may make a separate post about... I'm struggling with getting MyReef 2.0 to see any modules but the SID (usb attachment) and the SL1. When I plug anything else into the SL1 through the SID cable, it disappears from my listing of modules. It's the only one that will show up, the head unit, the power bars, nothing shows up. I've done a bit of googling and exhausted my knowledge. I've got no problem setting it up from the head unit, but the MyReef software would likely make this easier.

 

We finally decided on a piece of furniture, from IKEA, to house the Reefkeeper Elite controller and power strips on the "controller board", lighting ballasts and 5 gallons of ATO water. I hope 5 gallons is enough to keep me from having to fill up the ATO container too often. If it turns out to be too small, I may be able to cram a 10 gallon tank into the bottom of the cabinet and squeeze the ballasts under the cabinet. Looking at the picture, it appears I need to line up the cabinet doors a bit better. I'll tackle that once the cabinet is positioned correctly and attached to the wall.

 

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I'll post a follow-up, with inside shots of the cabinet, after I wrap up the controller board and wiring this weekend.

 

4 bags of CaribSea Arag-Alive Special Grade Reef Sand in Bimini Pink ready to go in:

 

120REEF-090816%20-%202.jpg

 

I already dumped the 2 containers of Mineral Mud into the fuge, I think I'm going to go ahead and fill that section of the sump with water, get a small powerhead going and let the silt settle out so it doesn't cloud the tank too bad when I turn the system on.

 

I've got 150 gallons of saltwater mixing in the garage ready to go in the tank. We'll do this Saturday when the pump and 100' of vinyl hose shows up from the delivery man.

 

I'm sure you're all really wondering about the big white buffalo head from the picture up top... My girlfriend is, among other things, a photographer and went to school at SCAD in Atlanta and it was one of her projects. It's a wire mesh frame with individually tied small pieces of string covering the whole thing. We're going to hang it in the corner above the cabinet once we get everything where it needs to be. Everyone loves the buffalo when they see it, so we think it's going to be great as a display piece of art.

 

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WE DID IT! IT'S HAPPENING!

 

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I've had the past two weeks off from training on the bike to promote recovery, physically and mentally, to lead me into a successful cyclocross season, so I made the most of my free time and wrapped up all the final major components to the system.

 

First and foremost, I didn't want to take any chances with the floor caving in so I installed two jack-posts directly under the tank in the crawlspace.

 

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Checked for level... BOOM!

 

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The next step was to take the rock out of the holding bins in the mixing station and play around with aquascaping. This was what I ended up with in my make-shift "rule of thirds" "display tank". It's not exactly what I ended up with in the tank, but it was a great way to help visually guide me before hanging over the side of the tank on a step ladder.

 

120REEF-091216%20-%2018.jpg

 

At this point, I felt comfortable with filling the tank. I pumped the water in from the mixing station in the garage through a 1/2" 80' vinyl hose. It didn't take that long at all. The worst part was running out of water with about 20 gallons to go. I had to wait for the RO/DI unit to make the water before I could get the tank running. UGH! We got it though!

 

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Getting everything closer to wrapping up...

 

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At this point I was ready to finalize the controller board, as well as implement some cooling into the storage/controller cabinet. This was my initial layout of the controller board.

 

120REEF-091216%20-%209.jpg

 

I was happy with that, so I went ahead and drilled the holes and mounted all the modules. I also took this time to cut holes in the back of the cabinet for wire management and a cooling fan, as I knew the light ballasts for the metal halide and power compact lights were going to get hot. I'm really happy with how it all turned out. The Homer bucket is for ATO water, soon to be Kalkwasser ATO water when my shipment from BRS arrives. I think I'll switch the orange bucket out for a white one I have in the garage. IIRC correctly the white buckets are food grade, but the orange ones aren't? Not sure.

 

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I also drew up a small wiring diagram for the inside face of the cabinet door for future reference. I'm going to end up relabeling all the power cords with smaller easier to read tags, as well as label the power strips with my label maker. (Which is conveniently missing! Hmmmm....)

 

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Now, for the money shot!

 

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Some more initial setup work remaining:

  • Skin the stand.
  • Wire management between tank and controller cabinet.
  • Build a hidden wall/channel to hide wiring running between stand and controller cabinet.
  • Paint.
  • Weatherstipping in canopy to prevent light leak.
  • LIVESTOCK!
  • OTHER THINGS I'M FORGETTING!
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Looking for a dual 250w magnetic currently

Can't really help you out... This ballast and lighting setup was picked up locally used on a whim. It's working now so I won't likely change anything until it seems needed. Good luck with your search, let me know what you find. I'm interested in options for the future.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tank Equipment Updates:

 

I placed an order with Bulk Reef Supply and got a few things recently. Most notably, I added a carbon reactor and a GFO reactor. I'm pretty happy with the placement of them, but not happy with the routing of the plumbing from the manifold to the reactors and subsequently from the reactors back to the sump. I'm going to try and find a roll of that same 1/2" hose they sent with the reactors and re-do the routing to make both reactors follow the same plumbing routes. Just not happy with how the separate reactors have such dissimilar plumbing.

