55 and 40g DT 135g system

elliottb

elliottb

Member
Well, at another forum I am part of I had made a long thread about my whole build of my system. I have kept some of the pics in photobucket, so I will post the process from start to finish here.

I have had my 55g tank from the time I was 15 (19 now) and for the first 2 years the tank was a mess. I did nothing right. BUT, in the past year I made a sump, did water changes and took care of the livestock I have. Here are a few pics of the 55 and 20g sump.


This is a pic of my mushrooms about 2 years ago.
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Here is a pic of my mushrooms now
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Notice the difference in the corraline algae growth?


Here is a pic of the sump when I first made it
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Since then I have made many changes but do not have any recent pics.

Or do I? :square:
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elliottb

elliottb

Member
Then I thought how great it would be to have a frag tank! So guess what I did! Thats right, I got a frag tank going! A 20g long.



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elliottb

elliottb

Member
I got this tank up and running for about 2 months and thought it would be cool to add a seagrass tank. I had a 30g that I let my friend borrow, but he left water in it in 20 degree weather. Yes, it broke. I look at the posotive in everything and saw this as an opportunity to get a larger tank. I went with a 40g breeder!

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I made my own stand too.

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This is when things started to get interesting. I thought how cool it would be to add all the tanks together...

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Then after many hours of figuring things out and getting everything plumbed, the system was official :D

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elliottb

elliottb

Member
This is when I really started focusing on seagrass. I literally read hundreds of articles and blogs and EVERYTHING about seagrass, specifically halodule wrightii (shoal grass). I found they will benefit form a DSB. My thinking is to go big or not at all.

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Now, I had to think about lighting. Studying about the plants I found they like natural sunlight best and decided to go with a pair of 65w floodlights that are 6700k.

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They are BRIGHT! I would say very close to 150w MH lights.

This is where my "chronical" is at. I went to a LFS the other day to see if they had and seagrass but they diidnt and said they would call me with a price for them to special order it for me.
 
B

boozeman

Well-Known Member
I noticed you are having trouble finding sources for seagrass....you might want to try asking panmanmatt as seahorses routinely use eelgrass' as hitching posts in tanks.
 
tbittner

tbittner

Well-Known Member
Great job! Especially with figuring out how to plumb everything together. That is really nice looking sand too! What is it? I need to buy some in the not to distant future. :)

You're shrooms are especially beautiful! I buy shrooms with those nice colors and, under my lights, they change colors, typically back to the brown/rust color. :(
 
Dentoid

Dentoid

Smile Maker
PREMIUM
How is that Labroides dimidiatus doing? The world is a much better place with them in the oceans!
 
elliottb

elliottb

Member
The sand, I got it from.....I forget. either liveaquaria or marinedepot.com

I would like some eelgrass, but it tends to get a little larger. With the 5" DSB I am only left with 11" until the top of the tank.

The Labroides dimidiatus unfortunately passed. I had that bad boy for almost 3 months until he went MIA. That was the second one. I had another one for 6 months until my cat got a snack :( . I am just happy I was able to keep it so long because I have read how difficult they are to keep because of their eating habits. I have also read they wont live much past a month the the average home aquarium.
 
elliottb

elliottb

Member
tbittner said:
Great job! Especially with figuring out how to plumb everything together. That is really nice looking sand too! What is it? I need to buy some in the not to distant future. :)

You're shrooms are especially beautiful! I buy shrooms with those nice colors and, under my lights, they change colors, typically back to the brown/rust color. :(
Click to expand...

Thanks! it took some figuring out how to do the plumbing and am still tweeking a few some things.

I have my mushrooms under 390w of PC light. They usually grow 2-3 new shrooms a week, depending on how often I frag them.
 
elliottb

elliottb

Member
I am still looking for a seller of halodule wrightii (shaol grass), so if anyone knows where I can get some, please tell me?
 
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