Zach's 75 To 125 Upgrade Thread! (Pic Intense)
 

The Concept:

Well my wife and I have had a wonderful time with our 75, but there were two things that made us want to upgrade. Firstly, we have a hippo and a yellow tang, and we thought an upgrade would be necessary to give them more room. Secondly, we had some pretty corny things going on with our setup...like u-tubing from the display to the sump/fuge. Gena graduated college, so as a present to her...(and me...for...uh...I dunno why), we upgraded to a 125!

Why a 125?

We wanted a 6-foot tank for our tangs, but we wanted it to be shallow so it would be easy to light for sps and lps, and so that we wouldn't have to invest in much more salt, rock and sand. The tank really looks bigger than it is...which is a good thing! We went with an Aqueon 125 Megaflo setup, as well as a cherry, mission-style stand.

The Prep!

Well, we had a structural engineer and check out our house we just bought from my parents (which is pretty old) to see where the tank could go (at 8.5lbs per gallon and a lot of rock and sand...that's pretty heavy)...and this is the only place in the house it could go...unfortunately!

[IMG]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0037.jpg[/IMG]

So I prepared the wall with firring strips and shims to make it even and to later put on drywall. I also put in a new electrical circuit with gfci outlet. (which is pretty important.)

Now Before I show you the new tank...I'll show you the old setup!...

[IMG]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/FullTank.jpg[/IMG]

So there's the old 75...you can see it has an overflow...the tank was doing great...but we really wanted to get rid of the u-tube overflow!

Here's the tank stats:
*75 gallon, 10g sump, 10g fuge with 900gph return and macroalgae...lit by a 65k spiral cfl light.
*216 watts t5 how 10k and actinic, 2, 40w normal output 50/50 bulbs as well.
*Euroreef rs-80 skimmer
*Tunze turbelle 6040's, an upgrade from korallias (wanted less watts and more flow)
*80or so lbs live rock, 80 or so lbs live sand

[IMG]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/CIMG4045.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/CIMG4046.jpg[/IMG]

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...imble/zoo2.jpg

It was cool though how the zoos were growing on the overflow...we transferred them to the new tank as a frag. By the way, pretty much everything in our tank started as frags or aquaculture...that's just our style.

Now, the new tank! Here's the supplies...including new drywall!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0039.jpg

And of course...my newly constructed DIY wall with GFCI outlet on dedicated circuit!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0054.jpg

Everybody has to do this...don't they?...but it's usually a cat...oh well, Ziggy is kinda like a cat!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0056.jpg

Nice looking tank keep it up bro. A 125g looking like that will look amazing.

The Tank Move:

We cured 45 lbs extra live rock to get somewhere between 125 and 135 lbs and 40 lbs live sand to get somewhere between 125 and 145 lbs of that...to get a good 3" sandbed, which we feel strongly about.

The LR curing!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0038.jpg

And the new Tank the next day after the move!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0057.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0091.jpg

The Stats:

Already stated it was a 125
*(3) 150 watt 10k metal halide and (8)36w actinics...went with the 150's
because 125 is relatively shallow and we didn't want a high electric bill!
*ASM G3 skimmer
*40 gallon long sump with DIY baffles (made out of a 20buck piece of lexan)
sump section with bubble trap baffle, macroalgae section, and pump section
with 1200gph return
*125-145 lbs each Live Rock and Live Sand

More pics the day after the move

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0060.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0058.jpg

And A week and a half or so later...

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0093.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0094.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0095.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0097.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0114.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0106.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0102.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0108.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0112.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0101.jpg

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/PIC_0104.jpg

I just picked up the previous one tonight...is it a porites? Pocillapora? It's hard for me to tell.

Other livestock:

Yellow Tang
Hippo Tang
Coral Beauty Angelfish (model citizen with the corals so far for 2 years...but we'll continue to see
Tri-Color Wrasse
Melanarus Wrasse
Christmas Island Wrasse
Percula Clown with Green Bubble-Tip Anenomae
Firefish Goby
Many Zoanthid colonies
Plate Corals
Green Star Polyps
Red Shrooms
Green hairy Shroom
Lobophyllias
Echinophyllia
Pulsing Xenia
Acroporas
Bran Coral
Two Crocea Clams
2 blue-leg hermits
Many hitch hikers...like pods, zoo eating nudis (errrrrr), Stomatella snails...

Problems with the new tank
*The hitchhiking zoo eating nudibranchs
*some of the pieces aren't acclamating well to the new light...I should have covered the tank with screen material layers and slowly removed them...but the ones who started to refrain didn't recede much and they are coming back strong.

Overall we're really happy! Questions/comments welcome! I hope you enjoyed, thanks for coming on my journey with me! I wanted it to be different in that you got to see the whole process and then the discussion...hope it was interesting!

Great pics and thread. Thanks!

btw, i think it's a pocillapora.

Thanks...I was leaning towards that...I thought it was a safe purchase because pocillaporas and porites (at least from my reading) seem to have about the same care needs.

Not sure what the coral is, but nice upgrade! I like the wrasse. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Thanks, crvz...I clicked on your house...what kind of mod is that on your skimmer?

Uhh... there are a number of skimmer pictures in there so here's the rundown. It's an EuroReef CS250 (similar to the RS250), I stuck a ball valve on there when I was curing live rock (first page), then I got the gate valve put on it, and then I upgraded the impeller for the Gen-X pump that it came with (that was a free upgrade that ER sent me), and then I bought the Eheim pump for it (which is sweet, shoulda done that orginally). That's been about it over the couple years I've had it, and it works well enough. Does that answer the question? ;)

Hehe, yeah, that things' been through quite a journey! I looked at your thread more by the way...wow, you have some really nice pieces...great job, I'm sure you enjoy it very much!

That wrasse is a beauty!

It's a delight indeed, and I imagine yours will quickly catch up!

Are you guys talking about the CHristmas Island wrasse or the melanarus? They're my favorite color patterns 2 out of the three...I love the poor tri-color wrasse equally though

THe one that's more red with green dots, I think that's the one I like. Is it reef safe? I'd think it'd very much enjoy some snails.

It's been a model citizen so far for about 4 months...but we'll keep an eye on it...it's supposed to be reef safe....but so are many that sometimes are badboys.

It's the Christmas Island Wrasse

Beautiful tank! I too am inthe market for the big upgrade. I didn't notice if it was mentioned above, where did you purchase the tank? LFS, or online?

At an LFS...I just like to be able to inspect the tank before buying it...but many people have had success online too. I pursued custom ordering one too at first, but was too costly for us.

Hitch Hiking Stomatella Snail

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...WIERDSNAIL.jpg

Echinophyllia (or Echinopora, I don't know difference)

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...ble/Echino.jpg

6 foot tall 125
and I thought my 150 G 5.7 foot was shallow.
do you plan on having a DSB on that tank? and can you share the dimensions of it?
how about your lighting plans?
good luck on your build