My 57g Rimless

[mlivvy]

I share alot of pics with friends via text so I figured i'll upload them here and share with all of you since the forum has been taking a wrong turn lately.

These are all iphone pics so the quality isn't great.

I purchased the tank from a member here a few months ago.

The good part of buying a used tank is getting it cheaper. The bad part is cleaning it up. :lol:

I built the stand myself and drove around 1 weekend and scored a piece of marble.

Gave the tank a good scrub + vinegar bath. Mounted the lights. (chinese d120) and worked on plumbing + sump area.

Added sand, LR, water and began my cycle.

After a cycling I added a few new fish.

After running for about a month it was time to shop for a skimmer. I decided on a cone style skimmer and I picked up an SWC 160 from g8rorchid.

It's an awesome skimmer!

 

[mlivvy]

Well, then I ran into a problem. I had really high phosphates and algae was growing out of control. My RO/DI's tds is 0. I was running seagel. I have an oversized skimmer. I couldn't figure it out. But I did notice that most of the algae was growing from the sand. When I was building the tank an LFS warned me about using corapet and that they had some customers complain of phosphate problems including themselves. I decided to take the sand out slowly and the algae is in better control now and phosphates are down. I'm about 75% done with removing the corapet sand.

On a bad day..

So the next task was buying frags/corals and a few fish. But, I noticed something when I began adding corals. The single d120 fixture was leaving my 2 corners dark. The light is supposed to cover a 2 foot tank but for some reason I thought the deep blue 57g was a 2 foot tank. Well turns out that i'm not getting a good coverage so I decided on a new LED.

I went with the Nova R4 from evergrow with a custom layout. I couldn't find alot of info on it since not alot of people had the light.

And now I get much better coverage and the most recent pic.

It's still work in progress. I'll have more details and better pics soon. Thanks for looking.

 

[yankee22]

Wow man very nice

 

[Jgoal55]

looks great! Sorry about the corapet! To be honest, I haven't had any phosphate issues with mine so far.

Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[angelfish boy]

Very nice! Following this one!

 

[rovster]

Damn, everyone here as some awesome rocks, LOL! LOVE the scape....been saying that a lot lately

 

[Endy0430]

Looking good man....

 

[SaltyReefs]

Rimless tank are always so sweet looking.

 

[silver17jo]

Nice man looks good

 

[mlivvy]

looks great! Sorry about the corapet! To be honest, I haven't had any phosphate issues with mine so far.

Looking forward to seeing more.

I had corapet in my last tank for 3 years with 0 issues and 0 phosphates. No idea what happened here.

I'll have more pics up later this evening.

 

[Diesel3443]

Love the aquascape!

 

[SaltandLight]

Nice tank! The stone top on the stand looks awesome.

 

[Watchman86]

The tank looks awesome! I really like the piece of marble under the tank.

 

[Stylo328]

Aquascape looks awesome. Very unique

 

[mlivvy]

Thanks for the compliments.

I'm still fighting brown algae growing on the sand. I got rid of most of the sand to the right but still need to clean out the left.

The rock to the left I plan to turn into a little zoa garden. I've added a few frags already and i'm still hunting for more. Gotta go visit el porko. :beer:

Ora Leather

I tied a mangrove to the overflow standpipe temporarily while I built the sump and then I liked it being there so I left him.

Nova Leds. So far so good.

Dimmed down a bit.

 

[Jgoal55]

great shots.....looking real nice.

btw, did you ever find more info on the corapet sand releasing phosphates? I looked around but didn't find much at all???

 

[mlivvy]

great shots.....looking real nice.

btw, did you ever find more info on the corapet sand releasing phosphates? I looked around but didn't find much at all???

There is no documented info, just what the lfs claims. Its weird also because if you call around noone is selling corapet sand. I have no proof that the sand is leeching phos. But, if you look in the tank, the algae is building up from the sand. The rocks and everything else is algae free. Ive checked every other source to pinpoint where the phos is coming from and I cant find it. Tds is 0 on the ro and I soak then drain when I feed only once a day in smaller amounts. Unless there is phos in the nsw im purchasing. :hmm2:

Last I checked it was at 7ppm down from 13 using seagel. I took out the seagel (since the phosguard in seagel is probably exhausted from such high phos) and I ordered rowaphos.

 

[Joshporksandwic]

Looks awesome!

 

[Deep Reef]

Great looking tank nice work

 

[mlivvy]

Looks awesome!

Great looking tank nice work

thanks! :thumbsup: