ReefNoob's Huge 90 gallon build Thread

[kmcochran0010]

I love the stand.

[Reef noob_]

Originally Posted by kmcochran0010

I love the stand.

Thanks, I do too!

[mapleredta]

Originally Posted by Reef noob_

Lights finally came in today yay! They somehow got lost in shipping and had ended up in Michigan before coming down here to me, odd... but anyways I got them all set up and did a few modifications to them.

> I took of the lenses (I was told this gives a better spread)
> I replaced the stock fans with quieter ones

Other than those few things I had to do I'm really impressed with these lights, super bright I'll take some pictures once they're hung this weekend.

I, too, went with those modules for my 90 gallon, but I only purchased two of them. What fans did you upgrade to? If you could, please post the link so that I can look into doing the same modification. I hope my lights come in tomorrow!

[Reef noob_]

Originally Posted by mapleredta

I, too, went with those modules for my 90 gallon, but I only purchased two of them. What fans did you upgrade to? If you could, please post the link so that I can look into doing the same modification. I hope my lights come in tomorrow!

I also ended up with two of them for my 90, and they're working really well still!

For mods i took off the lenses for a better color spread and less dark spots as well as upgrading the fan. I changed them to the ones that someone recommended in this light's dedicated thread thread. link here:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...e+led&page=151

(I forgot what the actual fans are, you can look for them there or ask in that thread)

Hope this helps!

[Reef noob_]

Okay, so I realize that it's been a long time since I have posted on this thread, but honestly nothing new really happened with the tank until last weekend. Two weeks ago I went on a trip to the other side of the country for a competition, and was gone for eight days. I left the tank in my brother's hands with very clear instructions and a light feeding schedule, but when we returned the tank was in ruins with the corals all closed up and algae an inch thick everywhere so yeah that was a nice welcome home gift....

I decided that since I needed to replace the sand anyways I would do a complete cleaning/reset of the tank. So I took all the livestock and rock out, then threw away the sand. I then put the new sand in and began to refill with premixed water. That's where I hit a snag: even though I'd rinsed the sand A LOT before putting it in, there was still a crazy sandstorm in the tank. It was so bad that I rigged up my filter socks directly to the return pump and they were clogged within an hour. Lets just say I've gone through a lot of filter socks lately lol.

The water then took two full days to clear up enough for me to put everything back in ( I had been storing them in 32 gallon trash cans) I attempted to somewhat recreate the old aquascape and then put the fish back in. Everyone went right into the rocks but by the next day were out and looking normal. I got everything running again and here we are: a pretty much fresh tank and hopefully a much more stable system going forwards.

Here are a few pics of the tank now, 24 hours after the reset:

Last night, day of the move-in:




Today, FTS:




so yeah, a little update here, ill try to be a little more regular going on

[Bphilpott15]

Originally Posted by Reef noob_

Okay, so I realize that it's been a long time since I have posted on this thread, but honestly nothing new really happened with the tank until last weekend. Two weeks ago I went on a trip to the other side of the country for a competition, and was gone for eight days. I left the tank in my brother's hands with very clear instructions and a light feeding schedule, but when we returned the tank was in ruins with the corals all closed up and algae an inch thick everywhere so yeah that was a nice welcome home gift....

I decided that since I needed to replace the sand anyways I would do a complete cleaning/reset of the tank. So I took all the livestock and rock out, then threw away the sand. I then put the new sand in and began to refill with premixed water. That's where I hit a snag: even though I'd rinsed the sand A LOT before putting it in, there was still a crazy sandstorm in the tank. It was so bad that I rigged up my filter socks directly to the return pump and they were clogged within an hour. Lets just say I've gone through a lot of filter socks lately lol.

The water then took two full days to clear up enough for me to put everything back in ( I had been storing them in 32 gallon trash cans) I attempted to somewhat recreate the old aquascape and then put the fish back in. Everyone went right into the rocks but by the next day were out and looking normal. I got everything running again and here we are: a pretty much fresh tank and hopefully a much more stable system going forwards.

Here are a few pics of the tank now, 24 hours after the reset:

Last night, day of the move-in:




Today, FTS:




so yeah, a little update here, ill try to be a little more regular going on

Your tank looks great I really like the placing and design of the stand

[Reef noob_]

Originally Posted by Bphilpott15

Your tank looks great I really like the placing and design of the stand

Thank you, I've been working on it a lot lately

[Reef noob_]

Hello again everybody, I recently saw a melanarus wrasse at my LFS, and since I was planning on a leopard wrasse I was wondering if keeping both in the same tank would be possible. I've heard of some inter-wrasse aggression before and was wondering if it'd happen between these two. Thanks in advance!

[Reef noob_]

Completely necroing my own thread here but after a serious ick outbreak that killed off nearly everything in it I have been neglecting this tank for the past 4-6 months. Only things that survived were my blenny (seen earlier in this thread) and some mushrooms that are somehow clinging onto life. This past weekend I was able to finally get the system back on track by completely re running the plumbing (which had been the main cause of my issues for the drain lines were too restrictice) and adding ~60 gallons of new water to the system. Pics to come tomorrow.

Current livestock:
Starry blenny
Wyoming white clown
Misc. CUC
(That's all)

Looking to add some more fish in the upcoming weeks or months here. I'm currently thinking about these additions:

Yellow tang
Anthias (X3)
Diamond goby
6 line wrasse



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[Reef noob_]

Updated pics (not much different from 2 years ago...IMG_0132.jpgIMG_0134-1.jpg

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[Reef noob_]

Updates!!

Spent about 6 hours working on the tank today and made some decent progress.

