Finally Dragonvale's 50 gallon Starphire display cube journal

Dragonvale

New member
Hello everyone. For the few of you that came over to the house and seen this tank sitting there collecting dust and job receipts, here we go. With the 250 being sold I decided to keep it clean. So with previously owning a 120 starphire, I for sure wanted a starphire tank but on a smaller scale. The cube was a perfect tank. Taking account to waterchanges or drastic water changes if needed, the 50 vol was feasible to accomplish (compared to a 250 tank LOL). The main reason for this tank not being able to be setup was due to the promise to my fiancee. Before this tank would be setup our hardwood floors would be refinished. The hardwood floors should be done by this friday, so the journal begins.

Equipment listed below either I had or bought through out the year.

Tank:

Tank dimensions
Size: 24"W x 24"L x 20"H

Thickness: 10mm

With all three front panels being Starphire.

Lighting:

Metal halide supplemented with T-5's or even leds

Supplmented:

Dosing pumps dosed with BSR 2-part

Heated:

Two 100 watt cobalt heaters

Head unit:

Reefkeeper Elite

topoff:

Tunze osmolator nano 3152 auto top off

Skimmer:

SRO XP1000 Space Saver Protein Skimmer rated up to 125 gallons

Sump:

Glass sump with partitions taken out to fit skimmer


Here's she is :D




 
Wow I have never seen the tank that clean before.:beer: sorry had to do it, I can't wait to see this tank completed you know how much I like your tank congrats on finishing the floors and starting your new project. Robert
 
Wow, I really like the dimensions on that, and the stand makes it all so sleek and flush. Is this a custom job, or is it a particular brand?
 
Thanks everyone.

Robert, the pictures posted were when I first got the tank (beginning of this year).

The tank is not custom but bought from a company from SoCal.

Colin, for some reason I'm starting to sway back to sticks. I'm pretty disappointed in being successful in growing zoas/palys to the colony melting or the colony melting after fragging. Or even yet, buying that zoas 3 times to have it melt every time. LOL

For flow I have still two MP40's from the 250. I may just use one and dial it down to 1000GPH hope that's not too much just from one pump. I also have a new WP25 which I can try out also.

The only concern is the dead rock that I have and leaching phosphates in the future when the tank is up and running. I guess there is no 100% way to be sure besides cycling it for many many many months. If anyone has a 3-4 week process I'm all ears.
 
For the rock, do a hydrochloric acid bath, soak, and then a lanthanum chloride bath. The HCl will remove any organics, and the lanthanum actively binds phosphates.

Hydrochloric acid is available from most pool supply stores/hardware stores as muriatic acid. The lanthanum chloride is sold commercially as Seaklear online and perhaps pool stores as well.

There's quite a few tutorials out there, and a few here on ReefCentral too.

Forrest
 
Last edited:
For the rock, do a hydrochloric acid bath, soak, and then a lanthanum chloride bath. The HCl will remove any organics, and the lanthanum actively binds phosphates.

Hydrochloric acid is available from most pool supply stores/hardware stores as muriatic acid. The lanthanum chloride is sold commercially as Seaklear online and perhaps pool stores as well.

There's quite a few tutorials out there, and a few here on ReefCentral too.

Forrest

Thanks for the info. Feels like chemistry with everything written. I'll look into it in more depth and hopefully apply it this weekend.
 
Just brought in the tank last night and figuring where it will be setup at. Im not really fond of pendants hanging from ceilings especially when the lines are long. Plus for some reason I'm always thinking they can give way but that's just me. So my fiancée (Carlos also suggested it) to put the tank in the corner diagonal. Its great but it didn't work with what I wanted. People would easily say create a hanger. I've done that in the past and with me spending this much money on the tank setup I wanted everything to match. So my next option is going to the DARK side, LEDS LOL. I'd go with the goose neck Kessil 360. I wrote this fast hope it makes sense. Now going to move everything back downstairs.

Oh... I still have to touch up the base boards :)

 
Thanks everyone. With the move of getting everything downstairs and re-felting all the charis, sofas and tables. I got in some reefing chores. Thanks to Forrest's info on muriatic acid I dug deep looking at threads and began the process. I bleached the rocks 3-4 weeks ago so imo doing the muriatic acid bath should be fine.

<a href="http://s1297.photobucket.com/user/1Dragonvale/media/liverockacid_zpsad2d4b60.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag21/1Dragonvale/liverockacid_zpsad2d4b60.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo liverockacid_zpsad2d4b60.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1297.photobucket.com/user/1Dragonvale/media/liverockacid2_zps7628e9de.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag21/1Dragonvale/liverockacid2_zps7628e9de.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo liverockacid2_zps7628e9de.jpg"/></a>

10 minutes with 3/4 of a gallon of the acid
<a href="http://s1297.photobucket.com/user/1Dragonvale/media/liverockacid3_zps7691f92a.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag21/1Dragonvale/liverockacid3_zps7691f92a.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo liverockacid3_zps7691f92a.jpg"/></a>

30 minutes with a full gallon of muriatic acid with a 10 to 1 ratio with RO.
<a href="http://s1297.photobucket.com/user/1Dragonvale/media/liverockacid4_zpse2d58045.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag21/1Dragonvale/liverockacid4_zpse2d58045.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo liverockacid4_zpse2d58045.jpg"/></a>

Going to wait for 3 hours before using baking soda to neuturalize the acid. Then a RO rinse :)
 
With a cauldron like that you should have done it on Th. night!

Looks like the head on a really cooking skimmer.

The longer you leave it in the acid, the less rock you'll have left. Visions of 'Breaking Bad' :)
 
Back
Top