Chucko's 120g back again build

[chucko]

Quick intro: Had 75g mixed reef a couple of years ago. It was doing ok, but several things I was never happy with. We decided to move to bigger house and also had a baby on the way so I broke it down and sold everything.

Wife said never again.

Well, after enough pestering and taking the baby to pet stores, she decided I could have another tank.

Bought 120g Deep Blue Professional with dual corner overflows with stand and canopy from local reefer. Also picked up a few other goodies that I will list below.

Current Equip:
*2x Radion XR30W Pro G3 Lights
*Ecotech Reeflink
*Apex Aquacontroller with 2 EB8's, 1 EB4, PM2, Temp, PH, and Conductivity probes.
*3 BRS Media Reactors (I think they are actually the deluxe version).
*100lbs of Marco Rocks
*Trigger Emerald 34 Sump.
*Aquammax Cone S Q2 Skimmer


Remaining Equip:

Flow - most likely 2x MP40's
Return Pump - Reef Octopus RODC 5500 or possibly Ecotech Vectra
Heaters - 2x titanium heaters
RODI - Coralvue IceCap (most likely) or maybe a BRS 5 Stage 150gpd.
Live Rock/Sand - 20-30g package from Tampa Bay Saltwater


Current Problems I have:
Tank/Canopy is about 3" from Thermostat. - I think I'll just rip some maple plywood that I have from a previous project to cover the gap between the stand/tank/canopy and also add some fans/vents to the top of the canopy.

Radion Mount - I think I've got this figured out with some Legrand wiremould I got at Lowes, marked down to $3.60. I should have this done in the next couple days. The mount works fine, just have to get it attached to the canopy.

Plumbing - Ugh! My previous tank was just simple flex tubing - 1 drain, 1 return. I want to hard plumb this one. Ordering several gate valves this week. Also plan on building a manifold to run the reactors off of the return pump.

Mix station - My initial plans evaporated. Wife said nothing ghetto looking in the laundry room. Ill probably just get a couple of Brute containers for the garage. Not sure if I will be able to run the salt water back to the sump for changes or if Ill have to roll the container into the house for that. Probably the later.

 

[chucko]

First step was to get the back painted:


Just used a couple cans of plasti dip:

 

[whosurcaddie]

Happy wife happy life. Good luck on the new build and keep us updated.

 

[chucko]

Also started on the rock work. Doesn't really look the same in pics to me, but should give an idea of where I'm going. Will also be adding 30lbs or so of live rock once its all running.

 

[JMorris271]

Welcome back to the hobby.
T stats can be moved very easy. especially if you have dry wall.Just takes some crawling around, wiring and making sure it is located in a return flow. Away from, heat,and cool sources like fans in a canopy.

 

[chucko]

Still moving along slowly, got most of the plumping installed. Not all of its glued yet, still working on the return and manifold. Had to rip some oak strips to install in the stand to help support the plumbing.



Picked up a Vectra for the return pump. Took advantage of the Labor Day sales and ordered the following:
Blueline/Panworld Pump for mixing station.
Bunch of filter socks
Mag Float
MJ900
3x Titanium 200w heaters (two for tank, 1 for saltwater mixing station)
Red Sea Marine Care test kit
Red Sea Magnesium test kit
Red Sea Calcium test kit
Refractometer
Several different intake strainers (for overflows and return pump)
Spectrapure MaxCap RO/DI with automatic flush.

 

[chucko]

Also picked up two 35g Storage tanks (got one second hand, the other from tractor supply). Started on working on plans for a stand. Hopefully this should work as I already have the plywood from a previous project so the 15 2x4's should only cost around $45.

 

[chucko]

Not much of an update as I'm still moving a long pretty slowly but getting closer.
Got the water change stand built and primed. I still need to paint it and hook up all the plumbing .

The pump is a Blueline 20 HD.
My RODI unit also came in - a MaxCap 2:1 Automatic Flush 180-GPD RO/DI System.
I was thinking of mounting it in the garage but would rather not due to heat in the summer (well over 100 degrees) and it gets pretty close or slightly under freezing outside in the winter for a day or two.

