The Georgetown project

[Chrisrush]

Greetings all. Welcome to another installment of what my wife has termed, my second wife. I'm upgrading again, but not getting any bigger in gallons, but definitely in style points.

I have been having some trouble with my current tank, high PO4 and ich mainly, but I never felt comfortable with this tank. I think that part of the reason was I missed my rimless shallow tank and the sleek ATi fixture over my 60g cube.

I've been looking online lately for a nice used rimless shallow tank and I found on in Dallas. It is a 60x30x18 with an island overflow. It was manufactured by Planet Aquariums, who used to build Oceanic tanks. It is very nice, and quite heavy, ½" glass on the sides and a PVC/glass hybrid on the bottom.

While looking for a fixture, I wasn't sure that I wanted to go back to LEDs. I don't like any of the larger 48" fixtures on the market, and I really don't like the price of them either. A friend on mine mentioned that a vendor was selling an Aquaperfekt Photon Plus, 2x250w DE MH with 6x54w T5s for $500. I jumped at the chance to own a great German fixture for a ¼ of the cost. I traded my kalk and a media reactor for a pair of Lumatek dimmable 250/400w MH ballasts and started ordering bulbs. Going to go with a pair of Phoenix 15k DE bulbs and the following T5s:

ATI Blue Plus
ATI Purple Plus
ATI Blue Plus
Halides
Giesemann Midday
Blue Plus
Blue Plus

Should offer me 10 good hours of T5 viewing pleasure and 4-6 hrs of intense growth from the MHs.

I will be re-using the rest of my equipment from my 150g build.

ATB 840 v1.5 skimmer with upgraded pump
2 "“ Tunze 6105 pumps
2-Tunze 6100 pumps
Dart return pump (also have a snapper)
BRS dual media reactor (GFO/carbon)
40g sump
Profilux 3ex running ATO, heaters, lights, the world?
Avast marine biopellets reactor

I have about 50lbs of rock (but it's covered in aiptasia). My plan is to get about 20 nudibranches and let them go to town on the rock, or perhaps I'll sell the rock and go with some ceramic rock instead.

Barebottom

Mostly SPS, but LPS and zoas to fill in

Small schooling fish (only have 2 fish remaining from my 150g, lost the rest to ich)

And now some pictures.

 

[Reef264]

You have great mind when it comes to planning a tank!Get her set up!I bet this tank is Gunna be awesome!

 

[Reef264]

Dp...

 

[Chrisrush]

Got the tank loaded up on Sunday (just a buddy and I moved the tank, not the smartest thing in the world, that thing is heavy) and started heading down to Austin. Of course, what is the last thing I was thinking about when I was driving home? Rain. And I even packed a tarp to cover the tank/stand, but I never thought to put it on. Made it home, got the tarp out and figured I'd tackle getting it off the trailer on Tuesday.

I moved the trailer into the garage and started unwrapping the wet cardboard

Everything looked good, except it needed a bath

Here is the island overflow (more on this later)

This is the stand

 

[Chrisrush]

You have great mind when it comes to planning a tank!Get her set up!I bet this tank is Gunna be awesome!

Thanks Reef. Hopefully I'll get moving on it next week.

 

[Chrisrush]

Here is what the original owner planned for the stand design. I'm not sure it will work in our house, but I'll see how it looks before deciding.

 

[Chrisrush]

One thing that I'm not certain about is the overflow. In some ways I think that it might work, but what worries me is the reach for the tunze on the long end of the tank. I really don't want to have a MP40 or 6105 on that side of the tank. My thoughts are to see how it works in the garage and then decide.

2 options,

Option 1 leave it how it is and get an MP40 and suck it up

or

Option 2 knock out the overflow box, drill 3 more 1" holes in the bottom of the tank for CL returns, and use the 1 1/2" bulkhead for the suction end and use my snapper as the CL pump. This would require me to drill the back glass for an overflow. It would allow me to run a bean animal overflow (which would allow me to sleep better at night than the single 1 1/2" drain it has right now).

Option 2 would be lots of drilling and could crack the glass if we didn't do it right.

Option 1 might allow me to stack the rock up on the overflow like the Volcano tank here on RC.

Any thoughts?

 

[RotaryGeek]

Nice looking. Im only about 45 minutes away from you. Have you checked out MyScct.com yet? Local club for the central texas area. I know your alot closer to ARC than the Killeen area, but it might be worth a look.

