milkmanisin
In Memoriam
My brother in law built a tank for his living room and he used solid Oak and Oak plywood it's very similar to the way you did only he has glass on the front and both sides. I'll see if I can find a pic to post. Nice work.
4' X 4' tank
- Thread starter SoFloReefer
- Start date
kmacartney
New member
Sweet build!
SoFloReefer
New member
The tank has been very successful so far. I have not had as much time to frag as I like but all the coral is very healthy and just getting brighter and larger by the week. I just checked polyp extension tonight and I am seeing excellent extension on SPS that haven't put out their polyps in over a year in my 46 gallon display. The PAR levels are excellent in every part of the tank judging by the ability to support SPS along the sides. So far I have run no protein skimmer. I am going to add a phosphate reactor with GFO soon. I have no algae problems what so ever but for preventative measures and for SPS growth. I am also going to add a skimmer. Probably a Octopus Extreme.
Here is a quick check of some coral heath-
Xenia- Pulsing and extremely heathy.
SPS- Brightening up and showing excellent growth
-ORA Tort: Turning VERY blue
-Deep water SPS: turning from brown to neon green
-Superman monti: Base is coloring up and showing excellent polyp extension and growth
Zoanthids: finishing recovery from poor conditions in previous frag tank and beginning growth.
Ricordea Florida: Showing excellent growth and coloration but not showing full extension?, possibly due to placement
So right now I am going to order some maxijet mods and add around 4 to the bottom of the tank to keep detritus suspended. I am going also order Carbon and GFO. I think these things will make a hugh difference in long term tank and coral health.
I am going to take some pics soon (probably tomarrow) and I will post. I think you will be impressed
.
Here is a quick check of some coral heath-
Xenia- Pulsing and extremely heathy.
SPS- Brightening up and showing excellent growth
-ORA Tort: Turning VERY blue
-Deep water SPS: turning from brown to neon green
-Superman monti: Base is coloring up and showing excellent polyp extension and growth
Zoanthids: finishing recovery from poor conditions in previous frag tank and beginning growth.
Ricordea Florida: Showing excellent growth and coloration but not showing full extension?, possibly due to placement
So right now I am going to order some maxijet mods and add around 4 to the bottom of the tank to keep detritus suspended. I am going also order Carbon and GFO. I think these things will make a hugh difference in long term tank and coral health.
I am going to take some pics soon (probably tomarrow) and I will post. I think you will be impressed
.
freetareef
New member
looks greart man!!!!
SoFloReefer
New member
I received a shipment from bulkreefsupply.com today. Now I can start running carbon and GFO.
I added 4 Sureflow Maxijet mods on the underside of the egg crate today and they do an excellent job keeping detritus suspended so it can be captured by the filter sock in the overflow. I also have eco-mod maxijets and they are garbage compared to the Sureflows.
You can see in the following picture how detritus was building up on the bottom of the tank.
This is how I secured the sureflows.
SoFloReefer
New member
They feel like they put out double the flow of a K4
kmacartney
New member
Same here!
A.T.T.R
Active member
they do put out massive flow but i had alot of them break ( actualy 3 of them of that brand i think they were sureflow ( i just remember the box)
the eco mods i got actualy worked perfectly
but 3 out of 4 sureflows caused my impeller shaft to shoot out the back of the MJ
also i found the mj mods to be a little to stong . couldent put them near the surface without sucking air and coudent put coral near them either
i like them in displays but they just didnt do well in my prop setup
SoFloReefer
New member
They are strong which is why they work so well for my application. Im not sure what you mean about shooting the shaft out the back of the MJ. What I am picturing seems impossible. On my ECO mods one shaft rusted through and broke and the other the propeller came off the shaft. Both I fixed but the ecomods also twist off the MJ and do not start reliably. Im hopping that the Sureflows are good (I think they are) because I am close to bitting the bullet and going with Tunzes in the future. In a frag tank the cost is hard to justify though.
miwoodar
Likey the bikey
The shaft can 'shoot out' if the center shaft is allowed to spin. The rubber/plastic cap on the bottom of the shaft inside the MJ then applies friction against the bottom of the hole and eventually wears through. I've heard of it happening but I've never seen in person or with any of mine (2.5 years old). Mine are DIY though...my shafts don't spin at all. Really though, MJ's are so cheap you would have to replace a nearly two dozen motor blocks to match the cost of one Tunze or Vortech.
SoFloReefer
New member
Here are a couple of pictures from today. Notice how clean the bottom of the tank is now.:smokin:
freetareef
New member
looking good!!!
SoFloReefer
New member
Thanks man. I did some more work on the tank yesterday, actually alot of work Ive been meaning to do. I fraged the small SPS colonies off of the large pieces of live rock and put the live rock in the sump. I removed the rubbermaid containers because they were colecting detritus and I put the live rock rubble into a box I made out of eggcrate and zipties. I also moved around some powerheads and added two move for a total of eight powerheads (4 below eggcrate, 4 above). The flow is very strong now and is somewhere around 100x turnover. I need my frag plugs to be heavy or the frags get tossed around. I hope the fish do ok. My S.G. was high around 1.028 after dosing alot of magnesium over a few days so I removed some tank water and added RO. Ill see about taking pictures. BTW polyp extension on my SPS is amazing. They love the flow. Actually all the coral looks really good.
Some things I want to do to optimize coral growth and tank health-
-Add a Skimmer (Octopus extreme, most likely)
-Automate 2 part dosing with same timers used for lights and Drews Dosers from BRS
-Add Reefkeeper or other controller so I can monitor and log pH fluctuation and have my lights run of the temp controller so if temps exceed 82 degrees light shut off (if chiller somehow failed on hot day)
-Begin 10% water changes every two weeks
-swap out 2 10000k bulbs in T5s over sump for 6500 k
-add some baffles then add nassarius snails and other critters to DSB area
-Shoot for Calcium 450 PPM, Alkalinity 9dKH, Magnesium 1400 PPM
and keep Alk fluctuations to a minimum using automated dosing and better testing kit (API is cheap)
Some things I want to do to optimize coral growth and tank health-
-Add a Skimmer (Octopus extreme, most likely)
-Automate 2 part dosing with same timers used for lights and Drews Dosers from BRS
-Add Reefkeeper or other controller so I can monitor and log pH fluctuation and have my lights run of the temp controller so if temps exceed 82 degrees light shut off (if chiller somehow failed on hot day)
-Begin 10% water changes every two weeks
-swap out 2 10000k bulbs in T5s over sump for 6500 k
-add some baffles then add nassarius snails and other critters to DSB area
-Shoot for Calcium 450 PPM, Alkalinity 9dKH, Magnesium 1400 PPM
and keep Alk fluctuations to a minimum using automated dosing and better testing kit (API is cheap)
Last edited:
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