Top tank is for RODI and bottom is for Salt. For now my water changes will be a manual process. I'll just use ball valves and gravity to refill my ato from the top container. For water changes, I'll suck the water into bucket and just gravity feed the water from the bottom tank back to my sump. Once I'm comfortable with my salt mixing and all, I'll buy something to AWC's.

 

[Shawn O]

Well, after enough pestering and taking the baby to pet stores, she decided I could have another tank.

Did something similar. Brought my teenage son to the LFS every sunday for a month and then brought the wife after he had talked about all the cool stuff he's seen. I know, shameless.

Looking good so far. How far is your mixing station from the tank? Maybe you could put a small pump in the SW barrel with a long hose and extension cord and run it from the tank end.

 

[chucko]

Mixing station and tank aren't far apart. An 8' hose would probably reach with ease. I plan to get everything in place to do auto water changes, I just want to get comfortable with mixing the salt and the volume of water changes first. The drain or the washer is actually just on the other side of the wall behind the tank. My plan is to have the AWC setup before it gets hot again.

 

[chucko]

Rocks finally in the tank!
I'm going to hit them all really good one more time with a power head and suck as much of the dust out as I can.
The tank is full of RODI for now, but I'll start mixing up salt tonight. I'm going to mix up some salt in my 30g container/mixing station tonight and just get the salinity really high. Once I get the dust out of the tank I'll replace about 30g of the water with the salt mix and just mix the rest of the salt up in the tank.

I've got 120lbs of Arag-Alive reef grade and will be adding as much as needed to get about 1.5" sand bed. I'll let that settle for a day or so, and on Thur/Fri I'll be adding a bottle of Fritz-Turbo start. Hopefully this weekend I'll pick up 20-30lbs of live rock. Or, Ill order it from TBS next week if I can take off work. I'd like to have the tank cycled before the end of October so that I add a pair of clowns for wife bday (she gets the pick out the clowns). I do have my test kits and will be keeping an eye on the ammonia/nitrate/nitrate each day after adding the turbo start. I've also got some seacheam matrix I'll be adding to the baffles. I figure I just take some of that out when getting a new fish to add bacteria to a quarantine tank if I need.

 

[chucko]

Had a few leaks in the plumbing. The first was where the drain lines connect to the bulkheads on the sump. I didn't glue those so water was slowly backup out of the connection. I just coated the pvc going into the bulkheads with silicone and that stopped the leak.

The other leak is coming from the bulkhead connections in the overflows. Both corners leak into the sump but its very slow. They dropped a half inch over night at the most (with the return pump off). It should take well over a week without a return pump for them to empty out. Either way, I pulled the pipes and let them completely drain. The sump easily holds the water from both.

In the pics, I installed an EB8 in rubbermaid container and the other ziploc container is the actual Apex, PM2, and breakout box. Hopefully these will be enough to protect against any small splashes.

 

[chucko]

Finally making some progress:

Everything is up and running!
-Installed two fans in my canopy. Got that setup on a timer via the apex.
-Installed an LED light in the stand that is operated via magnetic switch on the apex.
-Filled up the carbon and gfo reactors to get them running at the correct flow.
-Played around with the durso's and got them nearly silent. I still have some 'running water' sounds but this is probably unavoidable and due to my sump's design. I could probably raise the water level for my skimmer section to reduce how far water falls from the drain section, but meh.
-Not sure if my PH probe is bad or not. I calibrated it with the 7 and 10 fluids. Its currently reading 8.9 in my sump. My test kit says 8.2.
-Calcium was a tad low. Or maybe I tested wrong. Its looks to be around 380-390. Using Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt.
-Alk was around 9.
-Salinity is 1.024/1.025.
-Have two heaters running in the sump. My temp is somewhere between 77 and 79. The two heaters have external controllers (Finnex Titanium). One shows 76 while the other shows 78. My cheap digital thermometer shows 77.4, while the apex shows 78.4. Four different readings!
-Still need to install the PM2 module and Probe.
-Need to get a fuge light at some point. Probably this light: Ashia Light

-Need to figure out the water change situation. I have plumbing running from my change station to refill the tank and ATO container. But I'd like to setup another line to my washer's drain (its right behind the tank) for removing water. For now I'll just drain it to a bucket. I guess I just hook up a Maxijet in the sump and time how long it takes to drain 5gal.

