Clevers 220g Tank Build
- Thread starter cleverbs
- Start date
cleverbs
New member
Well its been a year let me share with you all my long update of the last year...
So I lost/sold almost all my coral because of some issues I was having with the tank. The tank was slowly crashing then one day crashed hard and lost a good amount of corals in just a couple of days. So I unloaded my corals to a local reefer who was excited to buy them.
So over the last 6 months I have really been thinking a lot about what I really want my tank to be. I was talking with my wife one night about it as we sat at the bar in front of the tank and had a drink and she said why don’t you do SPS you have always wanted an sps tank...well she is right I have always wanted an SPS tank. I have kept them in the past in my LPS reef with some success but I thought I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money revamping my tank to support sps and I didn’t have time for it because I was working 45hrs a week and was taking 15 Credit hours in college so that I could graduate so there was no time for my reef really.
Well few months ago I finished college and got a great job and recently my wife just got a really good job as well putting us in a position where upgrading my tank in the ways I wanted was possible.
The first thing I wanted to do was build a frag tank because that is something else I have always loved and wanted.
So I got to work building a stand and got a 24x24x12 frag tank and set it up plumbed into my 220g. I am lighting it with an AI Hydra for now. I may upgrade it later.
So then I started collecting some new equipment that I wanted.
First I got the new Maxspec Gyre for the tank and LOVE it the thing can push a lot of water. So that paired with 2x WP40s moves a lot of water in my tank.
I then wanted to fix the issue that I have always had and that is keeping my Cal Alk and Mag stable. So I bought a Jebao dosing pump after reading a lot of good things about them so that I can start dosing 2part.
Then I decided to Rescape the tank a month ago and created something I like pretty well. I may change it a bit more but I like the overall look.
Then I got to thinking about lighting. I have never done that well with SPS under my LEDs and I think it’s because I just don’t have enough of them to really give enough light to my tank. So I did a lot of thinking about what did I really want and started weighing some things. I decided why am I even messing around with LED's right now? Why not just go with the lighting method that has been proven time after time to work? So I decided after much debate to go with MH/T5HO system. Today I pulled the trigger on that and got a Hamilton Cebu Sun 72" 3x250w MH hqi 4x80w t5ho fixture that comes with Radium bulbs. I will upgrade the t5s to ATI bulbs 2x Coral+ 2x Blue+. I can’t tell you how many people I talked to about switching to MH. Some people helped me figure out exactly how much more per month will I be spending then I did with LED's because I wanted to weigh the price of replacing them or just adding more fixtures. Well to get the amount of light I wanted I would need 5x AI Hydra 52's and at 550$ each that’s $2750 plus more EXT rails and the added power of running Hydra 52s instead of 26s and running 2 more fixtures. The MH fixture was 1300$ and gives me more than enough light and including bulb replacement of ATI and Radiums along with the extra monthly power cost it will be about 25$ a month. So let’s assume I kept the LEDs for 5 years the added monthly cost of the MH would put my total MH cost at about 2800$ still cheaper than running the LED's and this math doesn’t include the fact that right now I run 2x 400w heaters 24/7 in my tank to keep my tank at 78* so while my lights are on I am hoping my heaters will be off so that’s 800w that art running while my MH are further cutting the cost per month.
My final step was to remove my sand bed. I put the sand bed in when I was running the system for LPS because they like a bit more nutrient then SPS. I started removing the sand bed a few days ago. I have always been torn between sand bed and BB. I love the fact BB is so easy to clean but I liked the look of sand. However I will not and do not vacuum the sand bed because it’s just a big pain so it is best I just don’t have one. I don’t mind sucking out the little pile that is created in BB tanks.
As of right now I am feeling really good about the rebuild of my tank. I am going to be able to spend a lot more time with it because I am only working now and I am only working 40hrs a week so I basically went from not having any free time to having quite a bit and most the time I don’t even know what do with myself anymore ha-ha so might as well focus on my hobby.
I am also going to start getting more fish. I don’t have many right now and I would like to have a lot more life in my reef. I am staying away from aggressive fish other than my tangs because I was unable to add any fish to the tank when I had my Yellow dotty back. I finally caught him a week ago and sold him to my LFS. I am thinking I will have a lot of wrasses in the tank and I am going to try a small group of some easier to keep athias.
So I lost/sold almost all my coral because of some issues I was having with the tank. The tank was slowly crashing then one day crashed hard and lost a good amount of corals in just a couple of days. So I unloaded my corals to a local reefer who was excited to buy them.
