Return to the Hobby 34g Solana

[MammothReefer]

Figured it's time to start a build thread.

A little background info, I've been reefing for about 8 years now. I started with a 20 gallon tank, got hooked ended up running a half dozen or so tanks, eventually I got tired of maintaining so many systems and consolidated everything into a 500gallon setup. After going non-stop from 20gallons to 500gallons, it was time for a break. Tore down the 500 gallon system and sold it all off about 2 years ago now.

Over the the past 2 years I've had time decide If I want to get back into the hobby, to what level I want to take it, and how I would do it this time around if I could do it all over again.

I've had a few crashes, and a few tanks I deemed successes I'm hoping to take what I've learned from previous tanks, and put it to the test with this setup.

Here is a link to my most recent previous build thread.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=923357

For my other builds, those threads are lost somewhere in the abyss of RC under a different account (Me and RC staff butted heads back during the initial acan craze days haha.)

Before I started looking I had a few requirements I laid out for myself.

Most of the requirements were set based off 2 over arching things that made me leave the hobby in the first place, I won't get to much in to the nitty gritty, but just touch on 2 main points. The first, living in temporary housing and the second recurring costs.

While I have been living in my duplex unit for 5-6 years now, the lot is currently foreclosed on. I don't want to get into any system that would be a nitemare to tear down in the event I'm required to move. Under 100 gallons was a must, and a setup I can move empty without enlisting the aid of others is a huge plus.

Secondly, the recurring costs. Reef tanks aren't cheap. There is an initial investment where corners can be cut sometimes, but in the end what gets you is the recurring cost. The 500g system was costing me 350$+ a month in electric bills alone, 200 gallons of HW salt a month, test kits, replacement parts, ect ect there were months where I was spending 500-600 to maintain the system..and that's before the cost of livestock!. Back then I was ok with that, now I have different goals. So an upkeep of 100$ or less monthly is the cap I gave myself.


I've decided to go back to where it all started for me, with a nano. I was originally looking for a 3x2x2 tank. Which was by far my favorite size of all the tanks I've own, but was also keeping an eye out for something smaller.

On a trip down to San Diego a few months ago, I came across a Solana 34g at a local store down in SD. I've always liked how rimless tanks look, and this system seemed to stick out for some reason they appear larger then they are. Looking back over the tanks I've owned, while I really liked the dimension of my old 3x2x2, outside of larger system once I finally had the bugs worked out nothing was stabler then my 29 gallon sps setup (seen here)
http://www.pbase.com/brahm/image/38581646 - High flow, low species diversity, ato, minimal fish. It was a dose/water change and forget system. The stability of my larger system came with a ton of work. My goal really was to see how far I could push mixed reef. I had a ton of a fish, a ton of corals all different species, and it took a TON of equipment, and effort to keep things happy, but from out of that experience I found I've learned a few things that I hope to apply to this smaller system to make it as rock solid as I can.

So on to the specs, and plans.

The Tank, stand, lighting, skimmer I picked up used from a reefer in San Diego. It was a fair price for a used Solana Starphire setup. While I normally would be a fan of an intank sump. This time around I like the simplicity of it. It allows for minimal equipment and does a good job at hiding what you have.

Tank: 34 Gallong Solana Starphire it's self has a couple little nics, and a small scratch here or there but nothing that will show when full of water.

Stand: Solana , needs re-enforcing imop. I haven't felt many Solana stands but after wadding threw that massive solana thread I see I'm not the only one that feels that way. I'm hoping to stiffen it up over the next couple days.

Lighting Sunpod HQI 150w w/some led night lights, I've never really been a fan of 150w Halides, and may switch to a 250w down the road but will give it ago on this system as it fits in my recurring budget plan, I am also toying with the idea of adding some Leds to the side of the Sunpod unit. I've never been a fan of a single point light source alone without accompanying t5s, or VHOs you end up with very "directional' colours on your corals with a single halide.