 

[RA]

I'm not sure if I'd like the stand made of two sections. If one section is even the slightest bit higher it will make for a stress point in your tank that will eventually fail. JM2c

 

[Chrisrush]

Nice looking. Im only about 45 minutes away from you. Have you checked out MyScct.com yet? Local club for the central texas area. I know your alot closer to ARC than the Killeen area, but it might be worth a look.

Yeah, I just recently found it. I'm on ARC a lot more than SCCT, but I might join since I'm already a member of MAAST, DFWMAS, ARC, DallasMAS and MARSH. Might as well get them all

 

[Chrisrush]

I'm not sure if I'd like the stand made of two sections. If one section is even the slightest bit higher it will make for a stress point in your tank that will eventually fail. JM2c

Both sides of the stand will be leveled prior to the tank being filled. There will be a 3/4" plywood on top of the stand (which will be secured via screws to both stands) along with a 3/4" piece of foam on top of the plywood.

Thanks for the concern. I was a little skeptical as well until I saw it setup and it was perfectly level.

 

[Chrisrush]

Got the tank on the stand tonight but I leave town tomorrow till next monday. I think that I will weld some feet to the stand to help level it out. My garage slopes so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it, but it will be easier to level with feet.

Received my bulbs today. SOS from Dallas shipped them free and I got them in 1 day. Pretty awesome. Sold both of my LED fixtures as well. Just waiting on my fixture and I'll start the transfer.

Another question I have is that the LR that I have right now is covered (and I mean covered) in aiptasia. A reefer buddy said that it looked like I was farming aiptasia. Should I get 15 nudibranches and let them go to town on the aiptasia or buy some ceramic rock and start over? I could get a couple of pieces of LR that isn't covered in aiptaisa to seed the tank. Cost would probably be about the same in the end, but the nudibranches would probably take a few weeks or months to mow down the aiptasia.

 

[jimmy frag]

I'm not sure if I'd like the stand made of two sections. If one section is even the slightest bit higher it will make for a stress point in your tank that will eventually fail. JM2c

i agree, if one floor joist is weeker than one over it could through the level right off. JMO

 

[Chrisrush]

i agree, if one floor joist is weeker than one over it could through the level right off. JMO

The tank will be placed on a solid floor foundation - 3' of concrete. Not having a basement has some advantages.

I may end up welding on some braces to marry the two stands, but I haven't gotten that far into the build yet.

Thanks for the concern.

 

[Crooke]

I would get rid of the island overflow. Shallow, wide tanks are great for panoramic open spaces and having that overflow smack dab in the middle would spoil part of the aesthetic (for me at least). If you like the rock you have, you could sterilize it and reuse it for this tank. Bleach then an acid bath.

 

[Chrisrush]

I would get rid of the island overflow. Shallow, wide tanks are great for panoramic open spaces and having that overflow smack dab in the middle would spoil part of the aesthetic (for me at least). If you like the rock you have, you could sterilize it and reuse it for this tank. Bleach then an acid bath.

Thanks. I'm still debating what to do on the overflow issue. I have some thoughts to build up an island (think about the volcano tank on RC) and then do shallow outcroppings of rocks in the front. I have a couple of sketches and maybe I'll try and put them online for people to discuss.

With the rock issue, I like some pieces, especially a large flat piece and nice thick piece of tonga but the rest is just "meh". I may pull all the rock out of my current tank, take the few pieces that I like, and then bleach them. The rest I'll try to sell to some locals and buy a few nice pieces of LR and ceramic to finish out the aquascape.

 

[sponger0]

Just fyi...if you plan on using those T5 bulbs, ATI has a new bulb out that has purple plus, blue plus and aquablue special all in one bulb. Supposedly created the same spectrum of lights. Its called Coral Plus

 

[Chrisrush]

Here are a couple of examples of tanks that have the volcano style setup.

This one is a local tank in Austin:

And we all know this tank on RC:

 

[Chrisrush]

Was going through my photobucket account from 2006/2007 and found some older tank shots:

This was from my 120:

Same 120:

Here is my 60g cube rimless from 2008

 

[Chrisrush]

That 60g tank did pretty well:

And I still have a couple of these corals:

They have taken quite a beating over the years, but hopefully they will bounce back.