Nathan's 93g Tank Build

[Shoelace]

The reason I stuffed everything into the cabinet is because I very much dislike the thin layer of salt creep/spray that inevitably gets on the electronics when they are in the stand.  It tends to get inside the powerstrips and oxidize stuff :(  It's a lot of wires because basically everything is behind a closed door in my fish room and it pretty much stays nice and clean.

 

I also read this:

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2141610&highlight=cabinet+electronics

 

Orion had a great solution and put all the electronics in an ottoman next to the tank.  Not sure if it's still set up that way.

[n8n]

So I bought a cheap cabinet thing that looked like it would work it was like 2' wide by 1' deep by 3' tall with black swing doors at target, got it put together and it just sorta looks strange next to tank but wifely liked it so much it now is with quarantine tank in other room..................

 

So anyways now I need another cabinet!

 

Hopefully in the next week i'll have something spiffy all wired up that I can post pics of. 

 

thanks for tip guys, any more tips?

 

-Nathan

Edited December 2, 2014 by n8n

[Shoelace]

One word: Ikea

[n8n]

I have been looking around but haven't found the perfect electronics box yet but will get something.  Yesterday I put the live rock in and substrate, and now I have a cloudy tank.  Also dropped in the Dr. Tim's bacteria kick start bottle.

 

 

When the tank is less cloudy i'll post some better images.  I also have a bunch of frags of rock, most likely will be moving some stuff around until its perfect, currently there are swim throughts between almost every rock.

 

Thanks!

 

-Nathan

[n8n]

The electronics box is setup, here are pictures.  Everything is zip-tied to lattis inside of stand, also lattis runs along bottom with stuff with drip loops that are tied down.  Sump has zero electronics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[YHSublime]

I like it. Nice job!

[n8n]

Tank is still cloudy, I discovered the return I had setup was stirring up the sand, so I pointed it differently and now its starting to clear up.  Here is my 1st attempt at live rock.  

 

Pretty much I can get my magnetic glass cleaner on all 4 walls in every spot.  Nothing is touching any walls.  In every direction there are holes between rocks / swim throughs / tunnels.  The two channels in the middle actually have a horizonal swim through that connects them (and there are swim throughs from the center two to pretty much everyone in the tank.

 

The sandy area in "front" i was thinking of putting some small fragements or something.  Anyways still up for ideas.

 

Thats about 90 lbs in the tank with 10lbs sitting in the sump. 

 

1st pic faces living room (my couch)

 

 

2nd pic faces living room (wifes chair)

 

3rd "back" faces hallway. 

 

4th side is painted black and against wall.

 

Thank You

 

-Nathan

[Shoelace]

The egg crate lattice idea is really cool!

[Orion]

The egg crate lattice idea is really cool!

+1! Great job!

[n8n]

Live rock is much more visible this morning, there is still a light white cloud in the tank.  Hopefully by tonight the tank will be clear.  There is one single (very small) rock that is orange (its seeded and old) the rest of the rock is from BRS and is totally dead/dry.  My hope is by Christmas I can start to add fish to this tank.

 

Thank You

 

-Nathan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DuffyGeos]

Awesome job on the cabinet! Great idea with the lattice, it gives you tons of mounting options, I might have to steal that one! I think you will be happier down the road with less salt creep issues and now you have storage space for other "stuff" that always shows up. Very impressed!

[n8n]

Thank you, the cabinet is a home depot medicine cabinet (upside down). The lattice fits behind the shelves so its only two pieces. One on the bottom to ziptie dripliops. One piece entire back. There are only a couple holes in back of cabinet to ziptie lattis to cabinet, which almost wasn't necessary. I punched out a few lattis spots to run wires behind shelves. The hole the side was positioned near the door. I cantale off the door and get anything through the hole since the edge of the hole flushes to door. ( think ecotech controller! No way that would have fit through a hole.)

 

Thank you much. Still working on others parts of build.

 

Nathan

[YHSublime]

Nice find on the medicine cabinet. 

 

I like the rockwork, lots of caves, lots of places for coral. Have you considered using any Dr. Tims, or are you going a la natural all the way? 

[n8n]

I put Dr tims in with just under a capful of his ammonia. I have 1 lb of rock that is already cultured along with the 100+ of dry rock from BRS.

[n8n]

The tank is starting to clear up.  Dr. Tims has been in it for different durations.  Nov 28th (11 days ago?) I added about 1 lb of already seeded rock to sump with enough Dr. Tims & Ammonia for sump alone (and let sump run in a loop with empty display).   Now that I have the tank itself setup with rock and substrate I added the rest of the Dr. Tims & enough ammonia to cover the other 93g of water (i think it was 5ml of ammonia).  