Bulb: I believe it's currently 3-4 month old Phoenix 14k, depending on how it performs I may change it to the Radium 20k

Skimmer:, Is the stock Sonana skimmer, I've read good, and I've read bad I'm thinking of giving it a go until I can either come across a used Tunze 9002 or decide that it's not up to par.

Other Equipment: The basics, GFI, grounding probe, refractormeter, The return pump is stock, but I may switch it out with a maxi jet 600 to slow down the flow threw the "sump" chamber.


Caclium, Alk, and Mag: will be maintained via 2 methods. First dosing pumps, controlled via an acJR using 2 part from bulk reef, and secondly via Kalkwasser mixed into the ATO, with a manual stir. Mag will be dosed manually but I may end up getting another doser for it.

ATO: I'll be using a JBJ ATO unit that I had bought and never installed years ago, with a mini-jet 404 to supply the kalk. If it's up to snuff I'll keep it, if not I'll look into a Tunze Oscillator, or may go with another dosing pump and run it threw the AcJr.

Temp: will be controlled by a 200w heater via the AcJr, chiller shouldn't be needed.

Water: RO/DI unit from Air Water & Ice, and for now I'm starting w/Instant Ocean but I may switch back to hW which I had good results with in the past. I'm planning on 5 gallon bi-weekly water changes if I can get away with it, and am prepared to do weekly if needed.

DSB/SSB/Bare bottom/Rockwork: I'm trying something different. I've always like how bare bottom tanks run, but the look of sand. This is going to be an experiment of sorts. I'm currently working on building a foam/rock wall, which I plan to extend all the way across the bottom of the tank giving it a "Reef Shelf" Look. I'm hoping the foam/rock bottom will act in ways like a bare bottom eventually be covered in Coraline and Corals which will allow me to simply blow the detritus around vs having it get captured in the sand bed. Rock will be a mix of Fiji Lace Rock, and maybe some Live rock out of a tear down if I come across anything, but no fresh live rock. I don't want any hitch hikers, nor do I agree with the perceived value of it.

(I will post pictures shortly)

Water movement: With the return pump being scaled down, I decided to go with 2 Tunze 6025s for water movement my goal is to hide them inside my rock work when I build the back wall. I went with the Tunze 6025s over the HK for a couple of reasons. Mainly upgrade ability and size. Since the 6025s-6055 are all the same size if I find I'm not getting enough flow from the 6025s my next step will be to mod them, if that isn't enough I will upgrade to the 6055 which in theory should fit in the same space I set aside for the 6025s in my rock work. I've also had very good experiences with tunze products in the past. Low watt usage and a very low failure rate.


GFO & Carbon: Both have always been a must for me in the past but I will run them as needed in this system. Nothing crazy here just a couple of media bags in the middle chamber.

Live Stock:


Fish: This is the big change for me, in the past I've always gone a bit over board on fish, schools of anthias, schools of chromis, many tangs, ect ect. My goal with this tank is to minimize the bio load by forcing a limitation on the number of fish I can have in the tank to 1. I'll be doing so by having my 1 and only fish inhabitant be a frog fish (starting with a juvenile). I've kept a few in the past, and I used to train them to eat non-live food and sell them. I'm a little worried still about the bio load of a single frog fish, so I may change my mind on this one. Which can open the door to some future stock issues for me.

Corals: Like fish this is another big change for me, in the past the only time I was able to keep a some what species specific tank was when I had many reef tanks. Lets be honest. We are coral crazy and if we see something amazing many of including myself first thought is "OMG SHINY I MUST HAVE IT!" With that I'm really going to strive to limit the number of species in my tank. I'm laying down some hard fast rules. No Anemones, and No Softies, No NPS, and no large or rapid growing sweeping LPS (frogspawn, elegance, bubble corals, ect)

While I won't say this is an SPS only tank, my goal is to really limit the variety of corals on the Genus level. The main focus of the tank will be Montipora, and Acanthaestra my two favorite verity of corals, and the secondly moonlighting Echinopora, and Acropora (with an efflorescence being a must, and a few stags, millis, and "purple things " being secondary ). I can also see a select few Echinophyllia, that I won't be able to refuse and a War Coral. I may try to save a spot for some Acanthastrea "Like" corals if something stands out, or come across a good deal in the swap section.

