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Nano Grew! 75g (not) AIO. Now with sump


A.Berry

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Well, it had to happen... the pico jar became a 10 gallon diy rimless, which became a 20L rimless, and finally is becoming a 75gallon as its final spousal approved iteration. I scored a sweet acrylic 75g AIO I had planned on drilling and adding plumbing for a future sump, but it needs some scratches polished out, a stand built, and sump built (with all that comes along with that!)

 

So skimming over letitgo app I found a sweet 75g flatback hex with solid wood stand, 2 old school t5 fixtures (probably going away all together), high flow water pump, and a cool internal sump with skimmer. best part? Cost the same as the acrylic tank and my wife instantly liked the shape and the style of the stand which will be repainted. It’s also drilled in the top corners so I’m sure I can rig something up for an external sump in the future if I choose to. 

 

The only problem I’ve really found is the way it was braced. It looked like it was done as an afterthought by whoever added the filter, so it wasn’t evenly spaced and 1 end of the glass wasn’t attached. After studying my other 75 gallon (I have a problem really), I pulled the bracing out and will be raising them up closer to the top of the tank and putting 1 brace across the center of the tank. Afterwards, it will definitely be getting a week long water test on the porch while I scrape the blue paint off the back to repaint it black. 

 

I’m thinkig for the filterbox/sump, I’ll scuff it up and krylon fusion it black. The center chamber will probably be filled with cheto and have a small light over it and I’m planning on using 2 marsaqua boxes over it on an external timer. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Got everything together! Repainted the back a dark blue, replaced the 2 2” braces with a 6” brace and set it out for 4 days with water. No flex! 

 

Once I’d set the whole tank up with 70lbs if new sand and 40-50lbs of new rock, I moved all the livestock and live rock from the old tank and included 15 gallons of the old water in an attempt to keep the good bacteria around. So far so good, everything looks happy and healthy!

 

I have 2 mars aqua 165w led boxes one paired timers, a tiny “glofish” blue led strip that makes a nice little night light and I plan to try to figure out how to get my marine land led in to even out the lighting. 

 

The internal filter is er is open at the top and gets good light from one of the boxes so that’s full of macro algae too

 

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On 11/15/2018 at 1:48 PM, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

How's the tank coming along? It's a cool shape and like the scape you have going.

So it’s been months since I posted for some reason! Tank is looking good overall, added some new inhabitants and am working on a sump now. The lights don’t sit on top anymore, I’ve made a shelf to hang them under.

 

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orange pincushion urchin decides this zoa frag was going to be it’s buddy. Seems happy enough!

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6 green chromosome, a coral beauty, a wrasse of some kind, a grumpy clown fish, lawn mower blenny, and my model citizen orange tail damsel is still doing great!

 

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this is candy cane is growing like a weed!

 

i have discovered that having a tank this size doesn’t allow me to ignore it. I started seeing my frogspawn and some of my newer corals (some kind of torch, leather, richordia, and another candy cane) we’re not really opening and looking generally unhappy. I checked my parameters and had ~0 nitrates/nitrites/phosphate using 2 different tests but rediculoussly low alkalinity and pH (like 7.5😱). I’ve started slowly bringing them both up using Kent’s super buffer and actually dosing using Kent’s essential elements and coral-vite. I’m also feeding with zoo plankton in a bottle every couple days. I have some 19” tongs in order so I can start feeding LPS pieces of shrimp/scallop. 

 

Any thoughts on that regiment?  

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER

Oh wow, it looks good. I'd stabilize the alk and monitor that. I wouldn't chase pH, fix the alk and check calcium. Once you fix those the others should come in line. I like the looks so far 🙂

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1 hour ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Oh wow, it looks good. I'd stabilize the alk and monitor that. I wouldn't chase pH, fix the alk and check calcium. Once you fix those the others should come in line. I like the looks so far 🙂

Thanks! So you think I should keep using the superbuffer and stop once the alk is back to a good level and go from there?

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER
15 hours ago, A.Berry said:

Thanks! So you think I should keep using the superbuffer and stop once the alk is back to a good level and go from there?

You're welcome, yeah just get alk to where you want than stop. Keeping alk stable is the most important. Do you know what the new water tests out at? For example mine tests between 7.7-8.0. Well within the hanna checker margin of error. I have been diagnosing an issue in my tank so I've been monitoring the shit out of it. 

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10 hours ago, kimdawg said:

Very nice! I like the rock structure.

Thank you! I’m going to do some adjustments once the internal sump is removed but that’s all on the right side of the tank

6 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

You're welcome, yeah just get alk to where you want than stop. Keeping alk stable is the most important. Do you know what the new water tests out at? For example mine tests between 7.7-8.0. Well within the hanna checker margin of error. I have been diagnosing an issue in my tank so I've been monitoring the shit out of it. 

