Mike's 75 gl build

[TheMick75]

Well, as the story goes, a friend of mine was moving and didn't want the hassle of taking his 75 with him. It was a FOWLR, i hadn't seen it in two years, but i remember it being pretty sweet (i've had a freshwater tank forever and have always been interested in eventually getting into marine, but didn't know much about it). Well anyway, he told me i could have his tank if, all i'd have to do is come pick it up.

So that was quite the interesting day, first off the tank had been seriously neglected for a couple months, including the previous two weeks where he had gone to europe and left it without anybody to look after it. I put all the LR in 18 gallon tupperware bins, along with enough of the established water to cover them. I also took the sand, which was filled with crud. He had two canister filters (one with carbon, the other with bioballs and ceramic rings) and a protein skimmer doing the filtering, as well as a UV sterilizer that had a burnt out bulb. His stand was an open, iron stand that was pretty rusted. At that point, i knew a lot of stuff was going to be changed.

I got everything home without incident, and immediately consolidated the 5 containers of LR into two, and added powerheads and aerators. There they stayed for the next two weeks while i accumulated my supplies, cleaned the tank, removed the rust from the stand and painted it.

Yesterday i finally got the tank up and running, things leading up to it included:
- painting the back of the tank with dark blue krylon fusion
- purchasing and hooking up an RO/DI unit (took about 30 hours to filter enough water for the setup)
- purchasing 150lbs of sugar fine "live" sand off ebay, which came with some live rock rubble and some chaeto
- purchasing and setting up a sump from protein-skimmer.com
- purchasing black acrylic rods for rock work
At this point, i'm still waiting for the skimmer to be delivered.

Unfortunately i was unable to take pictures during my journey, but i have some shots of where i'm at now (forgive the picture quality, taken with a cell phone).

here's a full tank shot, i was partially inspired by URL=http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=869432&perpage=25&pagenumber=33]RDMPE's aquascaping[/URL]. On the left i used a large piece of dead rock as the base, then built up with live rock. On the right, i used all live rock, i wanted to create a sort of "tripod" using 3 rocks on the base, lifting a platform off the sandbed. It didn't lift it as high as i wanted, but it still turned out nice i think.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082248.jpg

Here's more of the rockwork on the left of the tank
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082248a.jpg

and the tripod on the right
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082249.jpg

the side of the tripod
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082254.jpg

and a closeup of the cave underneath it
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082254a.jpg

my sump
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082249a.jpg

and finally, this is a picture of some red stuff that i originally (when it was in the tupperware) though was coralline, but now that it's in the tank, i'm guessing it's algae, it's hard to see in the pic, but it looks like the fuzz from a stuffed animal. Anybody have an ID/method of removal? a lot of my rockwork is covered in it.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0810082253.jpg

[flamron]

Looks like you have a good start. My guess would by Cyano bacteria. It is generally caused by low flow. You may want to test your nitrates/phosphates to see where you are at. You may want to do a 20% water change and add a couple of powerheads.

GL on the tank and take it slow - it really pays off in the end

Ron

[TheMick75]

thanks!
i'm going to test my parameters tonight after work. It's all new RO/DI water that they were transferred into. My friend had a very low flow rate i believe in the tank when he had it, and really didn't filter well. The rear wall of the tank was covered in the same stuff that's on the rocks, as well as some green algae.
Right now i'm at around 800gph between the sump pump and two powerheads. I'm going to upgrade the powerheads in about two weeks.
When i add a cleanup crew, would they eat the cyano? Does chaeto rob the cyano of nutrients like it does algae?

[greggnyce]

the cheato will eventually take up nutrients. If you plan on a reef you should also look into a phosban reactor. These can be used to run phos media, and piggybacked to run caron also. I find them much easier to clean than a cannister filter and they are smaller.

[crvz]

Looks good to me, keep at it! The cyano will probably go away in time, but some manual removal (siphoning during water changes?) will help. good luck!

[TheMick75]

I figure i'm going to cycle the tank for a month anyway, even if the param's are good before then. That should hopefully starve it out or get it under control. If it doesn't, then i'll probably get some phosban...

[Michael]

lovely tank, however if it were me id add a little more rock, but thats just me, but great start like the whole set up, good luck:)

[TheMick75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13132076#post13132076 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Michael
lovely tank, however if it were me id add a little more rock, but thats just me, but great start like the whole set up, good luck:)

I kind of like the "open" look, do you think it would help/hurt to add more rock to the sump, in the area where the protein skimmer will go (to the right of the fuge), and to the left (in the area where the pump is)? I don't want to add any more to the fuge itself, as i want a decent amount of room for the chaeto to grow and possibly add a small critter of some sort.

[flamron]

Placing rock in the sump is a great way to add biological filtering capability, especially if your DT is full and/or you don't want to add more.

[mg426]

Nice job!!

[TheMick75]

Well my cyano issue seems to be going away, it's starting to turn gray/white and "dissolve" off from the rocks and float into the water column. i think my parameters are probably the main cause, as i haven't seen much of a cycle and my parameters are all very close to being where i want them (free amonia is at 0, there is a little total amonia, nitrites are at 0 and nitrates are relatively low as well).

One thing that has me confused is my protein skimmer doesn't seem to be producing much/any foam. i set that up on monday night, and it hasn't even made enough foam to come close to the cup. The instructions were pretty terrible, it's a venturi style, and it only has one adjustment really to raise/lower the water level. I'm thinking that my low bioload is the reason that i'm not getting any skimmate?

[TheMick75]

Oh, and i've noticed my first two little critters...they look like feather duster worms, only smaller. they're about a 1/4 inch tall and come out to feed when the lights are one. If you make any movements, they retract back into their stalks. I'm so excited to have some form of visible life!

[Michael]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13152335#post13152335 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TheMick75
Oh, and i've noticed my first two little critters...they look like feather duster worms, only smaller. they're about a 1/4 inch tall and come out to feed when the lights are one. If you make any movements, they retract back into their stalks. I'm so excited to have some form of visible life!

WELL THATS NICE MICK, YOU WILL FIND THINGS POP UP AND SOME DIE OFF AND SOME THINGS COME FROM NOWHERE, EXCITING STUFF LIVING ROCK, GOOD LUCK:)

[TheMick75]

here's one of the critters...i'm now also starting to see pod's as well as other interesting life forms, and some coralline growth in select spots. One of the more interesting critters looks like a bubble, it crawls around the LR at a very slow pace by sending a ripple through its body (and by slow pace, i mean about an inch an hour). I'll try to get a pic of him, as it is a rather interesting little guy...

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/themick75/0814081734.jpg