 

Anyways, when I last tested zero ammonia, nitrite is barely detectable (maybe 0.05).  Seriously I have to look through the container depth wise instead of straight down and even then maybe it reads 0.5 and container says if you read it that way do divide by 10.     Nitratate is upto 0.5 ppm so I think there is some bacteria in the tank but obviously there is no way all the live rock is cultured in just a few days.

 

I moved a couple pieces of rock but overall i'm really pleased with the layout. Its all or nearly all Fiji, here are the pics of the rock with far less cloudy water:

 

Corner View of tank from distance:

 

Side view (from the top perspective): The two large swim throught on the top are connected internally, plus have multiple swim through to every side of the tank.  The largest (sized) swim throughs are to the two visible sides, and smaller ones to the two back sides.    I made the setup multitiered/ height.  I have no idea what i'm doing on coral placements so hopefully I provided enough variation that I can get some happy corals in the tank.   My clowns *need* a rose tip

 

 

Side View from lower perspective.  Same side lower perspective.  Small swim throughs in front, plus you can see the large swim through in back, (the verticle grates on the left hand side are part of the overflow visible through the swim-through.

 

Top View from the front (my) perspective. Lots of obvious swim throughs, and multiple tiers of rock. Vortech MP40 visible on right.  Height wise, it stires up the surface at this height, any lower and it really stirs up the sand so I think its at the right height.  I have a long ziptie holding the cord to the stand for the light so I can still move it easily.

 

Lower View from the front (my) perspective.  Same side

 

Back Perspective, you can see some of the swim throughs on this side too.  There are also alot of little things I did that cant be seen in the pics, like on this side, the right hand small piece of coral is actually a small swimthrough on just the edge, but angle doesn't really make it visible.

 

Anyways pretty excited the tank is coming online, would love to see corals and fish in it but I slow and safe is better than fast and dangerious.  I used my salt mixing barrel for rinsing the rocks so I need to make up more salt water also.  I think I have maybe two 5 gallon pales of water, and normally I have the ~50g trash can onhand with salt water.

 

 

[n8n]

I made some more progress on my build, will get some pics posted of anything interesting.

 

So it was my birthday... Wife bought me a Votech MP40 for display tank and AquaMaxx HOB-2 (for QT).  Both are setup.

 

1) My refugium is now getting started.  I got a basic homedepot lamp with 5K bulb wired & setup to Apex.  Was hoping to add Cheatimorpha and Caulerpa, but could not find any Cheatimorpha locally (my name is on the list at marine scene to get a call when they get some in), however I did get some Caulerpa in the sump.

 

2) I got my first three fish (2x maroon clowns & purple dottyback) moved (plus couple snails & hermit crab) to the 93g tank, nitrates are going up, nitrites and ammonia are nearly undetectable.  The dottyback was really freaking hard to get out of Quarantine Tank.  I ended up having to put a large net around a liverock (that she was hiding in) and move her with the rock.  She thinks shes a freaking coral.  The super intelligent maroon clowns that I have that have been constantly ignoring/avoiding the rock and hosting the pvc tube I had in QT also were succesfully moved.  Now that they have about 100 lbs of live rock instead of 7 lbs of live rock they have more of the tank to actively avoid....  Seriously they really like being within like 1-2 inches of the glass (the area i left for the glass scraper) and appear to be hosting the glass corner of the tank under the vortech circulation pump....  The dottyback however is loving the huge cave system in the rock.

 

3) I got an apex on my quarantine tank also (that will be online for easily a year+ with small quanties of incoming fish).  The sorta psedo plan is to keep the tank up with two small fish (that are healthy) afterwards, and then if there is an issue in the main tank we can quickly do a "swap" and move the two small fish out of small tank to a bucket-> big tank, and then move the sick fish to qt/hospital.

 

4) Added Seachem Matrix Carbon to my display tank too, did some quick research online and it doesn't seem like there is a huge difference in carbon but i think its the more expensive choice lol.  -- if anyone has suggestions i'm all ears for my next purchase.

 

5) Starting my purchasing the next batch for QT.  Already have two cleaner shrimp, trying to figure out what else I want to mix in tank with 2 Maroon Clowns & 1 Purple Dottyback, and want to make sure order is correct.  Also up for recommendations.

 

Thanks!

 

-Nathan

[smallreef]

Lookin good!

Edited December 20, 2014 by smallreef

[n8n]

Good Morning, I have made alot of progress on my tank to share.  I'm just going to post some pics and put some comments under them, feedback always welcome!

