Grandlotus
Member
Looking great!
Any idea on what you will be stocking?
Any idea on what you will be stocking?
Back at it, Bigger and Better
- Thread starter VisionsOfSalt
- Start date
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Thanks dinger! I used Kilz oil based white primer then lacquer based interior paint. The body is actually a blue tinged gray (although my garage light doesn't make it seem that way) satin sheen we have throughout the house and the black is a high endurance satin sheen interior paint. The doors will be the same black but won't finish those until tomorrow. All wood joints on the stand have been siliconed and a water resistant coating has been applied to the stand and inside the doors. Letting the doors cure overnight before flipping to paint and coat the outer panels.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Thanks Grandlotus! After a long cycle I'll probably do a bulk order on some wrasses. I want to introduce them all at the same time to reduce bickering over territory. It'll probably be a radiant, yellow "coris", orange back fairy, spot line flasher and a Christmas wrasse. Naturally these will be introduced after the CUC has been established. Plan is to overfeed the tank for those 5 wrasses during cycle to get it adjusted for the bioload.
I have a list of fish to get but it will of course be over time. No specific plans on coral but acans, zoa/paly heavy, montis, cyphastrea heavy, chalice heavy, euphyllia and SPS throughout.
Probably will go with 3 islands on the aquascape to open up the sandbed.
I have a list of fish to get but it will of course be over time. No specific plans on coral but acans, zoa/paly heavy, montis, cyphastrea heavy, chalice heavy, euphyllia and SPS throughout.
Probably will go with 3 islands on the aquascape to open up the sandbed.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Took the last week off from work as a staycation and between working on the tank and painting the house I'm exhausted. Didn't do anything on the tank today but did pick up some extension cords, power strips, incorrect cabinet hinges, etc.
One item that should be pretty interesting is this power strip with 6 outlets that can be "killed" at once. I was initially thinking of getting a rack mount set up with individual switches but this power strip seems a bit more convenient. I'm figuring return pump, skimmer, UV, and the 3 dosing pumps (alk, cal, mag) to kill during water changes. Or maybe the 2 heaters and ATO instead of the dosing pumps.
One item that should be pretty interesting is this power strip with 6 outlets that can be "killed" at once. I was initially thinking of getting a rack mount set up with individual switches but this power strip seems a bit more convenient. I'm figuring return pump, skimmer, UV, and the 3 dosing pumps (alk, cal, mag) to kill during water changes. Or maybe the 2 heaters and ATO instead of the dosing pumps.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Doors have been fully painted and starting to put equipment back in the stand. Will need to support the long horizontal drain line but can't do so until tank is on the stand again in the house so I can make sure of the placement. Really happy that there's still wood grain through the primer and paint, just need to touch up paint when it's ready to fire, giving it a few days to cure of course 
VisionsOfSalt
Member
I suppose this would be a better example of getting the equipment back in lol.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Was able to move the tank and stand into the house today with the help of my cousins boyfriend. I was a little shocked to see the color difference of the stand body and wall, considering I did two coats on the stand with the same paint tray and roller used while painting this room. The only thing I can think is that the stand had a white oil based primer base while the walls in the room had a flat cream/off white paint on them. I'm not unhappy with the difference, it just wasn't what I had pictured. Will need to get some fake plants to fill in the wall gaps on the left and right side.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Did some aquascaping Friday night over 70 lbs of sand, still some rock work needed for the center of the tank but this will do for now. Added the remaining 60 lbs of sand afterwards. Started filling the tank Sunday afternoon but was about 10 gallons of RO/DI shy and it was 9 PM by that time. Added the remaining water after work today and fired it up! Not too sure how I feel about the hum and fan noise coming from the Panworld 200ps pump but maybe it'll break in with some time, we will see. Sorry for the terrible video, I always forget that the video captured doesn't rotate along with the view. BM Curve 7 is breaking in now, we will see if it calms down by tomorrow.
https://vimeo.com/121747802
https://vimeo.com/121747802
VisionsOfSalt
Member
After 24 hours of running figured the evap to be just under 2.5 gal/day. As this tank is cycling and won't have coral for quite a while I'm temporarily using my Spectrapure LiterMeter 3 pump as an ATO. The head is drawing from a 5 gal jug and going into the sump return chamber with a 4 line holder. As a safety measure I have the head plugged in to a liquid level tube sensor to cut power if it were to remain on, which the 5 gal wouldn't even reach, but still a safety measure. The sump has a float valve installed but I don't have the threaded nut to secure the 1/4" tubing in there so it's in the holder for now.
Plan in the future will be to run the ATO feed line from a reservoir in the garage into the float sensor for top off. This will be another litermeter 3 head unit and faaaaaaar down the road the B and C slave pumps will be configured for automatic water changes. Prior to the auto change being set up my current Lm3 head and 2 slaves will be for Alk, Cal and Mag.
So, in a year or 4 (I'm a realist) it will be set up with 6 total dosing pumps (2 master heads) for ATO, dosing and auto water changes, all of which will be pulled from the garage and dripped into the sump. Well, except the slave pump pulling old water, that will be fed through the kitchen cabinets into the sink drain line.