So over the last 6 months I have really been thinking a lot about what I really want my tank to be. I was talking with my wife one night about it as we sat at the bar in front of the tank and had a drink and she said why don’t you do SPS you have always wanted an sps tank...well she is right I have always wanted an SPS tank. I have kept them in the past in my LPS reef with some success but I thought I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money revamping my tank to support sps and I didn’t have time for it because I was working 45hrs a week and was taking 15 Credit hours in college so that I could graduate so there was no time for my reef really.
Well few months ago I finished college and got a great job and recently my wife just got a really good job as well putting us in a position where upgrading my tank in the ways I wanted was possible.
The first thing I wanted to do was build a frag tank because that is something else I have always loved and wanted.
So I got to work building a stand and got a 24x24x12 frag tank and set it up plumbed into my 220g. I am lighting it with an AI Hydra for now. I may upgrade it later.
So then I started collecting some new equipment that I wanted.
First I got the new Maxspec Gyre for the tank and LOVE it the thing can push a lot of water. So that paired with 2x WP40s moves a lot of water in my tank.
I then wanted to fix the issue that I have always had and that is keeping my Cal Alk and Mag stable. So I bought a Jebao dosing pump after reading a lot of good things about them so that I can start dosing 2part.
Then I decided to Rescape the tank a month ago and created something I like pretty well. I may change it a bit more but I like the overall look.
Then I got to thinking about lighting. I have never done that well with SPS under my LEDs and I think it’s because I just don’t have enough of them to really give enough light to my tank. So I did a lot of thinking about what did I really want and started weighing some things. I decided why am I even messing around with LED's right now? Why not just go with the lighting method that has been proven time after time to work? So I decided after much debate to go with MH/T5HO system. Today I pulled the trigger on that and got a Hamilton Cebu Sun 72" 3x250w MH hqi 4x80w t5ho fixture that comes with Radium bulbs. I will upgrade the t5s to ATI bulbs 2x Coral+ 2x Blue+. I can’t tell you how many people I talked to about switching to MH. Some people helped me figure out exactly how much more per month will I be spending then I did with LED's because I wanted to weigh the price of replacing them or just adding more fixtures. Well to get the amount of light I wanted I would need 5x AI Hydra 52's and at 550$ each that’s $2750 plus more EXT rails and the added power of running Hydra 52s instead of 26s and running 2 more fixtures. The MH fixture was 1300$ and gives me more than enough light and including bulb replacement of ATI and Radiums along with the extra monthly power cost it will be about 25$ a month. So let’s assume I kept the LEDs for 5 years the added monthly cost of the MH would put my total MH cost at about 2800$ still cheaper than running the LED's and this math doesn’t include the fact that right now I run 2x 400w heaters 24/7 in my tank to keep my tank at 78* so while my lights are on I am hoping my heaters will be off so that’s 800w that art running while my MH are further cutting the cost per month.
My final step was to remove my sand bed. I put the sand bed in when I was running the system for LPS because they like a bit more nutrient then SPS. I started removing the sand bed a few days ago. I have always been torn between sand bed and BB. I love the fact BB is so easy to clean but I liked the look of sand. However I will not and do not vacuum the sand bed because it’s just a big pain so it is best I just don’t have one. I don’t mind sucking out the little pile that is created in BB tanks.
As of right now I am feeling really good about the rebuild of my tank. I am going to be able to spend a lot more time with it because I am only working now and I am only working 40hrs a week so I basically went from not having any free time to having quite a bit and most the time I don’t even know what do with myself anymore ha-ha so might as well focus on my hobby.
I am also going to start getting more fish. I don’t have many right now and I would like to have a lot more life in my reef. I am staying away from aggressive fish other than my tangs because I was unable to add any fish to the tank when I had my Yellow dotty back. I finally caught him a week ago and sold him to my LFS. I am thinking I will have a lot of wrasses in the tank and I am going to try a small group of some easier to keep athias.
dave.m
Active member
I think you have undercut the LEDs when you were doing your calculations. The LEDs will last AT LEAST ten years, not five. You also didn't count for the extra heat control you will have to do on your house to accommodate the fact that MHs waste at least 50% of their energy consumption on heat that you have to control/get rid of.
Dave.M
Dave.M
cleverbs
New member
I know LEDs can last 10 years but I would not keep LEDs for 10 years. Every 6 months we get a new and improved LED in 10 years the leds we have today will be trash.
Heat I am not worried about at all. Like I said my tank runs 2 400w heaters all the time. The light will not be in a canopy and will be haning from the ceiling and not mounted on top of the tank. I also live in nebraska and this means hot summers and cold winters so my house is always 71* all year.
