Walkthrough of my 180g Setup

[playa]

Awesome! Great job!

Mike is a great guy. He has helped me a great deal as well.

Congrats on your set up and cheers to a great future!

Luis

 

[skeets]

Thanks guys. I put all the time and effort into documenting it so that someday it might help someone out there. Plus people can see some problems that I run into etc.

I am not sure on fish, I do not want a large bioload. I am going to go slow adding fish too so I have a while to chew on what I want to get but so far i think:
Bellus angel
copperband butterfly
lyretail blenny

Right now I have my flamehawk and royal gramma in there from my old setup.

 

[sharkboy11]

Wow thats awsome! Are you selling the 250w?
How hard was it 2 build the tank. Im thinking about building a tank myself.

 

[dieselfish]

Holy crap , it must be nice to have that kind of money when your a teenager. I cant afford equiptment like that now.

 

[skeets]

First im not a teenager =D i am 21, going on 21 in a few months lol.

sharkboy11, I didnt build the tank myself. It was built at Innovative Aquarium Products
John did a great job building it.

 

[Loudz34]

Skeets~ what did he charge you for the tank? also 21 going on 21~I tell my self that everyday....lol....

 

[Julio]

I love the back wall overflow, great looking setup, i wish i was that handy.

 

[Julio]

I love the back wall overflow, great looking setup, i wish i was that handy.

 

[Julio]

sorry about the double post.

 

[skeets]

I actually got a cheaper than normal price because of some other connections on the tank
So I couldnt comment on the price, however I do know that their prices are good and competitive. They will treat you first class too, I couldnt recomend them enough.

 

[Fish-o-holic]

Very nicely done. I love the way you documented everything. Thanks for sharing. :thumbsup:

 

[Brewboy74]

skeets the tank is a work of art. Very nice setup. Where did you get your hose for you chiller? I am just getting ready to set up mine and that stuff looks nice.

Thanks

 

[skeets]

skeets the tank is a work of art. Very nice setup. Where did you get your hose for you chiller? I am just getting ready to set up mine and that stuff looks nice.

Thanks

The tubing has metal or such in it to reinforce it so it doesnt kink and keeps a nice shape. I went to home depot to get mine, however they didnt carry 3/4'' of it so i went to ace hardware. Home depot did carry some of it, so i dont know if they were out or dont carry the size i needed period

 

[Brewboy74]

cool looks like it is pretty readily available thanks for the info.

 

[skeets]

My tank costs... Well more than I would like to say actually, haah.
I cannot break down all my specific costs like I wanted too, because I ended up getting price breaks and such that most people would not have gotten. Itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s not fair to break it out that way to vendors and such.

So I will give you a running total, which we could say would be about 12grand. I mean this cost includes everything(except 3 things) down to my salt, barb fittings, teflon tape, paint, etc. This price even includes my deltec reactor which I havenââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t actually received yet. What it doesn't include is the cost of the generator and the electrical work, it does not include my cabinetry work yet that hasnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t been done(does include the metal stand/canopy), and doesnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t include any of my old livestock.

Now I want to tell you that my costs are skewed in two areas. 1st itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s skewed in that I got special discounts as I had mentioned. Second it is skewed because I bought extra items that I havenââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t used yet, wonââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t actually end up using, or isnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t actually needed. I went all out to make everything first class that I could. Here are some examples....

I ordered PFO ballast extension cords that I didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t end up using but am holding onto. $30 bucks.
I ordered a couple extra MH/VHO bulbs-$300.

My plumbing was 500 bucks alone. But 100 dollars was getting those nice ball valves with the unions on them. I didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t need to spend 25 bucks a piece for those. I have a lot more plumbing than the typical tank does, and I used all shc80 bulkheads instead of sch40 which are much cheaper.

I used tunze streams on my old tank and donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t need them on this tank, but am going to use them anyways since I have them $600.

I have an aquacontroller, a solar dimmer, and a 3digit medusa controller. Thatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s like 1grand there in stuff that isnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t completely necessary.
So it could have been done cheaper, but I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t want to cut corners and wanted to use the very best of everything. I want my tank to be as healthy as possible and I feel the more time I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have to mess around with dinky equipment the more time I can have as practicing good husbandry.

 

[Mdwannabe]

Great post!, Makes me think I should put the time into my project, a custom 175. I'm looking at 5 grand sitting in boxes on my basement floor, waiting for a 75+ year old cabnet maker to finish my hood. When it's done, I start!
Why did you decide to go without the DSB? I have 300 LBS of southdown waiting for it's new home, and was going to order 150 LBS of live sand to seed it, something I should know? Just wondering.

Thanks:
Rick

 

[skeets]

Why did you decide to go without the DSB? I have 300 LBS of southdown waiting for it's new home, and was going to order 150 LBS of live sand to seed it, something I should know? Just wondering.

Thanks:
Rick

I first want to say that I beg of everyone not to turn this thread into a DSB/Barebottom debate. There are numerous other threads on here that I will gladly reference everyone too so they can come to their own conclusions. Those threads are:
DSB Related Journal, Newspaper, Articles, etc...

Who out there goes with a bare bottom tank. Just liverock and no substrate?


DSB Heresy

I actually have 9 bags of southdown sitting in my garage, that were going to be initially used on the tank before I redesigned it.

Okay now to my reasons why I went barebottom...
1. I had a lot of algae breakouts on my sand in my 120g. I had what I thought were plenty of critters, and an acceptable sandbed(4.5'' of purearragonite). I didnt have a large bioload, and I didnt feed that heavy. I also found that I had quite a bit of detritus in my sandbed when I took some scoops of livesand out to put in my bug tank, and once I placed those in the bug tank cyano started growing rapidly(and only grew where I dumped in the scoops). I didnt like how my sandbed had turned into a nutrient sink. Now this could have been my fault in not allowing the sandbed to work properly. Too much liverock covering the sand, and possibly the fact that maybe I didnt actually have enough critters(but I swear I had a ton).

2. I had lots of problems in my 120g with the sandbed getting kicked up. I wasnt able to provide as much flow as I wanted too. I am a flow nut! So by going barebottom I could get as much flow as I wanted in my tank. I could place my tunze streams on the bottom of the tank if I wanted and not have to worry about a sand mess. So since the tank is a SPS tank, I wanted as much flow as possible!

3. The other flow issue, was a matter that I wan to remove as much nutrients in my tank as possible before they break down. To do this I need lots of flow, which could cause the sandbed to kickup. Also I wanted to run a spraybar so that the tank was nutrient free under my rockwork. There would be no way to do this with sand, atleast not in the efficient manner I wanted to.

It took me a while to decide what I truly wanted from my tank. The barebottom look has to grow on you, I didnt like it at first. Now it is nice, and it actually makes my lighting more effective(note the bleaching samoensis).
I settled that on this tank I wanted to remove nutrients, and provide as much flow as possible to my sps. This lead to the necessity of ditching the dsb for flow issues. And I can attest If I had sand of any kind(even cc) it wouldnt stay on the bottom very well.

So I am not saying a DSB doesnt work, or cant work. This was just my reasoning for going barebottom.
Its a tough decision.

 

[gwrulzmylife]

Kudos on the tank! It really pays to plan it out before hand... I wish I had!

 

[Mdwannabe]

No debate start up intended, just looking for input before I go through everything you just went through. My wife has made it painfully clear that if this start up does not go well I will be living in the tank not corals!....LOL

 

[imsqueak]

That is a truely impressive job. I'm slowly building a 300BB and everything I do, I have to re-do, even though I thought I planned it out correctly in advance.

I just wonder how long you'll be content on 180...