my aquapod adventure

[jared]

hello and thanks for looking. here is going to be the ongoing saga of my reef setup. hopefully it will be interesting enough to read.

i bought a used aquapod 24 from a guy on another forum i frequent, it has a 70 14k metal halide light along with maxijet 900 and 1200 pumps in the back.

here is the pic of when i brought it home ,kinda dirty so a good cleaning was in order, i used water and some vinegar and a razor blade to scrape the corraline off the back wall. took a good 2 hours but it was worth the effort.

here is after cleaning, its not a aquapod stand but much nicer imo a lot wider for storage and cord keeping. possible sump in the bottom in the future

here it is half filled with water, a little cloudy i must say. the sand is what was in there from the the previous owner (i removed it before cleaning and gave it a freshwater rinse) on top of some crushed coral. the depth of substrate is close to 3'' in the entire tank, some spots maybe deeper.

here are the blue led's lighting up my dark room, soo cool!!!

went to the LFS and bought 22 pounds of rock, 12 or the live expensive stuff and 10 of the cheap not living yet rock looks pretty good but still cloudy

here is the tank full and the water nice and clear. The fire on the glass is my fingers covering the flash on the camera to reduce the glare. :flaming:

and here is my favorite rock, it looks like a fossilized skull from the right angle

and the bottle, its a real antique we found a few years ago, its a battery oil bottle made by the thomas edison co., ya know the guy that invented the light bulb. kinda cool, i have plenty more bottles i will swap them out from time to time to add interest.

 

[Mya]

Very nice start. Love the bottle accent!

 

[jgking21]

Looking good, keep it up and more photos coming!

 

[jared]

as for adding fish, i have been checking the water condition daily, it has an ammonia reading so i am waiting till that goes down to 0. but everything else looked pretty good.

the mh light seems to heat up the water pretty good,i seem temps as high as 83* mid day, and it would cool off to around 79 at night with the light off.

and the tank is in my bed room and the pumps are a little noisy, but i guess i will get used to it.

but let me know what you think, and tips will be appriciated

 

[Mya]

Btw, Im sure someone is going to say something about the shrimp to jump start the cycle of the tank.

Also, take ur time with adding fish/corals. Really plan out what you want to have in the tank and what can live together in harmony. Take it from the spokesperson of overstock.com

 

[jared]

Btw, Im sure someone is going to say something about the shrimp to jump start the cycle of the tank.

Also, take ur time with adding fish/corals. Really plan out what you want to have in the tank and what can live together in harmony. Take it from the spokesperson of overstock.com

yeah i am in no real hurry, but i am adding the contents of the 6 gallon i already have, basically my super clown which i have had for the past 6 years or so. its about time he gets a real tank

 

[jared]

i did my first mod to my tank today, since the tank has no real mechanical filtration in it i noticed the surface of the water had so stuff floating on it, the hole left side (facing it) is open in the back for water to go through to the pumps and i had a filter pad in there to keep floating stuff out of the water.

so today i went to lowes and bought a peice of .080 clear plexiglass for 2 bucks and cut it down to fit behind the open area to create an actual overflow into the rear chambers. it works great now, no more floating stuff and i added a whisperer medium filter bag full of carbon directly underneath so now i have some actual filtration of the water until the tank cycles.

the ammonia is still high, but i did a 2 gallon water change and it dropped it down considerably so maybe another week or 2 before i get my clown in. his little tank is set up a few inches away from the new tank and he stays in the corner near it as if he is looking inside the new tank longing to have some serious swimming room lol

 

[jared]

well finally the ammonia went down to zero and i moved my clown over to his new mansion. so far everything is good to go. he seems pretty happy swims around a lot more, but only next to the glass mostly. he doesn't go in the middle near the rocks at all. i think he is scared of them lol.

i cleaned up the old 6 gallon tank and relocated it to underneath the new tank inside the stand, it fit perfectly so eventually it will become a new refugium for growing macro or using the turf scrubber.

i went to take pictures of the tank and pulled my camera out and it seems like i must have dropped it, the whole camera is broken i guess, it works still but the top is falling out so no pictures yet, getting it fixed at best buy gotta love the warrenties they sell, this is the second time i used if for my camera.

 

[jared]

also does anyone have a nice link to setting up a sump, maybe some pics and info on overflows and return pumps, plumbing the system, anything.

i have been searching a lot but not finding much that really helps.

thanks,
Jared

 

[AABatteries]

Looking good.

But one itsy bitsy problem that could become a big one. Doing the water change was a bad idea, just just it brought the ammonia down wasn't a good thing. It will eventually build back up to where it was until it is done cycling and has gone back down.

Also, it may be hard to use the eclipse as a sump and/or fuge, mainly just because of its odd shape

 

[dmyers557]

Nice. I like that bottle.