Heat I am not worried about at all. Like I said my tank runs 2 400w heaters all the time. The light will not be in a canopy and will be haning from the ceiling and not mounted on top of the tank. I also live in nebraska and this means hot summers and cold winters so my house is always 71* all year.
cleverbs
New member
Well I have a lot of updating to do.
I got my MH/T5HO light and love it. I liked it so much I put a 175w MH over my frag tank and that has made a huge difference.
heres the tank with the MH over it.
So everything was going well I was going to start restocking the tank and then I was feeding my fish a few weeks ago and notices that my brace had cracked on the tank.
So I call up the Manufacture and they tell me no problem they will get a new tank out to me and pay for all expenses. I was very impressed so I filled out the paper work and sent them a picture. They called me back after about an hour and said they would call my LFS that afternoon and let them know to replace the tank. 3 days pass with them not returning my phone calls or emails and they had never called the store. Finally they get back to me and say we are calling the store today. they never called them the following day same thing. then the following day they send me an email at 4:59(no joke) when they close at 5:00 saying "we will not be warrenting your tank any longer but you can buy a new brace from us and replace it yourself at your own expense" So I was furrious and my LFS was more upset then I was. He went at them with an Iron Fist. A few days later I get a call that "Upper managment" had reviewed the case and is going to make a one time exception. They said they would replace the tank and pay the cost of getting it drilled however there would be no warrenty on the tank. My LFS owner said not giving me a warrenty on the tank was B/S and they said if they drilled the tank it would void the warrenty. So I asked if it would be possible for me to get a tank with the warrenty if i just got their reef ready tank. He called them and turns out they agree to send me one at no additional cost. Well thats what he told me. So now I should get the tank Thursday and I will have a lot of work to do.
I am going to do a few things different with this tank.
First thing is I am going to put down White HDPE on the bottom of the tank. I have always wanted to do this and this is a perfect chance.
Second thing I was to do is make a really unique aquascape. I have always just stacked rocks in my tanks but this time I am going to saw, drill, and puddy a unique structure. These photos are my insperation for the tank. I really want to have one large structure with a huge overhang and then a very small island for my Bubble tip my clowns host. We will see if he stays on the island, if not he will have to go.
It will be a mix of these however I will not be using branch rock.
third thing is I want to do my flow a bit differently. I currently have a gyre 150 and 2 WP40's. The plan is to get 2 more RW-20's. I am going to get dual controller for the WP40's that they sell so they can work together. and I am going to have all power heads on the back wall to make it a cleaner look. I am going to put the Gyre in the top center of the tank, the 2x WP-40s on each side of the gyre but down a bit and over and the the two RW-20s on the overflows. I think making a triangle will give a ton of flow and keep everything really well sepended in the water.
forth, I am going to redo my sump/plumbing. I make my pluming cleaner and work better then it does now. I will also add a baffle to my sump and slow the flow down in it. Right now the sump has to much flow and bubbles dont get trapped in the bubble trap because they just blast through it. This time I will have less flow. I am still undecided on how I want to tackle the overflows as I have never had a Reef ready tank I have only ever drilled my own. I am thinking I will do one of two things. Make it so theres a full siphon drain on each side and an emergency overflow in place of a return and just run a single return. I dont have a canopy so I will not be running a return over the back.
I am excited to see this come together however I know its going to be a lot of work. But thats ok.
I am also going to use this time to try and introduce 2 more yellow tangs to the tank so that I have 3. The LFS is going to keep my yellow and sailfin while I swap out the tanks and make sure theres no mini cycle. While the yellow is there they are going to keep him with 2 other yellow tangs so that they get used to eachother and then I will pick them up after being together for a few weeks and put them in the tank.
I got my MH/T5HO light and love it. I liked it so much I put a 175w MH over my frag tank and that has made a huge difference.
heres the tank with the MH over it.
So everything was going well I was going to start restocking the tank and then I was feeding my fish a few weeks ago and notices that my brace had cracked on the tank.
So I call up the Manufacture and they tell me no problem they will get a new tank out to me and pay for all expenses. I was very impressed so I filled out the paper work and sent them a picture. They called me back after about an hour and said they would call my LFS that afternoon and let them know to replace the tank. 3 days pass with them not returning my phone calls or emails and they had never called the store. Finally they get back to me and say we are calling the store today. they never called them the following day same thing. then the following day they send me an email at 4:59(no joke) when they close at 5:00 saying "we will not be warrenting your tank any longer but you can buy a new brace from us and replace it yourself at your own expense" So I was furrious and my LFS was more upset then I was. He went at them with an Iron Fist. A few days later I get a call that "Upper managment" had reviewed the case and is going to make a one time exception. They said they would replace the tank and pay the cost of getting it drilled however there would be no warrenty on the tank. My LFS owner said not giving me a warrenty on the tank was B/S and they said if they drilled the tank it would void the warrenty. So I asked if it would be possible for me to get a tank with the warrenty if i just got their reef ready tank. He called them and turns out they agree to send me one at no additional cost. Well thats what he told me. So now I should get the tank Thursday and I will have a lot of work to do.
