50 Glasscages acrylic zeohead tank

[cherubfish pair]

Hi, my name is Mitch and I've had reef tanks since 1999 and I had <acronym title="Freshwater">FW</acronym> tanks in the late 70's when I was in grade school. This is the most rewarding hobby and it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars.

I've had this 50 gallon setup since Feb. '13 and it's an upgrade of a 29 gallon I had setup for 1-1/2 years. The only difference between the 29 and 50 is the display and sump. The current display is a Glasscages acrylic and the sump is Glasscages custom acrylic 24" x 24" x 14" eurobraced open (no baffles.) I keep 25 gallons in the sump and there's a net 45 gallons in the 50 gallon display because the water level is an inch or so from the top of the tank. This gives me a system of 70 gallons not considering the volume that the liverock takes up and needs to be subtracted.

This tank is magnificent. However I believe the walls are too thin for the drilling I want to do so I bought another one. The new one is also from Glasscages and has 3/8" thick walls. This is twice as thick as the first tank. With the new tank I will also implement the full ZEOvit method and have a lot of SPS corals.

Livestock
In this picture is five fish: fireball angel, flame hawkfish, sixline wrasse, royal gramma, ocellaris clown. Corals: zoanthids, mushroom corals, green star polyps, and stylophora SPS.

This picture was taken 8/13/13 of the original 50 (thin walled.) There's a tag on a piece of rock and the lighting has to be raised to cover the whole tank.

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[cherubfish pair]

Here's the old 50 showing my AI Sols with the ext rails mounted on the front. I had to mount them on the front because my sump sticks out from the back of the stand and if I mounted the rails in the back they would extend down into my sump.

Here's a full tank shot, I need to add a stack of rock on the right.

Bad shot here but shows some livestock:

Here's a shot of my new 50.

My bulkhead fittings are in place for a Herbie style overflow.

And here's my new sump that I will be using it's full of stuff.
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[cherubfish pair]

Now this is why I couldn't mount my rails in the back. The old fifty that goes in the bunkhouse can't have the rails in the back because the sump sits flush with stand.

 

[cherubfish pair]

Here is the location of the 50. It is in our family owned health food store. I have it in the storage room but we have the store up for sale after 13 years of ownership.

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[Fishy 1]

Nice, I look forward to seeing to progress

 

[cherubfish pair]

Here's my backup skimmer. A Tunze 9002. I will run this on the thin-walled 50 that's at the store when I'm switching to the new and drilled 50. Right now I have a Reef Octopus on the old 50 but I'm selling it very soon. I killed two birds with one stone here. This backup skimmer will also run on my quarantine tank when I get one eventually. It'll be an <acronym title="all in one">AIO</acronym> and the 9002 will fit in snuggly.

I bought the Kreg Jig Jr for building my stand. It allows you to drill on an angle much easier. Then I got the Fujifilm underwater camera. Hopefully these are the last pictures using my motorola.


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I'm still battling <acronym title="Cyanobacteria">cyano</acronym> and I finally got one of those algae attack packs from liveaquaria. This is the 30 gallon basic.

 

[moondoggy4]

Very nice, looking forward to more pictures.

 

[cherubfish pair]

Here is the old barn. Bunkhouse entrance is on right side.

This is the inside of the unfinished bunkhouse where I was going to put the new 50. I got the goahead to put it in the store so it's there right as of now.

I have a thefilterguys.com ro/di. Here it is in the old milkhouse. Problem is I can't get 0 tds water. I think a residue in my holding barrel is skewing the meter's reading.

I installed the internal overflow by siliconing it in place with black aquarium silicone from BRS. The overflow is a one sided one in the right corner from Glasscages. Then I glued unions and street elbows to the bulkhead drains. It makes it easy to setup the drain lines when I connect them to the sump/skimmer. The last picture is my naughty flame hawkfish. It's the only livestock picture that turned out out of 14 pix. I need more practice. I call him naughty because he is always perching on my SPS. I still don't know if it does any damage or just make the polyps retract a little.



return assembly with Tunze return and Hydor external heater being setup in next 4 pictures

 

[cherubfish pair]

FedEx man with coral. Bottom: my brother in my farm trough with Lady.


Well I decided not to use the farm trough for a fuge. Right now I use it to haul around wet stuff.

This was the original sump and equipment before the upgrades on the 29 gallon that I had before the current 50. I had liverock where the bio-balls are and the thing in the front corner without the lid is an avast reactor. For a light I had only one AI Sol and for current, a single MP10.

WELL to say the least... I bought the reef octopus skimmer to save money and I don't like it. Then I bought the ASM skimmer and a Tunze skimmer pump to replace the Sedra pump, and then spent some more money modding the crap out of it and don't think I like it either. Now I bought a Vertex Omega because it's plug and play and I've never tried the ASM yet. I'm never satisfied and my pocketbook is going to kill me. Before it's all over I will probably spend more money than if I bought a Bubble King Mini.

I will eventually try the gravity fed ASM but don't have the time to set it up. It requires some more plumbing modifications and possibly and new collection cup. This is the Vertex Omega 130. It has raving reviews and claims to have the most bang for the buck.


Here is my stand. Doesn't show in pic but already stained and ready to be polyurethaned.

Mounting some Apex modules on the finished stand.

Updates. screen top I did from BRS kit, gotta make one more.

Some things that will have to go outside of the cabinet: Avast skimmate collector, Sea-Side dosing container, and Aqua Medic kalk reactor.

 

[moondoggy4]

Nice pictures I have the Omega 150 I would not try to remove the impeller, just let the pump sit in vinegar and then run it in vinegar, the magnet in the pump are very strong, it will pull on the impeller causing it to separate from the shaft.

 

[cherubfish pair]

I've got a LA order coming in on Thurs. 2 Cherubs, a purple pseudochromis, occy, 3 GBTAs, 2 coral, and a sea star.

 

[cherubfish pair]

30L IM zeohead thread: down from 50

30L IM zeohead thread: down from 50

30 long Innovative Marine zeovit. Downgrade from 50 gallon Glasscages.

Okay posts 2 through 12 are from previous build thread but wanted to show what happened to start the IM tank. They show the two 50 gallon GCs acrylics. The one I wasn't able to drill and then I bought an extra thick GCs to replace it. I drilled the #2 50 but wasn't able to silicone the overflow in place without leaking. So in haste and getting sick of the undrilled tank that can't have equipment hidden, I payed for the IM last night.

So if you want to skip the 50s, go to post 13.