New 75

[Funky_Fish14]

Hey Everyone,

Well, about 4 weeks ago, I was browsing the classifieds and noticed Alan(AJ_77) had his 75 setup for sale. I had been bothering my parents to upgrade our(my moms/my) tank for awhile, and also that I wanted a refugium cause I wanted more LR and some macro, also wanted a better/more quiet skimmer(still need to get a new skimmer). So I PM'ed Alan right away, spoke to my parents, and long story short, we went down to pick up the new setup a week later.

We've wanted a Mandarin for awhile, and seeing as its an undrilled tank, I elected to build an above tank sump/fuge so pods could flow down into the tank without getting turned into mashed pod by any impelllers.

The stand structure is built of 2x3's(we split 2x6's). The rest is a few pieces of 3/8", 1/2", or 5/8" chipboard. The finishing is oak crowning, etc... and thin oak plywood, varathaned and varnished.

For flow, all the tank has is a MJ-1000(no typo) pumping water up to the sump/fuge and returning to the tank, and 2x Powerseep 212's. Everything seems to be doing well.

Anyways lets get to the pics, here is a shot of the whole setup:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/SceneShot.jpg

I tried to get a shot to show the aquacape a little better but it didnt work too well.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/Aquascape.jpg

Left side shot:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/LeftSide.jpg

Right side shot:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/RightSide.jpg

The tank is lit by a single 400W 10K XM SE Halide, hence the shadow down the middle from the center brace. Its actually not as bad as it seems.

I'll get some more shots of the 'guts' and everything later tonight.

Hope you like! Cheers,

Chris

[christyf5]

Neat aquascaping and I like the sticky notes :wink:

[Funky_Fish14]

Hehe, thanks.

Im still not happy with the aquascape but I think im going to leave it as is because everytime I touch something, half the rockwork falls down, and I restart all over again and im still not happy, lol. I dont like the right side at all, lol.

My mom puts the sticky notes on so she knows what everything is but I re-aquascaped and moved the corals around so the tags arent in the right places.

Cheers,

Chris

[Edmonton Eskimo]

hey that yellow tang looks familiar......

[Funky_Fish14]

Hehe,

Thanks for him Jason! Hes doing great so far, swims alot, gets along well with the other fish(Chased my Cinnamon Clown around a few times and now they are always together lol), hes pigging out on dried seaweed too.

Cheers,

Chris

[Skimmerking]

Well done looks really good . can we see the pic of the refugium in the hood..


mike

[Funky_Fish14]

Alrighty, here are some more pics:

Shot of the side 'viewing window', my dad accidentally cut all the way up the top of the canopy, when I pointed this out to him he used the mistake to put the fan in that space, hehe.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/SideShot.jpg

Here is a shot of inside the Hood on the Right(you can see the MJ-1000 and sump/fuge supply line):

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/Fan_Right.jpg

Left side, the exhaust fan going up shoots right up under the ballast which is in the area above it, and the ballast is slightly raised and it helps keep the ballast a little cooler.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/Fan_Left.jpg

Here is a shot from the right panning the refugium area, you can see my ghetto light reflector and holes and all for it. Its a 20W 50/50(there are a few corals in there, zoos, a shroom, xenia, star polyps) and some cheato. You can also see the supply line in the bottom right:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/TopShot.jpg

Now my ghetto Fuge and 'sump' areas, notice my ghetto baffle(that works), and my underated skimmer(lol, im getting a new one soon), and you can see the supply line feeds into a filter sock that has a foam block and some Seagel(carbon and phosphate remover) in it. The supply line is not in the water so if the pump quits there will not be any water syphoning back in the tank. Color is bad cause I took pic with just camera flash.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/Fuge_Sump.jpg

Now for the plumming. I didnt use any ordered or SW parts or whatnot, all the plumming is parts from Rona. Used a threaded male and female end and put some plexiglass pieces as 'gaskets' and siliconed the whole thing, and that is the connection to the fuge. Now for why the plumming is the shape it is, well, I could have elected to put the overflow at the top, but since I wanted copepods to flow down into the tank(they dont normally swim near the top obviously), I decided to put it down closer to the bottom, and brought it up so as to maintain my water level, then back down into the tank. The brass tube you see is for the syphon break. Originally it was just a hole where the screw is, but water was occasionally spitting out of there so we elected to make it higher. There is silicon on the tip of the screw plugging the original hole but I wish my dad had just let me put silicon over it and no screw. So finally the pic:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/Plumming.jpg

And finally this is where all the power is, (there is a powerbar in the bottom of the stand though). The digital timer on the left turns the fans and the halide on, the mechanical timer takes care of the refugium light which is on a reverse cycle(the tank light is only on cause I was doing some stuff). Everything is grounded.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b337/Funky_Fish14/Power.jpg

Thanks for looking,

Chris

[Beverly]

Chris,

One of your notes says "engineer goby". Do you have one? Does it look like these guys:

http://www.qualitymarineusa.com/fish/photo/gobies/2807.JPG

If so, we had one a few years back in our 180g. Interesting fish, but excavated under the rock structure like a demon. Had to place the rock on the bottom of the tank then add sand so the rock wouldn't topple.