I am going to do a few things different with this tank.
First thing is I am going to put down White HDPE on the bottom of the tank. I have always wanted to do this and this is a perfect chance.
Second thing I was to do is make a really unique aquascape. I have always just stacked rocks in my tanks but this time I am going to saw, drill, and puddy a unique structure. These photos are my insperation for the tank. I really want to have one large structure with a huge overhang and then a very small island for my Bubble tip my clowns host. We will see if he stays on the island, if not he will have to go.
It will be a mix of these however I will not be using branch rock.
third thing is I want to do my flow a bit differently. I currently have a gyre 150 and 2 WP40's. The plan is to get 2 more RW-20's. I am going to get dual controller for the WP40's that they sell so they can work together. and I am going to have all power heads on the back wall to make it a cleaner look. I am going to put the Gyre in the top center of the tank, the 2x WP-40s on each side of the gyre but down a bit and over and the the two RW-20s on the overflows. I think making a triangle will give a ton of flow and keep everything really well sepended in the water.
forth, I am going to redo my sump/plumbing. I make my pluming cleaner and work better then it does now. I will also add a baffle to my sump and slow the flow down in it. Right now the sump has to much flow and bubbles dont get trapped in the bubble trap because they just blast through it. This time I will have less flow. I am still undecided on how I want to tackle the overflows as I have never had a Reef ready tank I have only ever drilled my own. I am thinking I will do one of two things. Make it so theres a full siphon drain on each side and an emergency overflow in place of a return and just run a single return. I dont have a canopy so I will not be running a return over the back.
I am excited to see this come together however I know its going to be a lot of work. But thats ok.
I am also going to use this time to try and introduce 2 more yellow tangs to the tank so that I have 3. The LFS is going to keep my yellow and sailfin while I swap out the tanks and make sure theres no mini cycle. While the yellow is there they are going to keep him with 2 other yellow tangs so that they get used to eachother and then I will pick them up after being together for a few weeks and put them in the tank.
cleverbs
New member
Alright well the days have come for the rebuild. So far it has gone along really nice. I had to change a lot of things in the process but let me go through everything that I did to prepare for the new tank.
I had to store my live rock and fish so I ended up using 2x 27g Storage tubs and a 34g Brute trash can and a 25g tub. Most of the rock went into the brute and the 25g tub and my fish went in the storage containers with a bit of live rock and in my frag tank. I barrowed 4 heaters from my LFS that they had laying around and then I put a power head in each container.
Sadly I lost my most loved fish during the process my Sailfin tang, I thought he would be ok in 27s by himself for 2 days however he passed. I have no Idea how or why. The other fish in the same tub are all doing great.
I then got my group of people together to help me take the old tank out and move the new tank in. it went really smooth so that was nice. I put the new tank on the stand and marked it to cut the holes for the overflows. Everything went well so then the tank was on the stand.
After that I decided I was going to take this time to clean my sump out and get my skimmer out and give it a good cleaning. It was amazing how much crud was in the bottom of the skimmer that I never knew was there as well as how many snail shells where lodged in the needle wheel pump. So I got that all cleaned out and got my skimmer looking good as new.
After that I decided it’s time to plumb the tank. So I had to make some decisions on the overflows. The last thing I wanted to do is run a noisy durso with no emergency drain. Remember I only have 4 holes in the tank and going over the top was not an option for me unless it was to use an ocean mocean and for right now that’s not in the budget. The plumbing went really well. It only cost me about 7$ because I had almost everything I needed from past builds. On my last tank I didn’t have all the drains run to the far end of the sump I had them in the center of the sump. So my thought was I was missing out on some skimming because the water from one of my drains was in front of the skimmer so it probably never even hit the skimmer and just went to the return section. This time I made sure everything was on the furthest end. It may not look pretty but I made it work. The plumbing for my frag tank was in the way and I didn’t want to redo it.
I then decided to stick with the bean animal concept and see if I could get it to work on the new tank. I didn’t want to only use 1 overflow so on the left overflow I have a full siphon and the emergency overflow and on the right overflow I have a durso and 1 return. I figured I could just run a single return and that would be fine. I am getting my flow in the tank from 4x RW-20s.
