34 Solana...another one

[xanthurum]

Finally decided to share my build. It has been up and running since the end of January and things are really starting to come together. I will start with a few pics and post updates regularly since it is already starting to take off.

I purchased my tank used and although I don't have any pics of how it looked when I purchased it, it needed a little work. First order of business was getting rid of the back wall filter thingy. It took valuable real estate and every inch counts in a small tank.


Once that was out next up was drilling it cuz I wanted to do a sump.


you can see the holes better after I window tinted the back glass

 

[raastamon]

Looks good, tagging along. Was it pretty easy to remove that divider? Thought about removing the one in there on mine too.

 

[xanthurum]

It was actually very easy to remove raasta. Used a razor blade being careful when I got down to the bottom so you don't cut the aquarium seal. Silicone doesn't really stick to itself well so once all the other areas were clear I just pulled it out, did a water test after it was removed just to be sure.

Now onto more pics!
I was able to recycle the bottom of the compartment to create my new overflow. It came out better than I thought it would.

Used a file to ensure I had straight edges after cutting. Marked the bottom location of all the slots, drilled a hole then cut out the slots with a dremel. Finished it up with a round file to smooth it out then superglue did the rest.

taped the area off and used silicone to hold the box in place


Since the stand needed to be repainted anyway I went with Red since it is the accent color of my living room where the tank was to be located.


Next update soon to follow.

 

[theaquareef]

Yay we have a solana club goin on here. I drilled mine also! Following your build as well as rastas! Keep up the good work.

 

[raastamon]

Yea it's fun since we are all pretty much on the same pace with the build too. I am on vacay mode as my fam is visiting and we're hitting up Miami and Orlando. When I come back, water! Hopefully.. Lol

 

[theaquareef]

We are kinda in the same spot arn't we? It's cool I like it. I hope you get water soon! You too Xanthurum!

 

[xanthurum]

Next update is here! Thanks for following along. Hey aquareef where in Phoenix are you I am located in Surprise and the tank has been going for a while.

So after drilling the tank and creating the overflow box and repainting the stand it was time to bring it all together. Since I wanted an SPS dominant tank it seemed a good return pump was needed.

I know they aren't the best but I went with a Rio 1700 since my not so precise at time calculations showed it would be between 500-550 GPH. I also had been given a Koralia knock off with the tank that puts out 800 GPH. Plans were in place to switch to MP-10 later.

Finally I was able to plumb it all together and fill it up with water. Then I hit the switch and realized I had one LOUD problem. Too much flow from the return pump for one drain was creating an incredibly annoying gurgling/sucking sound that could be heard at my neighbors house. Not really but trust me it was loud. After a week of hoping it would "break in" I decided to drill another drain. Luckily I was able to fit it in the overflow box I made so it still looked great, but It sucked having to break it down.



Made this contraption to plumb into my sump.

 

[theaquareef]

North phoenix! 7th and greenway to be precise haha!

 

[xanthurum]

New week new update. Now that I have shared some of the troubles it is time to share some of the things that went right.

Since I am very particular about things I wanted to ensure that my tank would look exactly how I wanted it too for years to come. This meant I had to glue my rocks together in the formation I wanted. Nothing used to bother me more than putting my hand in the tank to place a coral and toppling my rocks, then spending more time trying to put them back in exactly the same configuration. I decided to use Gorilla glue and hoped it would do the trick. Several months later and I am happy to report it is holding up nicely and I am getting great coralline growth over the glue.

After many hours of tinkering and chipping and chiseling and glueing I came up with this.


After putting all the pieces together


And a FTS from far away

 

[KEEPonREEFING]

Nice job! I wish I could sump my solana but I have the new style back glass with the notch. I think the only way would be to use the notch as the overflow. I have not seen it done.

 

[raastamon]

Really like the rock work man! Came out sick! I really wanted to try out out having black substrate to but I always ending going the same route lol. Stand came out awesome too.

 

[raastamon]

Any updates?

 

[xanthurum]

Update, the tank is now my quarantine tank since it crashed. It was quite spectacular for about a year. I'm going to begin posting pics about how it came along and how it all ended.

 

[xanthurum]

So after I got things going I decided to upgrade to a Radion. I had a buddy make me a mount so the Radion would "hover" and we came up with this. After it cycled I started adding some livestock.

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[plyle02]

Slick mods on that Solana, I had one too, really good little tanks, look forward to seeing your progress!

 

[xanthurum]

Next upgrade was to the powerhead and i went with an mp10wes. Anyway I did my best to keep stocking with as many frags I could get. I should also mention that I was not running a skimmer on this tank and instead opted for 5 gallon water changes every week. I used Catalina water. Here are some more pics.

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[xanthurum]

Here are some more pics

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[xanthurum]

This is what the tank looked like at the top of its game just weeks before the crash. My next update I will discuss what went wrong.

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[xanthurum]

As you can see things were going well and the tank was filling up with lots of nice corals. I was getting tired of trips to the store to get water for water changes so I purchased a Spectrapure RO/DI system and picked up a bag of Brightwell salt. Started making and mixing water and immediately things started to go south. I have no idea why things went bad but they did and they did it fast.

In all my other tanks I always made my own water and have used Spectrapure filters in the past. I properly broke in my water filter making sure to dump the first X amount of gallons. I had never used Brightwell before but I have known plenty of people who have and they like it. I used a refractometer to measure salinity and I frequently check it to make sure its properly calibrated. The only explanation I can come up with is that there was something between the Catalina water and the Brightwell that did not mix well together.

LPS Corals began to recede and SPS would STN and in some cases RTN. Zoas closed up and stayed that way for weeks as havoc was going crazy in the tank. The more water changes I did the worse it got and corals were not the only victims. All my fish which were all fat and happy started to die including my captive bred clowns which are nearly bullet proof. I tested my water almost daily and could never find any issues with water quality in fact things were so stable I just wanted to pull my hair out because everything was going so wrong. After it was al said and done I lost both my clows, both my ruby red dragonettes, and my trio of Borbonius Anthias. All the corals were lost with the few pieces I pulled and gave to a friend to try and rehab luckily some were able to be saved.

So thats the story of my 34 Solana. The only good thing to come of this is I turned it into a QT system for the new tank that I was already in the process of setting up. I had been gathering equipment for my new build and it wasnt long after the crash that I was able to get my new tank up and running and began to fill the little solana with some of my dream fish and slowly started transferring them to the display. Im currently still stocking my new tank with SPS and have almost 50 pieces so I will be starting a new thread soon! Keep an eye out for the next one.

 

[geldof]

Looks good so far.