 

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Additionally, I swapped the big PC light pod over the refugium out with something with a little smaller form factor and a better spectrum for growing the macroalgae. The lamp is an LED grow light from amazon.

 

120REEF-092216%20-%206.jpg

 

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Livestock/Macroalgae:

 

I placed an order with reefcleaners.org and added some dwarf ceriths, some nassarius, some florida ceriths, some nerites and a couple of hermits. They're doing well in the display, I'm dropping a small sinking algae wafer in the tank every few days in order to provide something for them to scavenge as well as add some bioload to the tank.

 

One of the snails already laid some eggs...

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Action shot of one of the hermits going to town on the algae wafer...

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In addition to the snails and hermits, I also added a ball of chaetomorpha and a small piece of red gracilaria. I've just got the chaeto floating in the refugium, while the gracilaria is attached to a small piece of liverock with a rubber band. Both seem to be responding well to the new LED lighting setup.

 

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Also, I added one bag of Pods+ and one container of Reef Pods in order to help start the population off strong, as I used dry rock.

 

RO/DI + Saltwater Mixing Station + Water Change Setup:

 

In the BRS order, I also received bulkheads and a few plumbing pieces to construct my RO/DI + Saltwater mixing station. The left 44 gallon Brute can holds the RO/DI water which has a float switch in order to provide security from over filling. It's plumbed to the tank on the right through a set of valves which lead to a Lifegard Aquatics Quiet One Aquarium Pump 5000. From the pump, the water can be diverted to fill up the saltwater can, mix the saltwater or pump saltwater to the tank for a water change. The hanging hose is 1/2" vinyl hose, I'll just keep it hooked up and hanging there for easy access and ability to bring it through the house from the garage. The saltwater mixing can has a heater in it as well in order to bring the freshly mixed saltwater up to temp.

 

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Oh! I forgot to add... The water change system works perfect. I did a change of about 30 gallons this weekend with no trouble whatsoever!

 

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Most of the invasive sump setup work is done and now I can begin working on my design for skinning the stand. I'm thinking I'm going to make the whole skin removable in order to have easy access to the sides. Research incoming.

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The tank is showing some early signs of maturity. The rock is becoming a more uniform color, some light brown algae is appearing on the glass, rock and sand. The refugium is also showing some signs of algal growth as well as seeing new growth in the chaeto and the gracilaria.

 

FTS:

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MILESTONE!

 

This past weekend we reached a pretty big milestone with the tank. After watching our ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, calcium, alkalinity and pH levels over the past few weeks, I felt comfortable adding a few pieces of hardy coral to the tank. We stopped by Atlanta Aquarium Saturday morning after picking up some books for my girlfriend from Titan Comics, located in the same shopping center. Everyone at the store was very helpful in picking out coral and everything looked so healthy. We had a really hard time deciding on what we wanted but eventually settled on 4 pieces of coral.

 

Duncan (the largest piece we got, 1 large head and several babies popping up under the main head):

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Frogspawn (tiny! cute!):

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Fungia (very small little baby, but opening up great):

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Zoanthid (Dragon Eye?):

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We're also getting great growth from the macros in the 'fuge, although the red spectrum LED makes photographing it impossible with the iPhone:

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And finally, a FTS showing the initial placement of the coral. None has been glued down or permanently mounted as they are so small and we're not really sure what direction we want to take the tank with what future corals we'd like and what sort of placement we'd like.

120REEF-100416%20-%205.jpg

 

The fungia is on the substrate near the left side of the right island. The duncan is on the top right of the right island. The frogspawn in on the top left of the right island. The zoas are placed in the center of the left island.

 

I've been playing with the placement of the two existing powerheads while I still contemplate what the next powerhead purchase will be. I'm really leaning towards the new Maxspect Gyre 230 at this point.

 

We're also patiently waiting to get fish in the tank. It's come to the point in time where I'd like to start coming up with a plan for what fish we're going to want and the order of introduction to the tank. I've got the QT tank set up next to the DT and I've got some filters in the sump of the main tank building up bacteria so the QT tank should cycle relatively minimally.

 

We're really at a loss for what fish we want! I'd like a shoal/school of something beautiful... I really like anthias but I'm afraid they're going to require a lot of feeding and I'd really like to keep feeding the tank down to once a day. I'd like a tang but I'm not sure how well it would do in a 120. We definitely want clowns, although we haven't decided on what sort of variation yet.

 

Anyway, that's today's update! Thanks for following along!

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lessergeneration

Many tangs will be fine in the 120, i had a 120 a few years back and had a kole, hippo, and 6" blonde naso tang with zero issues along with a nice mix of other community fish. A good school to have would be to get 6-8 banggai cardinals or a shoal of red firefish. Another idea would be 4-6 yellow head jawfish

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Many tangs will be fine in the 120, i had a 120 a few years back and had a kole, hippo, and 6" blonde naso tang with zero issues along with a nice mix of other community fish. A good school to have would be to get 6-8 banggai cardinals or a shoal of red firefish. Another idea would be 4-6 yellow head jawfish

Very cool, I'm going to be doing quite a bit of research, I'll let you know what we end up doing! Thanks!

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