120 gallon upgrade

kilmca

Member
Well I upgraded from my 72 BF to a 120 over the past two weekends. Here are some pics of the tank and hood. Still not done with the hood. I made the hood with help from my dad, the hood is pretty big. It takes two people to take it off and put it on the tank I'm going to add 4-110 watt vho's and ballast eventually. So far I have installed the 2-250 watt DE PFO mini pendants with 14k hamiliton bulbs and the icecap ballasts are in the stand. I have two 4" variable speed fans blowing air into the hood with vents for air to escape out the top of the hood. No temperature problems yet. Here are some pics.




 

kilmca

Member
Let me know what you think. Also what do you think about using 3 - 110 watt actinc bulbs and 1 - 10000k bulb for the vho's? Think that will be too much blue with the 14K MH? I'm going to have the vho's come on 2 hours before the MH's and stay on 2 hours after the MH for 10 hours total of lighting.




 
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ivanfj

Guest
Super nice!!!
How high is your hood alone??? How high do you keep your halides above the water???
 

kilmca

Member
The MH are about 12" from the water. The hood is about 18" tall from the top of the tank. It's nice how high I made it cause I have plenty of room to work in the tank. The only problem is removing the hood. I have a shelf built into the front and the back of the hood for storage. The back shelf is pretty much useless. Here are a couple more pics, without the doors.

 

kilmca

Member
I only have 120 lbs of rock in the tank. I know the rule of thumb is about 1.5 lbs per gallon. that would mean i should get about another 60 lbs of rock. i think the tank would be really full if i got another 60 lbs, what do you think?
 

rossim

Member
Tank looks great! I think 120 gallons is perfect for a beautiful reef tank. I wouldn't worry so much about having exactly 1.5 lbs of rock per gallon. It all depends on how you want the tank to look. So far I think yours looks great!!!
 

blemmy_guy

Active Member
I have about 160 lbs in my 125 gal. tank. and i really like the way it turned out. Congrats on your tank, looks great and im really likeing the canopy! great job! :happyfish Todd
 

lion_crazz

Active Member
Wow, very nice tank and I love the canopy on it as well.
Is that an Atlantic Blue Tang that you have in your tank? If so, how long has he been in your tank. He looks great.
 

thejdshow

Member
Your tank gets a <3 ! Very nice tank. I think the rock you had should suffice. It looks great!
*if it aint broke dont fix it
keep up the good work!
-JD
 

kilmca

Member
thanks for the compliments everyone. i'm happy with how the tank has turned out so far. the live rock is from Pohnpei. it's pretty pourous so i think that is why it looks like a good amount of rock, and it stacks really easy. i had the same amount of rock in my 72 bf and it was packed in there.
coralcrazy
, yeah the hood was made from scratch. probably cost around $125-$150 in materials, and lots of time.
lion_crazz
, yeah that is an atlantic blue tang but it's not doing very well. i'm a little frustrated with the fish cause it ate so much the first couple days i had it and now it just refusing to eat anything, any suggestions. i wanted that fish cause when i went to cozumel, mexico i saw them so much when we went snorkeling and they were such an awesome fish. i got the fish saturday.
 

kilmca

Member
yeah i have 2 madarin dragonets. they both eat frozen food so i got lucky. i've been told it's sometimes difficult to find one that will eat frozen food.
as you can see i have no problem growing star polyp. it's getting to the point that it's annoying cause i'm running out of space.
the filter below the tank is a 38 gallon tank with a refugium on one side and a sump with a protein skimmer on the other side. i've actually got the ecoystems mud and sand in the fuge. i'm still trying to get rid of all the micro bubbles. any advice would be appreciated.




 
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