Loosehip's Reef Journal

L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#1
#1
In light of all the for sale threads I thought it might be a change of pace to post up my reef journal from when I started till now. I started a reef tank back in sep of 06. My first tank was a 46 gallon bowfront, it was nothing special HOB overflow, CPR bakpack skimmer, SCWD for flow, and PC lighting which I eventually upgraded to 4x39w t5 lights.

when it was simple....


Fastforward 2 years, I sold our condo, and wanted to get away from the curved glass. I liked small tanks so I figured a 40 breeder would be the perfect size tank to upgrade to. After seeing a few tanks with MH lighting I felt they gave the tank a more 3-dimension look vs t5's. I think it was the whole "shimmer" thing and felt I really had to have it, so I upgraded my lighting. I also wanted to try my luck at building a stand. So naturally not knowing what I was doing I over built the stand spent way too much time and money on it, but I was happy as it was my first real wood working experience.

This tank would also have a built in overflow with a sump and a gravity fed skimmer. I moved from the bakpack skimmer to an external dnw-110 octopus skimmer. I also moved away from the SCWD for flow, and purchased two K3's for flow...
 
L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#3
#3
I was happy with this setup for about a year. But after seeing a few setups around the area that had fish rooms it really got me thinking, I have a laundry room that would be perfect for a fish room, and a spot on the other side of the wall where I could place a tank. It took a little convincing from the wife, but I eventually convinced her of the benefits :)... I really liked the idea of having all the equipment located in a seperate room, messing around with equipment under the stand was getting old, plus my little guy got curious everynow and then so there was justification in my eyes. I will just post up a pic of the tank after it was setup, I have a build thread on RC if you care to see the rest it explains everything in detail!

Here is the thread
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1598434

pic just for fun


I really enjoyed this tank, and probably would still have to this very day, but a local hobbyist made me a deal that I couldn't turn down, and after 3 weeks of this tank being up. I tore it down..... Project tank #4 was underway, and my wife couldn't believe it.

I also have a thread for this project. Here is the link to the thread.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1657092

another pic for fun.
 
L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#4
#4
Tagareef was getting out of the hobby, anyone who has seen his setup will most likely agree that it was one of the nicest most thoughtout systems in all of Colorado. His basement looked like a chemistry lab on steroids and his attention to detail, coral placement, and display was really second to none.

Here is a youtube of his tank before I got my hands on it..

tank display
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9AR-kET91M

basement setup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxcUTM73DII

I had four friend all local hobbyist help me with the move (spleify, runningstix, miwoodar, and sus). It was quite a project and sadly it did not end happily. I had the setup from may of 09 till sept 09. I lost over 90% of bucket sized SPS corals to RTN/STN. I also had numerous problems that prevented the tank from ever re-establishing itself to its former glory. It took everything in me not to quit and get out of the hobby at that point. The tank really left a sour taste in my mouth, and I decided it would be best if I sold it off and went to a smaller tank again. I sold the 180 and moved what little corals I had left into rubbermaid tubs. I also had to sell off most of the fish in the tank as they were just too big :(

So begins tank project #5..... lol (the wife was honestly thinking does it ever end!).....

As a lot of you know I had plans with PCG to build a 70 gallon cube after I sold off the 180. I won't get into the details as it has been talked about and is pretty old news. I only mention it as it is part of my reef experience, that did add to stress, and head banging of this reef hobby. I didn't have a very large budget (one of my buddies calls it a lemonade stand budget), and when the PCG tank didn't work out I was almost at a loss, as I didn't want a standard size tank. I really wanted a cubish tank in the 70-100 gallon range, and since it is more of a custom size I wasn't sure how I would find one within my allowed budget.

Christmas time of 09 I found an acrylic tank that was posted on craigslist. The dimensions were exactly what I was looking for 38"x34"x20". The guy was selling it for a very reasonable price aswell so I drove down and picked it up. I was pretty excited to have found a custom size tank within my budget.

Since I do not have a tank build for this tank, I will start it here. The tank is inwall, I really wanted to keep this build simple no Calcium reactor, controller, or fuge.

Equipment list
Vortech MP40W ES
Vortech MP10w ES
ATB medium Cone skimmer
Profilux Stand alone doser
Eheim 1262 return pump
400w galaxy ballast with lumenarc reflector and 20k Radium bulb
two little fish carbon reactor
good old glass thermometer

Live stock:
mixed but mostly sps
burbonas anthias
female squarespot anthias
some other anthias
blue damsel
sargent damsel
starry eyed blenny
cleaner wrasse
mystery wrasse
clown
melenarus wrasse
blue hippo tang

Here is a pic of the new tank.. More to come tomorrow when I am more awake!


 
chrislorentz

chrislorentz

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
#5
I am pretty sure that 46 gal bowfront is back up and running in lakewood.
 
L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#6
#6
The picture above is not really a great picture, but it is the only one I took that shows what the tank looks like before I set it up. It is made of 3/8" acrylic and eurobraced. The tank was built for a specific application, a room divider or inwall. Two of the sides are black acrylic the overflow side, and what would normally be the front panel is also black leaving the two sides clear. I went back and forth for a while on how to best display the tank. I finally settled on an inwall design.

construction of the wall...






all primed up


1st coat of paint


Done!


I made the two access panels above removable. I wanted to be able to access the tank from multiple sides just incase.
 
L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#10
#10
My next step once I finished construction on the wall was to address a few issues with the tank. Being that the tank was used and is acrylic the viewing panels had a fair amount of scratches. I found a local woodshop that carried the micromesh kit which had 1500 grit -12000 grit.I sanded both the inside and out of the main viewing panel. This portion of the buffing was done by hand, I do not recommend the manual method as it was fairly labor intensive and just plain sucked. I finshed the tank up with novus 1, 2 and 3. I used a car buffer which was much faster and more effective.



All finished


The second issue I had to address was a problem with the overflow. The previous owner put plumbers putty on every seam of the overflow box inside and out. It took hours of scraping to get it all off and cleaned up. During a water test I discovered a leak on one of the overflow box seams. The whole right side of the overflow was loose and detached from the tank. Based on some recommendations, I used weldon 4 to glue the loose portion of the overflow box, waited 24 hours and used weldon 42 on all the the other seams.

I didn't take any pics from this point until I finished the tank. So here is a pic of the tank from two weeks ago. I am not the greatest at photos, but for the most part I am happy with the turn out. Excuse the coral placement, I kind of just threw everything in the tank for the time being. Hopefully things will color up and change over the next few weeks...







I will try to find some time to take a few pics of the equipment room!!
 
Boogie

Boogie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
#11
Love the tank and the coral placement.
 
L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#12
#12
Been a while since I updated this thread... Meant to get these pics up a while ago.... Here are some newer shots of the display and the long awaited equipment room pics!

Display pic from a week ago. Had a little cyano that has since cleared up...


Equipment room - vortech station


Sumps, ATB Skimmer, Frag Tank with AI module


Profilux Stand alone doser (CA, MAG, ALK)


Equipment room shot
 
L

LooseHip

Angel Fish
#16
#16
@68sting -Yep that is an AI module
@Kris - I have only had that online since thanksgiving, The functionality that is built into this light is awesome. You will have to stop by again and check it out!
 
miwoodar

miwoodar

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
#17
Wow, looks great. I dig the fish room!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top