TVS 75 Gallon Build

[Flippers4pups]

IMHO i wouldn't have run the skimmer for awhile, until the dust had settled in the D.T. and there was some Bio load in the tank. I would have just run the filter socks to clear the water column and then added some pieces of raw shrimp to cycle the tank. Anyway, Nice tank!!!!!

 

[The Velvet Sea]

Thanks for the compliments. My tank is now at 2 and a half months and I've reached the fun but expensive stocking phase. I started with the clowns that I mentioned earlier this month. Last week I got some stuff from liveaquaria and my lfs including a 6 line, flame hawk, Favia and Cyphastrea frags, and a purple Fungia. Everything is doing great. The fish are getting along and eating well. The corals look happy too.

I'm expecting some more stuff middle of this week. A pair of diamond gobies, lots of lps frags (assorted brain coral type frags), and a couple show lps Cynaria and Acanthophyllia. I also made a decision that I hope works out but was not in my best judgment; I have a LTA on the way. My tank is younger than I would like when adding a nem but my parameters are stable and I feel like I am experienced enough to handle it (this is not my first anemenone). Plus it should be a very healthy specimen coming from the divers den.

Anyhow, that is all I have to share right now. I promise to post up some current pictures later this week when I get my new inhabitants. Thanks for looking.

 

[The Velvet Sea]

Everything arrived safely this morning! I received items from Divers Den, ProCorals, and Vivid Aquariums. Everything is top notch! I don't have pictures to share yet because when I left home only the dawn blue+ lights had come on. Livestock includes a diamond goby pair, LTA, acans, favias, meat coral, button coral, red planet acro, welso, chalice and more!

The male goby pole vaulted out of the tank twice in the first 20 minutes though. I had to make an impromptu lid with egg crate, glass panes, and plastic wrap. When I put him back in the tank after the second time he vaulted, he found the female and appeared to settle down. Now I'm planning to build a four sided open top wrap around canopy. It will extend about 6" above the tank trim so he will need some serious effort to make it over that. Hopefully that will be sufficient to keep him safe. It will also be a nice addition to hide the black plastic trim on top of the tank. I'm not a talented carpenter, but hopefully I can make it nice enough to be presentable.

I'll take and post pictures of the livestock when I get home this evening. Thanks for looking and be sure to stop again later tonight!

 

[The Velvet Sea]

Good news is that the goby made it through the afternoon. They are busy digging burrows. Now I can blame any particulate in the water column on them instead of on myself!

Picture time! Disclaimer first: the pictures don't do anything justice. Without the flash everything is completely blue washed, and with the flash the colors are subdued. Nearly all of these pictures are with the flash, which to me produces slightly better images. Forgive the frag field look. It will take awhile for everything to be placed. I hope you enjoy.

Pseudo FTS

Peninsula End Shot

Wide Shot of Some New Corals

I got home from work and my clowns had already found a happy hope!!!

Hawkfish and Leptastrea

Meat!

Platygyra(?) and Chalice

Prism favia

Acan lords

 

[The Velvet Sea]

I finished the construction of my wrap around canopy. I still need to do a little sanding and then stain it to match the stand. I put it on top of the tank to check the size and it fits great. Fish will have to jump about 5"-6" above the water surface to get over the sides. A determined fish will probably be able to make it, but I'm hoping it is good enough to protect against small spooked fish jumps that are more common. It also does a great job at hiding the plastic tank trim and drastically reduces light spill. I could put some cross beams inside of it to rest the sunpower on and then the conduit can be removed. I'm seriously considering this because it would make the entire setup much nicer. I'm not sure I want to though, because I love how easy the sunlift suspension hangers make raising and lowering the light for maintenance, and coral light acclimation etc. The right side is intentionally shorter because that is where the heat vents out from the light fixture. I wanted to be able to lower the fixture into the top of the canopy but I didn't want to block the heat from getting out of the canopy. Here are some pictures:

 

[The Velvet Sea]

Canopy is stained and it goes great with the stand. I didn't have to think about it long before I decided to add cross beams into the canopy to rest the sunpower on and rip down the conduit pipe. I've very happy with the end result and I think the overall look is much better. What do you think?

 

[wesleyforbes2]

Looks good.

