Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[jason2459]

The tiger pistol and yellow watchman goby has finally worked their way to the front of the tank and have caves under just about every rock now.

Can't believe I've had the pair for over two years now.

These two aren't together to often.

Crappy FTS but started rearranging the rock a bit

 

[jason2459]

Decided on a Maxima clam. I was thinking about a Dersa but wow up to 24" !! Even if it got close to that it would just about fill up the tank front to back. Maxima getting up to about 12" would look nice. I already have a place for it you can see in the Full tank shot the flat rock in the sand off center to the right a bit between the two islands I'm getting formed. It could fill in nicely there. I will definitely need another reefbrite strip though before I get the maxima.

 

[jason2459]

I got this nice little 1" Hammer frag today

 

[jason2459]

I just might be fililng the tank up all the way tomorrow and watch for any leaks. For some reason I'm just really nervous about that. I did one last thing to "just make sure" the tank will stay where it is.

I have the 180g tank that could end up weighing over 2000lbs with stand, canopy, sand, rock, and water along a outside support wall and the left side is on top of a support wall itself. The biggest issue is the joists run parallel with the tank and they are 16" on center so there are only two joists under the tank and to the right of the tank is about 5' too the next outside support wall.

So, I put a post right under the right of the tank and in the middle of the span.

Before:

After:

If anything this should help prevent sagging after the long run.

 

[jason2459]

Little reference to how big the hammer coral is... where's waldo

the blasto's like their new home. I found they don't like a lot of light or flow

Finally got some decent shots of my goby and tiger pistol. I just love this pair and how they interact. You'll almost always find that the shrimp has an antennae on the fish.

 

[jason2459]

Finally got around to filling the tank.... ran out of water again. So far I have 170G put in and that was enough to fill the main display tank. Only issue is I didn't have enough to start up the sump before the return pump runs dry. I just needed a bit more water. Not much like 10 gallons. I should have it all up and running tonight.

 

[gobuckeyes]

Wow lots of time and work put into this . Nice and Thanks for the thread

 

[jason2459]

Thanks. It will be worth it all. At least I keep telling myself that.

 

[jason2459]

Well, its done. Completely full and sump is in use. There's a couple things I need to tweak out a bit like a bit longer stand pipe in the external overflow for the open channel to raise the water a bit. I also need to take out a baffle in the sump closest to the return pump to give a bit more room for evaporation top off. I will have to take some pictures tomorrow. All the lights are off now.

 

[jason2459]

No leaks so far. Will try and get some pictures tonight.

 

[jason2459]

Some pictures. I took a video and working on making it a smaller size so may have it uploaded tomorrow.

Full tank shot before I started messing with the rock work a bit and taking the heater out.

Have my corals on the left side still. Not as much direct flow there and they seem to like it.

Hammer still looking good. It gets a bit more flow there and doesn't seem to mind.

poor thing keeps getting moved around but starting to come back out now and probably the last place I'll be moving it too

right side before I started messing around

 

[jason2459]

Then I noticed the heater and took it out. Then pulled this rock out of the sump while I was at it and found this spot for it after putting it all over the place of course and stirring up the sand bed so the rest of the pics are a bit cloudy.

played around on the right side a bit with this little rock to make another arch

new flull tank shot

oh hai

 

[jason2459]

Here's the video. Shows the rock work, back overflow, lights in the canopy, and my controllers. It was after I was messing around with the rocks and stirred up the tank so it is a bit cloudy. Fish are ****ed off at me for doing that too and hiding. I still need to finalize the overflow in the back. It's still just a straight up open standpipe for the open channel which really isn't that noisy either. You can see a close up of my son's favorite feature the dragon. Also, just noticed I still have the tubing hooked over the back I used to fill the tank up from my mixing station in the basement.

http://youtu.be/fIfECvgLWR0

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fIfECvgLWR0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[jason2459]

I did get a decent shot of my Magnificent Foxface. He found where my cleaner goby lives and likes to do this

So far he loves to eat everything I feed except nori. He loves these spirulina flakes I got and will nibble them out of my fingers.

 

[jason2459]

Note: Tunze 6105 at full power in wave pulse mode can toss water out of a 180...

 

[jason2459]

Have the full beananimal overflow completed now with it running so quite now. The Tunze pumps are the noisy components now. I just need to get 1/4in line connected to the johnguest fitting on top the open channel and zip tie it to the failsafe overflow so it can turn into a full syphon if need be.

 

[jason2459]

This may be a bit better picture.

 

[jason2459]

My 7month old daughter just loves to sit in front of the tank and always calms her down. I've been noticing that the clown and foxface have instant become best friends and usually swimming around together. I also noticed along with a bunch if pods crawling on the glass I have hydroids.



They should be harmless.

 

[jason2459]

Note II: plate glass can cut to the bone very easily.

In removing the baffle before the return pump I've sliced the back of my thumb pretty good.

 

[jason2459]

I got some somewhat decent pictures last night and get a new coral addition in the main tank.

The Duncan starting to come back out nicely

this guys been through a lot and hopefully starts growing again in it's permanent home

Waiting...

...for a little spa treatment

I was just not getting a good picture of this new guy. A nice 1" frag of frogspawn. Really nice green with deep purple tips.