The Newb's 125 Build Thread

[Reefing Newbie]

Since joining back in July I have been waiting to start my build thread here. Well the time has come to start and this build thread will probably be a one of a kind. I say this because I am not starting at the point of settting up the tank and buying all the equipment, lots of people have been there done that! So we will start at the tear down of my tank!!!!

Yes, the tear down is the mere beginning of my build thread. Bought the whole set up back in July for $1k which reflecting upon what is needing to be changed, was a bit too much in my opinion. Learn as we go I guess. To say the least, the tank has some problems the one I will be dealing with using a tear down is the broken frame around the bottom. Not a very good thing for a couple of reasons: tank won't sit level(have about a 1/2" difference between waterlevels on both sides) and that the tank is not good enough structurally to withstand all of the pressure it has.

I started the tear down in a minor way yesterday by setting up a 46 gallon tank to hold some rock and the 250+ snails and 25 hermits I have. Yes I did get the snails from reefcleaners.org, the hermits came with the tank. I will get rid of all but 3-5 of them. I managed to put around 10-20lbs of LR into the 46 for the snails to eat off of while the tank is down, I will be putting more in, but that will happen Friday when I get the light fixture taken off.

Now I need some ideas on how I will be catching all of the snails, or at least most of them!! I have 5 tonga nassarius, 50+ nassarius vibex, 100+ dwarf cerinths, 40 florida cerinths, 20ish nerites, and 2 turbo snails. Would using some small water/pop bottles with some frozen mysis shrimp work on getting them? I know it should work for the nassarius snails, what about the others? Hand picking these guys really isn't an option, I tried it and it would take weeks to get them all! Open to any ideas on getting these suckers!!!!

Now some pictures, I mean what kind of build doesn't have pictures???

 

[ultraxr]

If you put some mysis of any other fish food in the tank, the nassarius snails will surface and go for the food. Mine does that immediately during feeding.

 

[Reefing Newbie]

Thanks! Would it be a good idea to put some sand in the tank for the nassarius snails to bury themselves in?

 

[Reefing Newbie]

Here are some more pictures

My mushroom split! Is this normal for them to do? I know they will move leaving pieces of them behind that become new mushrooms, but this one actually split! Also, anyone know what kind it is?

Some of my sprouting kenya trees and the brown stuff. What are the brown fuzz things?

Here is the 46 gallon tank that is going to hold my snails for awhile, still going to add more rock to it.

Let me know what you guys think!!

 

[Reefing Newbie]

Here are some updates on my tear down, really haven't been able to remove most of the rock because taking the light fixture off is a two person job. I trapped most of the nassaruius snails today and will be putting some mysis in the 46 where they are so they have food, is this a good thing or bad thing? You can see the little pop bottle trap I used with some nassarius snails in it. And my mushroom coral is regrowing after its split.

Now here are some pics of my algae forests... Hopefully they will be gone before I get the tank set up again.

 

[Reefing Newbie]

Here are some pictures of the process of me tearing the tank down. I scrubbed the rock as I took it out to get rid of the hair algae and dino that covered most of the outer rock work. Some pieces went to the 46 gallon to help feed the CUC. I know that the snails won't eat the longer hair algae, but the shroter stuff will be eaten. Hopefully they can put the finishing touches on what they have. I had a large rock that had its whole base covered in zoas and I decided that I wouldn't want them to come back after set up. I took a screw driver and hammer and simply took off a good chunk or two of rock. Now they should be taken by my lfs soon. I am not sure if it is good or not, but my live rock smells of oysters or something like semi rotten sea food. Not sure if this is good. It definantly isn't an ocean smell. The sand smells the same but that is getting changed out any way. Here are some pics, I will get some more up later if I have time.

 

[Reefing Newbie]

The rest of them.

 

[Reefing Newbie]

How do I get more people to look at this thread? It seems like there are far fewer people looking let alone commenting on my build thus far... Do I need to get to the rebuilding of it before this thread really takes off?