Jim's 140g Slice of the Ocean Upgrade

[jlnielsen13]

Hey RC,

As everyone does in this hobby, I decided it was time for an upgrade and needed more space to house my addiction to the reef. I was happy with my standard 90 gallon tank but wanted a more custom, one of a kind look for my reef. With the help from my local LFS, Reefwise, I was able to have a custom cabinet, tank, and canopy built that fit my needs and space. First, the finished product:

The move from my 90 to my 140 started at 5:00am and ended around midnight and went pretty smoothly. Here is the last pic of my 90 pre-swap.

Really the only problem with the whole move was leveling the tank. I really struggled with that and also the stand had some "wobbling" issues. After 300$ of reinforcement including extra 2x4's and plywood across the back, as well as numerous shims I finally got the stand solid. It made for many sleepless nights though and didn't allow me to enjoy my tank till a couple weeks after the move.

Today, I can finally enjoy the tank and thought I would share some pics with Reef Central:

The tank itself is a 140 Deep Sea Aquatics custom pro glass aquarium. They do a nice job as the tank is built solid! I attempted a DIY sump but after breaking many sheets of glass I bought an Aqueon proflex 4 sump and really like it. I run a reef octopus skimmer and dose calcium and alk with BRS dosing pumps. The lights on this tank are a dimmable t5 fixture from ATI with 8 bulbs. This is my first t5 fixture as this tank started with halides, went two years with AI LED's and now is finally happy again with t5's. My parameters have all "calmed" down after the move and settled in well.

Quick thank you's need to go out to my wife for "tolerating" my obsession-Both from a financial perspective and time (since we have two kids). Lastly I want to thank my LFS- Reefwise in Lisle, Illinois. ALthough there are a dozen LFS's in the chicagoland area, and I used to frequent them all, I am happy to say that I get 110% of my needs at just one LFS. Customer service and the quality of organisms is really top notch. 90% of this current reef is from Brian's store! If you live in the area or are visiting the chicagoland area-this is one place you need to check out!

Hope you enjoyed and happy reefing!

JIM

 

[bmullikin1]

Looks great, what made you switch from leds

 

[jlnielsen13]

Thanks for the comment!-

I did leave the LED world. I was extremely unhappy with the Aqua Illuminations sol blues. I had 4 over my 90 and 2500$ invested in them. I don't want to get into another argument though with people about LED's so if you want my thoughts on LED's just click my name and search for other posts. The one titled "people like LED's corals don't" is a fun read I think!

I love my t5's- not enough heat to make a difference, still programmable and dimmable and lots of bulb configs!!

JIM

 

[d-man]

nice. Beautiful lineateus wrasse

 

[jlnielsen13]

Heres a couple more pics:

Under the hood-

Canopy open-

Thanks,

JIM

 

[usefulidiot213]

Really nice setup..

 

[vitodog]

Your tank looks great. Can you give some detail on the switch from the 90 to the 140. I will be transferring my 90 to a 125 in the near future and if you don't mind, did you transfer the sand from the 90 or did you use new sand? How much of the water did you transfer (all, 50%, 80% etc)? Any problems transferring the livestock? How did you transfer equipment etc. Did you experience a spike in ammonia? 5:00 am to 12 midnight is a long day. What problems, if any, did you experience? Based on your photos, you were successful. I hope when I complete my move my tank looks as good as yours.

 

[CeeGee]

Looks really good. Love the lineatus!

 

[chris1292]

What combo bulbs do you have?

 

[jlnielsen13]

Thanks for the replies! To answer a couple of comments:

1. Love the lineatus as well, only had him for a week! Eats great!

2. The move actually went pretty smooth. It just took all day and night. I used 90% of the old water. Basically anything I could siphon out except for the nasty stuff on the bottom. I made up 80 gallons of new RO water and stored it in 30 gallon garbage cans from HD. I collected a bucket full of old sand to add to the display as I thought it would help "seed" the new sand. I couldn't get myself to add it though as the new sand looked so good clean I didn't want to dirty it up and after researching the topic most say not to add the old sand. All the live rock was transferred over and of course the fish and coral. I haven't tested for ammonia in over 10+ years as I've never had an issue and didn't test for it after the swith. Probably should have but didn't. I did do a weekly water change for the first two weeks just in case and will now go to my usual monthly schedule.

3. I have an 8 bulb ATI dimmable fixture that runs front to back:

ATI Blue Plus
ATI B +
ATI B +
KZ Fiji Purple
Coral Plus
Purple plus
Geisman Actinic
ATI Blue +

bulbs 3 and 6 are on one channel and the rest on the other channel. I can dim each channel from 1-100% for 10 different setting throughout the day. It ramps up and down between settings so really my light is constantly changing intensity all day long. Pretty cool fixture.

Thanks,
JIM

 

[johntran216]

Wow congrats and great job on the switch/upgrade. That's one of my fears of swapping a tank. I'm always afraid of killing off a good fraction of my corals. Did you drop the corals/rocks in as soon as u transferred the water or waited for everything to settle in the tank before adding the livestock?

 

[jlnielsen13]

Wow congrats and great job on the switch/upgrade. That's one of my fears of swapping a tank. I'm always afraid of killing off a good fraction of my corals. Did you drop the corals/rocks in as soon as u transferred the water or waited for everything to settle in the tank before adding the livestock?

A little of both,

I needed some rock to be added to get my water level up enough to get the tank running. I really should have made more water so my tip for others would be make an extra 20gallons more than what you think you'll need!! The lps and sps and some of my prized softies like my 3 aussie green leathers waited about 2 hours till everything settled down. Same thing with the fish.

Another tip was I grabbed a long rubbermaid tub that was shallow, maybe 12 inches. I was able to spread out all my corals so when I was ready to aquascape I could see all my coral and didn't have to dig them out of a bucket. It was like they were in an LFS on display-just pick what I wanted and glue it in!

Thanks,
JIM

 

[vitodog]

Jim, thanks for answering my questions. Knowing how you performed your transfer will make mine that much easier. And, great tip about how you spread out your corals/rocks for your new aquascape.

 

[jlnielsen13]

Jim, thanks for answering my questions. Knowing how you performed your transfer will make mine that much easier. And, great tip about how you spread out your corals/rocks for your new aquascape.

No prob,

Yeah, get that tub now because I think it is for xmas decorations- around 5 feet long and only 12inches deep. Really work well!

Thanks,
JIM

 

[jlnielsen13]

Heres an updated pic with some new corals and I played around with the settings on my slr - looks more like it does in person!

Everythings doing well and no parameter flux from the move.

Thanks,
JIM

 

[Squidward5]

Love the Clams

 

[james30ct]

Tank looks great. Do you have to dose anything?

 

[jlnielsen13]

Tank looks great. Do you have to dose anything?

Yes,

I dose BRS 2 part ALK and CALCIUM. They are both on the dosing pumps from BRS as well. I just picked up their bigger pump for ATO that I want to hook up this weekend.

Thanks,

 

[JaYbIrD1969]

Beautiful! Love the clams and clowns

 

[arc eye]

Very nice!

Would you mind taking a picture of the whole setup? I am thinking about ordering a DSA 110g or 140g, but can't decide if I want the extra height. I think you are the only person on here with their model 140!

Thanks!