My first reef, 75g w/ 45g sump

[Molli]

I will keep a very close eye. I'm still paranoid about the whole setup, even though it's been running with water in it for a week now and no mishaps.

With the appropriate amount of live rock, what kind of bio-load do you think I'm running with that list? medium or heavy? Do you guys think I might add another small fish in the future, after the mandarin. Of course, this would be like a year from now or so, I might be able to answer my own question by then. lol

Thanks for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it!

 

[tntdsol]

This is just MHO but I think that is a fairly light Bio-load for that size setup. The majority of your fish are smaller and do not get large. The fairy wrasse is your largest fish. Most might try and steer you away from the mandarin because they are extremely difficult to keep. As long as you keep the other fish small I do not see a problem with getting another. Since you did not mention coral you might want to look at a dwarf angel. They are all really pretty and stay fairly small. I am a huge fan of coral beauty and red striped.

 

[Molli]

If I were going to get an angel, it would be a coral beauty. I think they're gorgeous. Unfortunately (for the angel) I do intend to keep coral, starting with some zoas. So no coral beauty for me

Thanks for the input!

 

[tntdsol]

What type of lights are you running? ..... Don't give up on angel so easy. Some might nip at corals but not all do. I have a red stripe angel that is a model citizen. That isnt to say tomorrow or a year from now she wont, I am just saying at this point she doesnt....I also feed her 3 times a day.

 

[Molli]

lights will be 4 t5ho 54w bulbs.

I'd rather not get a fish with the potential to eat the things I want to keep. I have read that for some people they never eat any coral, but then again, for some they do. I don't want to have to catch it later if I find out it does. Easier to just avoid it all together.

 

[Molli]

One of the things that drew me in to the whole saltwater world was the idea that you could put some rocks in and then watch cool things (or not so cool things :ahhhhh: ) grow out of them. After starting my research however, I realized there is more than one shcool of thought on live rock. One, that you start with dead rock and seed it with super pest free rock from a reliable source. Two, that you start with rock that came from the ocean somewhere, shipped directly to you with minimal die off. Three, you can start will all of either one of those choices, or any mix in between I suppose. Two weeks ago I chose option 2 Now you can all tell me how foolish I am, but I'm really going to enjoy watching my rock during the cycle, and long after.

When I ordered my rock, it was out of stock. I also entered the wrong address on my paypal. Postal service doesn't deliver to our house up here on the mountain, only our PO box. Freaked out, and not knowing the rock I ordered was out of stock anyway, I called the company to give them the right address. The guy was very calm, and sorted everything out for me, and told me it would ship in a week, because they had to go get more. My rock shipped on Tuesday night. I know this because I got to track it. Thursday night my nifty tracker told me my rock was sitting in The city of industry, an hour away. :angry: It moved about half an hour to the sorting facility at San Bernardino around midnight, and then sat there. It finally made it up the mountain at 11am this morning! My lovely neighbor took me to get it, since husband has my car because of the snow. Can't ride a motorcycle in ice and snow ya know. Getting my hands on the box was very exciting. But you all know by now how excited I get over anything.. so anyway. :a15:

THE BOX!

Nosey cat.

Inside the box!

Heat packs. It was nice and warm inside. And not too bad of a smell either.

At this point I got really excited, and almost forgot to take any more pictures. But of course I did.

I pulled most of the halimeda off. I didn't look too good anyway. I expect it to make an appearance later. There was one tiny dead crab. I sniff tested him to make sure he was dead. Yup, definitely dead.

And a few of it in the tank! At last!

I also filled up my QT, but I didn't take any pictures of that. Not that interesting

 

[shifty51008]

have you tried a power outage test yet? it looks like your return pipe goes far into the tank and I didn't see a syphon break anywhere. without a syphon break you will have alot of water going to your sump.

 

[Molli]

Yes, many unpluggings of the pump. The siphon hole is drilled on the left side of the return, about 1/2" under the water.
It's a detail I totally forgot while doing the plumbing, but quickly remembered the first time I unplugged the pump. There was a moment of panic before I remembered there is a ball valve on the return line. After I got that shut, I drilled the hole. The sump was a hair from overflowing by the time I got the valve shut. haha!

 

[shifty51008]

glad you found out that problem now rather than when you wern't home. lol

tank is looking good though keep it up, love all the pics.

