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120 Gallon Reef Ready Tank upgrade from a 75 Gallon


Johnin714

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Johnin714

@money88and @Lula_Mae Suggested that i make a new topic for my larger 75 Gallon Reef upgrade to my 120 Gallon Mixed Reef and show and discuss some progress with pictures. I currently have another topic with the Fluval 5 Gallon Reef as well. 

 

To Start this off i was using a 75 Gallon tank with stand it was a 4 feet long 18 Deep and 2 feet tall

3-4 Inch Carib Sea Sand Bed

40lbs of Live Rock

HOB Overflow and Return

40 Gallon Sump with Refugium with live sand, Live Rock cheato, shop light

No-Name brand Skimmer rated at 150 Gallons

 

The 75 Gallon used to be real ugly faded black. I painted it white and made a custom canopy for it

 

 

 

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Awesome looking tank! I really dig the white it makes the colors in the tank pop out a lot more. Looking forward to more details like what corals and livestock you have in there as well.

 

I can see a few already Yellow tang, 2 clowns, Pin cushion urchin, cardinal, is that a yellow tail damsel and a neon goby?

But I will let you go over that :) and the corals as well but a few obvious ones sticking out at us. Overall looks really nice, good job!

 

Excited to see the 120 progress come along. Teasing us with the now shots

 

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Johnin714

My new 120 Gallon Vizio tank is still in the premature stage as far as the build but here is a little info on it

 

Reef Ready Pre Plumbed 

Added my current sump with live sand and live rock and fliter sock in the system. To help cycle the tank

Added 100 Gallons for Salt water waited about a day to check my parameters and all was perfect. I added my trimmed down version of my live rock (had way to many in my 75) I wanted to make 3 separate islands of live rock and goodies on them. The idea was that each island was unique to specific life. (At least for now :P) 

The Stand and canopy came in black but im not a big fan of black stands and canopies so i am currently making a new canopy and painting the stand

 

Future plans is a make a small Frag rack tank under the stand out of an old acrylic sump i have laying around. Plenty of room and im debating to sync it with my current 120 or leave it a stand alone. Right now im going to leave it as a stand along (hospital type tank) No substrate a few live rock and HOB Skimmer and BioWheel with a couple low flow power heads. Since my Orbit Current Marine Light wont fit on the 120gallon i might use it on here at least until i find a better option. I also plan on changing the plumbing around to add more shut off valves for easy maintenance and future dosing tanks

 

I currently have a 5Gallon Pico Fluval Spec V Reef setup on another topic here as well 

 

Before and and after pic of the 120. I will add more of the 120 soon

 

 

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Johnin714
4 minutes ago, money88 said:

Awesome looking tank! I really dig the white it makes the colors in the tank pop out a lot more. Looking forward to more details like what corals and livestock you have in there as well.

 

I can see a few already Yellow tang, 2 clowns, Pin cushion urchin, cardinal, is that a yellow tail damsel and a neon goby?

But I will let you go over that :) and the corals as well but a few obvious ones sticking out at us. Overall looks really nice, good job!

 

Excited to see the 120 progress come along. Teasing us with the now shots

 

Thanks for the comments. That was before i tore it down and added everything to my 120. So far my 120 is doing great Fish seem to not know what to do with all the added space. But love seeing them fly around the tank. As far as the live stock i will added that shortly. I still have a couple acclimating to the new tank. I dont want to stress my bio load in my tank. I will be glad to provide pics and names to everything i got and share and open to suggestions and advice from others. 

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You really cleaned that 120 up nicely. Again like the white stand, looks really good even now without the canopy. 

 

10 minutes ago, Johnin714 said:

Thanks for the comments. That was before i tore it down and added everything to my 120. So far my 120 is doing great Fish seem to not know what to do with all the added space. But love seeing them fly around the tank. As far as the live stock i will added that shortly. I still have a couple acclimating to the new tank. I dont want to stress my bio load in my tank. I will be glad to provide pics and names to everything i got and share and open to suggestions and advice from others. 

I am sure the tangs absolutely love the longer tank so much more room to zip around. Well obviously following along on this and wish the new tank best of luck in the complete transfer

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Johnin714
2 minutes ago, money88 said:

You really cleaned that 120 up nicely. Again like the white stand, looks really good even now without the canopy. 

 

I am sure the tangs absolutely love the longer tank so much more room to zip around. Well obviously following along on this and wish the new tank best of luck in the complete transfer

Thank you @money88 its Very much appreciated buddy! Once i get things settled to where i can run the 120 for a few more days then work on the re-plumbing a bit will be a good stopping point until my new skimmer and other goodies come in. Im gonna work on the mini sump with cheato for my Fluval Spec V. Then the frag tank under my 120 :) 

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Good job cleaning up that 120!  Both look great!

 

If you want to add links to your tank threads in your signature, click on your name in the top right and go to Account Settings, then click on signature.  That way people can easily link to your threads. :)

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Johnin714
53 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Good job cleaning up that 120!  Both look great!

 

If you want to add links to your tank threads in your signature, click on your name in the top right and go to Account Settings, then click on signature.  That way people can easily link to your threads. :)

Thank you for the tip and instructions on where to go. :)

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I took new more pics last night of the Corals and the tank itself. just to give some perspective. 

 

Picture set 1 

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Ouch i cant post anymore pics due to a 6meg limit. Anyone know any good free picture hosting places ?

 

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1 hour ago, Johnin714 said:

Ouch i cant post anymore pics due to a 6meg limit. Anyone know any good free picture hosting places ?