 

WP_20141221_09_54_46_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

This is my 93g display tank.  It has fully cycled.  There is now a christmas tree next to it, (seasonal addition).  There are alot of pictures with little specs of light in them.. (obviously its from the tree).   Anyways..

 

There is an apex fish feeder on top, as well as a rimless marineland (clip on) cover.  The current plan is to replace the cover with a BRS DYI screened top once I get some clips that will make it all fit properly.  The Glass cover is for parties that we have at our house to insure guests don't get to frisky with my tank.  The black pvc on top next to the feeder is the custom return, (the two pipes in the corner flow are herbie drains)

 

WP_20141221_09_54_00_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

Side view of the tank. I have added a bunch of shrimp.  Red fire shrimp in the center, and some cleaner shrimp stationed in the lower right.  The Votech has been moved up a little to increase surface movement.  Although not visible on this picture the return is right above and to the left of the vortech, I had to put a 45' on it, so its flowing towards the rock rather than the sand.  (it was totally clouding up the tank with straight down return).  

 

There are three new coral additions to my tank (my first three at that!)  1) Toadstool Mushroom 2) Hammer/Anchor Ridge Coral 3) Green Star Polyp (free frag from black friday coupon @ marinescene).

 

The Hammer Coral is in the flow of the return actually and seems very happy, the toadstool gets alot less flow (and light) but both seem happy.  The green star polyp is barly visible to the right of the hammer coral and slightly down.

 

WP_20141221_09_53_35_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

This is the "other front" to the tank.  The green star frag is easier to spot.  The purple dotty back is basically queen of this tank, most of the time the only visible fish.

 

WP_20141221_09_17_02_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

Here's a closeup of my green star frag.

 

WP_20141221_09_13_41_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

The clowns ... yeh .. well they have decided they like the little crevice near the return that is basically totally hidden from 95% of the tank.  You pretty much have to poke around the christmas tree to even find them.  They seem to love their spot although its totally hidden.  They come out at feeding time.  The bigger one has taken the name "piggy" in that he seems to be very good at consuming food faster than the other fish.

 

WP_20141220_10_18_06_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

I have more inverts in the tank then fish currently.  Here are two of my cleaner shrimp that have taken position together.  My fire shrimp have done the same (taken position within a few inches of each other).  I also have zombie snails, some bubble bee snails and some other stuff as a cleanup team in the tank.

 

WP_20141219_18_30_11_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

Here is my quarintine tank, i'm reset to like day 2 on it.  My wife wanted a purple fish for christmas so I got here a ruby head fary wrasse.  It seems very timid but it comes out at feeding time.   There are also three blue green chromis and a small yellow tang in the the tank.   (yeh i know about tangs and size limits).  Every 93g tank pic you find on the net has a tang in it, and all of us will figure out what to do when the time comes.  Most likely by them (few years hopefully) i'll be ready to decide if i will be going bigger, or donating the tang to someone if its to big.

 

I had to dose this tank with cupramine and ended up losing two fish after a day that were riddled with what appeared to be ick (see dif thread in newbie area).  Once I got the wrasse I was unsure on if it could handle cupramine and everything "looks clear" so I did a 60% water change and active carbon.  It currently is reading 0.07% copper, wrasse is eating, and no signs of white dots on anything but that doesn't matter there isn't eggs or something.  29 days until fish move to display if all looks good.

 

Anyone know about cupramine and ruby head fairy wrasse?  safe? unsafe?  I have read opposing things on reef central and other forums. 

 

WP_20141221_08_47_16_Pro 1 by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

Here is one of the two hiding places the wrasse spends 90% of its time.  It literally pins itself to the return of QT or under some hosing to the air stone.   I've put some construction paper over some of the lighting to dim it out, these fish seem super timid, any suggestions would be awesome.  Would love to see this fish out more.  Every time i see the tank i'm worried its dead, but when I put in food after a minute or two it comes out and eats with the rest.

 

Equipment .................

 

WP_20141220_12_52_10_Pro 1 by n8nreef, on Flickr

Here is the back of my sump with the custom slide off cover off.  I've added a home depot clip on light (its bolted to the stand its not going anywhere) with a 5k bulb.   There is also a tunzi ATO (the float is in lower right corner).  The pink thing in back is a silicon heat pad thing for cooking that the skimmer is sitting on to reduce vibration and also raise it up in sump a little.

 

WP_20141220_10_16_05_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

This is from walmart believe it or not.  2 1/2 gallon water reserve (RODI) with the tunzi ATO pump sitting in the base of it. 

