Sharkey18 February 19, 2010 Share February 19, 2010 So I finally have the 120 up and running. 120 AGA, Dual internal overflows Mag 9.5 MP40 Koralia 4 100 # live sand (Tampa Bay Saltwater) 100 # live rock (Tampa Bay Saltwater) 48 Inch IceCap Reef Illuminations 2 HQI, 2 T5 + 2x15W Tubular LED Moonlights ( Coming soon from Sean at Fins and feathers) No skimmer (for now) 40 gal refugium I am planning on trying to run a mostly SPS tank without a skimmer. Rob (Zygote) says it can be done, and I'd like to try it. Unfortunately, I also don't have room for a RDSB so that might be a limiting factor. It's a used tank so it required quite a bit of cleaning.... I happened to be driving to Florida so I brought back 7 boxes of sand and rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater After unloading the sand and rock into the tank...not so pretty After finally making enough water, (my schedule was thrown off by the ridiculous amount of snow). Die off has the ammonia level at 1 ppm so a lot of water changes are coming. The rock was just roughly arranged but I kind of like it. I am not interested in drilling support bars to make "minimal sand contact" pillars. It looks too unnatural to me and I don't have the patience to do it anyhow. So the rock needs to be arranged so it's stable on it's own. Thanks for looking... Laura Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS February 19, 2010 Share February 19, 2010 Looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind February 19, 2010 Share February 19, 2010 (edited) Yeah, I have been waiting for this thread! I don't think there is a need to do a water change yet. You need the ammonia to get the nitrogen cycle started. What wattage are the HQI's going to be? Edited February 19, 2010 by Coral Hind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller February 19, 2010 Share February 19, 2010 Great start. All those boxes was for the rock and sand? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkey18 February 19, 2010 Author Share February 19, 2010 Yes, all those boxes were rock and sand... I am starting off with 14K bulbs. The info from TBS says keep the ammonia under 1ppm, so I was going to follow that, but I do see your point about the cycle. Dave S. : Pics? I want to see how your rock work ended up! Laura Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind February 19, 2010 Share February 19, 2010 14kK bulb will be a nice color. I looked up the fixture and they appear to be 250w HQI's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mogurnda February 19, 2010 Share February 19, 2010 Because the rock is shipped in water, it should not need to cycle much if at all. By getting it from TBS you skip all but a small part of the curing process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkey18 June 23, 2010 Author Share June 23, 2010 Oh my..... I can't believe how long it's been since i posted... Here are some pics of the 120 now. It is essentially Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind June 23, 2010 Share June 23, 2010 Nice update and that sump picture is just scary. I bet that was a mess to clean up. The tank is going to look nice as it matures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Novi June 23, 2010 Share June 23, 2010 Wow... you have some really good growth already! How much of the SPS started out as single frags?/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkey18 June 23, 2010 Author Share June 23, 2010 Almost all of the sps started out as frags but the larger pieces were growing happy in my 54g for a year before I transferred them to the 120. Two of the larger colonies were purchased as colonies already from CoralHind. I collected a lot of sps frags in the 54 knowing that I would be setting up the 120 soon. That said, I do get pretty good growth since I switched from dosing kalk to dosing two part. Mixing the kalk etc was such a pain that I just didn't do it. Two part is easier for me. Laura Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mountaineer June 24, 2010 Share June 24, 2010 Very nice progress, but I'm with Coral Hind on that sump looking scary. I froze on that picture for several minutes pondering the events that must have followed. I hope you were home when that happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkey18 June 24, 2010 Author Share June 24, 2010 The sump blow out was a nightmare. I was NOT home when it happened and came home to water all over the floor. Took a few minutes to identify the source of the water as the sump. Found the side of the sump destroyed and the remains of the heater in the sump. So much for titanium. I don't really KNOW for sure which came first, the glass explosion or the heater explosion, but I see no reason for the glass to explode without casue. The bulkhead to the sump was actually still intact, so I assume the heater exploded and the force with which it hit the glass caused it to shatter. Heater remains: Luckily, as soon as the sump drained, the return flow to the tank ceased and I had no fish or coral losses. However, having I had to get rid of all my sand and macro (contaminated?) and immediately set up a skimmer in a rubbermade tank. I used that for three weeks until NAGA built me a serious sump. Since then it is taking forever to reestablish the refugium so the skimmer is still running. As bad as it looked, I got away easy. The display tank was unaffected. Laura Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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