2Quills, 120G Re-build thread.
- Thread starter 2quills
- Start date
sweatervest13
Active Member
Wahoo!!!! Looks great!!
2quills
Well-Known Member
Thanks, guys. It's been a long time coming, I know. Wifey talked me out of selling it. Plus I wasn't getting too many offers for my asking price. I did have one guy that was pretty serious about wanting to trade me for some guns though. Texas, go figure lol.
Tank is just about full. Should be spilling into the overflows any minute now.
Tank is just about full. Should be spilling into the overflows any minute now.
2quills
Well-Known Member
Well, while the tank cures for a bit I've turned my attention to what I'm going to do with the stuff that I'm going to need to go along with running a reef tank. This is the space that I'm working with. Not exactly a fish room per say but I've aptly dubbed it Corey's Corner. We're in need of a little redecorating in there anyways. 
Soon to be quarantine/hospital/frag tanks. This will all be next weekends project.
Shot of the plumbing...
Shot of the electrical supply to the tank. I brought in 2 seperate circuits. One is primarily for pumps and the other mostly for lights and power heads.
Still need some clean up on the wiring but everything is protected and safe enough to run for now.
GFCI's for pumps, controlled by switches...
Power center for the algae scrubber lighting...
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" data-id="380227" data-type="61" src="https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/data/0/03/035aa8bd_20130727_212556.jpeg
Still lacking the lighting necessary for the reef that I'm after. That will come sometime between now and a few month from now as the tank matures a little bit. Next weekend I'll be picking up some live rock from my local supplier. They have some pretty nice man made stuff that has been seeded with all of the good stuff and none of the bad. So I'll use that to seed the tank and refugium with. Then I'll start then I'll take some steps to kick off the nitrogen cycle.
Soon to be quarantine/hospital/frag tanks. This will all be next weekends project.
Shot of the plumbing...
Shot of the electrical supply to the tank. I brought in 2 seperate circuits. One is primarily for pumps and the other mostly for lights and power heads.
Still need some clean up on the wiring but everything is protected and safe enough to run for now.
GFCI's for pumps, controlled by switches...
Power center for the algae scrubber lighting...
peg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), default quality
" data-id="380227" data-type="61" src="https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/data/0/03/035aa8bd_20130727_212556.jpeg
Still lacking the lighting necessary for the reef that I'm after. That will come sometime between now and a few month from now as the tank matures a little bit. Next weekend I'll be picking up some live rock from my local supplier. They have some pretty nice man made stuff that has been seeded with all of the good stuff and none of the bad. So I'll use that to seed the tank and refugium with. Then I'll start then I'll take some steps to kick off the nitrogen cycle.
sweatervest13
Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Quills http:///t/378912/2quills-120g-re-build-thread/840#post_3527590
Well, while the tank cures for a bit I've turned my attention to what I'm going to do with the stuff that I'm going to need to go along with running a reef tank. This is the space that I'm working with. Not exactly a fish room per say but I've aptly dubbed it Corey's Corner. We're in need of a little redecorating in there anyways.
Soon to be quarantine/hospital/frag tanks. This will all be next weekends project.
Shot of the plumbing...
Shot of the electrical supply to the tank. I brought in 2 seperate circuits. One is primarily for pumps and the other mostly for lights and power heads.
Still need some clean up on the wiring but everything is protected and safe enough to run for now.
GFCI's for pumps, controlled by switches...
ty
" data-id="380226" data-type="61" src="https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/data/0/04/049c04a3_20130728_124940.jpeg
Still lacking the lighting necessary for the reef that I'm after. That will come sometime between now and a few month from now as the tank matures a little bit. Next weekend I'll be picking up some live rock from my local supplier. They have some pretty nice man made stuff that has been seeded with all of the good stuff and none of the bad. So I'll use that to seed the tank and refugium with. Then I'll start then I'll take some steps to kick off the nitrogen cycle.
Man Corey that looks really good!! I love all the woodwork in you house. Corey's Corner looks awesome, again, I love all the wood.
