MikeTR's 180g mixed reef adventure

[MikeTR]

A reef is born, 9 months old today. What an adventure it's been up till now, but that's a story for another time. Enjoy my little piece of the ocean.

180G Mixed Reef

Stocking List:
Bellus angel
Sailfin Tang
Yellow Tang x 2
Naso Tang
Yelllow belly Regal Tang
Chromis x 3
Flame wrasse pair
Lubbocks wrasse
Coris wrasse
Clownfish pair
Royal Gramma
Sand sifting goby

Equipment:
Reeflo dart hybrid
Vortech MP40 x 2
Apex controller w/PM1, WXM, & LSM modules
Reef Octopus SRO3000-ext skimmer
Tradewinds 1/3hp Chiller
NextReef Mr1 Reactors (Carbon, PO4)

Lighting:
3 x 150w Phoenix run at 175w
Lumenbright Reflectors
Lumatek select a watt ballasts.

Current Params:
Alk: 8
Calc: 420
NO3: 10
PO4: .07
pH: 8.25
Temp: 78.5-79.4

Here's a little bit of the behind the scenes.

Meet some of the family:

 

[MikeTR]

 

[MikeTR]

My behind the scenes tour needs some work.. those pics don't show the reactors plumbed in or the permanent stand I built for the skimmer.

 

[Joe0813]

system looks really good.... Im by no means the tang cops, but how are all those tangs doing in your tank? yellows can kind of be meaaan

 

[MikeTR]

The two yellows give chase to each other once in a while but rarely do I see any fin damage and they aren't aggressive to the others. I bought all but the naso from the same teardown so someone else did all the work ahead of time of finding tankmates that get along.

 

[Joe0813]

i hope my fish when i finish my upgrades get along :/

 

[MikeTR]

i hope my fish when i finish my upgrades get along :/

I did have to remove a candy hogfish that was fine with the original bunch, though he was cornering some of the wrasses I added after him so he had to go.

 

[MikeTR]

So here's how the adventure begins.. After shutting down my aquaculture business, I wanted to set up just a large reef at home. I had been scouring craigslist for a few months for a tank, looking for anything in the 125g to 250g range. I passed up countless tanks, holding to a pretty strict set of standards. Stand needs to be furniture quality, scratchless or (nearly), and well... affordable. Maybe this is why it took me a while to find the right one. So I see a 180g finally come up f/s in miami a few hours away worthy of checking out. Supposedly it's in good condition and only "minor" scratches. Well, somehow the scratches grew on the ride over . The whole front has some pretty good sized gouges in it, so needless to say I come home empty handed. The following week one of the best tanks in our local forum goes up for sale, but the seller ended up changing his mind and the deal falls through. Delayed another month, I continue looking and expand my search to 250 miles and beyond as I'm really getting pressured from my wife to get the 75g commercial grade gurgling beast of a frag tank out of my breakfast area..(dont ask I don't wanna go there!) But at last, I see the holy grail. Perfect condition, no scratches, stand is professionally built, lots of clean live rock, sand, sump, and some equipment.. $1500. Only problem, the tank is located 6 hours away from me. Sure, just what I want to do on a weekend, take a long drive, spend several hours breaking down a large fish tank, and then haul it back. Anyhow, the seller mentioned getting some low ball offers but I didn't bother haggling. I know the tank as it sat was worth twice as much. Not to mention all the live rock and sand included in the deal. So after a few rounds of emails and pics, I agree to buy and head up the following weekend with trailer in tow in the wee hours of the morning. I think I left about 4am for a 10am arrival. Took quite a bit of time to break down the tank and had some time constraints due to the seller having to leave in the middle of the afternoon.. but after about 5 hours we were all loaded up and ready to head home. Fortunately the tank didn't have much livestock as I didn't want to have to set it back up after a 17hour journey. I ended up just trading in the few fish I didn't want and put the rest in my frag tank. The rock ends up cooking in a couple brute containers in the garage.

Fast forward a few weeks and I have a friend stop by while I'm cleaning out the tank and offers to help. He had a tank at one point so I took him up on the offer. He ends up chewing the silicone up real bad. :mad2: so bad in some spots that I decide to redo the secondary seal.

I'd like to forget that it took several hours over the course of several days to scrape it all off. Just when you think you got it all off, you break out a shiny sharp new razorblade and scrape even more. I had someone from our local marine society who owned a glass business come over and put some nice clean lines back on it for me and now I was able to move it into the house.

So the next task was to install the utility sink in the garage so I'd have a place to clean tank equipment and a location for my RO/DI unit and mixing station. The plumbing for the drain line was pre-existing, but the prior owner of the house had removed the sink.

Stud finders.

I had a cabinet that was left in the garage without a piece of countertop so I gutted the drawers and just nailed the face back on. Had to make a minor cut in the back to make room for the faucet but otherwise a perfect fit. With some help from my father in law I was able to get it completed in a weekend.

 

[MikeTR]

Next up was a bunch of plumbing and getting all the equipment connected. I took my time on this and over the course of a couple months was able to get it completed. I really had only the weekends to work on it and there's only so much time you can spend on it before you get the evil eye from your wife.

As the build progresses, I made a box for my chiller out of a Rubbermaid deck box. The tank sits on an outside wall so after overcoming the wife acceptance factor, I drilled a hole in the wall to the outside to fit a 3" piece of pvc. The pipe extends into the deck box and allows me to run the chiller lines and electric while keeping moisture out. I have a 12" x 12" outdoor intake vent on one side and I made an exhaust duct out of galvanized steel that connects right to the chiller to exhaust the hot air right out. Originally I used too small of a vent which caused problems initially. The box sits on pavers which rest on a base of buried cinderblocks.

And at last it was filled. I didn't yet have my RO unit hooked up but I didn't want to delay the cycling process any longer. I already had several more business trips planned so no time to delay.

And my first attempt at the aquascape. It stayed this way for about a month and then I read the thread on how to build an amazing aquascape and you can see from the first couple photos the result was a major improvement.

More to follow...

 

[Mark...]

I always love the wife comments on these threads...lol

Nice work...looking forward to more of your build...

 

[MikeTR]

9 month video update

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5R19olZikgc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Mark...]

I think the yellow tang was posing...looks great!

 

[s_kelley]

I really like your aquascape nice job!

 

[MikeTR]

I think the yellow tang was posing...looks great!

Thanks.. first vid someone bombed the tank with poo.

I really like your aquascape nice job!

Me too. I love it. This is the first tank I've ever had where after getting the aquascape right I haven't touched it. Ok ok, so maybe added a piece or two here and there, but overall I don't plan on touching it from here on out.

 

[MikeTR]

 

[MikeTR]

Nice view from the couch.

 

[MikeTR]

12 weeks with this beauty.. critical milestone.

 

[MikeTR]

 

[dave.m]

Really nice clam. Congrats and best wishes for your continued success with it.

Dave.M

 

[brizhound]

Nice Mike, how is the pump working out in the stand? I had my reeflo hammerhead in my stand and it made a nice acoustic hum that drove my wife crazy so I had to put it outside just like you did with your chiller. I almost have the same storage container. I like the setup.