 

WP_20141221_08_40_58_Pro 1 by n8nreef, on Flickr

I added a fan to the inside of the sump that can blow on the fugium if the tank starts to get hoter than desired (and it has with the new glass stand).   I really can't wait until I get to a screened in top.  I'm keeping the stand door a few inches open and have another little fan there to circulate air in and out.   The black vice looking thing is part of the ATO, the black tubing that connects to the flexable return tubing is the ATO tubing.  I have it mounted well above the water line to prevent back ciphoning. 

 

WP_20141220_10_16_37_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

Here is the refugium.  I'm not having a whole lot of luck keeping anything alive in it.  This is the second batch of macro algy. I can't find chato locally for my life.  Currently it has caulerpa in it.  I had the light on for like 12-16 hour periods and pretty much the leaves came off the stalk and it decentigrated.  Now i'm keeping the light on more like 6-8 hours at a time to see if that helps out.

 

 

As always, comments totally welcome.  Oh.. why did i select these three exact corals?  The awesome lfs dude at marine scene ( i really should get his name ) recommended these (as well as some others) as hardier and better for nublets like myself as a first coral.   I'd like stuff that looks like space alien exotic with bright colors.    Totally want rose tip animne but want to get tank age some more (and find one locally!).

 

Thanks!

 

-Nathan

[n8n]

One more comment.. the pictures i took of the sump was when i was feeding teh fish (return pump off) so the water line was at its "high" point with system powered down.  Normally the water line is right above the skimmer/fug baffle, and along the black bar in the return where the probes are.

 

Thanks!

 

-Nathan

[n8n]

Here is the latest build step I'm working on.  I'm replacing the center glass piece of my Marine Land top with a Custom Acrylic one (that i'm cutting myself).  I'm designing it to be simular to the images in this thread: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/311841-for-those-with-rimless-tanks/

 

In the forums example he/she built what appears to be a 1" rectangular top with the center cut out, and then glued DYI Screen between two pieces of Acrylic.

 

What i'm doing is rather than covering the entire top of my tank with screen (which doesn't seem necessary), i'm doing a simple swap out of the center component of my existing top, leaving me the easy cut out back for the return/feeder, and the swing door in the front.  I'm also right now planning on doing a 2" rectangle instead of a 1".  The other thing is the acrylic i bought is the same depth as the glass so I will be re-using all the existing hardware.  (It literally fits in the clips! that hold it in place! omg).

 

Anyways so i'm stil in the measuring and cutting phase of the first acrylic piece.  I still need to figure out how i'm going to attach the screen.  I'm curious on if acrylic glue or silicon would be enough (perhaps tape it down tight then glue it and wait for glue to set).  If I have to sanwedge it between two pieces of acrylic, i will probably make 1" long rectangles that I can glue underneath the main piece to sandwedge the screen.

 

Anyways if anyone has any experience with screen tops and/or acrylic i'm all ears.  Below is the tank (in night mode still before I head to work) with my piece of acrylic sitting ontop of the existing piece of glass with some measurements ontop of the pell off proctive surface.

 

WP_20141222_04_03_26_Pro by n8nreef, on Flickr

 

Thanks!

 

-Nathan

[DuffyGeos]

Looks like you added even more rock to the original structure. Just wondering why, thought it looked good the way it was. Just keep putting out a WTB Cheato add in the For Sale/ WTB section, I know there are people that throw out softball size chunks every week.

[n8n]

Looks like you added even more rock to the original structure. Just wondering why, thought it looked good the way it was. Just keep putting out a WTB Cheato add in the For Sale/ WTB section, I know there are people that throw out softball size chunks every week.

 

I haven't bought any more rock.  A few pieces were moved around.  There is only one rock in particular that i can think of that was added which is slightly larger than a softball.  When I was moving fish from QT to display a few weeks ago, the clowns came over easy enough but the dotty back was a huge massive pain to move.  The dotty back kept going into its "home" (a piece of live rock).  ANyways a large net around the live rock, and the dotty back was transfered to the tank just like it was a coral on a rock   The rock also has an urchin in it. 

[Seahorseconservancy]

i have allways liked cube tanks the best , the volume of water compared to surface area works out = healthy tank good choice looks great 

[moga]

 you can make more open spaces with the rocks you have now.. I felt it's too tight..(it's just me..don't mind me too much)..

 

cant wait to see all the corals are in.~

[n8n]

So right now there are an eminence amount of small swim through but very few spots for big fish. What id like to do is build an arch or something with what I have and open up some sand, but I need to read up on how to connect rocks together into an arch.

 

Coral wise prob be a few weeks. I'm a saltwater newbie, wanna make sure I don't kill what I have. My last tank was like 40 some gallons for two goldfish that I had for 8 years. The other tank I took down maybe 12 to 15 years ago.