This Salty Frag Tank

[This guy is extra salty]

So I have been thinking of doing this build for quite some time. mainly figuring what would be beneficial, and not having to upgrade just to “add” on to it. At the time I got a 60 gallon frag tank and stand at my LFS for an extremely great price. Now I’m probably going to be spending roughly 400(usd)  for lights. I found that I can do a LED diy build for about 300$. Unless someone can convince me that there is a better option for under that price. (I’m going to be needing a high enough PAR to grow SPS) Next is the sump, I have a 20 tall boy. Which I’m going to “make” my 3 or 4 chambers with refugium included. (Planning on doing the Triton method)  as for a mechanical filter, I’m going to have two filter socks that water will spill into the first chamber in the sump. And for biological filter I’m putting in 3 or 4 marine pure or the Brightwell bricks..maybe one powerhead will be sufficient, I haven’t decided.

 

 

 

I’m open to any suggestions

[OPtasia]

It looks like a fun project tank. 

 

I have no firsthand experience with them, but i've heard that some of the bricks and brick plates have a tendency to degrade and melt over time into sand. I know i've read where people have had this happen, so do your homework on them before you go that route. I could be wrong. YMMV.

[This guy is extra salty]

 

ok I found a spot in my basement where I wanted to put the tank. Unfortunately the location wasn’t level in anyway shape or form. So I decided to make an outline of the standard make a form out of silicone caulk. So I went to my local hardware store and purchased some auto leveling cement. Mixed it so it was quite “soupy” and poured it into the form of the stand.(picture below) let it cure for 24hrs, and viola level area. (FYI...It isn’t permanent, the compound can be chipped up with a hammer and chisel)

 

Next I ran two separate electrical lines behind the tank, that are on different breakers. Both of them are 20amp, I didn’t want to “overload” the circuit. Better safe than sorry, I made both outlets GFCI. So it would be up to “building code” cause they’re going to be next to water.

 

I will post a later update of the equipment.

 

stay salty

 

[This guy is extra salty]

So last night I decided to install my baffles for my 20 gallon tall sump the inside (usable) dimensions are 22.75”Lx11.75”Wx15.75”H

 

So I went with a three chamber setup with 2 bubble traps. I browsed online of different designs, and found one I liked. (Excuse my crude drawing)

So with my game plan i went to my local hardware store to get some glass cut. I got 3 pieces of 9”x11.75” and 2 of 12”x11.75” I asked the guy who was cutting the glass to save the scraps, since I was already paying for it. On two baffles will have a “tray” for filter floss, which I used the scrap pieces to create. One on the 12” at 6” on center, and one on the 9” at .63” from the top. While I was at my “LHS” I grabbed two tubes of aquarium safe silicone by Loctite

 

The chamber on the right is where my protein skimmer and my drain is going to be located. The middle will be a refugium, and the far left is my return.

 

I’ll do a water test tomorrow once everything is cured and keep this updated.

 

stay Salty!

[fishkeepersaltnfresh]

Good project. Following you to learn when time comes for me to buy my own home with a basement.

Good luck.

[Jonboy21]

Looking good. Guna be an interesting project ?

[This guy is extra salty]

Here is a list of what equipment I have and what I’m still waiting on.

 

Bubble-magus C5.5 internal protein skimmer

rated for 80-130gallons

next is a low power dc controllable return pump uniclife (DEP-4000) with a max flow of 1056gph

For my wave maker is a uniclife W-25 (8000LH) with a max flow of 2113gph

For bio media I decided to go with 4 brightwell aquatics Bio Bricks (I have 2 now)

 

as for my lights, that is a different story. I ordered 2 AI prime HD’s from Marine depot, along with another Bio Brick. (With a complementary free T-shirt) this was on 12/8 I contacted marine depot yesterday inquiring where my order is. I was informed that it was “delivered” on my front porch on 12/12 by marine depot and UPS (y’all see where this is going) 

 

so some (excuse my French) butthole decided to take my packages off my porch... (I’m pretty sure they don’t even know what the hell they are.) so now I’m waiting for marine depot to contact me...great.

 

stay Salty!

[This guy is extra salty]

Here is the water test on the sump 

 

first chamber no leaks

 

ok  good so far, here’s  the first bubble trap

sweet no leaks on the refugium chamber!

lastly thru the second  bubble trap and return pump chamber

 

Now it’s ready to be plumbed in!