Here's the temp set up until I can crawl around the attic:
Plan in the future will be to run the ATO feed line from a reservoir in the garage into the float sensor for top off. This will be another litermeter 3 head unit and faaaaaaar down the road the B and C slave pumps will be configured for automatic water changes. Prior to the auto change being set up my current Lm3 head and 2 slaves will be for Alk, Cal and Mag.
So, in a year or 4 (I'm a realist) it will be set up with 6 total dosing pumps (2 master heads) for ATO, dosing and auto water changes, all of which will be pulled from the garage and dripped into the sump. Well, except the slave pump pulling old water, that will be fed through the kitchen cabinets into the sink drain line.
Here's the temp set up until I can crawl around the attic:
Original DMx
Member
It's looking good!!! Really makes me want to go back to a big tank. I don't think the wife will be a big fan of that though Keep posting updated pix.
Keep posting updated pix.VisionsOfSalt
Member
Thank you DMx! If I didn't get the tank at such a steal it would have been a big no from my wife so I know where you're coming from haha
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Put the remaining rock in the tank tonight, will just need to secure some of the top pieces down to be on the safe side using some reef putty.
Picked up a compression nut for the sump float sensor so the top off line is going through there as it should be. Also picked up a couple 1/4" quick connect ball valves and a 1/4" T so I'm making water in two cans for now until I get my water towers. I like the idea of the inline valves so it won't refill the cans until I say so, which should reduce TDS creep from the RO/DI as I'll open them up when they're half empty.
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Picked up a compression nut for the sump float sensor so the top off line is going through there as it should be. Also picked up a couple 1/4" quick connect ball valves and a 1/4" T so I'm making water in two cans for now until I get my water towers. I like the idea of the inline valves so it won't refill the cans until I say so, which should reduce TDS creep from the RO/DI as I'll open them up when they're half empty.
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VisionsOfSalt
Member
Oh also that white base rock in the center is "Texas holey rock". I know it's dense rock and not beneficial to totally use for LR but when I looked at it I could picture all the frag plug capabilities and couldn't say no
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Thank you stock!
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Back at it, Bigger and Better
Wife was kind enough to let me work a little bit tonight. I was able to run 4 - 1/4" John Guest lines from the garage to the display for what I mentioned before. Unfortunately I neglected to mark the lines so I have a bit of trial and error ahead of me figuring out which line is which but I'm happy this part is almost done
It's hard to tell in the 2nd to last pic but the lines run over the A/C or ventilation line and down through the ceiling drywall.
Wife was kind enough to let me work a little bit tonight. I was able to run 4 - 1/4" John Guest lines from the garage to the display for what I mentioned before. Unfortunately I neglected to mark the lines so I have a bit of trial and error ahead of me figuring out which line is which but I'm happy this part is almost done
It's hard to tell in the 2nd to last pic but the lines run over the A/C or ventilation line and down through the ceiling drywall.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Well I didn't think it important to include initially but when running the lines I did one line first, tying it to a beam in the garage and securing it to the holder in the sump once done. I then decided I didn't have the patience for each of the 3 remaining lines separately so ran them all together by taping together the running end after cutting the remaining roll of line into thirds.
Anyway, what that means for now is that it was easy to differentiate the first line from the others due to the bend from the tie so I was able to hook up the ATO line
Also mounted the spectrapure dual media reactor tonight. No media for a while but it's running no problem.
Anyway, what that means for now is that it was easy to differentiate the first line from the others due to the bend from the tie so I was able to hook up the ATO line
Also mounted the spectrapure dual media reactor tonight. No media for a while but it's running no problem.
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Not much to report right now, ammonia hasn't really spiked yet, hovering between .25 and .5 ppm. I've dropped a few cubes of PE Mysis in the tank over the last few days to boost the ammonia as they break down but have decided to switch to flake food since I've been told it breaks down faster (and is far cheaper to use). I thought I had the skimmer dialed in but after the last mysis cube feeding it started overproducing in the middle of the night and flooded the little skimmate I had collected back into the sump. Prior to the flood I had removed the 2" tupperware container seen in the previous pic and the skimmer was dialed in at mark #2 for a semi-dry skim. After it overproduced it looks like I'll have to use the container again to keep the skimmer at around 8.5" waterline.
I'm still dialing in the LM3 dosing pump as the ATO, it seems my initial calculation of 2.5 gal/day of evap was too much so working on that still.
A friend of mine is getting out of the hobby due to a move in 2 weeks and selling his radiant wrasse (my #1 fish) so it looks like I'll be setting up my QT this weekend as a home for the fish until the MD is ready for livestock.
I'll post again this weekend if I get the QT up and ready.
I'm still dialing in the LM3 dosing pump as the ATO, it seems my initial calculation of 2.5 gal/day of evap was too much so working on that still.
A friend of mine is getting out of the hobby due to a move in 2 weeks and selling his radiant wrasse (my #1 fish) so it looks like I'll be setting up my QT this weekend as a home for the fish until the MD is ready for livestock.
I'll post again this weekend if I get the QT up and ready.
Very nice build. I really like what you did with the stand. The black with white trim looks fantastic. I have always liked bow front tanks. I used to have a 72 bow front but sold it when I moved. Looking at your setup makes we want to upgrade my 90 gallon. Keep the updates coming!
VisionsOfSalt
Member
Thank you for the good words Map! The white hue to the stand body was unintentional but I'm happy with how it turned out.
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