My new 400 gal peninsula tank
- Thread starter Jens Kallmeyer
- Start date
Jens Kallmeyer
New member
Hi there,
Work is killing me at the moment. The last two weekends I built the filter system and the top cover. While doing this I had some second thoughts about the lighting system. The result was that I scrapped all my plans and go for a different design now. The new pieces are ordered, should be there some time next week. Hopefully next weekend I will have all the pieces together and install the lights. Regarding the filtration system, I haven't posted anything about it so far, mainly because it hadn't been built yet. Now that the two tanks are glued and the rack is ready, I will make the final decisions about the interior design of the filter tank.
The main tank is filled with DI water and the ceramics are leaching out the rest of the silicates. THere is a small fluidized bed reactor with Silcate adsorber in the tank at the moment. The manufacturer of the ceramics suggested about two weeks to leach out all the unbound silicate, but I may just let it run a bit longer.
@Flip777: Actually this is my only tank at the moment. We just bought the place and I sold off all my lifestock before moving in. Although I will not cover all the walls of our place with fishtanks (my partner is already covering them with books...) I will set up a few more tanks eventually.
Jens
Work is killing me at the moment. The last two weekends I built the filter system and the top cover. While doing this I had some second thoughts about the lighting system. The result was that I scrapped all my plans and go for a different design now. The new pieces are ordered, should be there some time next week. Hopefully next weekend I will have all the pieces together and install the lights. Regarding the filtration system, I haven't posted anything about it so far, mainly because it hadn't been built yet. Now that the two tanks are glued and the rack is ready, I will make the final decisions about the interior design of the filter tank.
The main tank is filled with DI water and the ceramics are leaching out the rest of the silicates. THere is a small fluidized bed reactor with Silcate adsorber in the tank at the moment. The manufacturer of the ceramics suggested about two weeks to leach out all the unbound silicate, but I may just let it run a bit longer.
@Flip777: Actually this is my only tank at the moment. We just bought the place and I sold off all my lifestock before moving in. Although I will not cover all the walls of our place with fishtanks (my partner is already covering them with books...) I will set up a few more tanks eventually.
Jens
Kenneth M Olsen
New member
looking forward to see more!
Jens Kallmeyer
New member
Hi there,
just a little update, things progress much slower than expected, but that's life when you removate an old house from sratch. My initial plan was (and still is) to put the entire filtration system in the adjacent room. But before I can install anything in there, the room has to be removated and two walls have to be put in, because we want to create one guest room and one "fish room".
Unfortunately I had to fire the construction company and get a new one to finish the job. The one I finally contracted is already fully booked until November but they will squeeze us in sometime in May...
In February and March I had to travel a lot, first Japan then Egypt plus some trips within Germany. Before I went to Japan I filled the tank with saltwater and added about 7 lbs of life rock. For the next two and a half weeks the tank was running just with circulation pumps, silicate adsorber and heater, no light or skimmer. Between the Japan and the Egypt trip I had 53 hours at home, during that time I installed 4x54 W T5 lights (two blue, two white) with the blue lights running for 6 hours and the whites for 4. After my return from Egypt the entire tank was covered with a fine film of diatoms, so I added a good load of snails and hermits plus one sea hare, another 8 lbs of high-quality life rock and 10 lbs of life sand. Within a week the algae were gone. Now was the time to increase the light to 10x54W T5 and add a skimmer. This is where the problems started.....I had to install a filter in the cabinet because I still couldn't do it in the fish room because the room was't built yet. Due to the 35.5" height of the tank I installed a very low stand (23"). Luckily I still had my old sump from the previous tank, but with about 8" less headspace than before and a layout of the pipework that was never designed for a filtersump in the cabinet it was an absolute pain to get everything fitted. Fortunately my partner was gone for a few days when I did the installation, he would surely not have approved with the mess I created during the process....our entire living room was converted into a workshop, there where drops of saltwater and soaked towels everywhere. Eventually it was all done, not perfect but OK for the next month or two until the other room gets done.
The tank is now running with a few soft corals, mushrooms and small orange BTA. Nuisance algae are basically gone. Over the next few weeks I will slowly increase the amount of sessile lifestock, fishes will be added at a later stage. The only exception will be a group of 4 Salarias ramosus, they will move into the tank as soon as my LFS has received the group, right now they only have one an I want to add them all at once. The top cover will be installed in the next few weeks, I just have to order some missing parts and put everything together.