You tank stand is absolutely amazing. I love the thought and planning you put into it. Super pro looking!!!
I like you plan on using some man made rock that has been pre-seeded. I am interested to see how the aquascape comes out. It should look great.
Keep the pics coming!!
Originally Posted by 2Quills http:///t/378912/2quills-120g-re-build-thread/840#post_3527590
Well, while the tank cures for a bit I've turned my attention to what I'm going to do with the stuff that I'm going to need to go along with running a reef tank. This is the space that I'm working with. Not exactly a fish room per say but I've aptly dubbed it Corey's Corner. We're in need of a little redecorating in there anyways.
Soon to be quarantine/hospital/frag tanks. This will all be next weekends project.
Shot of the plumbing...
Shot of the electrical supply to the tank. I brought in 2 seperate circuits. One is primarily for pumps and the other mostly for lights and power heads.
Still need some clean up on the wiring but everything is protected and safe enough to run for now.
GFCI's for pumps, controlled by switches...
ty
" data-id="380226" data-type="61" src="https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/data/0/04/049c04a3_20130728_124940.jpeg
Still lacking the lighting necessary for the reef that I'm after. That will come sometime between now and a few month from now as the tank matures a little bit. Next weekend I'll be picking up some live rock from my local supplier. They have some pretty nice man made stuff that has been seeded with all of the good stuff and none of the bad. So I'll use that to seed the tank and refugium with. Then I'll start then I'll take some steps to kick off the nitrogen cycle.
Man Corey that looks really good!! I love all the woodwork in you house. Corey's Corner looks awesome, again, I love all the wood.
You tank stand is absolutely amazing. I love the thought and planning you put into it. Super pro looking!!!
I like you plan on using some man made rock that has been pre-seeded. I am interested to see how the aquascape comes out. It should look great.
Keep the pics coming!!
2quills
Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweatervest13 http:///t/378912/2quills-120g-re-build-thread/840#post_3527650
Man Corey that looks really good!! I love all the woodwork in you house. Corey's Corner looks awesome, again, I love all the wood.
You tank stand is absolutely amazing. I love the thought and planning you put into it. Super pro looking!!!
I like you plan on using some man made rock that has been pre-seeded. I am interested to see how the aquascape comes out. It should look great.
Keep the pics coming!!
Thank You, Kind Sir! I put a lot of hard work into er. Feels good to see it coming together. Yes, on the rock - I'd like to stock the tank with all things sustainable if possible.
p.s. yep the custom wood work throughout the whole house had me at hello.
Interesting side note. I've been aware of the behavior that skimmers can have after water changes, tank cleanings and such. Well, I had filled the system with fresh R/O water and have ran it for 8 days. So I added salt to the system last night and ofcorse the skimmer went a little nuts. But what is it with the yellow stuff? Is it good, is it bad? I ended up dumping it.
Cool little trick I figured out with my phone tonight. If I hold a refractometer in one hand, and my phone in the other, I can point the little lense down the eye piece, speak the word "shoot" I get a nifty little shot of my salinity and specific g.
Originally Posted by sweatervest13 http:///t/378912/2quills-120g-re-build-thread/840#post_3527650
Man Corey that looks really good!! I love all the woodwork in you house. Corey's Corner looks awesome, again, I love all the wood.
You tank stand is absolutely amazing. I love the thought and planning you put into it. Super pro looking!!!
I like you plan on using some man made rock that has been pre-seeded. I am interested to see how the aquascape comes out. It should look great.
Keep the pics coming!!
Thank You, Kind Sir! I put a lot of hard work into er. Feels good to see it coming together. Yes, on the rock - I'd like to stock the tank with all things sustainable if possible.
p.s. yep the custom wood work throughout the whole house had me at hello.
Interesting side note. I've been aware of the behavior that skimmers can have after water changes, tank cleanings and such. Well, I had filled the system with fresh R/O water and have ran it for 8 days. So I added salt to the system last night and ofcorse the skimmer went a little nuts. But what is it with the yellow stuff? Is it good, is it bad? I ended up dumping it.