That’s a really good question. We have really hard water locally so if imagine it’s probably around that but I’ve never checked. I just filled a 5 gallon jug with water from my ro/di, I think I’ll check it

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER
18 minutes ago, A.Berry said:

Thank you! I’m going to do some adjustments once the internal sump is removed but that’s all on the right side of the tank

That’s a really good question. We have really hard water locally so if imagine it’s probably around that but I’ve never checked. I just filled a 5 gallon jug with water from my ro/di, I think I’ll check it

Check it after the saltwater is mixed good.

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  • 2 months later...

Hello! I stepped back from overly controlling the parameters after having a crash and new algae cycle after that. Finally looking good again! I pulled the internal filter box out and built a pvc overflow and, what has been described by my wife as, a ghetto sump. Display has so much more space now and the surface skimming from the weir is night and day different!

 

Now for the bad. I messed up gluing the pvc for the overflow and swapped 2 fittings. It flows great but wont restart if the puno shuts off, so I'm rebuilding the T section. 

 

So future plans! I only have 1 powerhead out of the 8 I have accumulated in the tank now, so I'm going to test its reliability but setting it on a cycle timer with minute increments as a wave maker and see how long it lasts. We'll see how well the sump runs and determine if I want a skimmer.

 

Surviving corals after the crash are 2 candy canes (maybe a 3rd, its touch and go) several mushrooms, tons of zoas, palythoa, GSP, Xenia, goniapora, and a Duncan that is growing like crazy! 

 

And more exciting news! The palys have started hosting my clownfish. Its really neat to watch him around the patch if paly

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I got an awesome olympus underwater camera for work that can be paired to a phone and use the phone as a viewfinder. Im going to take some good pictures soon 

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1 minute ago, Matteo said:

Nice build! 

Thanks! Im fighting the temptation to turn my 20g freshwater hex into another nano reef for the more difficult to keep corals

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6 minutes ago, A.Berry said:

Thanks! Im fighting the temptation to turn my 20g freshwater hex into another nano reef for the more difficult to keep corals

Freshwater at the end of the day just doesn't do it for me. 

 

My predator build was a freshwater tank but I was like nope, that's gotta be saltwater 😂

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57 minutes ago, Matteo said:

Freshwater at the end of the day just doesn't do it for me. 

 

My predator build was a freshwater tank but I was like nope, that's gotta be saltwater 😂

Ive always loved a planted natural looking nano, but saltwater is where its at! I sold my 75g predator tank a few weeks ago to make room for our piano, but i think a planted tank may end up on it with the 20 hex next to it

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Replumbed the T section and tested it out, no issues! Theres alot of bubbles coming from the overflow so I'm going to try to build a 4" pvc bubble trap and see gow that works. 

 

My goniapora is actually coming out finally! I don't have any skimming or filter mesh so I thinj it should be good for plankton culture and hopefully that will promote good growth. 

 

I built a little frag box to try to propagate mushrooms in the sump. I cut 4 mushrooms from my rock and cut 1 big one in half. Hopefully they take. We'll have to see!

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Got a couple more corals. Third time is the charm with frogspawn?  This one was fragged from growth  in another hobbiests tank so hopefully itll be hardier. Havent had much luck with toadstools or cabbage leather, maybe a devils hand will work better. 

 

Now I have a crazy question. At my LFS they have a live rock with an unusually big aiptasia on it. Its the only one the tank has (no little ones growing anywhere else)   And has been there for months. They also have 4 big ones in their display tank. I really like the look of it!The owner told me he'd sell me the live rock but he couldn't promise it wouldn't spread. Any thoughts on a "glass anemone" as a specimen? Maybe its some other species? Maybe grab a couple peppermint shrimp to keep any volunteer growths under control?

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  • 5 months later...

I really need to update this today. I'll get some photos, but everything is looking amazing! Unfortunately lost a handful of Green Chromis and my wrasse, but I did add 2 Banggai Cardinals. I have 2 new projects on the way that I will create journals for, 1 is a 2 gallon planted freshwater jar and the other is a 20g hex reef tank as an overflow for the growth in this tank! 

 

*EDIT* Here are some photos I took for my environmental science class recently

 

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I did make some changes, namely H2O2 dosing, sticking to a weekly 9 gallon water change, and actually cleaning out the hair algae. all the corals are doing well and the surviving fish are looking great.

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I made a thing

 

I wanted to try propogating and fragging again, this time maybe with some zoa's and leathers. I want to minimize the stress so they will be getting the same sort of light intensity and water parameters. The basket is hung under the solid lid out from under the light in an area of reduced light that is a bit closer to the lighting at the lower levels in the tank 

 

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