my turn - 525

[porthios]

alright. wanted to wait til i had some good photos to show you guys and here we go..

i'd pegged this spot for a tank when my wife and i first looked at this house. it will nicely divide my living/dining rooms and a great attention grabber as guests come through the front door. the planets aligned and we're finally able to build the tank we wanted.

the tank we had built is 96x42x30 and made of 1.25" acrylic. it has 4" eurobracing and no crossbracing. it will be viewable on 3 sides and the internal overflow contains two dry boxes which will house vortech motors and hide their cables. the tank will be plumbed to a fish room located directly below it, in the basement.

equipment so far
lights - 4 400w reeflux 12k bulbs in lumen bright pendants driven by dimmable coralvue ballasts
flow - 4-6 mp40w
return pump - reeflo xxx. planned on a barracuda but have since moved the fish room closer to the tank so i might not need quite that much..

the substrate will be made up of a 5" dsb (probly), marco rock, marshall island and pohnpei live rock. about 200lbs live, the rest dry.

here are some of the pics i have so far..

this is the stand my uncle and i built. woodworking is another hobby for me so i'm looking forward to skinning it.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/stand.jpg

my wife and kids, stress testing the frame..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/family_on_stand.jpg

the buds getting ready to lift the beast onto the stand. the tank weighs 900lbs+ and the builder showed up nearly an hour early so there were only five of us there to get it off the truck. fortunately, no one was killed, but most importantly, the tank wasn't damaged ;).
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/ready_to_lift.jpg

the crew's all done!
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/crews_done.jpg

next on the agenda is building the new fish room. i'd originally planned to just plumb the tank to the existing fish room, but it's at the other end of the house. building a new one, closer to the tank, will pay off in the long run and let me learn from a few mistakes i made on the first. i'll try to keep up with pics as i go but here's a first draft - sketchup style..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fishroom.jpg

please give any feedback you'd care to share and thanks for watching :D ..

[REEF-n-Chicago]

Just want to be the first to say.... congrats!

Please give dimensions and your tank stocking preferences!

[Ed Reef]

Great build Jason..... LOVE when you say quote "fortunately, no one was killed, but most importantly, the tank wasn't damaged" unquote

That already tell us where the priority is :)

[Tangwich]

Great tank, this is going to be a great build...I can feel it in my blood :D
Those dimensions are close to what my next tank will be (96x48x27), which leads me to my question. Currently my 225g is 30" tall and I can't reach to the bottom back of the tank which is 24" deep and I have pretty long arms. I realize you have access from both sides but do you anticipate that being a problem in the future with placement of corals? And lastly, what are your livestock plans, mixed reef, sps only? types of fish?
Can't wait to see what's next :cool:

- Jesse

[Oldude]

Awesome.....love the dimensions!!

[porthios]

thanks guys. i'm stoked..

rnc - 96x42x30

ed reef - lol.. i told my buddy he had to throw himself under the tank if we started to lose it. he was completely caught in the tractor beam of coolness inherent to bigger reef tanks. 'yeah man, no problem'..

i've really enjoyed your build thread btw. thank you for taking the time to keep it up.

tangwich - thanks man. keep those karmic thoughts comin.. i've designed the stand to have a 6-8" ledge all the way round the tank so it's pretty easy for me to jump up there and reach in as necessary. i also have tongs for the times i'm feeling less athletic. i'm still working on the 'canopy' but my design should allow me a good deal of access as well.

i'm planning for sps/lps. some of which i'll be migrating from existing tanks. the tank was originally designed to house a gorgeous alessandrathus ambrosious from the genus mermaidicus but the wife killed that idea so i'll probly throw some tangs in there..

current fish moving to the new home will be:
sixline wrasse - lucy
flame hawk - wife just calls him 'the bastard'
kole tang - (no name yet)
sailfin tang - samiam

fish i believe i'm inheriting from a reefing cousin:
purple tang - poon
yellow tang - queso
white cheek tang - commando

i've never really considered myself a fish guy so i haven't given much thought to the rest of the list.. i dig achilles/naso/dussumieri tangs but i guess i'll need your help to flush out the complete list. lots of time left for that tho..

[RayAllen]

Wow, great progess and beautiful aquarium. My only question would be; why did you leave the carpet underneath?

[Ed Reef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13927780#post13927780 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
ed reef - lol.. i told my buddy he had to throw himself under the tank if we started to lose it. he was completely caught in the tractor beam of coolness inherent to bigger reef tanks. 'yeah man, no problem'..

i've really enjoyed your build thread btw. thank you for taking the time to keep it up.
[/B]

You have great friends who willing to do that for you... No question asked :D

Thanks for your comment on my thread - didn't know so many people are actually reading it!! :p

[porthios]

why did you leave the carpet underneath?

i'm not sure it will remain but i need to find a good way to line the inside of the stand (pond liner ish?) if it will. would hate for small leaks under the stand to wick out into the rest of the carpet. i'm also considering building up the floor of the stand, allowing me to insert cabinets easily into the frame. a drawer full of tank related eq is all i plan to store there.

the wife's sweating the required demolition a bit so this is kind of a touchy subject atm. proceeding with due caution and distracting with expensive gifts as needed..

[stunreefer]

Many times these days I see a shallow "box/pan" built that fits the inside of the stand, and paint it with epoxy to seal.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13927780#post13927780 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
the tank was originally designed to house a gorgeous alessandrathus ambrosious from the genus mermaidicus but the wife killed that idea so i'll probly throw some tangs in there..
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Maybe really expensive gifts will sway her opinion...

[~sp0ok~]

nice going on that tank and stand
looking good

[Lunchbucket]

Love the pic with the fur kids!! They are the best kids.

Can't wait to see more

Lunchbucket

[skrtcsr]

Amazing Build, that is quite a project.. cant wait to see more pictures when its done.

Excellent work!!

[porthios]

Maybe really expensive gifts will sway her opinion...

interesting.. i like where your head's at.. :D

thanks all for the well wishes. this is fun to share..

alright, turns out i really suck at pics but here are some more.

first a pic of the tank without all my peeps in the way..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/tank.jpg

thought i'd show a pic of the lifts i rented. there were enough of us that the installation was easy but should anyone else find it useful, these are duct/material lifts and 3 of us could've probly done the job with their assistance. they cost about $50/day each. if your tank is wider than 24" i'd recommend getting the arm extensions that are available for them as well.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/lifts.jpg

here are a couple pics of the old fishroom. it's sufficient and many people would consider it a luxury, but i think i can do better with v2.0.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fishroomv1flash.jpg
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/mess.jpg

after spending last night moving all this
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/stuff.jpg

i have a great new space to start on 2.0
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/cleanedout.jpg

this plumbing is in the corner of my planned area. does that look like a toilet rough in (at lower left) to anyone else? can anyone give me a good reason not to use that as a drain?
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/plumbing.jpg

[dougie]

love the tank, great size! fish room looks great to. good luck. :thumbsup:

[edandsandy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13932219#post13932219 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios

this plumbing is in the corner of my planned area. does that look like a toilet rough in (at lower left) to anyone else? can anyone give me a good reason not to use that as a drain?
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/plumbing.jpg [/B]

It looks like it to me. If I were you I would call a plummer to snake it to find out where it goes!

