Benjamin's 75g Garage Build (FOWLR to Reef)

[TLTGF]

Impressive and on the cheap!

[Ibrahim]

Nice! I've got a cheap macro lens for my iPhone 5. It takes great pics too.

[mrbee2828]

So I stumbled into a 125g at a great price a bit back It's been water tested and sitting behind my house for a good while and I've decided to upgrade vs sell it. The tank was painted but it had a few good scratches on the front. So I cleaned it all, scraped off the paint and drilled what was the "front" and basically only have 1 small scratch in the middle now. I built a 4' overflow so it's almost a coast to coast. I put it on top of my 75g for scale Tomorrow I'm going to begin the swap and I hope to have it wrapped up this weekend. I think I skipped posting here about the 2 part BRS reactor I got last month as well. It was on a maxi jet but I plumbed it off the return line now and it's not in the picture.


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[kdpuffer]

Nice dude, I am just finishing my upgrade. It's nice the second time around cause you know what to improve from the last build. I wish my 90g was drilled for coast to coast but a corner is good enough for now.

[mrbee2828]

So I haven't practiced what I preached over the last year or so and that's "don't do anything major to your tank before you go away". We planned our week vacation in Florida months ago and I had a buyer hot for my 75g the week before we planned to leave.

He wanted to buy it as soon as I broke it down if I could do it before we left. Of course he never called back and bought another tank. So it is with this hobby, but I had the 125 ready to go and so I started. Since it wasn't a 100% new setup and I had everything automated I felt ok about the switch. It took me about 4 days to swap everything out. I had most of the coral in 2 smaller tanks with heaters and an mp10 on each while I swapped out the tanks. The plumbing remained the same just about with only the chiller getting moved over a few feet.

I'll post more pictures later but here is the start to the new tank. I'm not sure what I'm doing with the middle but I am leaving it open for now with the thought of doing a red carpet anemone there. So some info on the switch:

• I lost 2 fish, the last of 3 lyretails of which snapped and had killed the other 2 a month back. I also lost the flame hawk. Both were strange loses considering live rock, flow, temp and old water was used on the "new" tanks for 3 days.
• I've lost my cleaner and peppermint shrimp. Either that or they made it into another tank and I haven't seen them yet.
• I burned my blue sponge up to almost nothing while I was gone. I had it up to high in the rush to get out of town.
• My RBT is super [ tinkle ]ed/stressed. I'm not sure if it's going to pull through.
• I have the power run under the stand now for the most part with individually switched strips. I hope to get a controller late this year.
• I'm getting another radeon next month to replace the marazza p. I'm planning on mounting these on a solid, higher rack finally.
• I'm going to go to a larger DC Reef Octopus skimmer this summer. Looking at a Diablo DCS 170 or 200.
• Once the rock is out of the holding tank I'm going to divide that tank into a frag rack and fuge. The sump will get reworked AGAIN and probably not have a fuge area. This will reduce algae build up in the sump and in the skimmer without the lighting. I'm going to have a sock holder built in and a larger area for the skimmer.
• I'm adding another 20g brute inline with the current brutes for larger water changes.

[mrbee2828]

I picked up 2 colonies of bird's nest from a local guy Sunday and got them mounted this morning. Here are some step by steps for those of you who haven't done this before. I made the column with rods a few months back. Note the number of drill bits. I started very small and worked up to the plug size. Low RPM and no pressure. I just let the drillbit grind/sand out the rock which is fragile to begin with.

[mrbee2828]

I got another radion last week but I've been super busy and haven't had the time to get it hung up. I did put together some plans for a new rack to weld up when I get some time over at my neighbor's.

[mrbee2828]

[mrbee2828]

[mrbee2828]

I ordered a Reef Octopus Diablo XS 250 skimmer and a reeflo dart/snapper hybrid. I also got the 2" bulkhead and glass cutter for it off glass holes. I'm go to do something a little different on my new sump this time. Since I will only have the strainer for the return now I'll have the filter socks at the end of the line over top of the return area. This is going to lay in the front right of the tank for easy in and out. Right now the way I have the holding tank plumbed in it's a pain around the skimmer so I don't use my socks much anymore. I'm going to make an attempt to have a way for the water to get past the socks if they were to clog as well.

I'm also going to drill a 3rd drain hole on the holding tank. I'm thinking this will keep a lot of the detritus and bits of macro that break off out of my return as well. It's either this or kill the fudge 100%. The skimmer will take up 1/2 the tank at a 16" footprint.

[mrbee2828]

I just got a call that the skimmer and pump are on back order for a few weeks :/

[mrbee2828]

I got 2 new tangs this weekend and got them in the tank and confined so they could sniff each other out a bit. I flipped an old skimmer stand for the day. I was able to get all the tangs out and clip their barbs yesterday and then introduced everyone at the same time. So far so good. One has taken to the rear corner but no injuries as of the past 24hrs.

[TheTodd]

I've never heard of clipping Tang's barbs. What is the point of taking away a natural defense?

[mrbee2828]

For that very reason. Since the hippo and yellow I had were already aggressive and had their territory marked in the tank, clipping barbs reduced the damage they could do 2 the new inhabitants. They're less of a threat and there "may" be a better chance for them all adjusting. The barbs are like a dog's nails or like our's. They will grow back in time and hopefully everyone will be adjusted by then.

[mrbee2828]

A lot of companies will clip the barbs / scalpes to protect against ripping bags while being transported as well.

[huma-huma]

I can understand the reasoning behind clipping them but if they are going to fight and bicker, they are still going to do damage regardless

[mrbee2828]

Quick weekend warrior update without pics:

• Finished welding the light rack. I'll won't be drilling this for a week or two.
• Added a 3rd MP10w in the center of the tank
• Changed the light schedule/program to see if I've had them too bright for too long.
• Finished the first door a local guy's nano stand. One more to go.
• Ordered fish for me and a few others today from Live Aquaria for the first time to see how they are.
• Sold a bunch of fish I ordered last week.
• All 3 yellow tangs are getting along "somewhat". 2 are joined at the hip and the other just seems to stay out of the way.
• 20g water change

[Sniperhank]

Sounds pretty boss man. You won't be disappointed with LA's stuff. I only wish I had more money to use them more often!

Also, what did you lower your Radions to? I ended up using schedule that the guys at Ecotech were using on their tanks. Results did improve, but my colors are still dull, trying to figure out if I have hidden phosphates or if it is the lighting.

[mrbee2828]

I'm in the same boat as you on the lights and dull/washed out colors. I was using the app and running VMware so that I could run it on windows. I finally signed up for the browser beta and installed the connection manager for Mac. I ended up picking some enhancing template they had and put the whole thing at 75%. I'm not 100% happy with it but wasted enough time already. I'm waiting on a bigger skimmer and dosed a few things after reading up on how to enhance color.

As for LiveAquaria, I saw they had the Naso tangs on sale so I got a few people together locally to go in and get free shipping. Let's hope it all works out tomorrow.

... and someone call the tang police because I'm going to offend everyone here

[Sniperhank]

See, that is the problem I have. But my skimmer is rated at 150 gallons...on a 55 with 20 sump and skimming like a champ. I just switched out of high capacity GFO into Cobalt's new anti-phosphate resin to run along side of my purigen. So we'll see. I like resins and want it to be my cure all.