Other Inhabitants: Due to the frog fish, I'm limited on what I can add (by design). Which leaves me with clean up crew, and hopefully a couple nice Clams.

So that's pretty much all I got now I'll post pictures, and updates as things progress. I'm looking forward to returning to the hobby, and welcome any input and suggestions.

-B

[Jadams]

Sounds like a great plan. Cant wait to see the pics!

[ice2fire11]

welcome back and good luck, sounds like you know what your doing.

[unseen_clone]

sounds like a nice set up, but i cant get enough of your boxer. looks just like mine when he was a pup.

[MammothReefer]

Thanks! He's about 3 now, but still acts like he did when he was that old.

A couple updates on the tank. I started working on the rock wall, and I finished ordering up all my stuff at this point I'm just waiting on my AcJR which I can run the tank without, but until that shows up it's a little more manual. I ended up doing something that well, I'm not proud of but it worked it. (and I don't recommend this to any new reefers reading this). I was down south and I found a coral that I didn't think I would come across again and decided to "speed" up the process so I pick up the coral... I've done this a few times but it's what I call the "insta" tank. Basically I bought the corals that I wanted from a shop that a friend works out of and them purchased about 30lbs of cured rock out of the same system the corals were out of, as well as received about 20 gallons of water from this system. (DO NOT DO THIS FROM A UNTRUSTED SOURCE!) These tanks are kept in very good shape so much so the coral I purchased had started to attempt to attach it's self to the display tank. As I was down south I placed off this in a cooler, with a pump and heater overnite, and then transported it home the next day. I also stopped off @ Scripps and picked up another 40 gallons of NSW. As I didn't have any Salt water ready.

Once home I quickly setup the tank, plugged in the skimmer, added all the cured rock and water from the display, as well as topped off with NSW, added one of the tunze 6025s, my heater and my lights as well as some egg crate on the bottom to protect the glass.


With that said here are a few pictures.

This is the piece that sped things up, a quick and dirty terrible picture..but it has to be one of the most stunning LPS's I have seen in person.




Quick slapped together insta-tank to be designed, she ain't pretty.. but she will work until I can get everything in place.


Here is the rock wall structure I am building, last week I built the frame out of Egg crate, then I foamed the corners to hold the structure in place when I removed it from the tank.

These 2 photos are of me laying out the rock. I stacked the rock as I would had I not planned on supporting it with foam, I figured it could use the extra support, I supported the egg crate from below with a couple more rocks so it didn't save in the center.


here you can see the shelves


Next I foamed in the rock to hold it in place.



The foam is much stronger then I thought and really bonded with the rock I can lift the entire structure which I'm guessing ways about 25-30lbs up from one rock. Not only did I foam from the top but I also went from the bottom and foamed behind all the rocks until it leaked out the bottom of the egg crate insuring that it bonded threw the egg crate squares. I have to admit the sides look terrible to me right now, but I don't want to risk scratching up my glass by putting rock there. I'm hoping once I dremel them down, and cover them with Epoxy and rubble/sand it will clean up the look. I also need to cut out the over flow slats.

Next task (tomorrow) is to take a dremel and grind down as much of the foam as possible to reveal as much rock as I can, without compromising the holding power of the foam... after that I'm going to crush up some of the reamaing pieces and repeat the process for the piece the will go across the bottom of the tank. I plan to the tie the bottom piece to the back will with the pieces of cured rock which have some amazing shapes to them as my main rock structures.

[MammothReefer]

some progress from tonight. Got my acJR need to get that set up and made some progress on the rock wall.


Grinding off the excess foam, at first I used a dremel.. that was going to be a very slow process. I then decided to use a brand new paint stripping wheel I had bought for a '29 buick I was working on.. It really thinned out the foam fast and you still had good control. For the smaller areas between the rocks I went back to the dremel

Here it is, ready for Expoxy, and sand..