I like the lay out plan you have.
Best of luck with the new room.

[porthios]

someone requested pics of my vortech housing dry boxes in steve hurlock's thread and thought i'd post them here as well..

the overflow. you can see the dry box chambers on either side. the overflow height will be adjustable to control water height in the aquarium with a nylon screw secured weir that has yet to be installed..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/overflow.jpg

the center chamber with the drain/return plumbing..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/center-1.jpg

the right dry box. you can either drill the bottom to run power cords through, etc.. or leave them sealed and run the cords out the top..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/rightbox.jpg

steve gave me some good recommendations when i designed this tank. here's a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh6Cz_H8Uhg) of the vortech setup on his gorgeous aquarium..

[Oldude]

Great video, thanks for sharing that.
I would like to hear more about that actual breakdown and details of fishroom sketch.:)

[Lowredranger]

Great looking tank. How many vortechs do you plan on using and any plans for additional flow?

[porthios]

yeah, i'll post more details on the fishroom layout when i get a little further along. still playing with it quite a bit. the room is a little over 12' square so i should have plenty of room. famous last words i know.

i plan to start with 4 vortechs and see what that looks like. i figure i can go as high as 6 in the dry boxes (3 each) before the bottom ones are too close to the sand. i won't hesitate to put more flow at the other end of the tank if i think it's needed but i'd like to see how far i can get with just vortechs in the dry boxes first.

[bmwardo]

Hello Jason,
Looks as though that TX5 fixture is still working well for you but it is good to see that you went with the MHs for the big display. Looking good.

[porthios]

hey brandon!

yep, tx5 is great. that 40b really digs those lights.

i seriously considered t5's for the big tank (and i may still use them for supplemental as needed) but i'm still hoping for an open top look and i couldn't make them work. if i'd found an easily obtainable 8' fixture i'd have gone t5 for sure.

i'm a little curious to see how the 4 lumen brights perform in my case. i don't mind darker sides (might prefer it a bit actually - less wiping, scraping of the acrylic, etc.) but i don't just want a strip of light down the center either. i can mount the bulbs as high as 25" above the water so i should be able to get a good spread.

i have an apogee par meter so i'll play with it a bit and see how i do.

i remember you recommending a specific magnet for tanks this thick but i can't remember which you liked..

[bmwardo]

Sounds good. As far as magnets go, we seem to have better luck with adding a dobie pad on the inside rather than using a specific magnet. I don't know if you have seen the thread or not but we go over out basic cleaning method with our magfloat 1000 pro. I would give you the link but we have already hit our max bandwidth for the month. Just like any "acrylic safe" magnet I would never use it straight on the acrylic.

We use those blue shop towels (paper towels) that you can buy at Home Depot, and probably even Auto care shops, between the acrylic and the magnet when we need to get a light dusting of algae off. For diatoms we add in the Dobie pads, which works wonders, the only Kent scrapper work we do is just above the sandbed. You might like going with one of those larger magfloats over a magnavore simply because you will have so much surface area to cover.

[porthios]

yep, i'm all set with the dobie pads. great tip about the shop towels, i have lots of those around as well.

mag float 1000 pro ordered. thanks brandon..

[tgfrench]

If that plumbing goes into the sump that is there in the corner, I'd bet there is a cast iron pump sitting in it that would be trashed soon with saltwater.

[bmwardo]

Yea, we were sick of spending so much on special acrylic safe paper towels and we asked the guys at ADHI what they used and that is what they recommended - after months of use I have seen no difference (nor scratches) between those and Wypals.

[TandN]

Beautiful tank its a monster

[porthios]

tgfrench - good idea. i'll make sure that's not the case.

tanya - ty. now you need to come aquascape it for me. :P

the tank builder has come by to tweak the tank for me a bit. they added a .5" round over to the outer edge of the top and installed the weir i mentioned earlier. here's a pic of the weir installed at its lowest positiion.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/weir.jpg

i've also cleaned, etched, crack sealed and epoxied the new fish room floor.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/epoxy.jpg

i plan to get started on the plumbing, reinforce the floor joists, and hang my temporary light rack this weekend. when the remainder of my plumbing arrives from savko (next week hopefully), i'll get her wet..

[TandN]

lol im sure your aquascaping will be awesome ;)

[erics3000]

This is looking like a real nice build. Keep it coming...

[Paulairduck]

looking good so far

[NanoReefWanabe]

looks awesome...how did yo support the underside of the tank? i mean the top of the stand under the plywood?

did you run beams under it as well? just curious as the tank sitting 8" inside the perimeter beams seems like an awful lot of weight for the plywood to hold up...

your planning and design is impeccable and i am sure you have thought of this i would just like to see how you treated the situation...

[porthios]

thanks all. please keep the questions and suggestions coming. i'm positive i haven't thought of everything..

here are a couple pics of the stand that may explain a bit. the osb sits on a standard 2x4 frame with joists 12" on center. that frame sits on a doubled up 2x4 beam, which sits on a double capped 'wall'.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/corner.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/ribs.jpg

i had to cut the joist in the corner to make room for the plumbing. when i figure out what that's going to look like, i'll clean it up.

didn't get nearly as much done as i'd hoped due to holiday social events and a 3hr. noise moratorium during the bronco game. <sigh> the trials of having a sports fan for a wife..

i did manage to get the floor reinforced so i'll probly start filling the tank tomorrow if i can figure out how i'm gonna get the water up from the basement. :rolleyes:

[porthios]

well, now that the holiday social gatherings are through for a bit..

tank's about 1/3 full and i have the 100lbs of new live rock in it. the rock's been curing for about 1.5mos. in a stock tank but i'm going to watch it for pests for a week or so. i'll throw a shrimp in and see what comes hunting ;).

i have 990lbs of dry sand otw which i hope will arrive sometime this week. i've hung a temporary light rack and will get the pendants hung tomorrow. i want to play with their height and configuration a bit before building something more permanent.

the lumber to frame the fish room arrives on tuesday so i hope to have more to show soon.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/rocksin.jpg

[Ed Reef]

Your light rail seem a little low (from the picture) for LB reflectors?? You might want to consider raising em...

[porthios]

the pendants will sit on top of the rack, not hang from it if that's what you're thinking. that's about as high as it'll go before the pendants touch the bottom of the soffit. the bulbs should end up about 24" above the water at the highest adjustment i have available.

that should be high enough to get a decent spread no?

[Ed Reef]

Should be good to go as LB reflectors recommended a min of 15" above water line :)

[46bfinGA]

Nice build, cant wait to see it completed. FWIW, I just put Carib-Sea dry sand in my 600 gallon this weekend and ended up only using 450lbs. That gave me a 3-4" sandbed in a 96"x 48" tank. I think you may end up with a little extra.

[porthios]

perfect, i'm hoping to have some left over for fuge, qt tank, frag tank, etc.. thanks for posting that, i was worried i might not have enough, lol. you have a build thread up 46bfinGA?

