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Old 11-06-2019, 03:49 PM
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bauder1986 bauder1986 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Edmonton, AB...find the earie glow of the T5 lights coming from a house lol
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Default 75 Gal w 30 Gal Sump Reef(I told you guys Im back)

First off....man has this forum died down in the last 6 years since I disappeared from the hobby! Checked out how things were going on the FB pages but those are severely limited in...well....everything. So, I suppose I'll do what I can to bring some more life back into the old forum.


Anyways, I decided it was time for my return!

I have been working away at this system and its process for the last 2 months now.

It all started with me acquiring a pretty beat up 50 Gal tank for free. I hummed and hawed as to what to put into the tank. Was originally going to fire up a fresh water tank just to put some of those semi retarded/boring fresh water fish in it to give me something to look at. But after much discussion with the wife she convinced me that it is time to stop talking about the days of reef tanks gone by and time to start building a reef tank again.

And that was where it started. One quick phone call to a friend of mine that has left the hobby due to time constraints and I suddenly acquired a bubble magnus skimmer, couple of AI Sols Super Blues, 2 Carbon Reactors, 30 Gal Sump, fans upon fans upon fans and 50lbs of rather dead LR!

Now everything needed a good vinegar scrubbing and servicing. That was the easy part....The rather dead LR on the other hand....well....lets just say that stuff spent 2.5 years outside in a rubbermaid container without a lid. So there was alot of brushing and rinsing and soaking involved just to get the dirt, pine needles, spiders, spider webs and everything else off.

After I was satisfied that I beat most of Canada's natural environment off of these rocks, I threw them all into a rubbermaid with a lid and fans and RO water to start cooking them. Took a month of just circulated RO water to pull most of the detrius out of the rocks. After that I was able to pick up some salt and start curing the rock with mixed RO water. Added a heater. And in about 2 weeks after that, I had a cycle going on. Ammonia was floating just under 1ppm and Nitrate at <5ppm.

So it was time to figure out the tank situation. I only had a tank and a sump but no stand. And the tank was not drilled. So that meant if I want a sump then I had to go overflow box style.

I managed to pick up alot of equipment from Buschwacker in Calgary from his tank shut down. Picked up a Eshopps Overflow Box, Reef Octopus DC pump, Apex Lite Controller with VDM and 2 power bars and probes and wireless bridge. Bucket of Salt, plumbing parts and pieces, refractometer, test kits and much much more.

So that visit solidified that I was going Overflow Box style. Now the stand....I figured that I could build one for about $240 to make it look real pretty just the way I like things. So to work I went. But while I was working I saw this ad on FB Marketplace(I love that place) for a 75 Gal tank in great condition and a stand for a mere fraction of what it would cost to build a stand! So being a bargain lover that I am...I bought it and brought it home.


And 24 hours after bringing it home....this is what we have.










Last edited by bauder1986; 11-06-2019 at 03:57 PM.
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