 

I decided on using vinyl tubing for easy maintenance since my drain and return lines are barb bulkheads (I would much rather have hard plumbing with PVC unions)

 

 

Stay Salty!

 

[This guy is extra salty]

I have finally filled it! (80gallons total volume)

took a while to do it but I got the Bacteria cycle started..

 

stay salty!

[Biglex]

Looks good 

[This guy is extra salty]

I know it Has been a while since my last update. As you all know I’m going through the bacteria cycle which can take a few weeks. So the second week of the year to want to give you an update of how things are going finally got my lights which are four AI prime HDs,  I think I’m going to have enough par ...maybe.

I decided to go with two hanging and two mounted. My reasoning with that isthat I will be able to move them mounted ones to either side of the tank,  so I’d have enough par spread throughout the tank. And I doubt I’m going to have any dark spots with this set up.

And I know a few of you were saying why didn’t you go with the the 26’s? Well I don’t have a lot more moving capabilities with four units instead of two.

 

Also to help with my cycling, I took one of the 1$ damsels out of my display refugium. that was considered food for my anglerfish,Which in turn decided they would be friends.

this is frag bastard, It apparently likes to go hide out in the overflow at night.

 

As for my auto top off I went with the auto aqua smart auto water changer with ATO.

To make my water changes 90% easier with just a touch of a button. 

 

 I haven’t finished wiring all the AI primes into the cabinet yet which will be another update at later time. When I get some frag racks made up, And the rest of my dosing containers.

 

 

Stay Salty!

 

 

[This guy is extra salty]

I will have my bacteria cycle completely finished my bio filter is established.  So I decided to frag up a few pieces and move quite a few of my racks out of my display tank and into the new system

 

Also I was planning on entering this SPS grow out contest that is taking place on this forum 

 

Here is what I’m going to enter!

Roughly 15 entries That I’m going to keep track of!!

 

Three highlighter Acros (1in)

 

Four red planet acros (1in)

 

two gamorean bottlebrushes (1/2in)

 

one blue Cali tort (1/2in)

 

five green tip blue birdsnest (1in)

 

 

All of the pictures were taken with an orange gel filter to somewhat cancel out the blue, Nothing was added in some fancy app Photoshop whatsoever and everything was taken with an iPhone 7 and the gel filter in front of the camera

 

[This guy is extra salty]

Well another week has passed and an eBay auction later...

 

 

looks like I’m geting 12 more corals (acropora) to grow and sell all of them from WorldWideCorals(WWC)!

 

Mint juilip 

evergreen 

frosty 

lavender twist 

king kiwi 

midnight delight

highlighter

depth charge

teal temptation

freon

Shaggy dog tenius 

Alien eyes chalice

 

I give them about a month and a half before I can start the clipping...lol

 

i will post a picture and do an opening video

 

 

i managed to move all the frags out of my display, which it looks a lot “cleaner” now 

 

which they look semi decent in the frag “dungeon” or should I say paradise? Cause they have been growing really fast.. also I added two yellow tangs as part of the CUC for the frag system

 

Lastly i will be posting quite a few stuff for sale on this forum and on CoralReefMKT 

check me out “thisguyisextrasalty” 

 

stay salty 

[This guy is extra salty]

All right my shipment from  WWC eBay auctions, Came in at 8:45am on the dot!

I kind of went a little overboard on it hopefully the wife doesn’t get too upset... lol

 

 Kind a neat that they send me a packing slip with all the pictures and what I paid for each piece. I went onto the website and saw that two of the corals are in the $150 range( midnight delight and depth charge) I could not find any others yet.

 So the guy was a classic Styrofoam box so I keep the heat in or out if you live in a desert with a little heat pack and I was taped to the top of the box 

 

Alright let’s dig in!

 

Always remember to dip the corals regardless of whoever you get them from, it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Are usually let them sit in the Dip for maybe 5 to 10 minutes.  also with using a pipette or turkey baster to blast any unwanted algae or hitchhikers off of them. And then I use a second Tank water dip to rinse off the coralRX.

 

 Here are the 12 pieces , Sorry I couldn’t get a good picture of the chalice.

 

Here is a close up of them

 

I say give or take about a month or two and I will have some fresh clippings of the new frag’s.  

 

Stay salty! 

 

 

[This guy is extra salty]

New addition for my CUC

 

falcor the luck dragon

 

I am very surprised he is on extremely strong swimmer

[pappadumplingz]

Tank is looking good so far, but not gonna lie putting a dragon in this early is a bit of a risk. Is there a stable macrofauna population?