[Funky_Fish14]

Beverly,

Yes, I do have one, I had another aswell. The first one originally in the 33 was starting to get the vertical baring(they start off with a horizontal line from front to back of their body), the newer one still has the horizontal line. He likes to dig but so far, hes been pretty good, no problems. The older one died during the move, he was in a rock and as I was lifting the rock out of the water he bailed right into a powerhead intake! :eek:

Thanks for the heads up.

Chris

[Funky_Fish14]

Well, tonight I was feeding the tang, and I found out that both the tang and Boso(my Cinnamon Clown) will eat from my fingers, or tweezers, or a pipette, and one of the anthias will eat from the pipette. The tang is a pig too! Haha.

Chris

[Edmonton Eskimo]

When I had him he would always steal food from my tongs when I was feeding my eel. Yah he is a pig!

[Funky_Fish14]

Ahh thats great :mrgreen:

Chris

[StirCrazy]

The brass tube you see is for the syphon break. Originally it was just a hole where the screw is, but water was occasionally spitting out of there so we elected to make it higher.
Chris

hey what size is that brass tube? the reason I ask is Brass is made out of copper. copper kills invertabrae, might not be enuf to worry about with only ocasional spitting but if it is a 1/2 " nipple or such you could probably find a plastic one to replace it at home depot. better to be safe and not take the chance I figure.

Steve

[Funky_Fish14]

Thanks for the tip Steve, I think its about 3/8" or so, I'll see if I can find a plastic replacement for it. Again, thanks.

Chris

[AJ_77]

holy cow Chris, that stand is sweeet. Your Dad's a nice guy! :mrgreen:

was great to meet you both - good people to deal with for sure, glad it's going well for you..

[Funky_Fish14]

Thanks Alan!

It was great to meet you aswell! Thank-you very much for the setup! I think the shrimp is pretty happy with its two new buddies, and the hermit seems to enjoy chasing the other electric blues around, hehe. Again, thanks for such a fantastic setup! I do hope you get back into the hobby someday, we know its one you cannot stay away from forever!

How is your nephew doing? I hope hes doing well!

Unfortunately i've started to notice a little cyano in the tank. I really like the Tunze comline 3110......... it is absolutely fantastic and as Alan told me it is near silent(well, I dont think i've ever heard it make noise), however I need one that will pull more gunk than this one is pulling, and I also want to get a seio powerhead(PM if you have one for sale!).

Cheers,

Chris

[Funky_Fish14]

Well, my mom bought some fish while I was gone, a second scooter blenny, a second engineer goby, and a hippo/regal tang. She also got a fire shrimp. I decided to return the hippo tang seeing as we already had a tang in the tank and a 75 is too small for a full-grown regal. The shrimp I found dead less than 48 hours after my mom got him. We took them back to the store and with the credit we already had exchanged it all for a Coral Beauty and a nice Pink with green tips LTA. I have my fingers crossed that the Coral Beauty will not chow down on the corals or the clam, I will tolerate the occasional nip but nothing too bad. Hopefully the cinnamon clown will host in the LTA, but I dont mind if he doesnt.

While catching the hippo tang, I moved a couple rocks off the top of the left arch, caught the fish, and as I turned after putting him into the container, a domino effect of the rocks went from just left of the middle across to the right side, ruined the aquascape. It gave me a chance to re-aquascape, took some of the rocks out and added them to the fuge, now the tank is less cluttered and I am happy with the result. I'll get some pics up right away.

Just a quick question. The LTA is fine sitting in the sand, correct? Thanks.

Cheers,

Chris

[OCDP]

Ouch , that sucks when your aquascape goes down just like that! It's happened to me so many times haha (thank god it's only a 20g tank)

Anyways, your LTA will be at it's best with it's foot buried in the sand. That's where they like their placement :smile:

[Funky_Fish14]

Haha yeah I understand with the rockwork.........it happens all the time to me too lol, PITA in a 75g haha. And I thought it was bad in my 10 or 33 I used to have.

The LTA did have his foot burried in the sand when I placed him(I hollowed out a hole and holding his foot placed him into it and pushed sand up to the edges of his foot so the current would not move him) but then this morning I could him tipped over sideways and he is half covering the harry mushroom! Haha I will have to fix that.

Cheers!

Chris