Upgrading from 29 biocube to 75g custom drilled, need advices

Rluka · Mar 17, 2014

Hello Everyone,

I'm very excited to upgrade to a 75 g tank. Here is the plan; I'm renovating my basement to an L-shaped recreation room, and the tank is going to be built-in in the wall at the corner, so I will have a short side and a long side showing, and this is why I had to have it custom drilled on the right side of the tank.
I'm also planning to have a 40g or so sump tank, but will start with a rubbermaid plastic one until I find a good deal.
I bought 2 X 165w tao leds dimmable from ebay, and a good 800gph return pump. I also have an R/O water system that gives me 004 ppm on the TDS after replacing the membrane and the filters.
I need help with the following questions:
1. What skimmer or category of skimmers should I look for? (I prefer in sump, for the space)
2. Do I need calcium or carbon reactors? or should I dose? LFS dealer said the reactors are inconsistent.
3. I have about 25 Lbs of live rocks on the old tank, but had always few aptaseas and green algae, can I still use them to cycle my new tank?
4. Overflow holes were drilled at the bottom which will give hard time trying to construct the stand with 2X4s, any ideas? I was planning to make the stand as a part of the wall structure so they would give each other more support.
5. In my biocube I have a pair of clowns, one ocillaris and one black, a royal gramma, and a pair of watchman goby with a pistol tiger shrimp. the pistol shrimp has killed all other shrimps that I had in the past, so I might throw in a few peppermints to establish during the cycling before I add the pistol. any ideas? I also want to add 2 - 3 different tangs, and a mandarine goby.
6. I was thinking of building a water filtering/mixing station with 2 big plastic barrels, I need help to design and plumb with an ATO.

Thanks in advance for your time and information to be shared, I will eventually share some photos for the final product.

Regards

Rluka · Apr 14, 2014

Hello again,
Nobody is following yet, but I will update anyway since a lot has been done and hoping to get some help with some of the issues that are going now. The system now is up and running. 75 g with corner overflow, 2 holes, one drain and one return, along with a 40g sump. I'm using 2 120W tao leds from ebay and they are marvellous. I have few big rocks there and I threw in 3 peppermint shrimps and a bunch of different snails. I mixed up dry rocks with some of my live rocks, some of the LR have aptaesia on them and that's why I've added the peppermint.
The water has just cleared up and I'm going to transfer my royal granma to the new tank, and then after the cycle is complete I'll move my 2 clowns with their long tentacle anemone and the watchman goby/pistol shrimp pair later.
I haven't added a skimmer yet and will do that next month. I'm using a 700 gph return pump, but I think I will replace that with a DC super quite pump. The problem I'm facing is there is a lot of noise coming from the drain, in the beginning it was under the water, and the sound of bubbling was crazy, so I cut the drain to be at the water surface, it a little better, but still relatively noisy and very noticeable, any ideas about that? Shall I go for a smaller size return pump?
I'm also using an RO system to get my water, but no DI. my TDS meter reads between 003 and 005 ppm, is that a problem or it's good?
I hope I can get some responses.
I will share some photos.