Neil's - 34 Gallon Solana Build

[wastememphis]

My name is Neil and this is my 34 Gallon Solana build thread:

I've been in the hobby since 2003 and this will be my 4th attempt at a reef tank.

• 29 gallon, taken down in 2004
• 65 gallon, taken down in 2007
• 90 gallon, taken down in late 208

All of the tanks have been pretty successful with considering multiple newbie mistakes and poor equipment/livestock choices. I have since graduated college and bought my own house so its time to reset up a reef tank!

I'm downgrading to a 34 gallon to showcase corals and probably some clown fish. The goal of this tank is to be colorful and to house some LPS/Ricordea. This tank is going to be my first time dealing with a lot of electronic controlling devices and I look forward to keeping a more stable system than I have been able to in the past!

Tank: Current USA - 34 Gallon Solana (Rimless) â€"œ 20” x 20” x 20”
Stand: Current USA â€"œ Modern Espresso
Day Time Lighting: Current USA (T5) Nova Extreme Pro 20” (3 Bulbs @ 10k, 3 Bulbs @ 460nm)
Moon Light: Current USA PowerBrite 460nm Atinic
Skimmer: Stock
Return Pump: Stock
Heater â€"œ Ebo Jager 150watt
Controller â€"œ Neptune Systems Aqua Controller Jr with DC8, Temperature Probe, Lab Grade PH Probe
Top Off â€"œ Tunze Osmolator
RO/DI and Chiller - To Be Determined

 

[wastememphis]

Here are some shots from the start and up to the most recent status of the tank:

Building Stand (Modeling with our 1 yr old Pug â€"œLady):

Tank in Position:

Tank with Powerbrite:

Side View:

Nova Extreme Pro:

Aqua Controller Jr.:

 

[wastememphis]

Leak Test:

Possible Position of Tunze Osmolator:

So far that’s all I have to show to date. I’m currently heating the water up to test if the heater is powerful enough and messing with the Aqua Controller and figuring out how to mount the Tunze top off sensors (any ideas?). I’m going to be putting in a GFCI tomorrow as well as starting a special project to be displayed at a later date.

Feed back/Insults/Ideas welcome!

Neil

 

[wastememphis]

No interest??

 

[Jadams]

Looks like a very good start to me! Cant wait to see it stocked!

Good job! :thumbsup:

 

[PapaGov]

Cool post. Keep up the good work! I just got an EcoCube (25g Solana basically) so I will be following along. I like that you are using the Osmolator. I think I may get one of those for my tank with a 5g RO water tank.

Sorry, no great wisdom since I am new at this.

 

[Nerdy Nudi]

nothin new?

 

[wastememphis]

Still waiting for two pieces of equipment to come in before I can finish making my "project"... one of which is the Vortech MP10... can't start assembling the inside of the tank until that is in place. Hopefully I'll have a little progress pictures without that next week. I have to mount the controllers in the stand but I'd like to have the vortech when I'm doing that so they'll all be level.

 

[kylehca]

awesome, tagging along for the ride

 

[robot2222]

looking good.........................................

 

[commabc]

nice start. i also have the 34g solana with the nova extreme pro. after a couple of months i decided i didn't like the look of color the lights were putting off so i replaced one of the 10k bulbs with another 14k bulb so i'm running 4 and 2, and its a much better look in my opinion.

what kind of rock are you using? any plans for aquascaping?

sand, barebottom?

 

[kovuu86]

looking good so far! lots of nice equipment in there.

 

[wastememphis]

Thanks guys,

I'm going to have some sand on the bottom. For rockwork, that was my "secret project". I'm going to build a rock wall and put the Vortech MP10 on the back wall. Hopefully I'll be able to be creative with rock work so the vortech doesn't take away from the clean look of the tank.

I cut out a pattern for the back wall and partial floor out of egg crate. I still have to go to an LFS and buy some rock to attach too. I haven't figured out what kind of epoxy to use to cover the foam yet for my rockwall. I'm going to start attaching some rocks I have to the eggcrate soon but I really need the MP10 to come out so I know exactly where to leave a space for it.

 

[commabc]

i had a rockwall in mine also, i just took it out last weekend and re aquascaped. i had 3 koralia tucked into the wall s0 they could not be seen.

 

[wastememphis]

VERY NICE ERIK! Any side shots of the tank to see the depth of the rockwork... that looks great. Did you go with another rockwall when rescaping?

 

[commabc]

sorry no side shots. i didn't do a rock wall this time. but stuck with the man made rock.

 

[commabc]

i took all corals out except for the zoas and 3 or 4 sps frags. i'm going to add a couple more pieces of sps to the new look, leave it alone and just let it grow.

 

[vresor]

Hey Erik, why did you take out the rock wall? It looked so nice.

 

[wastememphis]

UPDATE:

Vortech MP10 has shipped and I should be getting it in a few days. Once it arives I'll post some pictures of it working on a 10gallon tank just to test it out. I can then start building my rockwall structure and try to hide the pump.

Question:
My returnpump for the solana doesn't seem to work, I've never used it yet but when I did the leak test the pump wouldn't start. I was thinking of just replacing it with an eheim or something similar. Any recomendations? I might want to do a "T" off the new pump, if I buy one, and run it to a chiller (if one is needed).

 

[wastememphis]