Jens
just a little update, things progress much slower than expected, but that's life when you removate an old house from sratch. My initial plan was (and still is) to put the entire filtration system in the adjacent room. But before I can install anything in there, the room has to be removated and two walls have to be put in, because we want to create one guest room and one "fish room".
Unfortunately I had to fire the construction company and get a new one to finish the job. The one I finally contracted is already fully booked until November but they will squeeze us in sometime in May...
In February and March I had to travel a lot, first Japan then Egypt plus some trips within Germany. Before I went to Japan I filled the tank with saltwater and added about 7 lbs of life rock. For the next two and a half weeks the tank was running just with circulation pumps, silicate adsorber and heater, no light or skimmer. Between the Japan and the Egypt trip I had 53 hours at home, during that time I installed 4x54 W T5 lights (two blue, two white) with the blue lights running for 6 hours and the whites for 4. After my return from Egypt the entire tank was covered with a fine film of diatoms, so I added a good load of snails and hermits plus one sea hare, another 8 lbs of high-quality life rock and 10 lbs of life sand. Within a week the algae were gone. Now was the time to increase the light to 10x54W T5 and add a skimmer. This is where the problems started.....I had to install a filter in the cabinet because I still couldn't do it in the fish room because the room was't built yet. Due to the 35.5" height of the tank I installed a very low stand (23"). Luckily I still had my old sump from the previous tank, but with about 8" less headspace than before and a layout of the pipework that was never designed for a filtersump in the cabinet it was an absolute pain to get everything fitted. Fortunately my partner was gone for a few days when I did the installation, he would surely not have approved with the mess I created during the process....our entire living room was converted into a workshop, there where drops of saltwater and soaked towels everywhere. Eventually it was all done, not perfect but OK for the next month or two until the other room gets done.
The tank is now running with a few soft corals, mushrooms and small orange BTA. Nuisance algae are basically gone. Over the next few weeks I will slowly increase the amount of sessile lifestock, fishes will be added at a later stage. The only exception will be a group of 4 Salarias ramosus, they will move into the tank as soon as my LFS has received the group, right now they only have one an I want to add them all at once. The top cover will be installed in the next few weeks, I just have to order some missing parts and put everything together.
Jens
stunreefer
Reef Hugger
Looks awesome Jens, great job!
I'm absolutely in love with the ceramics on the back wall, I believe it's the best I've seen and makes me want them! :thumbsup:
I'm absolutely in love with the ceramics on the back wall, I believe it's the best I've seen and makes me want them! :thumbsup:
Jens Kallmeyer
New member
I'm afraid you missed an important part, the decoration is over 90% reefceramics. I don't know the weight of the stuff, but it must be around 100 lbs or so. Additional to that, I added about 15 lbs of life rock.
The ceramics were custom made for my tank, three panels for the back wall, one large central reef, plus some branches and small stones. The manufacturer of the ceramics sent it to my work address, so I did not have to stay home and wait for the delivery. However, I had no idea about the size of the shipment. That's my PhD student standing next to the box, he is 6'4
Yesterday I measured the water parameters, it seems that I have to add some little polluters very soon as I have absolutely zero nitrates and phosphates and some of the added corals do not seem to happy about this.
Jens
PS: The manufacturer of the ceramics finally managed to get their website online http://www.korallenwelt.de/Produkte.html , its all in German, but you will get an impression of what is possible.
Jens Kallmeyer
New member
Little update, no new pictures though. After adding a few soft corals and mushrooms I was forced to add a nitrogen source to the tank in order to keep the corals from starvation. After starting to add about 5 m of Fauna Marin Ultramin S per day the corals opened after the second addition. Last night I received a mated pair of yellow tangs from a fellow club member who is tearing down his tank. He also gave me a huge leather coral and some SPS fragments, let's see how they will be doing over the next weeks or so. More corals will be added on Wednesday night, after the club meeting.
Reefclubs are great, when I tore down my last tank all animals found some new good homes, now I get back frags and other stuff.
Jens
Reefclubs are great, when I tore down my last tank all animals found some new good homes, now I get back frags and other stuff.
Jens
KingNeptunesBou
New member
Photograph please 
