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Taking it to the Next Level


brian.srock

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  • 1 month later...

Finally had time from my hectic schedule to sit and stare at my tank and it dawned on me that I'm missing a blenny and skunk shrimp. Slowly getting my Cal levels up with water changes and dosing.

My tank is looking better and better now that i've rid my algae problem.

Next on my to-do list is a better water change station. Currently I'm using a 35 gallon trash can that has wheels but once I load 10 gallons of water the wheels are inoperatable.

I'm also using a shop vac which'll take 5 gallons at a time out then manually scooping the water back into the tank.

The plan is to get 2 idential pumps and throw one in my sump where I can drain as much as I want at one time into one trash can then pump it back into the sump from the fresh saltwater trashcan

and finally throw the pump that was thrown into the sump back into the old water can and turn it on by a drain to empty it out so no more lifting and dragging stuff.

Also October is the month I have planned to get my new tank running so stay tuned.

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  • 3 months later...

Update for the New Year. I have successfully rid myself of the major algae problem I was having thanks to vodka dosing and heavy skimming.

The only real con I have about it is it totally decimated my micro fauna population but thanks to (Bio)³ he totally hooked me up with a grab bag of goodies for my tank.

In the spirit of Taking it to the Next Level I have a couple updates.

I was never fully satisfied with the light intensity at the bottom on my very deep tank so how do you make a 1st Gen 120w 14K LED fixture better?

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Add more Lights! Special Thanks goes out to Timfish who installed an extra 6 3w Cree Rapid LED bulbs on the outside of my fixture. I am so thankful for his help in this addtion.

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To control some of the the light spill and make it look uniform my brother and I built these custom light canopies.

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We build 2 matching ones for each tank that I have and I painted them both a gloss black.

Here is a pic of one installed on my current tank and I'll get a pic of the other one up soon hopefully.

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And now for as long as it has been postponed I can officially say that I have started the build on my 2nd tank!

I have decided to build custom rock so thanks to zilkerfish he hooked me up with a bunch of oyster shells.

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After some cleaning they are in my curing bucket

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I have an order that I need to pick up from a BRS group buy that (Bio)³ put together that has a bunch of reefsaver and tonga rocks that'll also go into my curing bucket so stay tuned as more is definately to come.

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i just spend a couple hrs reading this whole topic and i gotta say it was neat to see the process of over a yr in just those few hrs. i really like the look of a tall tank. specially with the lr set up that way BEAUTIFUL aquascape. i really wish i would have taken more pictures of my progress. but you have motivated me to work on staring a tank build on mine. i gotta say many of you have said on here that this is like a tight knit family and i will agree. and so far you guys have made me feel that. you all are very nice and helpful and have even gone out of your way to help a perfect stranger. you guys are the best!!! reef on brothers and sisters reef on wub.png

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I was wondering the gorilla glue you used to hold all the rock in the beginning, is that safe to put in a reef tank? I have always used that reef glue.

But awesome build that is a beautiful tank. Nice Job

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I haven't had any ill effects with the gorilla glue. I did only use it inside the holes I drilled in the rocks and the contact points. Having a tank as deep as mine is a big challenge when you attempt to stack rocks so it got the job done.

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All clams, barnacles, and mussels shells have been soaked in bleach for the last couple of days so tonight I will take them out and thoroughly rinse them. I've been doing a lot of researching and it is time to start my 2nd tank officially. I am going to attempt to record my progress so everyone can see all the tips and tricks I've picked up in creating my aquascape. One of the main pieces of information that I will be using will be an article from reefs.com on the Aesthetics of Aquascaping. Another is I have always loved the look of a custom reef drop off and since no one in this forum has attempted one whistle.gif that is what I will be creating. I just need to get a couple PVC pieces and another can of pond foam but I believe I have everything ready to start this project tomorrow morning with ct67stang's help. If anyone would like to come by and supervise let me know.

Here is my attempt at trying to get a diagram of what I want it to look like ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I scrapped that idea. Wasn't feeling it so working on my next plan. My pump did fail on me in tank #1 so that kind of put funds on hold for a minute.

I upgraded to a Mag 12 so i could have it external.

Plumbed it all up last night with a tee'd ball valve so I could hook it up to a phosban reactor that I'm also picking up.

They are hooked up with clear plastic tubing so it's much easier to work with now than the ridged pvc piping I had down there.

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FYI that manifold might not properly pressurize but will work nice to bleed off to one item as long as there isn't too much back pressure on either outlet.

Looking sweet though, curious how much your temps change when you go external.

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It did look pretty good but juiceman is right. I waste so much tank with the dead area. I'm going to do some fiddling with those tonga branches I got and see what I can come up with. I am also going in on the next group buy next week so hopefully it won't be too long til I'm up.

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FYI that manifold might not properly pressurize but will work nice to bleed off to one item as long as there isn't too much back pressure on either outlet.

Looking sweet though, curious how much your temps change when you go external.

I'll keep that in mind. I want to get rid of my fluval canister filter just because it's so big and expensive to run all the media in it and get a BRS dual GFO/Carbon reactor. I would also like to figure something out with my aqua c remora pro skimmer. It's putting too many micro bubbles along with my reverse algae scrubber into the main tank.

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Looks to me that if you were to 45° the vertical piece it would give you back 50% of the lost space back AND help give light to the coral on the vertical piece. Imo. What are ur plans for the two pieces if you dont use them?

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

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  • 2 months later...

Here is the final pic of my first saltwater tank. It has been all drained and waiting transfer. Thank you all for following my journey. Now it is time to say goodbye to my personal piece of the ocean. Stay tuned for my new tank build coming soon...

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