First I installed a Reefkeeper Lite that had been sitting in a bucket for about a year:


Louie was helping out too:


Reefkeeper head unit affixed to the outside of the stand:




I also made a trip to Home Depot to get a few things and grabbed some wood to make a cover for my lights. (Can be seen here) Reduced the number of chords visible behind the tank from 4 to 1



Finally, I visited another local reefer and picked up 2 good sized leather corals for only $5 each!



Tested yesterday and got:

Calcium: 390
Magnesium: 1200
Alkalinity: 9.8

These levels are a little on the low side, so I bought some Kalk to add to my top off water to help with the calcium and alkalinity. How should I go about increasing magnesium though?

Up next:

Skimmer upgrade
ATO (topping off is so annoying!)
New powerhead (more flow for SPS)




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[Diana A]

Originally Posted by Reef noob_

Updates!!


I also made a trip to Home Depot to get a few things and grabbed some wood to make a cover for my lights. (Can be seen here) Reduced the number of chords visible behind the tank from 4 to 1

Love the wood work! Great job too on the light cover. I have the same lights also. I see you have that white fussy algae on the rock. I have that on my rock work on the left side of my tank. The right side hasn't gotten it which is weird. Had that algea for about 5 months, and my tank has been setup for a few years. Looking forward to watching your tank grow.

[homer1475]

BRS bulk chemicals to bring the levels up, then kalk to maintain.

Plain old arm and hammer baking soda mixed with RO/DI is a fantastic Alkalinity supplement. Google Randy's DIY 2 part for the specific instructions.

[Reef noob_]

Originally Posted by Diana A

Love the wood work! Great job too on the light cover. I have the same lights also. I see you have that white fussy algae on the rock. I have that on my rock work on the left side of my tank. The right side hasn't gotten it which is weird. Had that algea for about 5 months, and my tank has been setup for a few years. Looking forward to watching your tank grow.

Yeah that algae seems to just hang on regardless of what I throw at it... planning on getting another tang down the road so that might put a dent in it. Thanks for checking it out.


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[Reef noob_]

Updates:

Another new addition, this one’s a yellow coris wrasse I had on hold at a LFS. Now that I have a few fish in the tank I’ve set up a small 10 gallon with an air stone to act as a quarantine tank for my next few additions. Also planning on getting quite a few more corals this weekend.

Pics:

Drip acclimation (the salinity he was coming from was quite low...)



In the tank:



My clown eyed him up pretty good but hasn’t shown any aggression yet:





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[Diana A]

Looking good! Yes you need a QT for fish and coral. You don't want ich or velvet

[Reef noob_]

Originally Posted by Diana A

Looking good! Yes you need a QT for fish and coral. You don't want ich or velvet

I know I need to QT it’s just so hard to have a fish sitting in a bare tank when you want it in your display. From here on I’ll be QTing all new fish and dipping coral.



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[Reef noob_]

Found out where my new wrasse has decided to sleep.... I don’t think he’s going to be hiding from anyone 🤣




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[2_zoa]

Originally Posted by Reef noob_

I know I need to QT it’s just so hard to have a fish sitting in a bare tank when you want it in your display. From here on I’ll be QTing all new fish and dipping coral.



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If you haven’t QT’d anything yet and or you don’t plan to QT your corals. Don’t be surprised later on if any dieases show up.

I know the QT process seems like a long time, and you want to see the new additions in the display right away. However, a proper QT setup and protocol will pay for itself many fold over very quickly.

I have 5 coral in my invert QT now and the dip didn’t kill all the flat worms. So I’m now dealing with flat worm in QT which is much much easier to do than in the display. I still get to enjoy the game of getting rid of the things we don’t want in our tanks. Just on a much smaller scale.

I “got away” with not doing QT for a lot of years and just dealt with the issues as they showed up. Not on this new tank I’ve setup. No way.

[Reef noob_]

Updates 02/04/18

Got some new equipment from a couple different local club members and installed on the tank:

Tunze 3155 ATO installed (so. Many. Wires.)



Second circulation pump installed ( blew lots of nice gunk from the rocks right away )



Going to be doing a lot of wire management in the next few days... ought to be fun.

Future plans:

Upgrade skimmer
Add a Refugium to sump??


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[Reef noob_]

Glad to see the ATO is working, it’s used about 1.5 GALLONS!! in 24 hours. Really makes me wonder how unstable the salinity must have been thus far, dumping 10g in one day a week



Skimmer is also doing very well. Definitely looking to upgrade this on my birthday which is coming up this is only about 3 days of skimmate however so I can’t really complain.



Everything (and everyone) seems to be doing great! All the fish are eating voraciously and corals are extended and happy.

I am having algae buildup on my glass very quickly (noticeable within 12 hours) so I’ll be doing a water change soon, something that I haven’t done in ~ 6 months. To hopefully reduce nutrients. I might also run some GFO but I’ll need a few parts for my reactor to get it running again. :/

I am also talking to a few local reefers and working out some deals on frags to add. Hopefully I can pack this thing up with corals soon.


This is the view from my living room couch btw. Love it.




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[Reef noob_]

Update:

Added a refugium to my system today. Powered by an old powerhead and lit by my T5/MH fixture from my previous tank, it should work great to reduce nutrients.





I placed two medium sized balls of chaeto i got from a local reefer in with a piece of dry rock I had in my back yard.


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[Reef noob_]

Updates!!

1 week fuge growth, chaeto has more than doubled in size already!

I also went to my first ever club meeting, which was held at a local store called ocean image aquatics. Met tons of Great people and got some incredible corals.

Green wall hammer
Greenish brown torch
Double frag of montipora (green w/ pink polyps & red on red)
Green candy cane
Fighting conch (gift from another member!)

And my first ever clam!!! Very excited.

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[Reef noob_]

New additions (both fish and coral, fish are going into QT currently)



Updated FTS:



Let’s play a game, who can recognize those two fish in the bucket?!?

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