[porthios]

ok, lots has happened but hardly anything's complete to show you guys. there is sand (ended up using 900lbs.), rock and saltwater in the tank and the fish room is 80% framed. i'll get a pic of the tank asap and the fish room when the framing's done.

in the meantime, i have to be pretty comfortable with my fish room layout before i can run the electrical and drywall. here are a few pics of my proposed layout. please offer any input you can think of.

the dark blue cylinders are brute's for di and saltwater. the black one is the sump, a 100g rubbermaid stock tank. the oj cube is a work table. the green is the utility sink. the red box on the wall will be the power center and the little black box is the return pump.

the four tanks on the shelves will be a quarantine tank, chaeto tank, frag tank and possibly a seagrass tank. i have room for two 120g's on the top shelves and 18"h tanks on the lower shelves. the actual tanks i end up using may be smaller but i wanted to have enough space for (4) 4'x2' footprinted tanks.

i plan to feed the tanks with the plumbing shown, note the drawing does not include the return from any of the tanks including the display tank above the room.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/room1.png

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/room2.png

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/room3.png

thanks for watching ;).

[porthios]

there has to be something i've forgotten..

[porthios]

well, the magfloat 1000 pro magnet isn't going to work out. it's advertised for 1.5 - 2" pane thickness but i gave it a run tonight (after carefully cleaning the outside of the acrylic) and it's not nearly strong enough for my 1.25". sucks to be wrong on something this expensive. i'll have to see about returning it.

anyone have experience with a magnet that they think ought to work for me?

[jmccown]

look at the algae free great white magnet

[Typhon]

Great build!! I have a very similar size tank (96"x48"x26"). Your builder allowed you to get a way with no center braces?

My tank is 1" and they still made me put in 2x cross braces.

[porthios]

jmccown - thanks. the great white is only rated up to 1" thick.

typhon - thank you. yeah, it really is a great size. so much more fun to aquascape ;).

my builder said pretty much the same thing. at 1" thick i'd have to have cross braces (or a very cool powder coated steel bracing system which is what steve hurlock chose on his 1200gal version). i wanted neither cross braces nor the steel frame so i chose to move up to 1.25" thick acrylic. the price difference was negligible and i'd originally hoped to keep this an open top display.

no thoughts on the fish room layout? i'm hoping to run electrical this weekend so any input would be appreciated.

[porthios]

diatoms started this weekend so i thought i'd throw up some aquascaping photos before it gets bad..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/as1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/as2.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/as3.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/as4.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/as5.jpg

[plyr58]

Maybe I missed it but is there a sink somewhere in that Fish Room layout?

[porthios]

the green cube. thanks for checking ;).

[plyr58]

make sure it is an oversize sink with a gooseneck faucet if you are going to be cleaning a big skimmer collection cup/container.

[porthios]

thanks drew.

bump in the hopes of an algae magnet recommendation..

[Lowredranger]

That looks great, let me know when you start running the vortechs. I am trying to figure out how many i need for a 72x36x25 peninsular tank, I have 3 so far but don't know how many more i will need.

Jason

[Mr. Brooks]

Look at mighty magnets. I really like mine.

[porthios]

lowredranger - will do for sure. i have two running atm but at less than half speed because the sand's not heavy with bacteria, etc. yet..

thechad21 - perfect. tyvm. i'll see what i can find out about them tomorrow. the vid on their website looks pretty impressive..

drywall guy is coming tomorrow to give me an estimate. he said they could install the frp for me so i may be stoked. kind of depends on the $ i guess ;).

i'm definitely a diy kind of guy but i freaking HATE drywall..

[paulthomas]

Lookin' good Jason. :thumbsup: How do you like your Marco Rock? I've got about 130 lbs. and probably need a little more. It's great stuff.

Forgive me if I missed it, but what skimmer are you using?

[porthios]

thanks paul. i really like marco rock but the story behind mine is a little more bitter than sweet.

my cousin is also a reefer and he had a gorgeous 240gal tank set up in his basement. the system had been up and running for about a year, it had just hit that magical age where everything was syncing, the biology had settled in, and his growth had started to take off. he came home one day to find his tank entirely drained onto his newly finished basement floor. the front seam of his 1 year old tank had let go rather catastrophically.

he lost all his coral but a couple of his fish and one of his clams survived. it was about 10 years of accumulated organisms. i rescued his favorite tang, a sailfin and the clam from the fish store that was holding what had lived. they'll hang with me until he's ready to give it another go. it's hard to even get him to talk about reefing atm but he'll come around someday i'm sure.

anyway, the good part is he gave me all his marco rock ;). it's very attractive rock imo though i would check out bulk reef supply's rock as well were i to buy more.

you didn't miss it. i haven't mentioned my skimmer yet. i don't plan to use one on this tank until i decide i need one.

that's going to be difficult for me because i freaking LOVE skimmers. i love the engineering behind them, the smell and feel of them when you pull them out of the box, etc.. i've read every article i've been able to find in the last 10yrs about skimmer design, theory, tuning.. i've modified several skimmers i've owned, etc.. i'd visit other reefer's homes and be like, 'yeah, yeah. great tank. let me see your skimmer..' i used to joke that i setup reef tanks so i could run skimmers.

but the most successful tanks i've run didn't/don't have skimmers. a lot of what i enjoy about reefkeeping is that there are many ways to run a successful tank but the key is finding which way is most successful, for you. for me, that appears to be a dsb, macro algae export, and all the biodiversity i can maintain. so that's my plan for this tank.

this is not a dogmatic thing for me. i'm not leading/following/participating in some anti-skimmer movement. if there's an emergent situation that i think calls for some skimming, i'll throw every one of the old skimmers i have lying around on this system in a heartbeat. even my old pos lifereef that i modified to use airstones ;). and if i decide skimming's going to be necessary on a continuous basis, i'll be ordering up a nice big etss. never got a chance to run a big downdraft skimmer and i've always wanted to..

sorry, those were two innocent questions and i went off a bit..

[mcliffy2]

Very very nice open aquascape - those pics just got me to subscribe :)

[tcmfish]

I would have put some support directly under the tank for piece of mind, but man everything else looks awesome.

[paulthomas]

Wow, that's horrible. What happened to your cousin is just about the worst scenario short of someone intentionally busting a panel of glass. A tank failure is what I fear the most. But it sounds like he's got a good cousin to ease him back into the hobby when the time is right. ;)

No worries on the speech. :D I'm a total newbie. So I like to know what people are doing with their reef tanks. It's all virgin territory for me. If skimmerless works for you and that's what you want, then go for it I say. :smokin:

[porthios]

mcliffy2 - thank you! i'm not completely set on it yet and i may play with it a bit once i can fill the entire tank. the low water level throws my envisioning off a bit. i may very well take a few pieces out when i do because i too like to aquascape with very little rock. untamed12's aquascaping is gorgeous imo. i'm shooting for just a 'touch' of structure and a lot of open space.

tcmfish - that has definitely occured to me as well. we'll see..

paul - ha! well since i have your attention, the only piece of advice i really feel comfortable giving anyone about reefkeeping is this. keep a journal or log for any system you've got going. i'd tell you how many times it's helped me to go back and review what i observed, what i did and why i did it, but i can't remember. perhaps i should log that too ;).