 

[torino06]

could you tell me the dimensions of your internal box for the overflow? do you regret not using an external box?

 

[Molli]

The dimensions are 4" wide, 5" deep. I don't regret not using an external, but then again today is my first time putting in live rock even. Not sure what I have to regret yet!

My hands are small, so they fit in the box just fine for whatever I'll need to do. Chase down a fish, scrub algae, I don't know. lol

 

[torino06]

5" deep meaning height correct?
im setting mine up and was thinking originally to do an external box to maximize space, but looking at it now im not sure it i will save all that much....

 

[Molli]

yes, 5 deep is height. I pretty much copied the beananimal design, whole thing. That's why I went internal, because his was internal. Because I know practically nothing about the hobby atm, and I'd rather the nitty gritties be fool proof than worry about losing a few inches of room in the back of the tank.

 

[Molli]

The beginning of the upgrade (expansion?). The building of the stand! I let Johnny build this how he wanted as he seemed to have a plan. Also, I think he likes to overbuild things.

Yay, 4x4's!

Each corner is held together by a giant screw, but the cross pieces are held in place by these:

An assembled cross piece.

Finished product, not yet leveled. Our floor slopes away from the wall, because the first floor joist after the wall is actually lower then the wall studs. Weird. It's not a bowing issue, it was like that before we put any furniture in the house at all.

And now the under the house stuff. I measured the floor joists, they're actually 2x8.5 does this mean they're 2x8's or 2x10's? lol

This is the added support we did.

Good?

 

[Molli]

Things slowed down a bit on the expansion recently as my husband painfully twisted his ankle while luring a skunk (turned out to be 2 skunks) out from under our house. I needed him to cut me a piece of plywood to help level the sump, as curiously the upper tank on the top of the stand was level, but the spot where the sump sits wasn't.

Anyway, he was finally able to hobble down the steps (two flights) with me to the under the house workshop/storage area where the saw is to cut the plywood and some 2x4's for attaching the whole stand to the wall for extra stability.
I've drilled the return hole and another extra hole at the top of the sump for a husband mandated 'emergency overflow' that will be plumbed to a drain under the house. I resisted the extra hole at first, (more work, another drill bit, another bulkhead, more plumbing) but of course he is right, it would be a ton of water on the floor if something went wrong somehow.

So, the display refugium is filling, it will be a few days before I can get it and the sump full enough to add salt and heaters.

Then I'll snip the plumbing on the other sump and tank, combine them, run it for a bit to make sure all the salt is dissolved and then I'll open the valve and almost triple my water volume.... so, pray for me or something ok? >.>

I have a few hitch hiker corals that came in with the live rock.. and survived three days in the mail with only wet paper towels for moisture. I'm pretty sure they're all the same coral type. This first one I thought was dead, but I left it alone on the rock cause I thought it was neat. Then I started noticing that parts of it are blushing pink, and small clear tentacles are starting to extend from almost each tip.

Here is another tiny one, follow the top point of the rock down a tad towards the middle. Small grey tentacly thing sticking out of a hard base.

And since I haven't had a non reef pic in a while, my dwarf meyer lemon is blooming.

 

[AFRobert568]

Good start. Why did you upgrade your stand? I have a stand that came with my tank, but I would like to raise the tank to more of an eye level. It looks like that thing isn’t going to go anywhere.

 

[Molli]

I didn't upgrade the stand.. I built another one for another 75g show refugium and 75g sump that I'm going to plumb to the first tank

Ya, the second stand is much taller, because of a misunderstanding between me and my husband. haha!

 

[AFRobert568]

Oh, now I see. I'm intrigued to see what the plans are for this setup.

 

[Molli]

My first fish in quarantine!

Bought my first fish from The Tropical Reef Fish Store.
It's so lovely I've carefully covered all the open spots so it can't jump. After seeing the much more expensive version leap out of a tank and vanish in the store I'm not taking chances. (it did turn up in another tank later)

These fish always look like they're pouting to me. It's the lavender stripe over the eye I think.

 

[BigCountry74]

Great build!

Selling my 75g on CL atm. I will miss it.

Can't afford to run both it and my 135 though. Plus I promised my wife she could have the money for a new kitchen light fixture.....lol