I've been a member now for 6 months and yet I forgot to post my build.. 
so in the spirit of things here it is.. I don't have many of the pics I want to post but will add them asap.
To start off.. The wife and I discussed to possibility of a Saltwater tank for many years, however it wasn't until this last February that a buddy of mine convinced me to get started.
We acquired a used 125 long tank form a buddy of mine.. Now we ended up in a battle of just where to put it, but everyone agreed that I had to build a !!WALL!! So up the wall went to separate the kitchen and the living room. A few dozen 2x4's a few 4x4's, many sheets of sheetrock and a few pounds of screws and mud later we now have a wall built to hold the 125 long tank. (The internal stand part is VERY overkill.) So we put the tank in and filled her up to the brim for a test ( yup you guess'd it I forgot to LEVEL the tank!!) Now we had a big problem. problem is that the seams kept splitting during the water test so we ended up doing this..
So yea we cut out and cleaned EVERY panel of the tank, polished the area of the seams with a fine grid compound and cleaned it all up and reglued the tank properly.
Then re-installed this mammoth beast of a tank (1/2 inch glass weighs a ton) 9 and leveled it..Well after the 45 day long water test.. In which we incrementally raised the water level over the first 2 weeks. It soon looked like this.
Now after our 45 day water test, we emptied the tank cleaned it up and put saltwater in. Then after a few days we dropped some "dead" sand in, and the tank looked like this for about a month.
After the sand settled, I added some rock of course then began making my own rock as its expensive and hard to get without shipping here in Yuma, County.
Now after getting a refigium from my same buddy, (that was a live refigium) we got all the plumbing up and running, finished off the trim and nice pieces of the wall.Like doors etc..
We started to cycle the tank. Now after a few months of cycling the tank it was ready for some livestock.
Mostly crabs and snails and the like to begin with. Then a few fish, some blenny's a few chromis, a starfish or 2 etc.
After waiting ANOTHER 45 days, we started to add some corals, a colt, some zenia, bit of pink sponge, etc..
Now nearly 6 months later I really haven't added much to the tank, we added a Yellow tang, some urchins, and a blue damsel and a very nice RTBA that has already split into 3. However 1 decided to commit suicide in my powerhead. We added live and and about 30lbs of live rock into the tank early on and it helped cycle the tank faster.
The zenia's all died off from either the RTBA's or the urchins running them over or stinging them. Other than algae outbreaks the tank is doing great.
I have learned much in the last many months.. Such an example is no matter what the pump box says its water flow is ignore it until you measure how long your pipes are. Most pumps are only rated at 18 foot to ZERO GPH. Meaning if you think you need a 1200GPH pump, and you have 24 foot of pipe.. you better by a 2,000 GPH pump or better. (yup I need a bigger pump)
My wish list is long and incomplete, and one day I would like to get to a meeting.
But in the short and medium term, I mostly want to get more corals in the tank, not just the "forest" of colt coral I have now. A few fish may come along if I find a nice fish or 2 but I mostly want corals and other colorful reef dwellers..
I have TONS more pics if you all are interested I'll just post the links to them
here instead of posting pics themselves.
Google Plus Photos
Facebook photos
Catch ya all on the flipside.. And I'll try to hand around the forums more..
so in the spirit of things here it is.. I don't have many of the pics I want to post but will add them asap.To start off.. The wife and I discussed to possibility of a Saltwater tank for many years, however it wasn't until this last February that a buddy of mine convinced me to get started.
We acquired a used 125 long tank form a buddy of mine.. Now we ended up in a battle of just where to put it, but everyone agreed that I had to build a !!WALL!! So up the wall went to separate the kitchen and the living room. A few dozen 2x4's a few 4x4's, many sheets of sheetrock and a few pounds of screws and mud later we now have a wall built to hold the 125 long tank. (The internal stand part is VERY overkill.) So we put the tank in and filled her up to the brim for a test ( yup you guess'd it I forgot to LEVEL the tank!!) Now we had a big problem. problem is that the seams kept splitting during the water test so we ended up doing this..
So yea we cut out and cleaned EVERY panel of the tank, polished the area of the seams with a fine grid compound and cleaned it all up and reglued the tank properly.
Then re-installed this mammoth beast of a tank (1/2 inch glass weighs a ton) 9 and leveled it..Well after the 45 day long water test.. In which we incrementally raised the water level over the first 2 weeks. It soon looked like this.
Now after our 45 day water test, we emptied the tank cleaned it up and put saltwater in. Then after a few days we dropped some "dead" sand in, and the tank looked like this for about a month.
After the sand settled, I added some rock of course then began making my own rock as its expensive and hard to get without shipping here in Yuma, County.
Now after getting a refigium from my same buddy, (that was a live refigium) we got all the plumbing up and running, finished off the trim and nice pieces of the wall.Like doors etc..
We started to cycle the tank. Now after a few months of cycling the tank it was ready for some livestock.
Mostly crabs and snails and the like to begin with. Then a few fish, some blenny's a few chromis, a starfish or 2 etc.
After waiting ANOTHER 45 days, we started to add some corals, a colt, some zenia, bit of pink sponge, etc..
Now nearly 6 months later I really haven't added much to the tank, we added a Yellow tang, some urchins, and a blue damsel and a very nice RTBA that has already split into 3. However 1 decided to commit suicide in my powerhead. We added live and and about 30lbs of live rock into the tank early on and it helped cycle the tank faster.
The zenia's all died off from either the RTBA's or the urchins running them over or stinging them. Other than algae outbreaks the tank is doing great.
I have learned much in the last many months.. Such an example is no matter what the pump box says its water flow is ignore it until you measure how long your pipes are. Most pumps are only rated at 18 foot to ZERO GPH. Meaning if you think you need a 1200GPH pump, and you have 24 foot of pipe.. you better by a 2,000 GPH pump or better. (yup I need a bigger pump)
My wish list is long and incomplete, and one day I would like to get to a meeting.
But in the short and medium term, I mostly want to get more corals in the tank, not just the "forest" of colt coral I have now. A few fish may come along if I find a nice fish or 2 but I mostly want corals and other colorful reef dwellers..
I have TONS more pics if you all are interested I'll just post the links to them
here instead of posting pics themselves.
Google Plus Photos
Facebook photos
Catch ya all on the flipside.. And I'll try to hand around the forums more..