 

[The Velvet Sea]

Thanks wesleyforbes!

With the new canopy, and being on the tail end of winter (doesn't really feel like it today), I needed to prepare for cooling the tank. I decided to install a couple of computer case fans into the canopy. So far I've been successful in keeping the tank almost silent so avoiding loud fans was crucial. The herbie drain makes the sump and overflow silent, and the skimmer and return pump are barely audible. I can hear the vortech when nothing else is on in the room, which isn't often when I'm home. After a bit of research I decided to buy a pair of Scythe case fans. Despite the good reviews and low decibel ratings I was still concerned, so I bought a Zalman Fanmate that I can use to throttle the fans down if they are too loud. I'll power them with a DC Adapter with molex connector. The canopy doesn't trap a lot of heat, but I want some air flow to promote evaporative cooling. The two fans combined will push a total of almost 100 cfm at full blast so that should be more than enough.

I got the fans today and the setup works perfectly. At full throttle the fans are incredibly quiet and I can only hear them when I'm within about 3 feet and even then they are still hardly noticeable. I'll install them into the canopy sometime this weekend.

My corals and fish seem happy and I can even see evidence of encrusting growth onto the plugs of several frags (red planet, blue mille, war coral). The anemone has eaten a small piece of raw shrimp and still seems very healthy (thank you divers den!). I've purchased tons of frozen food recently trying to find something that all of the fish will eat. PE mysis is a huge hit but it annoys me how long it kills the foam in my skimmer even when I rinse it well. Today I tried frozen Hikari Krill. Everyone seemed to love it and it didn't kill my skimmer foam!

Anyhow, that is about it for now. I'm trying to get better pictures with my camera but so far they don't come close to how everything looks in person. Thanks for looking!

 

[iwishtofish]

I love the new look. Much better! I'm glad your clowns found a home.

 

[The Velvet Sea]

I love the new look. Much better! I'm glad your clowns found a home.

Thank you very much. I also think the new look is without a doubt better than the conduit pipes.

I'm also very happy about the clowns' home. The decision to get that anemone was against my better judgment considering my aquarium is so young, but liveaquaria has never let me down. I've been a customer of theirs for so long that I can remember buying fish from the original company that Dr. F&S purchased to get into aquarium livestock retail. Flying fish express seems like a lifetime ago. Anyhow, divers den certainly came through for me yet again. The anemone was in great health and I think that was a big key in my being able to succeed with it so far. A typical "don't try this at home" disclaimer belongs here

 

[razataz5]

Your tank is coming along nicely. I'm trying to figure out how much rock I need to order for my 75 I like the two island look Did you use all of the 65 LBS of rock you ordered.

 

[The Velvet Sea]

Your tank is coming along nicely. I'm trying to figure out how much rock I need to order for my 75 I like the two island look Did you use all of the 65 LBS of rock you ordered.

Thanks razataz! I have the BRS Pukani rock and it is incredibly porous and light weight for its size. I used about half of it and gave the other half to a friend. I'm fairly certain that BRS sent me more than 65 lbs, I'd guess about 75 lbs. So I estimate that I used approximately 35-40 lbs. Having extra rock to pick from while aquascaping was a nice advantage so I'm glad I ordered extra, but 65 lbs was definitely way more than I needed.

 

[The Velvet Sea]

The male diamond goby died. He was the one who jumped out of the tank twice within 30 minutes after I got him. He hadn't jumped out since, but he still didn't make it. After I got him in the tank and settled, I noticed his pectoral and caudal fins were very tattered. I don't know when that happened. He could have damaged them while flopping briefly on the carpet or while the retailer had him. Anyhow, I saw him this morning face down in the burrow at an awkward angle. He was still breathing but didn't look good. About an hour or so later he started swimming roller coaster style. Barrel rolls and loop de loops. I knew he was a goner and when he swam into the anemone (which tried to eat him), I had to remove him from the aquarium. All of the other fish seem to be in great health. Temperature and salinity were stable, no ammonia or nitrite showed on my tests. I'm guessing that he just didn't adjust well to my tank after shipping, carpet surfing, and possibly less than optimum health at the retailer.