[This guy is extra salty]

I was skeptical at first too but I realized when I was testing my water that it’s “cloudy” with micro fauna (my wife pointed it out) 

this was taken yesterday afternoon with the lights at their maximum capacity.  The population boom of Copepods, I’m sure is from me dosing 5ml weekly. And the refugium stocked full with red gracilaria and  chaeto.

 

Well to also help with the micro fauna population. I made a purchase from AlgaeBarn (back on 1/20/18 then found out everyone had the same idea as mine) when they had the BOGO sale. So my double shipment of the 5280 combo pack wIll be “shipped” Monday the 29th. I have heard nothing but great things about AlgaeBarn from many Youtubers and BRS. But I’ll will definitely make a post to see what will happen pertaining to my pods and ecology of the frag tank as a week to week difference in coral healthy and how fat the pipe fish will be

 

Stay salty!

[This guy is extra salty]

Them eBay auctions that worldwidecorals does sure are addicting I think I’m good on throwing money into the tank for the next six months

 

evidently the round house tenius looked bad or might’ve been dropped when it was being pulled..who knows. But apparently they gave me an “anacropora” but they only have one thing listed as it so I got a “slimeball anacropora”

 

i did all my usual coralRX dip and removed some vermatid snails. But they look very healthy here are some picture of being in the tank for 5 minutes

I took a couple with an orange gel filter just for kicks, falcor decided to photobomb this two (my wife has a thing for naming fishes)

I tell her “it’s a dragon face pipe” before I can say anything else she says, “it’s name is falcor the luck dragon”. As she’s watching never ending story...?

[banshee]

This is awesome! But now I also know who beat me out on some of the WWC frags I was bidding on! 

[Cannedfish]

1 hour ago, banshee said:

This is awesome! But now I also know who beat me out on some of the WWC frags I was bidding on! 

I was thinking the same thing...

[This guy is extra salty]

12 hours ago, banshee said:

This is awesome! But now I also know who beat me out on some of the WWC frags I was bidding on! 

O.o

 

11 hours ago, Cannedfish said:

I was thinking the same thing...

O.o

 

lol sorry well I’m done for at least maybe 6 months unless that dragon slayer acro goes on again (lost by 1$, 91$ was very high for me) but i can’t bid for the next two weeks 

which sucks but hey can’t win them all

[RotaryReef]

@This guy is extra salty

 

How are you liking the smart auto with water change? Im thinking of picking one up but would like to hear your review.

[This guy is extra salty]

Man the auto water changer and ATO is absolutely wonderful. Literally push a button and forget it (when you have the amount of water to be changed dialed in) but it took me about two weeks of figuring the “right” amount to be changed especially since I left all the pumps running. For my system, it took about ten minutes to do a bit more than five gallons. I would highly recommend it to anyone that wants water changes to be easy, you can have it set to a schedule of what day and time to change it. But I prefer to push the button manually. 

 

I did a ten gallon water change today, piece of cake

 

@RotaryReefGet it you will not regret it!

 

[This guy is extra salty]

So for this past week I have been dealing with a weird slime algae, I think it’s because of a southern facing window that shines on the corner of the tank for a couple hours. Since this has started I moved and got a large poster to cover the window so it won’t get any direct sunlight. I will post some pictures of it tomorrow, I’m thinking it was Cyanobacteria. So I dosed the tank about 36 hours ago, since then it has broken up a lot and curious what it is like tomorrow evening. 

My parameters are stable as of 36 hrs ago

ca- 520

Alk-10.8

p04-0ppb

N03-5ppm

mg-1280

i couldn’t get a decent picture cause of the flow pattern..the sump apparently has the worst of it

 

it also could’ve been the nutrient spike that I accidentally overfed a couple of acans and some others

 

if anyone has has an idea I’m open it it 

 

Also I  post a lot of pictures and videos on Instagram: STL_Corallivore 

 

[This guy is extra salty]

So I’m starting a new build cause I’m suddenly being forced to move. And sad to say I’m going to have to dismantle all my tanks and move them... I know I’ve been freaking out most of yesterday evening trying to figure out where to put 120gallons of fish and coral while I dismantle and move the three systems... so you guessed it I’m buying the Red Sea reefer deluxe 750xxl!

 

and of course I will keep this frag thread going of my process of moving the coral and tank

and probably start a new thread of the biocube becoming a frag tank and the display refugium being tied into the Red Sea tank. I don’t know and I haven’t figured that part yet