LoJack's 144 Gallon Reef Build

[LoJack]

Well I am done the canopy ... sort of. I need to build the doors, just like with the stand. And it needs to be stained on the outside and painted on the inside (which I intend to do tomorrow)

I didn't take a ton of progression shots ... but here is the canopy as it stands today ...

I'll post pics of stained finished product tomorrow!

 

[Snootch]

LoJack, awesome wood working skills.
What stain did you use on that stand and what technique did you use to apply it?

Subscribed.

 

[LoJack]

Its a water based Red Mahogany stain, applied with a foam sponge, and excess wiped off with a cotton cloth after a few minutes.

The longer you leave it before wiping, the darker the stain will be.

 

[LoJack]

Canopy is DONE!!!!!

I finished the doors today. And put them on.

I can't take a very good photo with it on the tank, because I have a lowered section of ceiling due to the ducting for our furnace that runs along the roof of the basement.

This is the best I can provide.

Pics don't have handles attached yet.

 

[LoJack]

I wanted to test my door making ability on the small doors of the canopy. My next set of days off, I'll tackle the large doors for the front of the base, hopefully the doors turn out as good as they did for the canopy.

 

[LoJack]

Update Time!!!!!


So I was busy as a worker bee on my days off, and made progress by:

1. Finishing my lighting
2. Fixing my emergency standpipe
3. Fixing the plumbing length to remove unnecessary bracing
4. Rebuilt Skimmer stand so more stable
5. Added two snails, two hermits, a toadstool leather and one clown since cycle is complete (and thats what was in my buddies sump that he was willing to give away lol)
6. Drilled hole and re-attached airline for Beananimal overflow failsafe
7. Attached handles to doors
8. Wired up lighting controller for LED's

Picture Time!

Laying out my LED's on the heatsink to make sure I have the whites and blues in alternating order:

Attached with thermal epoxy and set screws (I wish I had more photos of the LED build ... but there is lots of builds online so didn't go crazy with mine)

Testing Whites:

Testing Blues

Driver Wiring (next time I'm buying a fixture ... lol screw the money ... this was extremely overwhelming for a guy with no solder skill, and no wiring experience lol)

I wish I took photos of the canopy on the ground after I finished cleaning up the wiring. It looks so good and clean now with the split loom wrapping it all.
But here are some shots as best I could get from behind of the drivers, the wiring, and the dimming controller for the LED's

 

[LoJack]

I also fixed up the plumbing:

And drilled the hole through the canopy for the 1/4" airline for the beananimal secondary standpipe:

Some shots of the LED units hung in the canopy, about 14" from the waters surface with 60 degree optics

 

[LoJack]

And the finished canopy and tank lit up!

And my first inhabitant

 

[ReefKeeperSR]

Well done, the tank and stand look awesome...Ill be looking forward to updates!

 

[spider86]

Tank and stand are looking really nice. Do you plan to vent the canopy?

 

[LoJack]

Well done, the tank and stand look awesome...Ill be looking forward to updates!

Thanks. I should have another update early this coming week

Tank and stand are looking really nice. Do you plan to vent the canopy?

I didn't initially, but its something I'm starting to think about now.

 

[BWine]

Nice work...looking good!

 

[krzyphsygy]

That is the sickest tank and canopy I have ever seen. I wish I had skills like that. Incredible.

 

[Meercat_Maric]

Nice system! Love the woodwork and patients in putting it together. Im at the same point in my system - cycling the rock and sand currently.

You gonna keep that clown in there while you mature your system through the cycle?

 

[Meercat_Maric]

Nice system! Love the woodwork and patients in putting it together. Im at the same point in my system - cycling the rock and sand currently.

You gonna keep that clown in there while you mature your system through the cycle?

 

[LoJack]

Nice work...looking good!

Thanks

That is the sickest tank and canopy I have ever seen. I wish I had skills like that. Incredible.

Wow, Thanks so much. I love the way it turned out, and the comments and feedback I have received make me extremely proud of the tank that I've built. When I started, I never would have imagined getting a comment like this, on a site that has literally thousands of tanks and canopies posted.