I know YMMV, but I really misread a few threads. It took 3 tubes of epoxy for me to cover most it, and I know I'm going to need another 1-2 tubes to touch up once I take off the packed sand

[MammothReefer]

alright 5 min epoxy is dried.. here are some updates.. Need to do another layer to cover some missed spots, although I may just use some Gel glue that i have for frags







Here you can see all the shelves.

[MammothReefer]

here is another pic, without a flash.. shows how the rock work will look a bit closer to real life since the lighting in a reef tank is top down.

[txbonds]

Looking really neat. Good work and can't wait to see that rock wall in the solana.

[MammothReefer]

Thanks! It's curing still. man does it stink even for dead/dry rock.

Made some progress on the tank, got the AcJr all setup, and the ATO is almost there.

[MammothReefer]

A little more progress, and finally some testing.

ATO, is all set. Added carbon, and rowa-phos to the back. Did a water change and frag'd a piece for a friend. Also moved the rocks around a little for now so the tank will work a little better until I can place the rock wall in.
Speaking of the rock I have curing the tub has stopped stinking..but it's only been a week or so, I'm going to let it cure for another week or so and take another look. The dead/dry rock isn't as bad off as I had originally thought.

Here are my first test results. Not to shabby but still off a little.

Alkanity is a bit down @ 7.5 (most likely due to the rowa). I need to mix up my BRS kit to so I can buff it up to about 9, but with the ATO done, I was able to finally add some kalkwasser to my top off water which will help with Alk as well.

Calcium is just fine @ 420-440

Magnesium is a little low at 1230 (not sure why.. will buff this as well up to 1300-1400)

Salanity is a little low @ 1.024, but will work in testing the ATO I added a bit to much fresh water. Overtime I'll let it get back to 1.026

so that's pretty much it. No fish, no bioload. I've been feeding 1 cube of mysis a week split over 2 days to the acans and war coral and I'm guessing the weekly 5 gallon water changes have been taking care of that... but you can't be to sure so I plan on picking up a nitrate, and phosphate test kit next time I do a dry goods order.

[BADGUS]

Looking good so far,keep the pics coming.

[MammothReefer]

Originally Posted by BADGUS

Looking good so far,keep the pics coming.

Thanks!


Tonight I'm going to make up my RBS supplements, and re-test my alk to see if the kalk dosing is moving my alkalinity or just stabilizing it (what I want).

I also decided to pick up a tunze 9002. I found a used one at a fair price from a reefer on nr.com with the inTank cup.

With that said here are some pictures


Modded the first pump. Right now it's got enough flow that I'm not sure I want to mod the second just yet.



Here are some tank shot with the slightly rearranged rock. I really would like to figure out how to clean up all the wires to keep it looking as clean as possible.







Sigh..new tanks look so empty, makes me wish I could just cut a 20x20 piece out of my old system and drop it into this tank.

[MammothReefer]

quick update before I crash out for the nite. tested the alk still at 7.5 which is what i wanted to see. I've got my RBS mixed up letting it settle over nite tomorrow I'll boost my alk a little, as well as my mag.

[MammothReefer]

small update, bumped my alkalinity today misjudged the amount of actual water and went up a bit quicker then I wanted was shooting to only bump it by .5 a day, but went up a full point to 8.5. Which is ok, the corals looked a little annoyed for about 30 mins but went back to normal once they acclimated to the change in the water parameters. Outside of that, I won a few corals today online, and am looking to receive those next week. I'll post some updated pictures once I get them in the tank!

[MammothReefer]

Updated time! New corals yaa, and some new equipment I need to setup. Got my dosers, and some sweet frag racks! I unfortunately had to take kalk out of my ATO. I was out of town for the weekend and my Alk went up .5 a day! I just don't have enough usage to require kalk in my ato at this point. I also picked up some Biopellets, I'm thinking of putting them in a ehiem canister I have but I'm still not a fan of how the back of a rimless tank looks with a ton of crapola hanging off..so I'm trying to think of a stealthier way to do this.

