Alberta-newb's 120 build

[Alberta-newb]

Hi all, new here and to the hobby For many years (20+!) I've dreamed about setting up a reef tank, finally decided to do it. The hobby has sure changed when I first started looking!

I'm located near Calgary and just started my 120 gallon in the wall build. First order of business was roughing in the opening and building the supports needed. To complicate things further, the tank is built over the stairs leading to the basement..seemed perfect as it was unused space anyway. I welded up the stand out of 1.5" x 3" X 1/8" wall structural steel. The legs go down to the foundation on one side and to the floor joists on the other. Top of the stand is 14 gauge sheetmetal. Everything was painted with drinking water safe industrial epoxy (I'm a painter by trade and we use this stuff for coating the inside of water pumps and piping). I also built and installed a jackpost to help hold all the weight.

Here's the tank installed in the opening:



I painted the back and sides of the tank with a metallic blue urethane followed by a seal coat of the epoxy. The "calfo" overflow runs the full width of the tank and was also painted the same way.

Here's the inside of the overflow. I'm using the "herbie" style overflows through 1.5" bulkheads (emergency overflow in pic)


I'm planning on using a live sand bed and chaeto so I wanted as large a sump as I could fit. I bought an old 42gal tank from my LFS with two 1" bulkheads which will be used for the pump and "fuge" returns. To conserve space I mounted my skimmer externally.

Plumbing:


Overflow is 1.5" and feeds both pump and fuge sides of the sump. Return is 1" and splits to both sides. I also T-ed off the one side with a flex line and valve to allow for easy water changes. I installed ball valves to fine tune flow and also unions so everything can be removed if necessary.

These photos are all taken from inside the former linen closet which will now be the maintenance room on the right side of the tank. I absolutely detest hauling water around in buckets so I installed a small lab sink and a tap water supply into this room.

Here's the lab sink and fresh water supply beside the tank. The black hose is the tap water and is long enough to fill my auto top-off and 30 gal storage tanks (yet to be installed). The clear line with valve is off my return so I can dump tank water right down the drain (like all my savings!)



Here's a side shot showing the steel framing. You walk under the tank when you go downstairs. I also labelled the plumbing to show how I set up a "fuge" return. Not wanting to subject any "pods" and such to the impeller of the pump, I built a venturi that will pull a slipstream of this water through the return line. I'm using line-loc on this side in the hopes that if this fuge return works well, I can actually send "food" to the inhabitants that want them..


That's it so far, sorry if it's a little to long winded or graphics intensive. I'm just really excited about getting into this hobby. I hope I'm doing OK so far, by all means critisize any problems you can see so far..nows the time for me to catch them.

Next steps are to build the auto top-off, put in the sump baffles and install power in the closet. Will keep you all updated.

Francis "Alberta-newb"

[Starry]

Like what you have so far. One question comes to mind though. Are you sure you want to use tap water and not RO? Might be easier to plumb in an R/O now while yer still in the build stage.

Just my .02¢

[Delphinus]

Great looking potential on this build! Can't wait to see more.

[Alberta-newb]

Originally Posted by Starry

Like what you have so far. One question comes to mind though. Are you sure you want to use tap water and not RO? Might be easier to plumb in an R/O now while yer still in the build stage.

Just my .02¢

A good question! I'm still waiting for a copy of our town's water analysis. I have been told by my LFS that it already is a nice "mix" for SW (high Ca, PH of 8.2, etc.) but I want to see the numbers for myself. If I don't like what I see I'll be looking at an R/O. What do you look for when buying one? Are they maintenance/$ intensive?

[Monti-Man]

Originally Posted by Alberta-newb

A good question! I'm still waiting for a copy of our town's water analysis. I have been told by my LFS that it already is a nice "mix" for SW (high Ca, PH of 8.2, etc.) but I want to see the numbers for myself. If I don't like what I see I'll be looking at an R/O. What do you look for when buying one? Are they maintenance/$ intensive?

Its more the phosphate that you have to look at. Which will cause nasty algae. They are not that expensive 100.00 for a good one and they really don't cost alot of money to upkeep. Just when you have to change di and cartridges which is really about every 6months depending on how high your usage is.

[Alberta-newb]

Wow, has it been 5 months already! Been so busy with the tank I forgot to update this thread.

Since my last post I have:

Added water (IO) and approx 110 lbs of live rock. The rock was of great quality and cycled very quickly (about 3 weeks). It came with quite a few interesting hitchikers (all of which are still ok) including a pistol shrimp, several Kenya trees, a small patch of zoanthus and plenty of algaes (the good the bad and the ugly).

Hardware:
5 gal gravity fed ATO
35 Gal RV tank for SW storage
Aquasafe RO/DI unit
Tek 6 x 48" T5 fixture with aqua sun, fuji purple and pure actinics (IIRC)
Quiet One 6000 return
Vortech MP40 with batterry backup
V2 1000 Skimmer
Aquaclear powerhead to reduce deadspot behind rock

Softies/LPS/SPS:

numerous mushrooms and zoanthids
torch coral
hammer coral
frogspawn
cream bubble coral
green bubble coral
green open brain
orange monti cap frag
pink birdsnest frag
metallic red donut coral
orange donut coral

Inverts:

peppermint shrimp
pistol shrimp (hitchhiker)
stomatella snails - black and tan variants (hitchikers)
turbo snails
nassarius snails
cerith snails
2 hitchiking crabs (now in the fuge)
2 Indonesian featherdusters

Fish:

Scopas tang
Yellow watchman goby
Red lipped blenny

Now a few pics:

[Alberta-newb]

Here's the 5 gallon ATO, it gravity feeds to a humidifier float valve in the sump




A few full tank shots over the last few months:

June 08:




August 08: Lots of GHA and aptasia




September 08: Starting to clear, been buying corals



Today (Sept.27/08): Improving?

[Alberta-newb]

Indonesian featherdusters:

These were an impulse buy which I'm still not sure about. They're beautiful but so tasty to so many things..really have to watch my stocking list.



Some zoanthus I picked up this week (actinics only):



Here's something you don't want! This small (3 mm) nudibranch loves chewing up zoos. Hard part is they take on the color of the skirts they're eating and blend right in. This one was just starting to turn green from the zoas above.





General shot:

[Alberta-newb]

A few more:


Just got this "Metallic Red Wellso Brain" and aclimating under actinics only:



Still haven't confirmed ID, was told it was a Trachyphyllidae radiata but I'm thinking it may be a Cynarina lacrymalis Any LPS experts


My yellow watchman goby:

Bought him to team up with the pistol shrimp. They paired off immediately but about a week later they had a "divorce" and the watchman moved to the opposite side of the tank. Still hoping for a reconciliation, as the Goby was over for a "visit" for an hour or two today.



Another shot of the brain. Starting to color up and expand as it gets used to the tank.




That's it for now

Francis

[JDigital]

Looking good.. No fish yet? Or just not pictured? Any stocking plans.