120 G with 60 G sump build

[Palmer]

Hey everyone,

Well my basement has started to collect enough things for this build that I thought I could justify starting a thread. This will be my first SW tank and this board has been extremely helpful for reference and answering questions.

I bought a 120 G tank and 60 G sump from a member on this board. It has Starfire glass on the front and an "Herbi"? overflow (two 2 inch overflows) and two 1 inch bulk heads for returns. I put this in my basement next to my 125 G african cichlid tank that I have had for about 10 years.

A couple of weeks ago I did all of the plumbing and lastlight gave me his sand (and a couple of pieces of liverock as a bonus!) For the skimmer I bought an SWC EXTREME 200 (same as the octopus line but made in Canada.)

I am planning on going with MH and supplement T5 for lighting but havent bought the fixture yet. I am hoping to eventually have a lot of SPS coral and hopefully a fairly non aggressive tank as far as fish (my cichlids provide all of that!)

Protein skimmer fits nice and snug in the sump.

I attached some pics. I'm not sure how to embed them in the page if there isn't a URL.

Palmer

[muck]

Was wondering when you might get around to slapping a tank journal thread up.. :mrgreen:

Sounds like you have a great start and will be following your progress.


For the skimmer I bought an SWC EXTREME 200 (same as the octopus line but made in Canada.)
Just an FYI...they are the exact same skimmer made in the same factory. Jayson at SWC just private labels them and sells them as his own brand.

[Carmen]

Awesome tank/set-up Palmer! Can't wait to see it full of water!

[Palmer]

Was wondering when you might get around to slapping a tank journal thread up.. :mrgreen:

Sounds like you have a great start and will be following your progress.



Just an FYI...they are the exact same skimmer made in the same factory. Jayson at SWC just private labels them and sells them as his own brand.


Oh okay! That explains how identical they look! I actually wondered about the business model and patent if several companies were making the same model. Now you have explained it.

Palmer

[Palmer]

Well I finally poured the last bit of RO/DI water in and flipped the switch! The skimmer has been breaking in since last Friday (and other than some loud noise initially it is working awsome so far), now the water is circulating from the sump to the main display. Had a slow drip start up again at one of my bulkheads ARGHHH! But a quick tightening took care of it. I have 60 lbs of dry eco rock from BRS on order and it was supposed to show up today but the holidays probably slowed down the shipment. I am looking to supplement this with some live rock once set up.

I put an order in with Kevin at RC for a Sunglight Maristar MH fixture. It's a 48" with 2x 250 W MH and two T5 lights and Galaxy ballasts. This should come in shortly in the new year I am going to place it on the tank with a bracket. I will also pick up a couple of Koralia 4's for flow.

Oh well its time to head out of town for the holidays so hopefully this tank will be up and running by end of January.

Palmer

[Palmer]

Well I thought it was time for an update since I had gotten my light fixture and can now take better pictures (..somewhat.) Since December I have added -

Two Koralia 4 powerheads
60 Ibs of dry eco rock and 40 Ibs of live rock.
A fuge light and chaeto
A Tunze osmolator
A DIY eggcrate stand for my skimmer
A Sunlight Maristar 48 " 250 W MH/T5 fixture
T5 (one Actinic/one 15000K bulb)
MH (14000 K Ushio) bulb x2

2 Astrea snails
2 Nassarius snails
1 Blue porcelain crab

For whatever reason I never really had much of an ammonia/nitrite spike. I am not sure if that is because the LR came right from a fellow reefers tanks and was already cured. I also had my protein skimmer on while cycling.

Hitchikers I have noticed are-

Aptasia, Pineapple sponges, collonista snails, and digitate hydroids (there are alot of these and I am hoping to get rid of them soon.)

Here are some pictures of the tank and sump. I forgot to clean the front of the tank so I apologize that the pictures are not the best.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P2090037.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P2090038.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P2090040.jpg

[lastlight]

Holy COW man that sand is just...UNREAL =)

I looked into the maristar fixtures a long time ago. What I like about them is that they have much better reflectors than most of the mh/t5 fixtures. Nice and deep...good spread!

Keep up the good work!

[Palmer]

Well I just got back from a seven day vacation in Orlando and for the most part all was well with the new tank. The Tunze osmolator is a great thing to have it handled all the evaporation ( I lose about 2 G per day.) When I had left I had a diatom bloom. I had added 4 cerith snails to my display and one to my fuge which were helping a little and now getting back the diatoms are almost completely gone. My skimmer is working awsome the cup was almost completly full and black goo covering everything. I had it completly clean and empty when I left.

One problem I am having is what I believe to be green hair algae all over my tank in little tuffs:mrgreen:. I noticed a little bit in some chaeto I had put in my sump and I should have removed it. My water parameters are 0 Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate when I tested it on my return. So I scrubbed the display and put a filter sock in my sump return to catch the floating algae. My two astrea's seem to be eating it here and there on the glass. I am thinking of getting a couple of additional astrea and maybe one turbo snail. I like the philosophy of a small and diverse cleanup crew and just putting a bit more elbow grease into maintaining the tank.

BTW- I was at the Orca show in Orlando at the same time that terribile incident happened (It was in a tank that was not part of the show.) I am glad my kids didn't see it. Ironic, I was telling my relatives about the problems with keeping Orca in captivity the day before we went to the show :sad:

[Palmer]

So the algae problem seems to have gone away for the most part. I took the plunge and bought some additional live stock. The first fish is a orange spotted prawn goby. I also bought two corals, a GSP colony and a orange zoa frag. Since I only had a few snails I added two more astrea's and a turbo snail to the mix.

Now I have a fairy tale peppermint shrimp story. I went to Red Coral and Kevin had two large peppermint shrimp. I have had a lot of aptasia and have been wanting to get a peppermint shrimp to keep up on it. I heard they can be very reclusive and depending on the shrimp may or may not go after the aptasia. Well I have had great success with these shrimp. They started going after the aptasia right away and now I can't find one in site when I had 15-20 lurking before. Alhough the shrimp do like to hide somewhat I can always see one of them at one point or another and they come out for mysis feedings.

I will put up pics of the fish and shrimp etc later but until then here is my favorite blue porcelain crab and the GSP.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P3020169.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P3020156.jpg


Palmer

[Red Coral Aquariums]

What is your lighting schedule?

What do you have for flow in the tank?

Kevin

[Palmer]

Hi Kevin,

RIght now I am running the actinics from 10 AM to 9:30 PM and the halides from 2 PM until 6:00 PM. What do you think, too much? The algae seems to have gone away on its own except for a couple of small patches.

Palmer

[Palmer]

Well it's been awhile since I have posted to this tank thread. since last spring I have lost a orange spotted shrimp goby and a sandsifting goby to the carpet. I had also lost and replaced a couple of peppermint shrimp.

I have managed to add and keep some things successfully. I have added-

Yellow tang
Black and white perc clown
Lawnmower blenny
Fairy wrasse

Candy cane coral
Red Montipora
A green sps that I can never remmember the name (in pic below)
An acropora frag
Open brain (from zoa elite)
Crocea clam

All in all things have been going pretty good!

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9250346.jpg

Thing I can never remmember

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9260363.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9250352.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9250344.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9260366.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9260368.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/P9260378.jpg

[Palmer]

My wife just got a Canon SLR camera so I thought I would add a couple of shots I took to this thread. I also changed my MH bulbs recently to phoenix from Ushio and really like the difference in color.

I am dealing also with this small patch of pest algae or something. I am wondering if it is cyano. Here is a pcture below. I am basically scooping the stuff off the top of the sand bed to keep it under control.

Brown stuff

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5464.jpg

FTS

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5469.jpg

I think the clown wants an anemone

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5462.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5458.jpg

Dont mess with the big dog

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5466.jpg

[Palmer]

Here are some new photos of the tank. I did end up winning the war with Cyano. I used Chemi clean and also bought a Vortech MP40 to add more flow on my tank. I think two Koralia 2's was definitly not enough flow for this size tank. I have added a couple of corals over the last number of months and added a GBTA. Below is a pic when i first got it and it was "bubbled" up. It split shortly after getting it. I am in the process of setting up a 30 G frag tank on the other side of the wall that is behind this tank. I am taking my time with this project but I have a custom overflow I bought that I will be inserting into it and have just installed three bulkheads so I am pretty well on my way to setting that up...

Somewhat recent FTS
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5877.jpg

Before split
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5816.jpg

After
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5991.jpg

Some coral
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5989.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_5996.jpg

[fishytime]

there sure is some noticeable growth when you scroll down this last page of your thread......you must be doing something right.....lookin good man:biggrin:

[Palmer]

Thanks and your informing me I should probably test for magnesium may have helped with that :lol: It took awhile to really get things going between figuring out how long to run the lighting and just letting all the frags encrust etc but I am pretty happy with the progress now.

[Palmer]

Well my latest project is slowly progressing. I wanted to turn a 30 G all glass aquarium I have had forever into a frag tank. I also thought it might be nice to be able to use it as an isolation tank if needed. The big quandry I had is whether to plumb it into my existing system (making isolation of course impossible) or whether to run it completly on its own (more $ + less extra H(OH) for stability..)

A really simplistic idea came to mind and I decided I would just buy a bunch of ball valves for the herbie and return and make it so I can either send the water back to my display sump or to a tank below the new frag tank just by directing the flow with the valves. Just a few bucks more and you get two potential solutions...

I had an overflow made for me and i cut it to my size with a table saw. Then I cut three holes into the tank and added bulkheads. And that is pretty much where I am so far...

I am going to put an Aqua remora pro on this that I am getting used. It is way overkill for this size tank but I figure if my sicce pump on my SWC EXT 200 gives me problems I have a back up. And despite my skepticism of the value (or over value) of skimmers I still dont believe you can overskim a tank :lol: Far from rocket science but nice to have options rather than an either or situation...

Here's the tank. I dont have the plumbing set up yet but I will likely put a small simple sump underneath it that I can have the herbie drain into if I want to run it seperate..
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG00023-20110416-1434.jpg


These are the new bulkheads and holes in my wall leading to the main display sump (This is my basement so no worries on the home front!)
http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG00024-20110416-1435.jpg

Other side of the wall to display

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG00026-20110416-1436.jpg

This is the return which I will have a T fitting with ball valves to allow for plumbing to the display and a return from underneath this tank

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG00025-20110416-1435.jpg

[Palmer]

Havent posted an update in awhile. No major issues with the tank am happy with how the corals are growing. I just added a purple digi that i am pretty happy with :biggrin:

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6646.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6650.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6653.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6670.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6673.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6674.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/IMG_6675.jpg

[Palmer]

Here are some updated photos of the display it has been awhile since I have posted!

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/image-7_zps5db3f758.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/image-7_zps11237c4c.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/image-7_zpsd60911c2.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/image-7_zpsc41933f2.jpg

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz122/PalmerC12/image-7_zps41463571.jpg

[Whiston]

Great looking tank. Very cool to see that growth progress!

[Palmer]

Thanks, yes when I look back it's amazing how much these things grow once they get settled in.