58 Gallon Reef Build (1 Viewer)

[stdreb27]

After my 180 decided not to hold water any more. I decided to sell all and set up a reef. Originally I wanted to go with a deepsea Neo-Nano tank. But after going to the store with the money, I couldn't bring myself to actually paying that much for that tank. So I decided to go with a 58 gallon oceanic (much much cheaper used) From a guy in spring. Got there and the tank was in EXCELLENT condition. Basically new. What is cool about this tank everything is from fellow reefers besides the lights and a couple tunze powerheads. They were actually as cheap new as they were used. (Not slamming anyone but explain to me why you'd sell a glued together 6025 for 65 dollars? thanks Reefcentral) :? I did get one from vg30et. He was great even offered to meet me at fishland. I purchased a lifereef LF1-125 sump and VS2-24 skimmer online. Took me a couple days to be at home to fill up the tank.

This is the sump and the temp return. I'm still trying to decide exactly how I want to do it. I have external and internal pumps. But I really want to set up a fuge.

However I don't know if I a 5 gallon tank will do much more than just make it more complicated. And it will be a tight fit. Only have 10 inches left under the tank.

 

[stdreb27]

For flow I'm going to run 3 modded tunze 6025 pumps hopefully that will be around 3000 gph of flow. Not counting the mag 9.5 that I'm using as a return. Here are some pics of the first one I cut.

 

[stdreb27]

Here is a picture of the skimmer installed in sump.

I am thinking about putting this up externally and using that space as a fuge and sticking some eggcrate in there to keep the chaeto from getting into the pumps.

 

[stdreb27]

hehe, well here are some pics. I'm searching for some cool clowns that aren't priced like cool clowns. I tried to talk this lfs out of their onyx clowns but she didn't want to part with em. I'm probably going to pick up a fireshrimp and a cleaner shrimp in a couple days from a fellow reef.

For the time being, I'm going to leave the sump the same, I pulled apart my chaeto and stuck it in a couple places in the sump along with some extra live rock.

I still need to do my cable management. It is a giant mess of spagetti now.

 

[flipside]

Lookin' good, man! Aquascaping looks like fun for the whole family, too.

 

[stdreb27]

do you think that a 5 gallonish refuge will do anything for the water quality?

 

[imsuperjp]

Looks good. Are you going to put a background? What type of lighting are you using? I am about to setup the same tank but using a 20 long as a sump.

 

[stdreb27]

yeah, I've got a black piece of fabric I'd purchased at a fabric store for like 50 cents a yard on clearance, that I'm going to use. I just haven't put it on yet. Mainly Because I Haven't decided how to hang it. Where it will stay, And I'm trying to talk my wife into hemming it.
As for lights I went nuts and purchased a Current outer orbit fixture 2x150 with the 20,000 K T-5's. hehe.

 

[kris4647]

What size pump do you have on your skimmer?

 

[stdreb27]

a mag 9.5.

 

[stdreb27]

Well I've decided that I'm going to hold off a little while on the fuge, however I'm going to run an external Iwaki 55 as a return. Split it off to run where the canisters are then put filter bags in them. To scrub the water. Hopefully this will help keep the water tempurature down. Because the temp was getting to 84 degrees.

 

[Hanson77]

Looks good, I love the rockwork. My shrimp are going to love their new home.

 

[stdreb27]

well I decided to stick a iwaki md30 as the return pump in an effort to give the sump more length so I can knock down microbubbles. It seems to be helping, however still not perfect. Does anyone have any extra foam core laying around? Also, I've heard that if you stick an elbow on the intake side the pump will cavitate? Anyone had this problem?

 

[stdreb27]

Update
I'm going to pick up several corals this weekend, and a fire and cleaner shrimp, so hopefully my tank will start taking shape.

 

[stdreb27]

Well here are the pictures of my first coral, some are starting to open up. Some are still getting used to their new environment. Most came out of a tank with just t-5's so I've got a piece of diffusing glass between he mh's and the tank. These were taken with the t-5's and MHs on.

 

[stdreb27]

poopy time

 

[AquaNerd]

dang, did that angel eat some dental floss?

 

[stdreb27]

oops double post

 

[stdreb27]

I know, pretty stringy, I hope his diet isn't clogging him up to much...

Did you see the picture of the frag me and scott split at your store the other day?

 

[stdreb27]

I started seeing some hair algea, and I'd lost a couple small frags because they got blown off the rock and buried when the dumb clown did his thing.
So I decided to pull the rock and scrub it down again and look for the frags, So I pulled all the frags out and stuck them in the sump underneath a 6500k pc light low output. However when I stuck them under that light instead of the normal lights, a few of the zoas that had not opened yet opened. So Can I use this for a frag tank light, is it enough. You're probably talking 4 inches of water between the frags and the water level?