Building a new stand for my 90G and had a question.

[Matt LeBaron]

So I just moved into a new home and I am planning on doing an in wall installation for my 90G. I have it sitting in the laundry room right now and have finally gotten moved in enough to start work on it's final resting place. Since I'm going to install it in a wall I need to build a new stand that can be flush with the wall. I did a bit of research and building a stand doesn't look overly difficult but most plans for stands (and my current prebuilt stand) are only about 28" in height.

 

So my question is whether this is for some specific reason or whether I could build my new stand 4-6 inches higher so that I didn't have to bend down as much to see it. All the plans I found and most stands I see are all about this height so I thought it might be a good idea to ask if there was some reason for not building stands higher?

 

I've also seen some builds that make use of brace plates and some that just use screws, are the plates really necessary or are they more of an extra mile sort of thing?

 

Thanks for any assistance.

[Der ABT]

look up rocketengineers DIY stand build on Reefcentral....easy and strong as anything

 

dont several with these plans and made most of them taller as well, just keep in mind that the taller it is the harder it is to reach the bottom of the tank for cleaning, corals, etc. i think the talles i went was 40 inches on 75g and it had no issues....current is around 36 with a 90g.

hope this helps

[Matt LeBaron]

So I got the stand built. I decided to make it the "normal" height after remembering having to reach the bottom of the tank and thinking about how the room it will be facing will be used. I hope to put a lazy boy or couch next to it, which at about 28 inches should place the tank at a good height to observer from a sitting position.

 

I got the hole cut in the wall and the stand and tank are in. I filled it up with 5 inches of substrate (burrowing gobies with pistol shrimp and turtle grass) and half filled it with water to let everything settle in. Hoping to finish up all of the plumbing and get all the live rock in by Friday followed by all of my live stock this weekend.

[Der ABT]

no pics......didnt happen

[smallreef]

Are you NOT letting this tank cycle????

your putting in NEW live rock (assuming its being shipped in?or is this LR youve had in another tank?) and just putting in your livestock the next day?

[jimlin]

that is how TANKED does it!

[flooddc]

that is how TANKED does it!

 

[steveoutlaw]

that is how TANKED does it!

 

Again.....I would love to see statistics on the survival rate of their livestock. Can't be better than 50%.

 

Unless you are using ALL water from an established tank, you need to let that tank sit until the cycle is complete (3-6 weeks) before adding any livestock. If not you can pretty much kiss your shrimp and goby goodbye.

Edited September 8, 2012 by steveoutlaw

[zygote2k]

 

Unless you are using ALL water from an established tank, you need to let that tank sit until the cycle is complete (3-6 weeks) before adding any livestock. If not you can pretty much kiss your shrimp and goby goodbye.

You can add fish and corals after 1 week if you follow certain rules.

Day 1 add sand, rock, saltwater.

Day 2-6 add MB7 appropriately

Day 6 add hardy corals

Day 7 add a few fish.

CUC will come after sufficient algae has grown in the tank.

[Matt LeBaron]

Wow it's ok folks, honest. It's all my existing, fully cured live rock that I've had in my tank for years. Plus a bit of dry rock that I used to make a new arch for my rock work. New sand but that's it. Almost everyone survived the move to the new house and the temporary holding tank and the move into their final home when I got the new 90G installed in the wall. Only causality was one of my red spot cardinals, which just do not handle the stress of being moved well. My three seahorses, two gobies and pistol shrimp, firefish, and the remaining three red spot cardinals, along with all of my corals made the trip alive and well. My turtle grass may die off to the roots but it'll grow back if it does, I won't know for sure for another week or two.

 

I'll get some pictures soon, I had a measurement mishap moment and made the arch I built too tall, about 1/2 of an inch is sticking out the top of the tank, so I need to see about lowering that a bit but the pistol shrimp and gobies setup home underneath one of the ends and then the pistol shrimp moulted so I don't want to disturb him for a couple of days until his new shell hardens. Then I'll shorten the arch and get some of the branch rock I have setup how I like it instead of it just being dumped in my sump like it is right now.

[smallreef]

Sounds good, lol

I wasnt sure if you were using all new rock or still had cured rock from your tank...

Glad it went okay and hopefully itll keep going good as everyone gets re-settled

[Matt LeBaron]

Finally got time to grab a few quick picks. Unpacking a house with an infant takes a lot longer that one would think. Tank is basically all setup at this point, still a bit of work to do in the equipment room but nothing urgent so it'll wait until I have some free time. Opening for the tank is still rough too, I need to build a frame to go around it but again, when time permits.

 

 

 

 

[jimlin]

cool turtle grass. what kind of substrate are you using to grow the turtle grass?

[jimlin]

just noticed your light setup. is that enough light? i never used those types of bulbs on my tank, but seen them used on similar sized tank as yours except they used a lot more of them.

[Matt LeBaron]

The substrate is a mix, mostly Seaflor Special Grade Reef sand with Florida Crushed Coral and some Argamax Sand in there. I also added some miracle mud and mineral mud to the side that has the turtle grass to help it along in the long run. I had a smaller grain size in the tank before than now but not by much, I'm hoping the turtle grass still does as well as before, I had some die off like I thought I would but it has actually come through the move better than I thought it might.

 

The light setup is a bit odd. Year and a half ago I replaced a large T5 fixture with a Marineland Reef Capable LED fixture with the idea that I would kind of spot supplement that with some other LEDs for the more light intensive stuff. Got the Marineland fixture and was really unimpressed, it is alright for low light stuff but really that's it. I then after a bit of research purchased two Ecoxotic PAR38 LED's with the idea of installing track lighting above my tank and using them as my spot supplement. Those things are FANTASTIC I seriously cannot express how great I think those things are. The big birdsnest on the right side of the tank was a frag about 1.5 inches long, a single branch less than a year ago. I got it late last Novemeber as a birthday present from my wife among some others and 10 months later it's that size, larger than my fist by a good bit at this point. The turtle grass under them went from 8-16 inches long to literally laying across the entire length of my tank (close to 4 feet) and requiring me to trim it because it was blocking light to the stuff below.

 

I've got four of them now with one more that I plan on using in a frag tank that is yet to be setup. The only problem with them is that they do have that spot light affect so I kept the marineland fixture at the front where I have mostly low light softie stuff that does fine under that and it lights the whole tank fairly evenly. Then use the PAR38 bulbs in the rear where I keep the more light intensive stuff. Money allowing in the future (7 month old and a new house so...yeah, a while in the future) I'm likely to compare the LED's Ecoexotic uses in their PAR38's and see if they use the same in their other fixtures and maybe pick some of those up.

[jimlin]

tank looks very nice and the sea horse must love those turtle grass. any problems with feeding the sea horse? My wife wants a seahorse, but i feel like it will starve to death if it was in the same tank as the clown.

[Matt LeBaron]

Not sure how aggressive clown fish are but it could be an issue. If you notice on the left side of the tank I have a feeding dish I made from a bird feeder for the seahorses. Removed the plastic container that was meant to hold the bird seed just leaving the bottom open part with a little ledge for the seahorses to hitch on. The plastic tube makes sure the food makes it down to the dish without my firefish and red spot cardinals eating it. Seahorses gather around the dish around breakfast and dinner time so they get plenty to eat and then my clean up crew tends to crawl inside and finish any left overs but the seahorses don't tend to leave much for them.