Nice system! Love the woodwork and patients in putting it together. Im at the same point in my system - cycling the rock and sand currently.

You gonna keep that clown in there while you mature your system through the cycle?

The tank had completed its cycle when the clown was added. I just have him in there for something to look at. He was isolated in a buddies sump so I tossed him in. He had another in his overflow he couldn't get at that I'll eventually add to the system. I've also got a pair of black occelatus that were meant for this tank.

So to answer your question ... I will keep the pair of false percs in there ... as long as they don't get bullied by the blacks when they are added.

In the tank I got the false percs from, there are 4 black occelatus and everyone seems to get along ... but if there is any aggression ... the false percs will be gone. I don't care to have the false percs in the tank, but everyone that see's a saltwater tank wants to see "Nemo" so I keep a pair for company mostly lol

 

[LoJack]

Photo Update Time!

Here are some photos with the recently added CUC. I ordered from J & L and had it delivered right to my door in Thompson. This voided their Live Arrival gurantee, because it was priority overnight, and when your in Thompson that means two nights.

It shipped out Monday afternoon from their facility. It showed up on my deck at 3pm on Wednesday ... I figure approximately 50 hours in bags.

Not 1 Single Casualty during shipping

I added:

30 Blue Leg Hermits
20 Nassarius Snails
12 Margarita Snails
12 Cerith Snails
12 Astrea Snails
4 Cleaner Shrimp
2 Fire Shrimp

Best part is they all survived the ride!

So here are some photos of the new inhabitants, plus a few frags I chopped out of my friends tank who purchased my old reef from me, he felt the urge to give back since I was breaking back into things lol.

Cycle is over, nitrates hovering <5PPM ... Chaeto should take care of the remainder.

So, on to the good stuff:

Blue Leg Hermit, Just happy to make it in one piece lol

The original Tubs Blues I had in my last tank ... He gave me back the whole colony, he asked me to bring them back to life since they were doing very poor in his tank, and then cut him a frag once I get the colony up and doing well again:

These are hard to get a good photo right now. I have no coralline in my tank yet and this rock is covered. Its causing my white balance to go bonkers. It looks extremely saturated, that however is the affect of an extremely purple rock, resting and bright white rocks lol

A frag from my original toadstool

A small frag of my green pocillipora. This was a very fast growing SPS in my last tank ... hopefully I can grow another honeydew sized colony from this frag:

Purple and Green Frogspawn:

Left Side of Tank

Right Side of Tank

Full Tank Shot

The canopy is also going to need to come down and I'm going to have to adjust the driver for the string of blue's on the left side of the tank. If you look closely, you can see that the left side of the tank is much bluer in spectrum than the right side. I was be running a slightly higher mA through that driver causing greater intensity.

The way I have the LEDS set up is to be able to control the white and the blue individually to adjust color, but I can't adjust 1 set of blues, on 1 unit. I would then need to decrease the intensity across the entire tank, which would result in the same spectrum difference over the 5 feet.

Hope you enjoy. I have a few new fish on the way ... I will update when they get comfy!!!

Its finally coming together!!

 

[LoJack]

Some photos from today. I had some livestock show up from J&L Aquatics out in BC.

4 Hermits must have found some dead tissue on this new Galaxy Colony:

A close up of the same colony. Polyps partly extended:

One of the scarlet hermits:

Everyone loves a good cleaner shrimp shot lol

A couple of Red Scooter Dragonets:

A bit of a close up: These are tough shots, these guys are like 1.5 inches long and like a centimetre in diameter. So tiny haha

And the pride and joy. We'll find out if he makes it the night. He was so close to dead when I pulled him out of the bag that I didn't even acclimate him. He spent almost an hour in the sand on his side sucking sand. He finally righted himself and went through a few more episodes of near death experience. A few hours later he was swimming around with the Kole tang. Hopefully these aren't the first and only shots I get of him.

 

[griebs18]

Incredible build. I love your attention to detail. Things like painted PVC and the woodwork in the stand are what I love in stuff like this.

Big thumbs up!

 

[LoJack]

Thank you very much! The attention to detail takes a whole lot longer, but I feel like its paid off in the long run haha.