After I got done with the plumbing and all the cleaning I only had one thing left to do before I could add water and rock. I needed to put the sheet of 3/8th" HDPE in. I got a sheet cut for my tank that was 70.5" long and 22" wide then I got in the tank and had my wife put the sheet on top of the tank so I could mark the overflows. I marked them from inside the tank and cut them out with a Plexiglas blade on a jigsaw. Fits like a glove.
Doing this also makes nice handy overflow covers.
Now it was time for the aquascape. My original plan didn’t work because of the rocks I have. I tried a few times to make it work and just couldn’t and so I decided not to force it. And I didn’t want to buy new rock. Here is what it ended up looking like. I am not a huge fan of it as of now but I think with just a bit of tweaking it will look good. This will be basically 97% sps tank so they should fill in the structure nice. The far left is for my Nem for my clowns in the past doing this has kept the nem from moving to the main structure but it may not with the HDPE bottom. We will see. If it doesn’t work I will remove that rock structure all together and let the nem do its thing.
Middle rock
Left rock
I had to store my live rock and fish so I ended up using 2x 27g Storage tubs and a 34g Brute trash can and a 25g tub. Most of the rock went into the brute and the 25g tub and my fish went in the storage containers with a bit of live rock and in my frag tank. I barrowed 4 heaters from my LFS that they had laying around and then I put a power head in each container.
Sadly I lost my most loved fish during the process my Sailfin tang, I thought he would be ok in 27s by himself for 2 days however he passed. I have no Idea how or why. The other fish in the same tub are all doing great.
I then got my group of people together to help me take the old tank out and move the new tank in. it went really smooth so that was nice. I put the new tank on the stand and marked it to cut the holes for the overflows. Everything went well so then the tank was on the stand.
After that I decided I was going to take this time to clean my sump out and get my skimmer out and give it a good cleaning. It was amazing how much crud was in the bottom of the skimmer that I never knew was there as well as how many snail shells where lodged in the needle wheel pump. So I got that all cleaned out and got my skimmer looking good as new.
After that I decided it’s time to plumb the tank. So I had to make some decisions on the overflows. The last thing I wanted to do is run a noisy durso with no emergency drain. Remember I only have 4 holes in the tank and going over the top was not an option for me unless it was to use an ocean mocean and for right now that’s not in the budget. The plumbing went really well. It only cost me about 7$ because I had almost everything I needed from past builds. On my last tank I didn’t have all the drains run to the far end of the sump I had them in the center of the sump. So my thought was I was missing out on some skimming because the water from one of my drains was in front of the skimmer so it probably never even hit the skimmer and just went to the return section. This time I made sure everything was on the furthest end. It may not look pretty but I made it work. The plumbing for my frag tank was in the way and I didn’t want to redo it.
I then decided to stick with the bean animal concept and see if I could get it to work on the new tank. I didn’t want to only use 1 overflow so on the left overflow I have a full siphon and the emergency overflow and on the right overflow I have a durso and 1 return. I figured I could just run a single return and that would be fine. I am getting my flow in the tank from 4x RW-20s.
After I got done with the plumbing and all the cleaning I only had one thing left to do before I could add water and rock. I needed to put the sheet of 3/8th" HDPE in. I got a sheet cut for my tank that was 70.5" long and 22" wide then I got in the tank and had my wife put the sheet on top of the tank so I could mark the overflows. I marked them from inside the tank and cut them out with a Plexiglas blade on a jigsaw. Fits like a glove.
Doing this also makes nice handy overflow covers.
Now it was time for the aquascape. My original plan didn’t work because of the rocks I have. I tried a few times to make it work and just couldn’t and so I decided not to force it. And I didn’t want to buy new rock. Here is what it ended up looking like. I am not a huge fan of it as of now but I think with just a bit of tweaking it will look good. This will be basically 97% sps tank so they should fill in the structure nice. The far left is for my Nem for my clowns in the past doing this has kept the nem from moving to the main structure but it may not with the HDPE bottom. We will see. If it doesn’t work I will remove that rock structure all together and let the nem do its thing.
Middle rock
Left rock
Defenseman7
New member
Looking good!
I really like the idea of the HDPE on the bottom and over the overflows. I will be following along.
I really like the idea of the HDPE on the bottom and over the overflows. I will be following along.
cleverbs
New member
thank you.
cleverbs
New member
I didnt order it, I have a very large custom plastic manuf in my city and I got it from them.
Yes its the same as starboard.
