540 Gallon Tank Beginning

[davelin315]

Good move on collecting the sand! I ended up buying the Caribsea because I couldn't find the Southdown anywhere, and when I could, it was the same price that the various LFS were offering it to me in bulk. Anyway, I'm not convinced that a liverock feature will help you much and by turning it down as a feed, you're not going to gain much advantage. The sand has a way of getting up there in the water column, especially in the first few weeks until it gets colonized by bacteria and weighted down a bit. As far as adding other sand, I also contemplated this, but opted to keep it consistent grains. I also added a pair of yellow headed watchmen gobies to sift through the sand and keep it pristine white. I believe I added somewhere in the vicinity of 500 lbs to my system to get an average of 2-3" and have a few bags on reserve right now. Back to the feed, if you're going to dial it way down, might as well simply turn it into a return instead. This will actually be more effective, in my mind. My rationale is this, my reason for flow in the tank is to remove detritus and not allow it to settle. If you are using the closed loop for this and hence, trying to draw the water out of the bottom rear of the tank so that it stays in the water column, you need to have enough of a draw to pull it out. If you decrease the draw, then it won't pull the detritus out, so why have it in the first place? If simply to move water through there, chances are you'll have some flow through there anyway. If you were to replace this drain with a return instead, you could open it up and it would do a better job of blowing detritus OUT of the rockwork versus pulling it INTO the rockwork. This would also keep it suspended in the water column so you can mechanically remove it or would allow the fish and inhabitants a good chance of getting to it. Cleaning out an installed OM can be a difficult proposition, so it's worth considering rerouting that. Nothing more than a cut or two here and there and some replumbing. You could even leave the same plumbing on the inside so that it diverts the flow across the back of the tank.

[lmeyer]

The closed loop equipment is on order, it should be in place in a week or so. We've moved on to planning the sump. We're looking at a custom sump along the size of 60 x 24 x 20. One remote possibility is to take my existing display tank and chop it down to work as a sump. The existing tank is 3/4" acrylic and is 72 x 24 x 30 (tall). Unfortunately, the stand is also 30" tall, so I can't get the tank under the stand. Would it be possible to drain the tank, cut the top 10 or so inches off, attach baffles, and then reattach the eurobracing at the top? How would you go about doing it and does it make sense?

[davelin315]

I have heard that once you have glued acrylic it loses some of its strength and ability to be glued again, not sure of this though. Personally, I would simply install a sump beneath the tank that is built to fit or go with something that is not under the tank. Worst case scenario, link a couple of sumps together.

[lmeyer]

Decided against cutting down the old tank for the sump. Have purchased a used 180 gallon AGA for the sump.

 

Now I need to drill it and install baffles. I have a 5/8" drill bit on order, it should be here this week. Scott is going to come over and give me a hand drilling the holes.

 

I went to Home Depot today, they have 3/32" thick glass. I think that isn't thick enough. Am I correct? What thickness do I need? They do have 1/4" acrylic. Will that work or am I better off with glass baffles?

[m3fan8ic]

1/4" acyrlic is what I am going with in my 75gl sump from HD, that's what I was suggested by few memebers on here in my WTB post

[lmeyer]

Update and current question -

 

Closed loop is complete and running (turned on Saturday morning). There is a good bit of cloudiness. We'll see if it settles down.

 

Sump has been drilled, baffles installed, and moved under the stand. When I filled the sump with water (before moving it under the stand), the baffles started to bow. The acrylic obviously wasn't thick enough. I installed some pvc between the baffles to reinforce the acrylic. It won't win any beauty contests, but nobody needs to see it except me.

 

When I got the sump under the stand (resting on a sheet of plywood and some styrofoam), the top of the sump is within 1 1/2" from the bottom of the stand supports. I can't get the drain pipe directly into the sump as planned. I'm going to have to re-do the drain pipes to go under the stand and then turn up to go over the top of the sump. I hope to have that done and get the sump and protein skimmer complete by the end of the week.

 

On Saturday, I picked up 166 lbs of live rock from Marine Scene. This was rock that they got in on Thursday and put in their system until I picked it up. It is currently in the tank, where I plan to cure it, then add my rock from my old tank. The odd thing is that I am expecting the tank to cycle based on my adding this rock. I tested for ammonia this morning and got a reading of 0 ammonia. The temp of the water in my tank was way cold on Saturday (about 68 degrees) since we still haven't hooked up the HVAC in the house. I was running space heaters in the house and threw some heaters in the water, and the tank is now 80 degrees. The specific gravity is 1.022. Is it possible to add that much live rock and not kick off a cycle?

 

I know, I know, pictures. If I remember to bring a camera the next time I go to the house, I'll take some pictures and post them. It just hasn't been a priority in going to a mostly empty house.

[lmeyer]

I've been too busy to document anything, but I can at least post a couple of pix.

 

From inside the room

 

From outside of the house looking in

 

Still a lot of work to be done.

 

The rock was thrown in, have yet to begin aquascaping. Got another 100 lbs of small rock in another tank waiting for the aquascaping.

May paint the back of the tank, haven't decided yet.

Contractors broke the pump for the water change, need to try to fix or replace.

Haven't set up auto-top off yet.

Haven't set up kalkstirrer or calcium reactor yet.

Lights aren't set up yet, just running a pair of lumenarcs sitting on top, manually turning them on and off.

Almost none of the livestock survived from the old house. We made it about 4 months with me out of the house, but at that point the contractor started destroying my equipment and things went downhill quickly. Over the next 4 months, we lost all but two fish and most of the coral.

OM is jammed and I need to clean it out

 

Current livestock:

 

2 pencil urchin

2 blue chromis

pair ocelaris clown

tomini tang

assorted snails

couple of frogspawn

couple of candy cane corals

couple of cup corals

closed brain coral

green star polyps (just try killing them)

Capnella

 

Fish stocking plan:

 

Round 1:

 

Foxface

6 additional Blue Chromis

Yellow Jawfish

Pistol Shrimp/Watchman Goby pair

6 Firefish

Blackcap Gramma

 

Round 2:

 

Male and Female Banggai Cardinal

Male and Female Flame Angel

5 Bartlett's Anthias

4 Lyretail Anthias

 

Round 3:

 

3 Heniochus diphreutes

Male and Female Mandarin goby

Powder Blue Tang

Purple Tang (maybe)

Sixline Wrasse

Lawnmower blennie (maybe)

Copperband butterfly

Melanurus wrasse

Edited February 13, 2009 by lmeyer

[zoozilla]

Very clean look to the cabinetry. I like the fact that it's "In-Wall" but still accessible from the front. Will make your job much easier when placing corals in those hard to reach spots.

 

Excellent work