Crussett's 120g build

crussett · #1 09-12-2011, 06:10 AM

My wife and I are expecting our 1st baby at the end of November and as such the room where our office is will become the nursery. The office will be moving downstairs into the fish room and the fish room needs to be moved into the rec room. I figured this would be as good an opportunity as any to upgrade from our 72g bow to a 120g.

This is the spot where we decided to put the new tank.

Here is the tank, stand and sump after putting some tile down where the tank will sit as well as running some additional power. The tank sump and stand were built by Concept Aquatics in Calgary. The tank is 48"x24"x24" and the sump is 40"x20"x14". The tank has a 24" wide external over flow with 3 - 1" drains for a beananimal overflow and two 3/4" return holes.

This is the rock I will be using for the tank. I bought half of it dead and half of it live. I threw it all in a tank I had sitting in the basement to cure/cycle it all, however tonight when I went to check on it I found aiptasia growing on the stuff I bought live. It all now sits on the floor in the basement drying out.

This is the second hand G3 I bought. It's currently taking a water/vinegar bath to clean up some of the stuck on gunk.

This is the new light fixture I will be using. It's 2x250w MH, 4x54w T5's and 6 LED moonlights. The plan is to run 10K MH with 3 actinic T5's and 1 Fiji purple T5.

Hopefully more updates soon.

santosaic · #2 09-12-2011, 08:36 AM

Looks good so far Chad!! Can't wait to see when it's up and running!

Myka · #3 09-12-2011, 02:13 PM

Looks good! You went to the right place to build your tank for you!

I can't believe you are drying your rock out just because of some pesky Aiptasia! What a waste!

You really set yourself back there...it's going to take a long while for your tank to cycle and longer thereafter to build back the nitrifying bacteria. You will have to stock the tank real slow. Personally, I would get that rock back in saltwater asap. You can kill Aiptasia easily by putting the rock in hyposalinity of 1.009. The nitrifying bacteria and pods will survive this...heck even fish are fine in that salinity.

crussett · #4 09-13-2011, 04:56 AM

The rock is pretty much dried out. There were probably better ways to deal with the aiptasia, however I really wanted to make sure no pests are in the tank before I start. My 72 was built entirely with ecoreefer rock. Tomorrow night I'm going to throw the rock back in some salt water with a couple of pieces from my existing tank to start the process again. It will stay in there while I sort out my plumbing, leak test everything, clean the sump out and produce enough ro/di to fill the tank. I'm hoping to have saltwater in the tank in a couple weeks.

Myka · #5 09-13-2011, 02:25 PM

There will always be pests. I had an Aiptasia outbreak a year ago in all my tanks. It started from getting some Aiptasia covered rubble from another reefer, but I only put it in one of my quarantine tanks so I have no idea how it got to the other tanks. Maybe the glass scraper? Anyway, I caught the problem early and bought half a dozen ravenous Peppermint Shrimp that eradicated the problem in just a week. I lucked out though, many Peppermints won't touch Aiptasia.

I just noticed you said you are going to run 10K halides. Which brand are you going for?

crussett · #6 09-14-2011, 03:45 AM

Tonight I mocked up most of the plumbing. Nothing is glued, just slipped together. I found out I'm short 1 - 3/4" 45 degree elbow

Here is a full length shot of what I accomplished. You can see the external beananimal overflow with the full siphon on the far right, the open drain in the middle and the emergency on the left. All drains are 1". The full siphon and the open drain are plumbed into the drain section of the sump while the emergency is just plumbed into the return section. I also need to add the last few pieces so the drains almost reach the bottom of the sump. The two return lines join together and are plumbed into the return section where it will connect to my mag12. I still need to add another 45 degree elbow and a "T" to split the return off into the fuge.

This is just a closer shot of top section of plumbing.

crussett · #7 09-16-2011, 04:49 AM

So tonight I finished mocking up the plumbing. I've added the return all the way to the mag12 as well as the part that splits off to the fuge. I have also added my rock back into saltwater and yuck! Myka was probably right as the amount of dead stuff coming off this rock now is disgusting. I did the first water change on it tonight but it still stinks. I will likely be doing major water changes for a number of nights to come.

Plumbing

Close up of the fuge plumbing

120lbs of Sugar sand

And a JBJ ATO. I have a DIY one on my current tank. I used two float switches and a relay to connect to a Toms aqualifter, but for the new tank I wanted to have an off the shelf solution.

crussett · #8 09-26-2011, 04:33 AM

Not much for updates as I've had to split my spare time between working on the nursery and the new tank. I've had a few problems with the plumbing.

1. The drains would not siphon, they would just drain very very slowly. I did a little research and found that others had the same problem when their drains went too far under the water in the sump. I cut all the drains out as I had glued them all. I then shortened them to be around 1-2 inches under the water. I then mocked them back up and tested and the siphon worked great! I also added in unions to all 3 drains to make them easy to remove if I ever need to.

2. There was a leak in the return plumbing after I glued everything. I ended up having to cut out the section that had all the plumbing going over to the fuge and redo it. Once it was redone I added 2 unions to make it easier to remove.

Tonight I re-glued everything but it is all still curing. Tomorrow night we have prenatal class, so Tuesday night I will do another test to ensure everything is good. I'm hoping to get all the sand rinsed this week as well start making some salt water so I can add the sand and aquascape this weekend

Here is a pic I took of the tank tonight with the 3 actinic and 1 fiji purple turned on.

waynefish · #9 09-28-2011, 03:37 PM

Great looking tank project you have going. I'm just getting back into the hobby and was planning a tank similar to yours with the bean overflow as well. What lighting fixture do you have there? It looks very nice.

crussett · #10 09-29-2011, 05:18 AM

The tank and sump are full of freshwater and have been running all night. So far no leaks

. There is a fair bit of noise which I need to fix. There is a significant trickling sound coming from the water flowing into the overflow as well as the water trickling over into the filter socks. For the filter socks I'm going to get an acrylic cover as there is a bit of splashing as well. I think I might try raising the water level in the overflow a bit which might help.

The lights are not a major brand. I bought them off ebay from a company in Ontario. They were very inexpensive, but I'm hoping do the trick. The package cost around $330 plus tax with free shipping and included ballasts, fixture and bulbs. I'm sure the bulbs aren't great, but I can replace those. Here is a link to the ebay page.

Here's a couple pics of where things are at. I'm going to start making RO/DI and rinsing sand tomorrow night in hopes of having some water and sand and possibly rock in this weekend.