[paulthomas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14279336#post14279336 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
paul - ha! well since i have your attention, the only piece of advice i really feel comfortable giving anyone about reefkeeping is this. keep a journal or log for any system you've got going. i'd tell you how many times it's helped me to go back and review what i observed, what i did and why i did it, but i can't remember. perhaps i should log that too ;).

That's a good piece of advice. Thanks.

I also like your open scape. As a matter of fact, I'm going down to my basement to experiment on my first piece in a few. It's going to be a practice run. ;) Wish me luck!

[porthios]

yeah, i'm tagging along in your build as well. stoked to see what you come up with.

[Lowredranger]

yea i am loving the aquascape, are you just circulating the water in the tank at the moment?

[paulthomas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14279560#post14279560 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
yeah, i'm tagging along in your build as well. stoked to see what you come up with.

Thanks Jason.

BTW, update about to happen. :)

[porthios]

yep, it's all in tank atm. hoping to run electrical this weekend as i've got the drywall guy comin next week. i'll run plumbing and get the whole circulation gig running right after.

[porthios]

ok, lots of pics for you guys. we'll start with the 500 dwarf cerith and 25 periwinkle cerith snails i ordered up from reefcleaners.org. very happy with what i got and john was a great resource via email before i ordered. thanks john!

here's the packaging
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/snails_arrive.jpg

floated for 15mins as per reefcleaners acclimation requirements..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/snails_floating.jpg

here are a few after they'd been added to the tank.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/snails_in1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/snails_in2.jpg

and here's the best close up i could get..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/snails_close.jpg

note the mighty magnet f-8 which i'm very happy with. still skips a bit but as brandon suggested, there might be a bit of a learning curve to slinging these big magnets around..

[porthios]

it occurred to me that this thread lacks a lot of the bling you find in many other build threads. since i don't have a calcium reactor, kalk reactor, or skimmer, i thought i'd show you guys a pic of my favorite piece of equipment so far.

Bam! the deltec, double utility sink!
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/deltec_tub.jpg

thanks for the hookup 46bfinga ;)

i got the fish room framed up, ran two 20amp circuits, and the drywall guys took care of business. note the purple drywall. it's called 'xp'. supposed to be the new hotness in terms of mold and moisture resistance.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fr1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fr2.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fr3.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fr3.jpg

got the room painted today but no pics yet. next up, plumbing. gotta start the break in on that deltec tub.

should i soak it in vinegar first?

[porthios]

last set of pics for tonight. some shots of a few pieces that are head for the main tank at some point..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fts_40.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/left_40.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/right_40.jpg

thanks all!

[porthios]

anyone have tips on installing vinyl baseboard?

[Corndork2]

cant wait to see more man! it looks very promising!

[Kaiden]

Wow, I did not know Deltec Made Dual Sinks...!:eek1:

Nice Find...:rollface:

[kcdan87]

that dual sink is awesome

[~sp0ok~]

looking good

[sean_954]

that shyt looks good !!

[reedrodz]

it looks good man..how important is snail in a reef tank?

[porthios]

thanks all..

got the utility sink plumbed up (well cold side anyway) and one of the double tank stands build this weekend. i'll try to get the other one done this week so i can get the plumbing to/from the tank done over the weekend. large plumbing projects are best done when the wife's out of town for the weekend ime.. ;)

vinyl baseboard sucks btw. or at least, i suck at installing it. should've stuck with wood.

placed an order for 25 nerite and 50 nassarius snails that should arrive next week. turfs are in full effect so i'll be stoked to get them.

reed - very important imo. at least for the way i like to keep reefs. i suspect you might be funin tho ;).

[miwoodar]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14352126#post14352126 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
Bam! the deltec, double utility sink!
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/deltec_tub.jpg


:lol: That's one fine sink!

You move fast, Jason. I look away for a few weeks and you already have both water and rock!

[LooseHip]

Looks like this is going to be another very nice and clean build... subscribed!

[paulthomas]

Where are the updates Jason? Sheesh. You're almost as bad as me. :p

I'm kidding. No one is as bad as me. :o

Paul :D

[porthios]

i know man, i know..

hoping to get some pics up for you guys this weekend. lots to show ;).

thanks loosehip! glad you're taggin along..

[miwoodar]

I might give you a run for your money Paul. I've been promising pics in my thread for months now.

Let's see it, Jason! I'm waiting on baited breath.

[paulthomas]

Lookin' forward to it bro! :D

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14800259#post14800259 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by miwoodar
I might give you a run for your money Paul. I've been promising pics in my thread for months now.

Let's see it, Jason! I'm waiting on baited breath.

Pfft. :rolleyes: I've been cruising these sites for over two years now with NO reef tank to ever speak of. No tank with water in it that is. :o :D

Beat that! :lol: :lol2:

[Squidman]

Yeah, if there's one thing that's bugs it's when build threads don't get updated. Especially when there are fish being added to the tank...

[porthios]

ok status update. all the various water holding vessels are setup and plumbed. 525g display, 90g seagrass, 75g macro algae, 58g qt, 40b chaeto and the 100g rubbermaid sump. figure that's about 900g total give or take..

i've torn down my other tanks and moved all my livestock into this system as of this weekend. all of the coral (except for a few frags) are in the display along with my kole and sailfin tang. my other fish are in the macro tank for now while i let the pods rule the display for a while longer. i'd have put the tangs in there as well but i didn't want them eating my macros..

i'm finally back to one system to maintain ;). hmm, perhaps a nano in the kitchen would be fun..

here's a current fts complete with billions of micro bubbles which i have yet to isolate. you can also see the 4 vortechs which, along with the return pump, provide a good amount of flow in the display. i only run two at a time alternating the resulting gyre every 20mins. 'tis quite ninja really..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fts_042609_1.jpg

my frogspawn and the many pieces of my hammer which were created when i moved it into the tank.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_8.jpg

a view of the sargassum and padina macros that hitch hiked in on my live rock.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_5.jpg

here are some shots of the fish room. none of this is finished of course, lots to tidy up still, but this should give you an idea of where i'm headed.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/work_area.jpg

this sw storage tub is 250g total so i should be able to do up to a 25% wc if the need arises.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sw_tub.jpg

here's a shot of the seagrass tank (top) and the macro algae tank (bottom). this pic is a couple of weeks old. there's a dsb in the seagrass tank and several macros in the macro tank which i'll post pics of soon as it clears up a bit.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/left_tanks.jpg

thanks all!

[Zack33]

wow looking great:)
Can't wait to see more pics:)

Zack

[LooseHip]

clean looking I like it.! I too think we need a few more pics;) maybe one of the lighting:D

[SMOOTHIE]

Please pm me where that storage tub came from

[porthios]

i'll pm you as well but here's a link (http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog_name=usplastic&category_name=20743&product_id=20744) to the tank for anyone else that's curious. it's called a 'doorway tank' as it's built 29" wide specifically to fit through, yes.. wait for it..

doorways.

turned out to be key in my case. i would have preferred a taller cylindrical shaped model but couldn't find one i could get to the room that was large enough to be worth while..

[Spinny]

porthios,

Things are looking great, and your equipment room looks fantastic. I have a couple questions if you don't mind.

