Dan's 90 build
 

Welcome to the build of my "reverse" 90 gallon tank filled with some salt and water.

I just picked up this bad boy today, and am pretty excited to get to work on it tomorrow! The dimensions are 4' long, 2' wide and 18" tall and will be viewable from three sides. Kind of like a peninsula, but also kind of an island?

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/P1000983.jpg

(This is on my kitchen counter and not the stand where it will end up)

Basically, I am replacing my old tank because it was covered in scratches. Who likes scratches? I know I don't! That and the tank was an old sketchy thing, that just didn't make me sleep easy.

This new one is gonna be an mixed reef, with mostly SPS and LPS. It is highly likely that most of the equipment will be traded for something else as I get a couple more pennies. I will share more pictures and a breakdown of the equipment being run tomorrow.

wow man, that is one fantastic looking tank.....I love the dimensions. I just set up a 90 48lx22wx20h

Love the rimless look....what are you using for lights? and what is your existing tank?

wow that is a sweet looking tank, can't wait to see the progress on this one :biggrin:

Thanks Chris(ty), hah see what I did there? two names for the price of one! ... sigh.

I'm going to use a 6 bulb Tek, (who knows I'm considering the possibilities of changing to LEDs in the future just for fun). My old tank is the same dimensions, however there are a lot of things that I wished to change (overflow, no center brace, no scratches, no chips on the side etc...) so I did!

Now to get to some work, and I will update my progress shortly.

Well, the old tank is now void of fish/corals. Unfortunately my camera decided it was out of battery power, so all of the photos are with my phone.

These are the last two photos of the old set up right before it was taken down. The sand is super dirty, as well as everything else. But that will just make the new set up look that much more new and fancy, right?

Side 1
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/IMG_0040.jpg

Side 2
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/IMG_0038.jpg


The fish/coral/rock is now all chillin in these containers. I underestimated how many containers I needed, so now I'm off on a mission to scrounge up some more!

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/IMG_0042.jpg

Very nice, those are the dimensions I want for my next tank

so.....hows it coming, did you find some more containers to house all your live stalk?

Yup, I was able to retrieve more containers. I want to keep as much of the original water as possible so as to make everything less stressed when entering the new home. Right now I am looking at two empty fish tanks, and a disaster of buckets, towels, power cords, and plumbing. I have an anthia and a couple of chromis MIA, I am hoping that they were in the rock and not fish jerky under my couch or something.

I owe whoever invented towels a huge thanks. Towels are awesome. I also swallowed a few good mouth fulls of seawater when starting a suction to empty the tank, and sump. Next time I'm going to hook my tubes up to a maxijet or something. Bleh. Tomorrow will be where all the plumbing gets done. Since I am sitting down, might as well go through the specifications of my equipment.

Lighting

Main tank is lit by a 6 bulb HO T5 tek fixture, and the refugium/fragsump has a cool little ecoxotic LED spotlight.

Skimmer

Reef Octopus Extreme 190 (maybe 160? can't remember exactly)

Flow

Weakest part of the tank so far, and is accomplished by a few Koralia 4's and a Iwaki 600gph external for the return. I'm leaning towards the vortecs as a replacement for the Koralia's.

Other

Currently running biobeads, and carbon is run passively.

how have the bio pellets worked for you so far? I read a few mixed review on them that have made me hesitant to try them...so for now I have an empty reactor hanging in the side of my sump....lol

how much turn over do you have with the 4 K's?

As far as I can tell, the pellets (in combination with other things) seem to work for me as I consistently have not had detectable nitrate/phosphates ever since I have put them on. That being said, ever since I put them on I have had better equipment as well (ie, no more sea clone 100! yuck). I always do less than is what is recommended, and then slowly work my way up. So I don't have a lot of pellets in the reactor. I would recommend them, just don't expect them to be the wonder cure to all your nitrate phosphate woes, just one more piece of the puzzle.

As far as turnover, I don't really conceptualize flow in terms of numbers (which means I simply have no idea, but I guess I could calculate it). I go more by "feel" and how my corals are looking. I feel that my sps in some areas could have had better polyp extension, and the polyps weren't waving like I would have liked. I think "random" flow would help as well, but so far I just have a few steady streams, and no wave making gizmos.

Progress so far has been good, but like always I have run into some hurdles. Plumbing is done, and I have to say I am a fan of the flexible PVC, over the rigid stuff. Much easier to work with. Unfortunately, after putting my first drops of water I noticed that the overflow is not water tight. So I will either slap some silicon, or orca glue or something to make it water tight. I am running a "herbie" overflow system, and from my understanding a watertight overflow is essential if I don't want the entire tank to drain during a power outage.

I also lost a firefish to the floor, as he apparently was not a fan of the temporary rubbermade.

Enough blah blah. Here are a couple pictures.

New tank! On stand, with sand.

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/P1000991.jpg

My helper was supervising diligently, and not overly impressed. That and constantly drinking from my reservoir of RODI water.

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...n/P1000988.jpg