my first tank

[Shawntay]

Greetings All,

this is my first tank. so far she is empty. i posted on my 'new to the reef' thread what she will run. here is is below:

Eshopps Eclipse Overflow
2 x EcoTech Radion XR15W
1 x Ecotex MP40w-QD
reeflink
2 x Eheim 1250
Coralife 125g skimmer
Trigger System CRYS30E sump (not sure about those socks)
Neptune Apex controller
2 x 200 or 250w heater (possibly one in tank and one in sump)
a mesh screen lid
ATO w/ 10g ATO tank

Also attached is the overlow i'm using and i'm gonna follow BRS's method for flow and return.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Cheers for starting a tank thread so we can follow along !

 

[DaveK]

You have done well on equipment selection, especially for a first tank. You should be seing some good results soon.

 

[Shawntay]

Here are some updates to my path to reefness. I brought a few diamond circular bits and had a friend come over to help me drill the holes in the tank for the he overflow and returns. Even though I've proven I'm pretty handy with tools ...for a girl (lol) I never got a chance to drill. He had never "played" with that bit before so he was excited.

He drilled the holes and I took pics. I was able to clean the tank and put in the starter bulkheads. Next task is to get a sumo, finish out the plumbing, and get the rest of my starting equipment.

Hopefully there will be an update and more pics next weekend.

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[Shawntay]

Also I put my emergency overflow valve in the middle. Does it matter? The other setup I saw has in on an end.


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[Shawntay]

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[Shawntay]

3/28 update. Over the weekend there were 5 trips to Home Depot, 4 trips to my lfs, 1 to lowes, and 3 to petco.

While dealing with the plumbing to my reef tank I set my daughters up with a 40g tank for Glo fish. Their tank was up and running with 5 Glo fish within 3 hours.

My tank....still in progress. It sucks how easy freshwater is to saltwater bit I'm hanging in there and will be patient. I got a RO/DI system. I need a bit of help trying to figure out the best way to pump my water from the basement to my living room. I have a 50 ft hose but I tried to do a test run and water everywhere. Running up and down the steps cause the siphon needs a bit of a push. Anyone have any suggestions? Here is my progress and yes my plumbing is a hot mess but I'll fix it.

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[Shawntay]

This is the picture from two nights ago.

I was able to start putting water in but after about 50 gallon realized that I hadn't added the salt. Then I was having trouble figuring out which outlet was which on the Apex.

The used Vortech said it had an update so I tried to do that and now its blinking red and white.

Right now I'm frustrated and feel like I'm screwing up. On the positive note I am able to use remote software to my Mac computer across the room from the tank to use photo booth to see the tank.

This is right now.

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[Antics]

The tank looks good! I've always wanted to try and drill some of the larger tanks I've had laying around but never had the courage. Maybe one day I'll convince myself to try, but until then I'll stick with RR.

 

[Shawntay]

Here is where we are now...

I may need more live rock. I'll have to post a close up of the live rock I have in there now but I don't know if I screwed up the tank or not when I had the RO/DI water in the tank. It was there for a couple of days before I could make new RO/DI water and mix it with salt. I tried to put some salt in the tank but I may have just made the situation worse before fixing it. Any advice? I'll try to post pics of the rock in the morning.


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[nanoreefing4fun]

Nice start ... You will be fine... at worst, you have turned your LR in to dry rock by having it sit in rodi water & not sw - my guess is there is still some life in it though, but you have lost some to die off, which will help cycle the tank - you may want to add some more lr 5 or 10%

Just get your salinity right now... 1.025 or 1.026 - then I would add a raw deli shrimp

Cycling tank:

Watch for the ammonia to soar then fall to zero, then the nitrites soar & then fall to zero, then the nitrates soar, once this happens, do water changes to get rid of the nitrates - tank cycled

Depending on the state of your LR (how cured it was & how much die off it had), in general it will look something like this...

see what others think...

 

[Shawntay]

Nice start ... You will be fine... at worst, you have turned your LR in to dry rock by having it sit in rodi water & not sw - my guess is there is still some life in it though, but you have lost some to die off, which will help cycle the tank - you may want to add some more lr 5 or 10%

Just get your salinity right now... 1.025 or 1.026 - then I would add a raw deli shrimp

Cycling tank:

Watch for the ammonia to soar then fall to zero, then the nitrites soar & then fall to zero, then the nitrates soar, once this happens, do water changes to get rid of the nitrates - tank cycled

Thanks so much for the information. One other question. Where did you get those graphs? Is there a good program I can log my tank parameters?

 

[Shawntay]

For those that are following along, here is what my two pieces of live rock look like right now. Also, I think, in the last picture, that is a clam. Can anyone confirm? It was on one of the LR. it was closed a few days ago but I noticed it open last night.

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[nanoreefing4fun]

the graph just came fro google "cycling tank"

 

[Kirblit]

Looks like you have a great start! Just a thought I had when looking at your pictures though. Your returns are very low in the tank and could pose a flooding risk when power is turned off, I don't see any kind of siphon break. Make sure you have enough room in your sump to handle all the water that will siphon back from the display. If you have check valves, well, just don't trust them to work and make sure your sump can handle the extra water.

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[cracker]

I just checked out this thread. Good Job Shawntay!

 

[Shawntay]

I haven't posted about my tank in about a month. It was a bit of a back burner while finishing up my Master's thesis. I figured since the tank was empty I could just monitor my levels to see when the tank cycles while working on the paper. Well I have no idea what I'm looking at. I was doing the chemicals from the kit but then switched to strips. I was checking every three days but I missed the last two weeks. Here were the three from 2-3 weeks ago and the one closest to the color chart is from this morning.

I was thinking of getting some snails and crabs as I see some hair algae in the tank.


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[Antics]

Getting that clean up crew will definitely help with the hair algae! Congratulations on finishing your Master's thesis.

 

[cindykz]

+1 on the congrats. I will finally have my MS on Sat, my tank build is my grad gift to myself .

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[Shawntay]

+1 on the congrats. I will finally have my MS on Sat, my tank build is my grad gift to myself .

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That is so awesome. Congratulations.