Cool little trick I figured out with my phone tonight. If I hold a refractometer in one hand, and my phone in the other, I can point the little lense down the eye piece, speak the word "shoot" I get a nifty little shot of my salinity and specific g.
2quills
Well-Known Member
Gratitude!
So, I took some thermal readings this evening and they appear pretty promising.
Ambient temp in the house for the past 3 hours has been set at 74 degrees.
The Display is actually running a bit cooler at 73 degrees
I've had all pumps running for the last 9 days - skimmer pump, scrubber pump, return pump and 2 koralia 1400gph power heads. Interestingly enough, I held the thermal probe against the body of my Water Blaster 5000 at took a reading. Turns out that the body of the pump is transferring practically no heat to the system since it is the same as the ambient temperature of the house. Or a seemingly minuscule amount anyways since the display is slightly cooler technically speaking. But considering that all 3 pumps are running that's not too bad at all.
I am pretty stoked about this because with my previous 50g system I was never able to get the temperature to drop below 77-78 degrees with all of the equipment running (2 canisters, 3 power heads) in winter time.
So, I took some thermal readings this evening and they appear pretty promising.
Ambient temp in the house for the past 3 hours has been set at 74 degrees.
The Display is actually running a bit cooler at 73 degrees
I've had all pumps running for the last 9 days - skimmer pump, scrubber pump, return pump and 2 koralia 1400gph power heads. Interestingly enough, I held the thermal probe against the body of my Water Blaster 5000 at took a reading. Turns out that the body of the pump is transferring practically no heat to the system since it is the same as the ambient temperature of the house. Or a seemingly minuscule amount anyways since the display is slightly cooler technically speaking. But considering that all 3 pumps are running that's not too bad at all.
I am pretty stoked about this because with my previous 50g system I was never able to get the temperature to drop below 77-78 degrees with all of the equipment running (2 canisters, 3 power heads) in winter time.
snakeblitz33
Well-Known Member
This is an awesome build, Corey. I'm very glad you decided to set the tank up. Welcome back to the game, man. I honestly can't wait to see where you go with the tank. I like your "corner." I wish I had one close to my tank(s).
I'll definitely be following along.
I'll definitely be following along.
2quills
Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by SnakeBlitz33 http:///t/378912/2quills-120g-re-build-thread/840#post_3527859
This is an awesome build, Corey. I'm very glad you decided to set the tank up. Welcome back to the game, man. I honestly can't wait to see where you go with the tank. I like your "corner." I wish I had one close to my tank(s).
I'll definitely be following along.
Thank You, Seth. At this point I am glad too. I had to put the hobby on the back burner for a while but believe me when I tell you that it was for a greater purpose and I'm glad that I did. I've never seemed to be able to stay away from aquaria of some sort for too terribly long and now I feel a sense of re-juvination I also needed to take the time to talk myself out of the idea of passing this build off for something even bigger. And I'm glad that I did that as well.
Good to have you aboard.
p.s...the system has been evaporating approximately 1.25 gallons a day with an average ambient temp of 76-77 degrees.
Originally Posted by SnakeBlitz33 http:///t/378912/2quills-120g-re-build-thread/840#post_3527859
This is an awesome build, Corey. I'm very glad you decided to set the tank up. Welcome back to the game, man. I honestly can't wait to see where you go with the tank. I like your "corner." I wish I had one close to my tank(s).
I'll definitely be following along.
Thank You, Seth. At this point I am glad too. I had to put the hobby on the back burner for a while but believe me when I tell you that it was for a greater purpose and I'm glad that I did. I've never seemed to be able to stay away from aquaria of some sort for too terribly long and now I feel a sense of re-juvination I also needed to take the time to talk myself out of the idea of passing this build off for something even bigger. And I'm glad that I did that as well.
Good to have you aboard.
p.s...the system has been evaporating approximately 1.25 gallons a day with an average ambient temp of 76-77 degrees.