How did you finish your ceiling in your equipment room?

What was the final thought on the roughed toilet drain in the basement? I take it, that it was OK to use. Is there any kind of venting when using it as a drain?

[porthios]

thanks spinny. i've enjoyed it quite a bit..

i haven't finished the ceiling. planning to just install a drop ceiling but need to organize the room and plumbing a bit more before i start.

i'm using the drain under the sink for everyting so far. the location of the other one has made it difficult for me to incorporate into my plans. this has made wc's a bit more cumbersome than i'd like so i'll have to address it eventually. just haven't had time yet.

[PaulOKC]

The tank is incredible, Jason! Great job so far on this massive build! :)

[paulthomas]

Jason,

Dumb question here... does that sink have two drains?

[miwoodar]

How man, that looks great! The real estate in the tank is most impressive. When are you hosting the show and tell?

Paul - yes, you beat me by a long shot. :)

[porthios]

paulokc - thank you very much :)

paulthomas - it has one drain in each basin that Y together ~4" under the base.

miwoodar - you are of course, welcome any time.. :)


ok, a few updates. my good friend john from www.reefcleaners.org sent me a bag of sand and mud that he gathered for me from one of their collection spots. i flipped a valve and isolated my 90g seagrass tank, then dumped it in. about three days later i reconnected the tank. still don't have lights on the 90g so no pics of that yet.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/mud.jpg

last weekend i ran down to the DARC (denver area reef club) frag swap and picked up 6 frags from a fellow reefer that had some really nice stuff. unfortunately, he had redbugs too.

+1 for quarantine :)..

i printed out borneman's recommended treatment protocol and got some interceptor from the vet. today i setup my 10g treatment tank and got busy.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/hospital_tank.jpg

1 interceptor tablet for 51-100lb dogs and my ghetto mortar and pestle..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/int_prep.jpg

dosage recommendation is 1/8-1/4 tablet per 10g of water. please note the precision with which this was addressed.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/int_quarter.jpg

painstakingly mashed into as fine a powder as i could manage.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/int_crushed.jpg

frags nestled comfortably in their home for the next 5 days.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/int_frags.jpg

had a heater incident in qt the day they arrived so some are looking pretty bad. seems it always takes a few runs with a new setup for me to work out all the kinks. anyway, wanted to get a good before treatment pic.

the calustrea is a frag that came from my main colony. i like to use calustrea as a water quality indicator and that's the purpose it's performing here.

tomorrow morning i'll perform a 100% wc and reinspect the frags..

wish me luck :)

[Zack33]

good luck:) so once the frags get introduced we get more tank pics right? ;)

lol

Zack:)

[porthios]

here are a couple fun ones. wanted to take a pic of the sargassum before i pruned it. enjoy..

these two pics are almost exactly one month old..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_7.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_6.jpg

and these two i took today..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sargassum1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sargassum2.jpg

[Zack33]

wow thats some growth, do you plan on adding some tangs so they can feed on it? and keep it in the tank? i think it looks cool lol

[Dante_JoseCuerv]

Dude, that's some sick sargassum. Very cool indeed.

[Brandan]

Hope the cleaner crew does well for the long term. I am stickin' around for this one.

Brandan

[BigTuna321]

nice sargassum,, id stick a giant gigas clam in that big spot in the tank for sure,, just an idea though...

[porthios]

zack - neither the kole nor sailfin seem to eat it at this point (though they did enjoy the padina which i was too slow to migrate to the macro tank). not sure if any of the tangs i have planned will eat it or not..

dante - ty :) i really dig it. i put a test piece in the macro tank to see if it would grow under the lighting i have down there. it did, so i moved one of the sargassum rocks from the display to the macro tank. i'll post some pics when i get around to aquascaping it a bit ;)..

brandan - thanks for tagging along.

tuna - i've had that same thought.. don't think i can make the commitment for a gigas though. there's no winning the end game.. i am keeping an eye out for a nice derasa however..

dropped by an lfs this weekend and picked up a cleaner shrimp, two peppermint shrimp and 3 more large turbos. i REALLY wanted to bring one of these (coris gaimard) home but managed to resist..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/gaimard.jpg

gorgeous fish though.

i recently upgraded the reefkeeper2 to a reefkeer elite with net module and i dig it so far. the availability of the net module is what clinched it for me. email alerts, etc. are just too handy to ignore..

i did manage to mis-program the channel that's responsible for running my kalk reactor, however. sucker wasn't firing at all. my ph had dropped to 7.85 before i figured it out. guess i need to get those alarms working at some point ;).

[porthios]

picked up 6 more tasty frags at a not-so-local fish store this weekend. they came with redbugs and flatworms (red planaria, not aefw). treated and into qt. i'm picking up another 6-8 frags from a local reefer after work today. some gorgeous stuff, imo..

i'll take some pics when i get everything into qt.

ph is starting to come up although slowly. turns out there's a known bug with the rke timer function and i still wasn't running the kalk reactor as often as i thought i was. ph is currently only getting up to about 8.1 in the evening and i'd like it around 8.3-8.4.

i'm expecting a wireless bridge from amazon today/tomorrow so when that gets here i'll have the net module running/logging/graphing full time and i should have a better idea of 24/7 levels, etc..

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14352126#post14352126 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
it occurred to me that this thread lacks a lot of the bling you find in many other build threads. since i don't have a calcium reactor, kalk reactor, or skimmer, i thought i'd show you guys a pic of my favorite piece of equipment so far.

Bam! the deltec, double utility sink!
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/deltec_tub.jpg



This photo alone is worth a sunscription to the thread... fingers crossed no disasters in the tank since February... :D

LL

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15070806#post15070806 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
here are a couple fun ones. wanted to take a pic of the sargassum before i pruned it. enjoy..

these two pics are almost exactly one month old..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_7.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_6.jpg

and these two i took today..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sargassum1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sargassum2.jpg

Let me know if you ever want to get rid of clippings of the sargassum... my seahorses would love that in their new tank!

LL

[robot2222]

do you have any new updates

[porthios]

lightsluvr - can't believe you're gonna try and jinx me like that. my wife and i just got back from a long weekend in the mountains and if i'd read that before we left i'd have gotten no sleep at all. :)

can't be that hard to ship the sargassum and i'll have to look into that at some point but if you haven't already, check out www.reefcleaners.org. they have an excellent selection of macros at great prices and john is awesome when it comes to customer service imo..

robot2222 - thanks for looking, i hope this'll suffice..

so i finally got tired of apologizing for my photo skills, broke down and bought a proper camera last week and started studying a bit. i'll spare you the 4,245,231 pictures i've taken of my poor dog but here are a few decent ones i've managed of the tank so far. no macro lens or tripod yet as i haven't decided which to get.

here's a shot of the display setup atm. wife's gonna hang me if i don't get the stand skinned soon.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0196.jpg

the two buds and a spy from..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0011.jpg

the lyretail posse.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0007.jpg

orange backed fairy wrasse aka - double double

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0204.jpg

one of the lyretails tryin to make me look good

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0205.jpg

left side

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0208.jpg

right side

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0209.jpg


i have ~20 frags ready to go to the display from qt as soon as i get some time. this evening if i'm lucky. i'm also getting ready to order some fish from live aquaria.

i just found out that my cousin will not be tearing down his 120g so i'll need to flush out the rest of my stocking list on my own. here are the fish i have atm.

display tank
kole tang
sailfin tang
1 male, 4 female lyretail anthias
orange backed fairy wrasse

75g macro tank
flame hawk
2 oscellaris clownfish

possible additions
purple tang - we love purples so this is quite likely
powder blue tang - little worried about sensitivity and aggression
regal tang - great fish but everyone has one
sohal tang - would absolutely LOVE to have one but think they probly ought to stay on the reefs
achilles tang - same as sohal though maybe not quite as bad
white cheek tang - one of my all time favorites
hawian flame wrasse harem - 1 male, couple females
bellus angel - mated pair?

would probly only get one of powder/sohal/achilles plus purple and white cheek. that should leave room for whatever cool 'filler' fish i come across.

anyway, would love to hear your thoughts :).

