TrojanScott
Active member
Hi all,
Well, last weekend was hell. Man talk about tired, sore, and beat. My 13 year old 180 gallon reef is no more. I'd let it slip a bit over time, not into it much. I'd posted about maybe leaving the hobby, or going FOWLR. Well, all it took was a great deal on a 300 gallon tank, and now I'm way back like a complete fool.
The new tank is glass, 8 feet long, 30 inches deep, 2 feet high. The stand is gorgeous. The guy who had this tank prior to me sure put in the time and did an excellent job. I'm figuring some people may know the guy or recognize it, but I'm not sure if he was a poster here or not. I never met him, another person helped broker the deal and helped me with the move and set up.
I've attached a few pics of the tear down, not much to see really, and the new tank. They're similar in color, almost identical, which I really wanted as to match my cherry wood flooring. On a side note, I gouged the heck out of the floor moving the old stand. A screw got caught somehow as we were moving it, and man did it cause some damage. I already got a quote to sand and fix, probably another $500 I didn't need to spend. How I convinced the wife this was a great idea, I'll never know.
Gone are the metal halides. 4 AI 52's over the tank. They're the older models, 3 years old, but they run perfectly. It took me a couple hours of research to set it up, had to call AI to get the guy's email removed from the account so I could call it my own. Kudos to AI, their service was fantastic. I must've talked to three different reps in an hour with phone calls, and all were very kind and helpful. Me being a caveman and plugging in halides for years, this was a new deal for me. So far, pretty nifty. Next tackle will be the Apex system it came with, which I've never used. I haven't set it up yet. I was using a reefkeeper for years, it served me well, but was starting to crap out a bit.
A buddy of mine plumbed it. I'll post pics of the inside of the stand later. It's really well done. There's a tiny leak on one of the bulkheads. It drips right into the sump, so no emergency just yet. Hoping it seals on its own over the next few days. If not, we'll have to drain one of the overflow boxes and redo that bulkhead. Not a major deal.
I started with new sand. Man, taking out 13 year old sand in an old tank isn't for the faint of heart. Stunk to high heaven. I transferred nearly all the old water into the new tank, along with near 180 gallons of new salt water I made. Because this all happened over a weekend, it was a quick transfer. I don't have a bunch of fish, (that will change soon) but the ones I have now are all thriving in the new tank. Water parameters are pretty good. No nitrite or ammonia, 20 ppm nitrates, not too bad. Phosphates are very low. My 13 year old blue tang played dead as I scooped him out of the holding tank, but flipped me off as he went into the new tank and swam away. I think he could survive in a toilet. Even my leopard wrasse, which was the one fish I worried about, is doing great.
Aquascaping will be a month long project, a section at a time. For now, all the rock, (including a good 100 lbs more I was cycling the last month) just got thrown in.
I think that about covers it. Again, I'll add a few pics more later with pics inside the sump.
Thanks for reading.
Well, last weekend was hell. Man talk about tired, sore, and beat. My 13 year old 180 gallon reef is no more. I'd let it slip a bit over time, not into it much. I'd posted about maybe leaving the hobby, or going FOWLR. Well, all it took was a great deal on a 300 gallon tank, and now I'm way back like a complete fool.
The new tank is glass, 8 feet long, 30 inches deep, 2 feet high. The stand is gorgeous. The guy who had this tank prior to me sure put in the time and did an excellent job. I'm figuring some people may know the guy or recognize it, but I'm not sure if he was a poster here or not. I never met him, another person helped broker the deal and helped me with the move and set up.
I've attached a few pics of the tear down, not much to see really, and the new tank. They're similar in color, almost identical, which I really wanted as to match my cherry wood flooring. On a side note, I gouged the heck out of the floor moving the old stand. A screw got caught somehow as we were moving it, and man did it cause some damage. I already got a quote to sand and fix, probably another $500 I didn't need to spend. How I convinced the wife this was a great idea, I'll never know.
Gone are the metal halides. 4 AI 52's over the tank. They're the older models, 3 years old, but they run perfectly. It took me a couple hours of research to set it up, had to call AI to get the guy's email removed from the account so I could call it my own. Kudos to AI, their service was fantastic. I must've talked to three different reps in an hour with phone calls, and all were very kind and helpful. Me being a caveman and plugging in halides for years, this was a new deal for me. So far, pretty nifty. Next tackle will be the Apex system it came with, which I've never used. I haven't set it up yet. I was using a reefkeeper for years, it served me well, but was starting to crap out a bit.
A buddy of mine plumbed it. I'll post pics of the inside of the stand later. It's really well done. There's a tiny leak on one of the bulkheads. It drips right into the sump, so no emergency just yet. Hoping it seals on its own over the next few days. If not, we'll have to drain one of the overflow boxes and redo that bulkhead. Not a major deal.
I started with new sand. Man, taking out 13 year old sand in an old tank isn't for the faint of heart. Stunk to high heaven. I transferred nearly all the old water into the new tank, along with near 180 gallons of new salt water I made. Because this all happened over a weekend, it was a quick transfer. I don't have a bunch of fish, (that will change soon) but the ones I have now are all thriving in the new tank. Water parameters are pretty good. No nitrite or ammonia, 20 ppm nitrates, not too bad. Phosphates are very low. My 13 year old blue tang played dead as I scooped him out of the holding tank, but flipped me off as he went into the new tank and swam away. I think he could survive in a toilet. Even my leopard wrasse, which was the one fish I worried about, is doing great.
Aquascaping will be a month long project, a section at a time. For now, all the rock, (including a good 100 lbs more I was cycling the last month) just got thrown in.
I think that about covers it. Again, I'll add a few pics more later with pics inside the sump.
Thanks for reading.
congrats on a great deal
