My 50g Project!

Vitaminz · #1 11-22-2010, 01:17 AM

Ok, so Had great success with a 10, then a 30, now time to move up to a 50....

Picked up a tank and stand from Calgary, it was already drilled, so got to work masking off the back pane of glass.

Ok, so here is the story, bought some metalic blue rust paint from home depot, followed the directions to the T, The paint would not stick to the glass, so to speak...No matter how slow I went or how little I put on, it started to to run....grrrr... So I decided to go for arylic black instead, some of the blue wouldn't come off, and I didn't want to wait to use a chemical stripper, so I just painted over the blue, some it it shows thru on the front, but oh well.

So now that atleast hides the piping behind the tank. So got to work plumbing the thing out:

Got a Small trickle filter that I am going to turn into a sump with refugium:

Next step is to now modify the trickle filter to a sump.... and build in the overflow. Will update when I finish that project.

lastlight · #2 11-22-2010, 01:46 AM

The metallic blue may look kinda cool shining through there once you have water in the tank. Maybe build a box behind the tank that holds a small LED or something so it shines thru the blue bits? Maybe that'd look silly I don't know.

First time I've ever seen irrigation fittings used for tank plumbing nicely done! Even used extension nipples lol.

Vitaminz · #3 12-02-2010, 06:20 PM

Ok so time for an update...I considered scraping it, but to be honest, now that it is all setup, I really like the blue comming thru with the black mixed it. Gives it that unique look.

So I got to work on modifying the trickle filter into a sump. Got 2 pieces of glass cut, and put them in myself....Yes I know it isn't purdy, but it works, and it is a sump....

Then I got to work on my overflow bulkhead... Took a piece of Lexan that I had kicking around and made myself some teeth on the end of it... Also picked up 60lbs of sand for $50, and used
my current tank to seed it.

So after a few days of adding in the water and playing around with the sump level and the gate vales, here is what it looks like. Yes still a little bit cloudy, but what can you do?

paddyob · #4 12-02-2010, 06:39 PM

Soooo... looks like you have completely submerged your Bio-balls? I thought the water needed to trickle through them....

Vitaminz · #5 12-02-2010, 06:54 PM

By the time the water passes underneath the bio balls chamber and up thru the baffle, it doesn't really trickle....Not sure how I can get around this....

Vitaminz · #6 01-11-2011, 05:02 PM

Ok, got really busy with the holidays and work, first time I had a chance to update. Picked up about 35lb of live rock, and a bucket of live sand from a 2 year old tank. I thought, what a great way to seed a new tank eh??? Yeah think again, either the live sand or the live rock was infested with bristle worm....I mean infested...I probably took out atleast 1000 of those little buggers... And I wondered why I got an amonia spike.... So waited about a week, to make sure I siffted thru the sand to find a majority of them, and left a few so the arrow crab could have a snack. So now back on track after that little delay, I ended up redoing my sump, took out all the live sand and one of the chambers and put in live rubble in the one chamber with some chato on top. So then waited a week more, and threw in a couple of damsels along with some green star polyps and they survived the weekend. Waited about 2 more weeks, just to make sure, then started transfering all my other rock, corals and livestock from my other 25g. Here are a few pics from last night:

reefwars · #7 01-11-2011, 06:27 PM

Can't believe I missed this lol looking good jeff is it in the office as well??

let me know if you need a hand with anything

Vitaminz · #8 01-11-2011, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reefwars

Can't believe I missed this lol looking good jeff is it in the office as well??

let me know if you need a hand with anything

Hahaha, Denny it is a good thing you are purrrrddy!!! It has been a long road to get to this point, but so worth it to take my time on it. Yes it is in my office as well, the 30g started to leak on the one side, and didn't want to fix it. So new build it was, and this was the result. Very happy in how it turned out, even with some of the set backs I had. You will have to stop by and have a look, and of course take frags of what ever you want.

Jeff

chris88 · #9 01-12-2011, 01:29 AM

tank looks great but i think you could do a lot more with the rock scape.

Vitaminz · #10 01-22-2011, 02:05 AM

So it has been a while.... Change out my light to a TEK T5HO light, thanks to saltynutz, Thanks buddy! Also ordered a Dual BRS GFO and Carbon Reactor from Bulk Reef Supplies, so excited for that to come in. And got the biggest score thanks for my good Friend Denny, got lots of frags from him and 2 new fish. One is a Snowflake Eel and a File fish. So was doing maintance on my tank tonight, so had to shut down the sump pump, no problem right??? I turn back on the whole system, and my 90 degree elbow on my emergency overflow cracked....So caught it in time before to much water spilled out. So replaced the fitting and we are off to the races again....

So now on with the pictures: