jscarlata
New member
Well, by accident i am. Joining the big tank club...I had a 46g bow front running for several months, everything was thriving, all my lps were growing quick, and i had a few sps "test" frags that were doing very well...all my fish were/are super...then the tank went and cracked on me overnight on july 3rd..fortunately the tank was in my basement and the water went down the floor drain...damn shame....onto bigger and better though!
A good friend has a 150 that he won't ever setup again, so he is donating it and his diy stand to my cause...after all, every single life form in my dead tank survived and is crammed into a 10g tank...all my rock and sand are in various buckets with circulation and heat control. I lucked out with the livestock, everything is doing fine but the sps frags are browning on me, all the lps and fish are fine, i do water changes every couple days and test daily.
The 150 is supposed to be moved here this week and will undergo a few days of leak testing while i prepare the floor for the stand. Due to the floordrain, i need to pour a short concrete pad to level the floor for the stand. Luckily for me i have a friend in the architectural concrete biz, so he is going to help me build the form.
I did my plan today after brewing on it and talking to some pro aquarium maintenance guys and other reefers in my area.
I used melevs reef to decide on a sump layout that works for my tank and how i wanted the plumbing to be, i like simple straight runs with as few bends as possible. So here goes, please keep in mind, time is of the essence, as well as keeping my marriage, so i do not have the funds for exotic gear right now.
Sump will likely be diy from a 30g and will be laid out skimmer-return-fuge. This layout works for two reasons, i will use a single eshopps or lifereef overflow at 600-800gph for the left side of the tank feeding the skimmer section. The right side of the tank i will use my existing overflow which is smaller than the life reef or eshopps, it will feed the fuge, and both sections of the sump will flow to the return, which will go straight up the center of the tank and split with two loclines. Return pump will prob be a mag 18 with some t's for reactors and a drain line to my house sump for weekly small water changes. Flow will be managed by some tunze streams, i have 2 nano6055's and will either buy 2 more or wait till sept for the 6095's to come out.
Skimmer is a Bermuda aquatics bps-3c with either a mag 7 or 9.5 Control will be a Neptune acjr, and a new tunze 7096. All of this gear I have already.
Ato will be handled by a new tunze osmolator that i recently added to my now broken 46, and ill keep 10g of fresh RO in the stand. I have a filter guys 5 stage RODI and im going to setup an auto top off to keep the ato reservoir filled, but that will follow at some point.
Lights are still being sourced, for the early stages I'll use my existing 36" fixture with a single 250mh and 2 96wpc's, but im looking for used fixtures to either supplement it, mh pendants or a 2nd 36" combo, or replace it with a 72" fixture.
I have 50lbs of live Marco rock from the 46, and about 40-50lbs of live sand, I'm going to supplement with an additional purchase of rock and sand to bring the lbs closer to 100-150 of rock and enough sand for 1.5-2" sandbed, not sure if it will be dry Marco or sourced live locally from fellow long islanders.
Well, that's my plan for now...I'll be taking pics along the way so hopefully if all goes well, in a few weeks the tank will be running although it will be so sparsely stocked I may not even see my fish! I have a pair of mocha occelaris, a pair of royal grammar, a starry blenny, orange spot goby and striped pistol shrimp, along with some peppermint shrimp and large cleaner shrimp.
Corals are a beautiful purple tipped elegance, green bubble, pink tipped torch, galaxia, duncans, ricordia rock, marshal island bottle brush, and 2 other sps frags...
A good friend has a 150 that he won't ever setup again, so he is donating it and his diy stand to my cause...after all, every single life form in my dead tank survived and is crammed into a 10g tank...all my rock and sand are in various buckets with circulation and heat control. I lucked out with the livestock, everything is doing fine but the sps frags are browning on me, all the lps and fish are fine, i do water changes every couple days and test daily.
The 150 is supposed to be moved here this week and will undergo a few days of leak testing while i prepare the floor for the stand. Due to the floordrain, i need to pour a short concrete pad to level the floor for the stand. Luckily for me i have a friend in the architectural concrete biz, so he is going to help me build the form.
I did my plan today after brewing on it and talking to some pro aquarium maintenance guys and other reefers in my area.
I used melevs reef to decide on a sump layout that works for my tank and how i wanted the plumbing to be, i like simple straight runs with as few bends as possible. So here goes, please keep in mind, time is of the essence, as well as keeping my marriage, so i do not have the funds for exotic gear right now.
Sump will likely be diy from a 30g and will be laid out skimmer-return-fuge. This layout works for two reasons, i will use a single eshopps or lifereef overflow at 600-800gph for the left side of the tank feeding the skimmer section. The right side of the tank i will use my existing overflow which is smaller than the life reef or eshopps, it will feed the fuge, and both sections of the sump will flow to the return, which will go straight up the center of the tank and split with two loclines. Return pump will prob be a mag 18 with some t's for reactors and a drain line to my house sump for weekly small water changes. Flow will be managed by some tunze streams, i have 2 nano6055's and will either buy 2 more or wait till sept for the 6095's to come out.
Skimmer is a Bermuda aquatics bps-3c with either a mag 7 or 9.5 Control will be a Neptune acjr, and a new tunze 7096. All of this gear I have already.
Ato will be handled by a new tunze osmolator that i recently added to my now broken 46, and ill keep 10g of fresh RO in the stand. I have a filter guys 5 stage RODI and im going to setup an auto top off to keep the ato reservoir filled, but that will follow at some point.
Lights are still being sourced, for the early stages I'll use my existing 36" fixture with a single 250mh and 2 96wpc's, but im looking for used fixtures to either supplement it, mh pendants or a 2nd 36" combo, or replace it with a 72" fixture.
I have 50lbs of live Marco rock from the 46, and about 40-50lbs of live sand, I'm going to supplement with an additional purchase of rock and sand to bring the lbs closer to 100-150 of rock and enough sand for 1.5-2" sandbed, not sure if it will be dry Marco or sourced live locally from fellow long islanders.
Well, that's my plan for now...I'll be taking pics along the way so hopefully if all goes well, in a few weeks the tank will be running although it will be so sparsely stocked I may not even see my fish! I have a pair of mocha occelaris, a pair of royal grammar, a starry blenny, orange spot goby and striped pistol shrimp, along with some peppermint shrimp and large cleaner shrimp.
Corals are a beautiful purple tipped elegance, green bubble, pink tipped torch, galaxia, duncans, ricordia rock, marshal island bottle brush, and 2 other sps frags...