Well enough with the chatter.. on to the photos







So some plans, changed. Angler unfortunately is out, and baby clowns are in. It was that or setup another tank for the gf who is now showing alot of interest in reef keeping, instead of having to maintain a separate system we comprised. She picked out a couple corals, and some fish.... hehe..gotta do what you gotta do right!



Finally! Garf Bonsai frag, I've always wanted one but some how I never ended up with one until now! I picked this up from Atlantis durning my trip to SF






Some more frags I picked up from Neptune, Austin Reefer, Reeffarmer, and a friend of mine Treylene

Bad photos of a great looking enchino I picked up from neptune


Cool acan from Austin, will get some photos of the others shortly.


Rocks been curing for a little under 3 weeks now, think I'm going to give it a bit more time then add the rock wall to the tank.

[MammothReefer]

small update: Added the tunze 9002 tonight, with an inTank box. No modification needed! Was able to mount the mag between the first and second chamber, and still use the stock chamber divders (although the top one is at a slight angle..but no big deal. ) First thing I noticed is the skimmer is sooo quite compared to the stock skimmer, it takes up more space (allowing a bit more water in the system), the water exits below the water line reducing the amount of micro bubbles, and the froth i'm getting is really impressive. Now I was getting "OK" (cpr back pack level) skimate from my stock skimmer. The true test will be in a couple weeks to see how this one performs.

[MammothReefer]

Last nites update, decided to redo how I have my media bags in the center chamber. I felt like most of the water was going around them instead of threw them. So in lieu of a media reactor until I can find or build one that will fit inside the middle chamber. I sandwiched the media bags between some pieces of egg crate so I can lay them down horizontally across the middle chamber, this will force a good portion of the water threw the bags. On doing so the tank became very cloudy (ie a sign it is working) the corals didn't seem to mind, so I didn't worry about it. I also took this time to add some EcoBak to the mix.

This morning I woke up and the tank was looking very clear w/0 microbubbles here is a quick snap shot.

[MedRed]

Looking great!

[MammothReefer]

Originally Posted by MedRed

Looking great!

Thanks!


-Quick update for today, Rock wall is in, and ended up going with sand, meh... still waiting for the water to clear up 100%, and need to put the corals in the right spots and glue them down but so far so good. I also need to add a little sand to the back or at least move some around to cover the bottom of the egg crate the rockwall is attached to..anyways here are some pics. I also need to attach the wall to the sump devider, it's wedged with so it's not going to flop forward, but I want to expoy it so there isnt' a gap at the top.







the current "mess"

[MedRed]

looks really good. That will be impressive when it's all purple.

[MammothReefer]

Thanks, ya I can't wait to get coralline algae over everything specially the pumps (will regret saying that later) but right now they stand out like sore thumbs.

here is kinda a quick ps comp of what i'm thinking in terms of coral placement.

[MedRed]

Very nice! how many pounds of sand did you use?

[MammothReefer]

Originally Posted by MedRed

Very nice! how many pounds of sand did you use?

Hi Med, I used around 15lbs I guess. I used a bunch of it to glue to the rock wall and I probably have 1/4 to 1/3rd left in the bag.

Updates for the past couple days.

Last nite, I did a 10 gallon water change so today I tested everything. I also decided to keep it all in a google spreadsheet. You can check out and follow it here. Ph and alk is a little down after the water change but not to bad, and I'm seeing a reduction in phosphates and nitrates.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?...en&output=html

Water, change or EcoBak not sure how much did what, but I'm glad to see the reduction regardless of the cause. In order to take advantage of the pellets and gfo, I decided to order a BRS dual chamber reactor.

In terms of ATO. I was fed up with the the maximini jet. It sucks for ATO somebody suggested it some where. It's a terrible idea. I switched to one of my Drews dosing pumps, but it's slow. So I sucked it up and also ordered a 50ml/m dosing pump from BRS for the ATO.

So, with all the upgrade stuff out of the way.. here are some photos.

Full Tank Shots. - Thinking of moving the slimer




Top down shots




Acans (thank you austinreefs!)


-Lakers Acan!

[MammothReefer]

SPS

- Garf Bonsai, my fav acro!

Other corals