[Brandan]

Bellus is a great choice. I highly recommend them :)

[cdeboard]

Wow... read this from page 1. Awesome build. really nice frog and hammer you have there as well.

[porthios]

thanks brandan. i think any genicanthus would be sweet but i've only seen the bellus in person as i recall.

cdeboard - tyvm :). i'm ****ed i shattered the hammer so badly when i moved it into the new display. ah well. another 6mos and it'll be nice again..

i'm not sure anyone cares to hear husbandry updates but i'll note a few here for my reference later.

i chose to use a kalk reactor (geo) with this setup vs. mixing batches in a brute container (as i've done before) because it's a lot cleaner and less labor intensive but as expected, it isn't quite as effective either. as a result, i've never been able to get the reactor to keep up with ca/alk demands and have had to supplement ca/alk manually.

two weeks ago i added sodium carbonate dosing via litermeter3. i'm quite happy with the new arrangement as it's bumped my ph up to around 8.3 and my alk levels are relatively stable now vs. manually dosing twice a week. i think it's probly time to break down and do the same for calcium and magnesium as well. i was trying to run off kalk alone for as long as possible but hey,

i'm really lazy ;).

i'll post pics when i get it sorted out.

[asmodeus]

dude love the fishroom clean and more clean. lol what about getting a few blotchy anthias in there

[t kish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15070806#post15070806 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
here are a couple fun ones. wanted to take a pic of the sargassum before i pruned it. enjoy..

these two pics are almost exactly one month old..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_7.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/close_042609_6.jpg

and these two i took today..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sargassum1.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/sargassum2.jpg

Stunning aquarium , will only get better with age.

Can you tell me what the spiral stuff is that is growing out of the rock ?
Its in the first pic on the right hand side.

Thanks Tim

[porthios]

asmodeus - thank you :). kind of doubt i'll add another anthias species but we'll see..

tim - it's padina aka potato algae. unfortunately, the two tangs found it quite tasty and i was too slow to save any before they ate it all. i really liked it and may have to order some more for the macro tank.

[t kish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15215512#post15215512 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by porthios
asmodeus - thank you :). kind of doubt i'll add another anthias species but we'll see..

tim - it's padina aka potato algae. unfortunately, the two tangs found it quite tasty and i was too slow to save any before they ate it all. i really liked it and may have to order some more for the macro tank.

So it is a good algae?
I have it growing all over my tank and was getting worried about it ,even though I thought it looked interesting.

Tim

[porthios]

well, we tend to say algae is bad if it's invasive, overly toxic or ugly and a pain to get rid of. padina is not invasive, apparently tasty, very easily harvested (nutrient export) and attractive to my eyes.

so i'll call it a good one :).

[edandsandy]

Everything look great, I like how you have organized your fish room too!

[porthios]

thank you sandy. i'm happy to see your tank is cruising along very well. one of my favorite threads.

so here's why i'll probly never have a tank with out calustrea. this is what my main colony looks like under normal conditions.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0006.jpg

and here's what it looked like when i came home from work today. sorry the photo sucks..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/IMG_0339.jpg

i've decided to maintain ca/alk with just two part dosed via litermeter3 so last night i unplugged my kalk reactor and bumped my alk dosing. turns out i'd over shot a bit and my alk went from 10-11.7dkh in about 15hrs. i don't expect this to be a big issue but i'm glad i caught the error when i did.

calustrea has always been a good water quality indicator for me as it seems to be the first to complain in an obvious way about most of the mistakes i make.

thought i'd share..

[New Jer-Z]

Great Looking Tank

[porthios]

thanks man i appreciate the kind words..

an all too common moment of brilliance led to a completely flooded fish room last night and i thought i'd start a list of stupid things i've done during this build.

1. ran my 400w mh lights for 6 days before figuring out i'd forgotten to peel the protective lining from the lumen bright reflectors. 'what's that burning smell?' bought new reflectors..

2. came home last night to find that my top off pump had stuck on and dumped a bit extra into the sump. it's on a timer and float switch, the timer saved me at that point. at the same time i noticed that the main pump wasn't quite pushing like it should, 'hmm, must be a snail or some air trapped in there. i'll powercycle it!'

guess what didn't come back on and guess what happened to the extra 10g of water..

it took about 60 seconds for it to flood and i really wish i had a video of my actions/reactions for that minute. in that small amount of time i solved several plumbing issues that had been nagging me for a while and engineered two completely separate devices that would allow me to avoid what i knew was coming. it may have been the most productive moment of creativity i'll ever know.

of course, i had no time to actually implement those devices and could only stare at the mop with resignation..

go me..

i'll update when i get to #3 :).

[mfd574]

looks great

[porthios]

well, i think i'm down to 4 anthias. a few days ago, two of my 4 females turned male and the aggression started between the three males. the next day the smallest male disappeared and i haven't been able to find him since.

lame.

turns out i'm not going to be able to eliminate kalk. sodium carbonate alone is only keeping the tank's ph at ~8.0 so i'll be pulling the kalk reactor back out of the closet. was worth a shot i guess :)..

i added a blue spotted jawfish, squamosa and derasa from live aquaria to qt last week as well. have family in town atm but i'll throw up some pics when i can.

[porthios]

i'm definitely down to 4 anthias. two males and two females. little bummed about it.

orange backed fairy wrasse jumped into the overflow yesterday and i'm gonna be ****ed if i lose him so i'll try to get the new canopy done this weekend.

jawfish looks good so he'll probly move to the display in the next couple of days.

the squamy and derasa both had pyramid snails which i removed manually. it's about time for me to check them again but if they're clean they'll move up as well.

i'm back to dosing kalk from a reservoir again. i'm currently dosing ~20l/day and it's holding ca/alk steady for me without any two part. a 5g bucket would last about a week on my old 40g but i'm gonna need a bit bigger res for this get up ;).

[Lightsluvr]

Anything new on your tank? Status of anthias? I was considering adding several anthias in lieu of chromis to give a schooling look... but if they "disappear" like the chromis - may have to re-think that choice...

