Nick's 220 Reef

[nickguay]

Hi everyone, I just thought I would take a moment to introduce myself, my name is Nick and I absolutely love fish and corals and I aim to keep a stable peaceful community reef. I’m just about finished setting up my dream tank, a 220 gallon reef. It was a long journey getting here as I went through 5 different freshwater setups even with high tech CO2 in the end, one saltwater 93 gallon reef to end up where I am today!

I don’t have much for pics right now but I will get on that soon, hopefully this week-end but here you can see what my setup looks like without corals or fish and without 6 inches of water at the top because my sump setup is not finished yet. All I have left to do is the plumbing to the sump actually so it’s a matter of an hour at most and I’ll be fully operational

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/IMG_4595.jpg

Any questions or comments about my setup, don’t be shy, I love to learn and share

220 gallon Marineland aquarium (72Lx24Wx30H)
Marineland Monterey Stand black
Marineland Monterey Canopy black
Overflow kit 3000 complete with 2 returns
Custom acrylic 56 gallon sump (36Lx20Wx18H)
Danner 18 MAG-DRIVE PUMP 1800GPH
Vertex Alpha Cone 250 Skimmer
72" SunBrite LED F-Series V2 w/ optics
Tunze 6105 power heads x3
Tunze 7096 controller

Rock/coral list:
170 lbs Tukani live rock
240 lbs AA Bahamas Oolite Live Sand
Kenya trees, hairy mushroom, cabbage leather, giant unknown leather, ricordea mushrooms, labyrinth aussie brain, favia, aussie blue tip elegance, green tip frogspawn, purple tip hammer, zoas

Fish list:
Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens) x1
Blue Tang (Paracanthurus hepatus) x1
One Spot Foxface (Siganus unimaculatus) x1
Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica) x1
Lubbock’s Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lubbocki) x1
Banggai Cardinal (Pterapogon kauderni) x1
Cleaner wrasse x1
Ocellaris clownfish x2
Royal Gramma Basslet (Gramma loreto) x1
Sailfin/Algae Blenny Red Fin (Salarias fasciatus) x1
Ladder Glider Goby (Valenciennea sexguttata) x1 (to arrive soon)

Inverts:
Tiger Pistol Shrimp (Alpheus bellulus) x1
Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) x5
Blood Red Fire Shrimp (Lysmata debelius) x2
Clean up Crew:

Astraea Turbo Snails x7
Zebra Stripe Turbo Snails x3
Red Stripe Snails x3
Cerith Snails x3
Nerite Snails x3
Nassarius Snails x9
West Indy Snails x6
Hermit Crabs x13 (4 blue, 2 red, 2 orange, 4 elegans, 1 halloween)
Emerald Crab x1

Thank you,
Nick

[BlueTang<3]

I take it your current stock list is what you have in your 93 gallon. If so how long are up landing to let your new tank before swapping it over.

[nickguay]

The swap was already done a few weeks ago, I did not have the blue hippo tang in my cube! I need new pictures, I know :)

[BlueTang<3]

Look at you go was curious in how you had planned it out and how long the tank was running.

[pinkreef]

:welcome:

[nickguay]

Look at you go was curious in how you had planned it out and how long the tank was running.


Sure thing, I had the cube for about 9 months and the way I did the move was all new live rocks for my new build so I was able to get an instant cycle in about 3-4 days and I moved all the fish over 1-2 over per day (it took a total of 4 days or so) and I kept monitoring parameters and a very close eye on ammonia especially and it never spiked or even moved slightly up again actually. I did all the corals at once on the last day. It was overall pretty easy actually now that I come to think of it, the overall process took about a week, cycle and everything included. That was about a month ago.

My big hurdle was not being able to find a sump, the glass tank I wanted turned out to be backordered so I had my LFS build me one out of acrylic. It ended up costing maybe 50% more but it's better in the end as it fully utilizes half of my stand; I’m really happy how it turned out!

My LFS also helped me drill my tank and that was something new and fun and I’m very happy to have gone the route of drilling vs buying pre-drilled with corner flows. The products I ordered from glass-holes.com was really top notch and came with absolutely everything needed!

Any questions about any of this, don’t be shy to ask!

PS: My LFS is Derek’s Reef Shop in Moncton NB, in case anyone is curious

[thmh]

:welcome:

+1

[Doc_Polit]

Nice looking tank.

[nickguay]

I'm finishing my plumbing this morning so that the heaters can go in the sump and that the tank can be filled completed but you get the idea of where I am right now

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday421.jpg

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday624.jpg

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday582.jpg

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday297.jpg

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday247.jpg

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday071.jpg

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/11-29-2013fishtaniabday065.jpg

[Doug]

Looks good. Nice photo work to...:smile:

[nickguay]

Thanks! Here are a few more, first one here is the sump setup, many people like seeing these to get some ideas. I got this sump built out of acrylic and it's 36 long x 20 wide x 18 high

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/12-08-2013goby285.jpg

Sea urchin
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/12-08-2013goby141.jpg

Feather duster
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/12-08-2013goby137.jpg

Nom Nom the ladder glider goby
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/12-08-2013goby058.jpg

Cleaner Shrimp
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu138/garaelom/12-08-2013goby003.jpg

[Scythanith]

Looking good! How are the power bars affixed over the sump? Also, might not be a bad idea to space your heaters away from each other. When a heating element turns on and they are end to end it will cause the other heater to cut out prematurely.

Looks like a great start!

[nickguay]

Thanks, here's a video:

http://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=WyLaY7988xA

To answer your question, power bars are affixed using screws into the stand and the heaters are all set to the max and I'm using a controller for them

[Wheelman76]

Link doesn't work for me

[nickguay]

Link doesn't work for me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyLaY7988xA

Sorry about that, this one should work

[Madreefer]

Looks good. What's that round thing in your sump with the green thing sticking out of the top?

[nickguay]

Looks good. What's that round thing in your sump with the green thing sticking out of the top?

Thanks, that's a sponge filter, ready to go full of good bacteria from my system to my QT/hospital tank