Here we go, finally doing a tank journal for the new tank. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.
Moving the tank went very poorly. I setup everything, had containers cleaned and ready to go but thanks to a real piece of shit landlord situation (trying to keep my security deposit for no reason $5000+) the corals sat in containers for way longer than I expected. This is really embarrassing and I apologize to all whose DBTC frags perished during the move. I lost a good amount of both my own purchased corals and DBTC corals. I plan on updating the DBTC threads soon as I have a better grasp on what didn't make the move. I'm slowly trying to nurse the bleached corals back to health but only time will tell. A lot of SPS went beyond bleached and lost all their corallites. I still have hope in a few and have kept everything in the tank in hopes they will show some life. Back to the build...
The Fish room area
So in the back hallway of the condo was this ugly area, basically a small computer desk area in the hallway wedged between the bedroom and the bathroom. I ripped up the carpet, put some concrete board down over the poured concrete floor (to raise the floor 1/2", and sticky tiled the whole area.
Before:
After tiling:
With the tank installed:
Picture coming soon
The stand
Built the stand with the help of my friends dad. Everything was glued and screwed. Any area that might get wet were made to hold water in case of a disaster with the use of epoxy, silicone bath tub sealant, marine paint, etc...
Inside the painted/epoxied/marine painted stand:
Behind the stand:
Faux sand bed
Full post here: http://www.bareefers.org/home/node/7763
Poured sand curing:
Eggcrate on bottom:
Sump
So I went through 3 different sump configurations before settling on the current one. The first was a 10g tank with another 10g truvu slightly above it which was going to act as a frag tank.
The problem with this design was the 10g tank on the left was way to small and nearly overflowed anytime I cut the return pump.
I then tried a single 25'ish gallon tank and it just didn't work out.
I finally settled on a 29 gallon AGA aka Aqueon tank pictured below:
The green-blue tank on the right is a 6-7 gallon ATO reservoir I picked up at Target a while back. Low profile and holds a good amount of water.
I got 1/4" pieces of acrylic cut PERFECTLY by the guys over a TAP plastics in Fremont and glued them in with a shit ton of Silicone.
Left chamber: Overflow feed, RS-80 skimmer, quadruple bubble trap baffle (thanks to Mario aka "xcaret" for the tips on building a sump), -> center chamber
Overflow feed:
Bubble trap trapping bubbles:
Left side sump top down showing bubble trappage:
Center Chamber: Return pump(Mag 3), ATO controls, PH probe
Right chamber: Overflow feed, 200w heater, chaeto, LR rubble, dual bubble trap -> center chamber
The tank
Crappy FTS:
Tank is lit by a single old style icecap 250w MH in a lumenarc mini reflector. (Thanks Doug and Jeremy)
The canopy pictured is just temporary, I think I am going to lower the top level down a bit (the bulb is more than 1' off the surface and the reflector can't cover both ends of the tank with enough light for zoa's. (Zoa's on the end are stretching out for light.
Left side:
Center:
(note the frag graveyard right in the middle there....)
Right:
More to come.
Moving the tank went very poorly. I setup everything, had containers cleaned and ready to go but thanks to a real piece of shit landlord situation (trying to keep my security deposit for no reason $5000+) the corals sat in containers for way longer than I expected. This is really embarrassing and I apologize to all whose DBTC frags perished during the move. I lost a good amount of both my own purchased corals and DBTC corals. I plan on updating the DBTC threads soon as I have a better grasp on what didn't make the move. I'm slowly trying to nurse the bleached corals back to health but only time will tell. A lot of SPS went beyond bleached and lost all their corallites. I still have hope in a few and have kept everything in the tank in hopes they will show some life. Back to the build...
The Fish room area
So in the back hallway of the condo was this ugly area, basically a small computer desk area in the hallway wedged between the bedroom and the bathroom. I ripped up the carpet, put some concrete board down over the poured concrete floor (to raise the floor 1/2", and sticky tiled the whole area.
Before:
After tiling:
With the tank installed:
Picture coming soon
The stand
Built the stand with the help of my friends dad. Everything was glued and screwed. Any area that might get wet were made to hold water in case of a disaster with the use of epoxy, silicone bath tub sealant, marine paint, etc...
Inside the painted/epoxied/marine painted stand:
Behind the stand:
Faux sand bed
Full post here: http://www.bareefers.org/home/node/7763
Poured sand curing:
Eggcrate on bottom:
Sump
So I went through 3 different sump configurations before settling on the current one. The first was a 10g tank with another 10g truvu slightly above it which was going to act as a frag tank.
The problem with this design was the 10g tank on the left was way to small and nearly overflowed anytime I cut the return pump.
I then tried a single 25'ish gallon tank and it just didn't work out.
I finally settled on a 29 gallon AGA aka Aqueon tank pictured below:
The green-blue tank on the right is a 6-7 gallon ATO reservoir I picked up at Target a while back. Low profile and holds a good amount of water.
I got 1/4" pieces of acrylic cut PERFECTLY by the guys over a TAP plastics in Fremont and glued them in with a shit ton of Silicone.
Left chamber: Overflow feed, RS-80 skimmer, quadruple bubble trap baffle (thanks to Mario aka "xcaret" for the tips on building a sump), -> center chamber
Overflow feed:
Bubble trap trapping bubbles:
Left side sump top down showing bubble trappage:
Center Chamber: Return pump(Mag 3), ATO controls, PH probe
Right chamber: Overflow feed, 200w heater, chaeto, LR rubble, dual bubble trap -> center chamber
The tank
Crappy FTS:
Tank is lit by a single old style icecap 250w MH in a lumenarc mini reflector. (Thanks Doug and Jeremy)
The canopy pictured is just temporary, I think I am going to lower the top level down a bit (the bulb is more than 1' off the surface and the reflector can't cover both ends of the tank with enough light for zoa's. (Zoa's on the end are stretching out for light.
Left side:
Center:
(note the frag graveyard right in the middle there....)
Right:
More to come.