LL

[porthios]

guess it's time for an update..

i have officially abandoned the open top and hanging lights. i had a bunch of jumpers and resigned myself to having a hood. i've had a mock version up there for a few months and i like it so i'll go ahead and build one of those as well when i uh, finish the stand.. :)

i played around with ca/alk/mg dosing quite a bit in the past few months. got a little careless in the process and had a few spikes and drops that killed a couple of my acro frags.

the soda ash that i used for a while was really quite dirty and even foamed a bit as i mixed it up. i'm not convinced that wasn't a good part of the problem as well. i've switched to baked baking soda which is mixing up super clean. all's stable now and things look pretty good atm.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0490.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0496.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0503.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0526.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0560.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0606.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/img_0589.jpg

thanks all..

[porthios]

ah, remembered something else..

this (http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic101230-9-1.aspx) discussion led me to abandon my rubbermaid brutes in favor of a couple of these (http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog_name=USPlastic&category_name=25&product_id=30703)..

this was done the same time as the switch away from the soda ash..

[DanW]

Jason, just read through your thread and man am I jealous. Fantastic tank size and I really covet the fish room. I wish that I had the space to house all of the stuff that you have. Anyway regarding adding a hood how about adding a screen instead? Use the ¼” netting and you’re good to go. Keep the updates coming…:thumbsup:

[robot2222]

tank looks great ........was the macro alge you had growing in the tank just for the begining . did you tranplant into fuge ?

[porthios]

thanks dan. i really dig it. i wish i had some of your colonies so i guess that just about makes us even :).

i thought about a screen actually. if i were to have another tank built i'd probably have them cut a rabbit around the inside of the euro bracing to hold one. that might look pretty tight.

honestly though, the hood gives me more room to get in and work around the tank than hanging a rack. i couldn't come up with an aesthetic way to allow the rack to slide out of my way so i was kind of forced to work under it and there wasn't much room. because the tank's so wide, i can easily slide a hood to one side or the other and have all the room i need to get around.

it's also nice to eliminate the glare of a hanging rack.

robot - ty :)

the macro in the tank is still there, it's popped up in a couple more places around the display as well. i plan to keep it attractively pruned assuming none of the coming livestock does it for me. i did transplant some to the macro tank as well but i've had some real cyano problems in there (better than the display :)) and it's not what i would call thriving.

i'm still considering it part of the new tank algae cycle but if it's still around at the new year i'll look at it a bit harder.

thanks guys for the comments and suggestions.

[porthios]

got a gorgeous new pbt today. here's the current fish list..

powder blue tang
kole tang
sailfin tang
bellus angel
1m/3f anthias
2 oscellaris clownfish
bluespot jawfish
royal gramma

i may or may not still look for a nice white cheek tang.

[D' kingfisher]

good luck on your new addition

[porthios]

getting that pbt to eat was pretty tough. threw every food i could get at it. it picked at the rocks constantly but there wasn't much for it to eat. it's been about two weeks and he'd been looking pretty rough since day 4-5..

suddenly today he's eating pellets, flake, mysis, etc..

dork :)

[stylolvr]

Congrats! Hopefully it is a sign that all is well in PBT-land. Boy, they can be finicky!

[DanW]

Jason, How do all of your tangs get along? I've always liked PBTs but have been hesitant to try one because of thier rep as being difficult and Ich magnets.

[porthios]

yeah, he definitely had me worried.

the three tangs get along pretty well so far. i added the pbt last as they have a rep for being more than a little aggressive. there was some posturing when i first put him in. the kole tang seems to give any new comers a hard time but the pbt held his own and they seem fine for now.

pbt and kole are about 5" now, the sailfin's about 4". all still pretty small.

[porthios]

the pbt is eating like a pig now. not shy at all about grabbing scraps from the others :).

in an effort to challenge myself, i plugged my lm3 into the wrong outlet and overdosed kalk. the outlet on my da rke is controlled by ph but this one.. not so much.

the inevitable kalk storm ensued and ph shot up to about 8.75. i jammed to the store to get some soda water but when i returned found it to be about 8.15.

i've seen it drop back a bit (.1-.2) after precipitating before but not .6. kind of surprised me..

that was 3 days ago and nothing seems to have been bothered by it yet..

[DanW]

doh! I hate when that happens. Hope it doesn't hurt any of your livestock.

[d-man]

some new fts are needed

[porthios]

just got back from a week down in cabo san lucas. looks like i didn't get the dosing dialed like i'd hoped before i left. my mom was checking on the house every couple of days and said the tank kalk stormed about halfway into my trip.

levels today were
s/34
kh/100ppm
ca/200ppm
mg/1250ppm

everything looks fine atm but damn. bad time to have to go on a vacation tank wise..

least there was no water on the floor. ;)

[porthios]

thought this was a fun pic of my 75g refugium..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/macro_tank_12-18-09.jpg

[Leonardo_]

Woow, that's a full grown refugium :) Do you keep any critters in there?

Leonardo

[porthios]

yeah, the pump running my ats shut down while i was gone and the refugium took off a bit :)..

ceriths, turbos, astreas, nerites, a fighting conch. there are actually two euphyllia colonies and a montipora digitata colony hidden in there. think that's about it..

[marekt]

love the size of tank

[sbleile]

how deep is your sand bed in the refugium

[porthios]

thanks marekt. i dig it too. wish i could have fit 48" wide tho ;)

the sandbed in the refugium is about 3". there's a 90g with a good 8" sandbed right above the 75 and a 58g qt with a 1-2" sandbed as well.

[DanW]

Long time Jason...update?

[porthios]

hmm..

yeah, guess i am overdue for some pics by now. tank's been doing quite well.

quite a bit to tell you about actually. turns out my deltec double tub utility sink may NOT be the coolest thing in my fish room..

give me a week to get the hotness installed and i'll tell ya all about it ;).

[porthios]

tank's been doing quite well.

aaaaauuuuggghhhh!

can't believe i jinxed myself like that on my 666th post!

i'll never sleep tonight..

[Dejavu]

Great build Jason.... I need a update :).

[shannonpayne86]

Man what an awesome looking setup, that tank looks so clean in the last FTS, congratulations.

[porthios]

thanks guys. it's been a lot of fun.

got a rather large shipment from live aquaria today and this is the second time they've disappointed me. part of the shipment came from ca and the other from wisconsin.

salinity for each
ca 25ppt
wi 34ppt

seriously? the last shipment i got from ca was low like that as well. even if they'd both been at 25ppt that would have been fine. just set the salinity in the qt tank accordingly and acclimate for a while.

after a few harsh words i decided to split the difference and diluted the qt water to 30ppt, then acclimated both groups separately and slowly. hadn't really anticipated having to set up two different qt setups.

one anthias hasn't made it so far. fingers crossed for the rest..

mystery wrasse
male yellowfin flasher wrasse
7 female (remaining) lyretail anthias
diamond watchman goby
blue head combtooth blenny
red mandarin

this is my last attempt at keeping a bunch of anthias. there are only two remaining in the main display that haven't jumped or been killed. was hoping that adding 8 at once would help with aggression and i think i've licked the jumping problem. we'll see..

[DanW]

That is disappointing for sure. Although I've never ordered from them I've always heard good things about LA...:confused: Hope they pull though.