 

[chucko]

Forgot to add: I started my cycle this weekend.
-Picked up about 5-6lbs of live rock. I didn't really want to alter my rockscape, so I just got a few small pieces from the LFS.
-Added a bottle Fritz Turbo Start 900. It smells aweful.
-Added some fish food to the tank. Couldn't convince the wife to go buy just a single shrimp!

Hopefully the arag-alive sand , live rock, and bacteria bottle will lead to a cycle faster than not having it. This tank has been kicking my butt getting it ready and I'd like to just start enjoying it. Would really like to add a few fish by the end of the month. I guess the test kits will determine if and when that's possible.

Lights will be out for now, till I add something. But here is how the tank looks so far:

 

[chucko]

-Been ghost feeding the tank everyday since this weekend. Still no signs of Ammonia or Nitrite's.
-Will hopefully get the PH probe recalibrated today.
-Also need to get the PM2 and conductivity probe installed.
-I started running my lights today. I figure if the algae/diatom bloom is going to happen, might as well get on with it.
-Supposed to have a support call with Apex tomorrow to get my second EB8 online. That will allow me to turn the radion's on and off (since the fans run as long as they are powered up). I may also be able to get my mixing station pumps hooked up to this EB8. Currently just using a digital timer for the mixing station to turn the pump on every few hours.
-May pick up a piece of shrimp or something to see if I can get an ammonia spike. Thinking if the Fritz bacteria is legit, I may never see that happen.

 

[chucko]

Fed the tank with NLS pellets Sunday-Thursday. Thursday I threw in a 1/4" or so piece of raw shrimp.
-Haven't seen any ammonia yet.
-Nitrites look like they are around .02.
-I'm thinking the combo of Fritz/live rock and maybe even the arag-alive may have actually had some useful bacteria in them. I would of though I'd see an ammonia spike by now with all food.

 

[chucko]

-Using Red Sea test kits and still not seeing Ammonia. I forgot about the test yesterday and after 25min or so it was showing a hint of green...
-Nitrites look to be around .02.
-Nitrates around 2ppm.
-Starting to see diatoms on the sand and a few spots on the glass.
-Added another small 1/4" piece of shrimp on Friday(10/9). I have no idea where these pieces of shrimp could be. I don't have a lot of rock for it get stuck in. I tried pointing the returns down behind the rocks. Blew a lot of sand out, but no shrimp. I guess the clean up crew will get it when they get added.
-Turned the skimmer on to let it start breaking in. I left the drain on the cup opened so if it does start pulling anything out of the water, it will just go back into the sump.
-For a fuge light, I just picked up a shop/clamp reflector and a 2700k Cree LED Bulb

 

[chucko]

-No Change on the test kits, Nitrate may be a little higher..somewhere between 2-5ppm.
-Skimmer is starting to collect some yellowish/light brown skim.
-Noticed that my little pieces of live rock have some sort of feather dusters/tube worms. I just assumed they were all dead, but last night I saw two of the larger ones connected to white tubes were out. I took my algae scraper want and got it close to them and they, along with all the others on the rock retracted. I'd say there are probably 15-20 of them...all about 1-2mm in size.

 

[oseymour]

Everything looks good so far. Keep up the good work. What do you plan on keeping in the tank?

 

[chucko]

For corals, it will be mixed SPS/LPS and probably some zoa's. I'll start off with some zoa's, then a frogspawn, torch and some acans. Then move on to the SPS with a simple birds nest and monticap before moving on to Acros. I'll definitely add a bubbletip at some point down the road. I actually really like GSP, but not sure I want to bother adding it. If I can find a place where I can keep it segregated, I'll get a small piece. My rock work is kind of limited, so I'll have to choose carefully are pull stuff out later down the road.


For Fish, I'm thinking:
1. Sea and Reef Black Ice Snowflake Clownfish
2. Sea and Reef Phantom Clownfish (wife wants one orange/one black)
3. Hi-Fin Goby and Shrimp (or Randall’s Goby if I can't find a hi-Fin)
4. Starry Blenny
5. Royal Gamma or purple dottyback.
6. Magnificent Fox face (or One Spot Fox Face if I cant find the Magnificent)
7. Mystery Wrasse
8. Flame Angel
9. Kole Tang (maybe)
11. 2x Banggai Cardinals (maybe)