Other news, I'm planning to plumb a reactor manifold off of my return pump. I already have a carbon reactor and I've ordered a GFO reactor, both of which I plan to run off of the manifold. Also, due to space limitation inside the stand, I need to move my top off reservoir out of it. I'm going to use a 15 gallon plastic drum now too, so my top off supply should last about 2 weeks which will be much better than my current 5 days. Now I'll have enough room inside the stand for the reactors and possibly automated 2 part dosing.

 

[The Velvet Sea]

I'm selling the Tunze Turbelle Stream 6065 that I bought for this build. I quickly realized that between the return pump and the MP40 that I did not need the Tunze. I used it for no more than 2 weeks and is in like new condition. Somehow I lost 2 of the tiny adhesive rubber feet that comes with it for the magnet mount but it worked silently for me without those feet. Also selling my MP10 and AquaC Nano Remora Protien skimmer since I don't need them anymore since tearing down my aquapod. The MP10 is already pending (as I began writing this, I got PMs on it, my first attempt at selling on RC and I didn't anticipate the interest).

Anyhow, still a great deal on the like new Tunze

 

[The Velvet Sea]

I'm happy to say that I was able to sell all of my items on the used equipment forum. A big thanks to the RC community. I'm using the proceeds to become a supporting member of RC and to get some dosing pumps to automate 2 part Ca/Alk. I'm hoping I can maintain Mg manually.

I got lots of goodies today. A new 15 gallon reservoir for my top off supply, GFO reactor, and a hanna alkalinity colorimeter. If you haven't noticed yet, I'm a testing junkie. I just have fun following my tank parameters. Tomorrow I'm going to do some plumbing modifications to add a reactor manifold from my return pump and set up this new top off reservoir. Here's to keeping the carpet dry :beer:

 

[The Velvet Sea]

I was running out of room inside my stand, and my auto top off reservoir was not lasting as long as I would like, so I got a 15 gallon cylinder and moved it outside of the stand. Not as hidden as I would like but it is on the back side and out of the way, so it works for me.

I plumbed my GAC and GFO reactors off of my return pump and added a ball valve to the tank return line and I couldn't be happier with the results for several reasons. Between the eheim 1262 return pump and the MP40, I was getting too much flow across the sand bed for some of my LPS. I was also getting too much flow through my sump which reduced the effectiveness of the skimmer and bubble trap. I've reduced the flow from the return and sent some flow through the reactors. Now my MP40 is providing most of the circulation in the tank and the flow across the sand bed is gentler. It is also nice not needing maxi-jets to supply flow to the reactors. Since I removed my ATO reservoir from the stand, I now have room to automate 2 part dosing, which is the last equipment modification that I have in mind.

 

[wesleyforbes2]

Sounds good. Is it a PITA to have to take the Sunpower off everytime you want/need to get in the tank?

 

[The Velvet Sea]

There is enough side to side play with the sunpower that I can slide it to the left or right (towards the traditional front or back 4 foot panes of glass). Then there is plenty of room to work in the tank from that side. I'm 6'3", so it is easily for me to grab the fixture by the wire hangers and lift it off of the tank and set it on the floor leaning against the wall if I need more room than that or to clean the acrylic on the fixture. Long story short, it is still easy for me to work around the fixture and I do not regret losing the suspension system one bit.

I've been doing some water chemistry tests today and I must say that I love the new Hanna alk checker. I tested with it twice and it gave me 123 ppm on the first test and 122 ppm on the second, which equates to 6.88 and 6.832 dKH. I'm very pleased with the consistency of the results. I tested with my salifert and got 8.2 dKH. I guess the checker falls in line with my API and Elos alk test results which normally read 1-1.5 dKH lower than Salifert. I'm going to try to maintain my aquarium at 8 dKH with the Hanna which would be about 9-9.5 with the salifert.

Now I get to start tracking consumption to try to estimate my daily 2part dose.

 

[wesleyforbes2]

I hear that those Hanna's are great. I will most likely switch to them as I start depleating all the Saliferts that I have now. That is quite a difference between the two. I just tested my water yesterday all with Salifert and mine was at approx 9.7, so according to what you say here, I should be at 8 with the Hanna.

Keep up with the pics.

 

[chefb_5]

So how do you like the Super Reef Octopus 1000? I own the xp 2000 supr reef octo.