[paulthomas]

That fish mishap sucks, bro. I bought a pylei wrasse from an LFS recently. The owner told me the fish was in hypo, ~ 1.014, which was fine since I was going to hypo it anyway. I got home and the bag water was 1.0108. I imagine what's happening at these places is that they're not replenishing water removed with saltwater, only RO.

[miwoodar]

Yikes. 25ppt. Yikes. Good luck with the newbies.

That's the most exciting fuge I've seen in a long time, sir.

FTS? Maybe I missed discussions regarding the potato chip growth? I'm curious how it is doing as I had it for about the first year of a tank a while back. It then disappeared for a year or more, made a brief (too brief) return, and hasn't been seen since. I'm hoping it will return again someday. I would love to see your setup someday - if you're ever hosting an event, please let me know!

[DanW]

Jason, how'd the fishes do? OK I hope?

[PSU REEFER]

Jason, great build. I was wondering if you added any hermit crabs or not? I saw you did a ton of snails and I'm trying to decide what kind of CUC I want in my soon to be 500. Any input would be appreciated.

[PSU REEFER]

Also what type of sand are you using?

[porthios]

well, all told i only lost two (anthias and mandarin) to acclimation. mystery wrasse and diamond watchman goby jumped cause i'm a moron and left maybe 4" of overflow open for them to jump through. i've since replaced the dwg with another from a lfs. grr..

mike - haven't seen any more of the potato chip algae. i'm keeping an eye out for it but the red filamentous algae has all but taken over the fuge. you are welcome of course. would love to pick your brain on it a bit if you're ever up this way.

psu - thank you very much :). i didn't intentionally add any hermits but one stowaway showed up in a snail shell. i see him from time to time. i'm pretty happy with my clean up crew. i may add a holothuria sp. at some point if the diamond watchman goby doesn't keep the sand as clean as i'd like. i'll give him a month or two to get his mojo workin. i used 900ish pounds of carib sea oolitic aragonite.

[porthios]

i played around with the camera a bit tonight and here are a few shots i came up with. i'm still learning. be gentle..

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/016.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/020.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/027.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/050.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/044.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/037.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/029.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/056.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/143.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/155.jpg

the dude abides.. ^

[DanW]

Nice update Jason. Love the picture of the anthia and your corals look happy and healthy...but yeah keep practicing with the camera :p

[porthios]

yeah well.. i keep yelling at them to FREAKING SIT STILL!! but they don't listen :)..

[DanW]

yeah well.. i keep yelling at them to FREAKING SIT STILL!! but they don't listen :)..:lolspin: Story of my life dude, wife, kids, fish, coral, work team etc...

[tom obrecht]

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/155.jpg

Tank is coming along nicely...your taste in dogs is GREAT!!
GOLDENS RULE!!

[porthios]

yeah they do. oak's the man..

and ty :)

[Chato2701]

Really tank, great colors!

[Chato2701]

Man I just can't get over how good that tank looks. All the colors of corals are awesome. I am trying to add more color to my tank but it keeps turning brown...trying different things to return the color to them. Would like to see more pictures!

[ptr13]

love the group of lyretails,almost a colony. Thanks for sharing your build and great work,that is one awesome set up,I am jealous :) Keep us posted and love the macro algae,that is called lets nature take its course take care of chemical imbalance within the tank.

[Jachael]

tank looks great. read through the whole thread. I was wondering if you had any new shots of the stand after you skinned it. Or what you decided to do with the canopy.

[porthios]

well thanks for the compliments all. :)

it's really a lot of fun when non reefkeepers see it and like it but it means that much more to hear from you guys. i appreciate it.

i haven't skinned the stand yet lol.. my wife and i just picked out our dining room furniture so now i can build the stand to match (or at least compliment) the rest of the room. that'll be my project for the summer for sure..

[Dejavu]

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/143.jpg



Awsome shot Jason! Tank looks great :thumbsup:.

[monty]

alright. wanted to wait til i had some good photos to show you guys and here we go..

i'd pegged this spot for a tank when my wife and i first looked at this house. it will nicely divide my living/dining rooms and a great attention grabber as guests come through the front door. the planets aligned and we're finally able to build the tank we wanted.

the tank we had built is 96x42x30 and made of 1.25" acrylic. it has 4" eurobracing and no crossbracing. it will be viewable on 3 sides and the internal overflow contains two dry boxes which will house vortech motors and hide their cables. the tank will be plumbed to a fish room located directly below it, in the basement.

equipment so far
lights - 4 400w reeflux 12k bulbs in lumen bright pendants driven by dimmable coralvue ballasts
flow - 4-6 mp40w
return pump - reeflo xxx. planned on a barracuda but have since moved the fish room closer to the tank so i might not need quite that much..

the substrate will be made up of a 5" dsb (probly), marco rock, marshall island and pohnpei live rock. about 200lbs live, the rest dry.

here are some of the pics i have so far..

this is the stand my uncle and i built. woodworking is another hobby for me so i'm looking forward to skinning it.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/stand.jpg

my wife and kids, stress testing the frame..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/family_on_stand.jpg

the buds getting ready to lift the beast onto the stand. the tank weighs 900lbs+ and the builder showed up nearly an hour early so there were only five of us there to get it off the truck. fortunately, no one was killed, but most importantly, the tank wasn't damaged ;).
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/ready_to_lift.jpg

the crew's all done!
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/crews_done.jpg

next on the agenda is building the new fish room. i'd originally planned to just plumb the tank to the existing fish room, but it's at the other end of the house. building a new one, closer to the tank, will pay off in the long run and let me learn from a few mistakes i made on the first. i'll try to keep up with pics as i go but here's a first draft - sketchup style..
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x10/p0rthi0s/fishroom.jpg

please give any feedback you'd care to share and thanks for watching :D ..


Go UCONN!!!! (class of '04)

[PSU REEFER]

Any new updates?

[porthios]

nothing too interesting.

back in feb i started running a skimmer (etss 1400) on the tank full time to see what effect it would have on the system. i can't say i notice a difference in the display and my no3/po4 tests the same when i bother to check. i was interested to see if it had an effect on tank ph but it hasn't seemed to. i don't have to harvest the fuge as often.

the goby is doing an excellent job of keeping the sand bed clean.

i've recently stopped using kalk altogether. the ca reactor is shouldering the entire ca/alk load atm. the ph has dropped to the 7.9 range (from 8.25-8.35 with kalk) and i'm trying to decide if kalk is worth the hassle for me. corals are still growing at a good clip but perhaps not as fast as with the kalk. hard to tell.

i have a melanarus wrasse, niger trigger and yellow tang in the 58 (frag tank) that i may move to the display sometime soon. unless i find something i absolutely HAVE to have, i'm pretty much done with fish. the powder blue eats out of my hand now which is fun.

kinda just cruisin along. growin ;)

[Squidman]

How about some pics of the finished stand? I'm sure it's got to be done after you having ALL FREAKING summer to work on it. Nice tank, needs a niger and some yellow in the display though. :D

[sps aquaria]

looks great

[LooseHip]

bump for an update! with pics please :)

[Dwerbs]

amazing build

[Squidman]

Dude, seriously, update. :strooper: