New build CL BC29 with old used stuff

[five.five-six]

I left reefing in 2007. At the time I had a very nice 180 gallon SPS factory but for several reasons I stepped away, never to return again.

Then one morning last month, I awoke and announced that I was going to get a reef tank. It was to be a 200+ gallon system installed in the dining room window with a shed built up against our home to house the tank, equipment and supplies. My wife was horrified.

As a compromise, I found a BC29 with an unused lighting hood offered by a local reefer "ready to go". As it turns out, and as I had forgotten, "ready to go" doesn't really mean "ready to go". In this thread I will attempt to chronicle my journey from "ready to go" to whatever it turns out to be.

One of my challenges in this build, and this is a good thing, is that my wife remembers all the money I spent on the last tanks. This is why I am useing mostly old to rather old equipment. Cheep, traded and donated supplies are being used to build equity for when I announce in 6 months that the original light bulbs have worn out and I need to replace them with a steve's retrofit LED system.


I did start with a bag of live sand bought retail and about 2 pounds of live rock. The rest is dead rock which can be had on the cheep.

Front view

http://reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=376722&d=1500816415

Top down view

http://reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=376723&stc=1&d=1500816437


About a week later I added 2 perculas. Within a few days, many of the things you don't want growing in a reef tank started flourishing :( We have since had a family discussion about how fish don't "look" hungry.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=377086&stc=1&d=1501369859

[Jadams]

Nice start! I like the aquascape...

[five.five-six]

Thank you :) I am rather pleased with how the aquascape worked out myself. The only issue is the one branch midway up on the right ended up right in the way of where I wanted to put the 6055 tunze. I had to adjust and now there is a small bare spot on the bottom of the aquarium. If all goes well, it will be covered in corraline algae soon enough.

I wired up my ACIII pro this weekend. I had traded some ammo that I wasn't using to another reefer who had bought it back in the day and never used it. It's far nicer than having a bunch of timers on power strips and it allows me to easily do a lot of things.

Also, the factory corralife stand was fairly wobbly. This is one other thing I bought retail from petco, IIRC it was $100 shipped. I glued gussets in the bottom and it stiffened right up :)

http://reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=377221&stc=1&d=1501524471

[mikedege]

He's back................ ;)

[five.five-six]

He's back................ ;)

And my wife is on a mission, she fallows me arround with a little notepad and writes down every penny I spend on it now.


I bought a used and mildly damaged remora skimmer body for it on the cheep. I just ordered a MJ1200 pump. I'll update once I get that thing skimming.

I didn't buy a ammonia test, to save money. I'll just assume the cycle is over once the perculas have survived for a month... perhaps 3 weeks. I'm getting anxious :)