Andy's 65 gallon

[Arok3000]

Andy's 65 gallon reef

Hi! I'm Andy.
A few of the local guys will know me from picking up supplies or buying/trading/selling frags or equipment, but I never really got around to posting anything about my tank.

I'll start with a little background.
I had kept freshwater for a while, and still have a 75 gallon on the go. I had always wanted to start a reef but I'm one of those people who needs to research something so thoroughly that I could write a book on it before I actually jump in head first.
So I started small with a few different tanks, some of which even carried over to my current tank.

The 20 gallon long



This was my first attempt at actually putting saltwater into an aquarium. This actually lasted with me for a couple of years. I actually used a standard tank at first, and then swapped everything over into a newly built, rimless tank with overflows in the back. I was pretty happy with this tank, except that my little 10 gallon sump would overflow about ½ gallon in the event of a power outage. I was fixin' to fix that eventually.

http://i55.tinypic.com/2qve42x.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/2hi6qrm.jpg

The 5 gallon pico

I'm also a member of Nano-reef, and participated in a year long pico-reef challenge in one of the forums. It was an interesting experience and a very fun little tank. In the end I had to take it down and merged everything into my 20 gallon.

http://i51.tinypic.com/a5fdyh.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/amtowx.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/smr3n8.jpg

The 65 gallon

...and then, I moved into a new apartment.
I had automated much of the 20 gallon as much as possible to alleviate the stress involved with my work schedule and the necessity to be out of town/province for extended periods of time.
This compounded ten fold when I moved. I had a few tanks strewn about my living room with some miscellaneous equipment around. I had only been in my new place 4 days when I started my new job.
Unfortunately the first thing I did at my new job was spend 2½ weeks in Ontario, a week in PEI, and followed immediately by a week in Saskatchewan. My girlfriend helped out all she could, but I came back to a terrible mess, with many corals in bad shape, severe algae outbreaks, a few items perished and a couple pumps had even failed on me. All this and I hadn't even gotten the tank onto the stand.

So I figured it was time to step into a slightly larger tank.
In retrospect, I would have liked to have gone to a 4 foot tank, like a standard 75, but for space concerns I decided to get a 3 foot 65 gallon.
I am excited however to finally have a tank that is starting to become quite stable, which until this point I always seemed to struggle keeping some parameters in check. I have a bit of diatoms outbreak still, and that might continue for a bit since I added 20 pounds of dry rock, but it is receding and I hope things start looking quite well soon.
It's a work in progress now, and it looks very much like a spread out frag tank at the moment, but I'm patient enough to see it fill in.

A couple of the corals in there and some full tank shots.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2e2ge43.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/6nxh7b.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/34pksjq.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/os7jbo.jpg

And this is how I'm going to do all my full tank shots now, just for fun!

http://i40.tinypic.com/p22r6.jpg

[Arok3000]

Equipment in the tank is as follows:

Tank: Standard 65 gallon (36wx18dx24h)
Return pump: Rio 2500
Powerhead: EcoTech MP40W
Lights: 4x39 watt T5HO and 4x24 watt T5HO
Controller: Aquacontroller Jr. and JBJ ATO
Skimmer: SWC-120
Filtration: CACO3reef media reactors (Carbon and GFO)
Dosing: Manual with little measuring cups :redface:

Here's the sump setup. I think if there were an ugly sump contest, I'd be in the running.

http://i44.tinypic.com/1gksaa.jpg

So I think my next step is going to be building a new stand for this tank. I would like to add enough room underneath that I can (safely!) mount all my equipment in a more orderly fashion. I'd also like enough space for storage because I hate leaving food and supplies lying around when ideally I could have it all underneath.

[Arok3000]

Just posting a shot of blue acro. Hoping to find an image size that works best.

http://i39.tinypic.com/20kcdap.jpg

[Arok3000]

Instead of redoing the stand, which seemed a bit silly to have to drain the tank and move it onto a new one, I added a second stand to hold freshwater, dosing solutions, and all the accessories that were previously strewn about my apartment. If it looks like a kitchen cabinet that's sitting on the floor instead of the wall, that's because it is, but it fits with the rest of my furniture, so it works!

http://i44.tinypic.com/elb7dg.jpg

And here's the sump all cleaned up. Believe it or not, this is a LOT cleaner than it used to be. I actually spent half an hour today cable tying all the cords up. I did add a light in there after the picture, for future use in case I put a bit of macro algae in the sump, but for now I apparently let it grow rampant in the display.

http://i42.tinypic.com/34526aw.jpg

And a shot of the tank with it's new buddy cabinet holding all the junk.

http://i42.tinypic.com/2jb73gn.jpg

And here is an actinics shot the little island on the left that is home to my zoas and a maxi-mini from Eli that decided the best place for itself would be on the underside of the rock, completely out of view.

http://i42.tinypic.com/28tw306.jpg

[Arok3000]

Pink Pocci

http://i48.tinypic.com/15e8gsl.jpg