Nice looking corals

 

As for image hosting. There are 100s

Imgur

Flickr

Shutterfly

Instagram

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Is that first one an acan?  It's very pretty!  Love the tube anemone too, was tempted by a vivid purple one a while back but knew my tank was way too little lol.

Also, I use Flickr, I liked Photobucket before it became ad-central.

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1 hour ago, Lula_Mae said:

Is that first one an acan?  It's very pretty!  Love the tube anemone too, was tempted by a vivid purple one a while back but knew my tank was way too little lol.

Also, I use Flickr, I liked Photobucket before it became ad-central.

Hi Yes that is an Acan. Since i put it in my new 120 it started to get puffy good sign must like all the elbow room its got now

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hmm..  love the various corals.  are you planning any themes on the varous islands?  could be interesting to do that. 

 

 Ive been watching the bulk reef supply seriesl, and kinda interesting they said that it was too much more going from 75 or 90 to 120..  so they recommend if looking at it to go ahead up. did you find it similar in price?

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15 hours ago, zohar78 said:

hmm..  love the various corals.  are you planning any themes on the varous islands?  could be interesting to do that. 

 

 Ive been watching the bulk reef supply seriesl, and kinda interesting they said that it was too much more going from 75 or 90 to 120..  so they recommend if looking at it to go ahead up. did you find it similar in price?

Thank you for the kind words :).  When i moved from a 75 Gallon to a 120 Gallon price wise wasn't as bad as i thought it would be especially to maintain it etc. However, My whole plan when i got into the hobby was buy things that were always rated for a higher volume tank for example my sump, skimmer, return pump, powerheads, media etc. I wanted to make sure when and if i ever went bigger i would already be ready for it. thankfully when i bought my new tank or should i say brand Used tank it came with a 48" Full Spectrum LED light. That alone saved about $100 bucks. The light alone is working better than expect and noticed my coral and everything pretty much in my tank open more than my Current Orbit Marine i had them under in my 75 Gallon. I bought a simple timer switch and connected it to my LED and my Sump light and so far its been great! I promised myself (and my corals and fish for that matter LOL) that if i could maintain a successful and stable reef that i would take the plunge( no pun intended) and go bigger to a 120 or 150. The price difference wasn't as bad as i thought because i sold my old tank and with that money i added roughly another $100 to it to get my 120 with stand. I am still adjusting to the costs of maintenance as it seems from going from ever 4 weeks to change my filter sock to rough 2-3. Due to more flow of the overall tank i am still tweaking things and adjusting to them. I know i could clean the socks but i feel like they could never be as clean as when you first by them. So i take into my monthly cost for my tank roughly $6 Dollars for the sock and $15-$20 for water a month. Costs for water changes will obviously cost a bit more but thankfully $5 for a 5 gallon of RO or Salt from my LFS eases some of the pain from making my own. Since i live so close to my LFS why make it not to mention i have a reason to good look at whats new and whats going in my tank when i get home lol. Water Evaporation also takes a little bit more planning as well. I do have to top off more frequently but its worth the trouble right now. It really helps me learn about my new setup what it needs and when it needs to be done. Since i have a 6500K bulb in my Refugium now and no canopy at the moment. Last week i did notice i had to top off my tank every couple of days. I have a new ATO coming and will be installing that hopefully this weekend along with my small frag tank. 

 

My Frag tank depending on which i get and or if i make my own i want to connect it also to the ATO but probably not connected to my Main display tank. Just in case of a crash or bug etc. Im still debating on this but look to have something started by this weekend. Of course i would keep updating my thread if you guys are interested. 

 

As far as my 3 islands i was thinking of doing them based on regions of wildlife etc. For example Indo, Pacific Ocean, etc and have coral specific to those oceans on those individual islands. Im still deciding on it based on my current live stock and corals. Sometimes you look at where you place a coral or frag in your tank and think you know what i might look better over here instead of there. Not to mention i dont want my coral to sting other corals etc so that is also a concern of placement. But im hopefully to make them like that. I am going for the less is more look and trying to do the rule of thirds as well. 

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I started working on a mini frag tank for under my main tank. The idea is the have a small stand easily accessible when i open the bottom of my stand. I couldnt find anything for the way i wanted aftermarket wise. So here is where i currently am at deciding on 1 of 2 things

 

 

POSTIVES:

  • Connect mini Frag tank to my main tank using same media as my main (increase total volume byt 5 gallons) easier to filter
  • Plumb my over flow to split 3/4 to main tank less than a quarter to the mini frag then plumb the return to my main return pump. (bypasses the refugium but still benifits from it)
  • Mini Hospital Tank for Coral only not live stock or live rock no sand only egg crate and coral
  • Main tank is well established and very healthy it would handle to additions easily
  • Out of the way of main view and would look awesome under the tank with a small custom stand

NEGATIVES:

  • Connected to the main tank if a crash or nasty bug enters my main everything can go bye bye
  • Connected to all the current media, waste will have to heavily rely on sock/skimmer Refugium and Chemipure Elite to clean the water (not a real issue but a little more load)
  • potential to overflow if not regulated correctly with the right return pump
  • Power outage can overflow the mini frag tank

As you can see i am stuck in the middle of what to do and should try.

Currently i am thinking of keeping the mini frag tank system separate but under my main display using a ATO to keep the water consistent level with no sand, no live rock, no live stock for now. If it starts to grown algae ill add a small COC or something. 

 

Here is the progress. i plan on testing it with water for leaks and adding a overflow groves and pump to it today. 

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