2quills
Well-Known Member
Picked up a few pieces of that Real Reef Rock brand of man made live rock this weekend. It has good color but I'm not sure how thrilled I am with the amount of life that it has on it/in it. The rock itself is not very porous so it isn't overly saturated with micro fauna. Nor does it have any live coralline on it from what I can tell. I'll have to give it another day or two to see what pops out of it if much at all. It has a good look, just not thrilled for the price. I may have to go back for a few pieces of real live rock and possibly a little bit of sand to really seed this puppy right.
Still not much action on the scrubber yet but I haven't really expected any. I ghost fed the tank for the first time last night with a half a cube of marine cuisine so that should help kick off the nitrogen cycle. So we'll be seeing some nutrient pretty soon.
I think I have gotten the skimmer dialed in pretty well and am able to do some fine tuning with the skimmer set at approximately and 8" depth. It pulled out a bunch of yellowish liquid at first and now it's producing a nice frothy head of foam but for now it's all clear. I'm going to go ahead and shut it down until I start getting a more measurable bio load in the tank.
My Water Blaster 5000 and the skimmer pump (Skimz ES 2800) have broken in quite a bit and both are very quiet. I consider the overflows to be pretty quiet and I can not hear those pumps over the gentle sound of trickling water in the living room. The Mag 5 that I'm using for the scrubber however I can hear the humm of that pump more than anything else.
The temperature of the system doesn't seem to have much trouble at all in keeping pace with whatever the ambient temperature in the house is as long as a specific temp is held within the house for at least an hour or two. I may actually have to think about running heaters on this tank to help regulate temps. And here I've been the whole time worried that I may end up having to run a chiller (guess not).. The canopy fans seem to help quite a bit along with the fact that there's an air conditioning duct right above the system.
Still not much action on the scrubber yet but I haven't really expected any. I ghost fed the tank for the first time last night with a half a cube of marine cuisine so that should help kick off the nitrogen cycle. So we'll be seeing some nutrient pretty soon.
I think I have gotten the skimmer dialed in pretty well and am able to do some fine tuning with the skimmer set at approximately and 8" depth. It pulled out a bunch of yellowish liquid at first and now it's producing a nice frothy head of foam but for now it's all clear. I'm going to go ahead and shut it down until I start getting a more measurable bio load in the tank.
My Water Blaster 5000 and the skimmer pump (Skimz ES 2800) have broken in quite a bit and both are very quiet. I consider the overflows to be pretty quiet and I can not hear those pumps over the gentle sound of trickling water in the living room. The Mag 5 that I'm using for the scrubber however I can hear the humm of that pump more than anything else.
The temperature of the system doesn't seem to have much trouble at all in keeping pace with whatever the ambient temperature in the house is as long as a specific temp is held within the house for at least an hour or two. I may actually have to think about running heaters on this tank to help regulate temps. And here I've been the whole time worried that I may end up having to run a chiller (guess not).. The canopy fans seem to help quite a bit along with the fact that there's an air conditioning duct right above the system.
2quills
Well-Known Member
Following along.... looks good Corey. I had looked at the man made stuff and have the same thoughts as you....
Yep, I called them back and told them that I think the rock is bogus lol. 3 days in the system and haven't seen a single pod, just one micro sized bristle worm so far.
Yep, I called them back and told them that I think the rock is bogus lol. 3 days in the system and haven't seen a single pod, just one micro sized bristle worm so far.
2quills
Well-Known Member
Picked up another 15 lbs of live rock for the tank last weekend.
New lights arrived. Aqua Illuminations (Hydra's). Right out of the box the fixture has a very cool color temperature look to it when all leds are powered equally. If you like being able to run a nice violet look to the tank then you'll probably like these.. Reminds me of folks who run T5's with the purple and pink lamps thrown into the mix. Right now I'm running everything at a strait 45% power across the board. When I turn everything up to 80% the shimmer and brightness is intense enough to bug my eye balls out when I try to focus in on one specific point for more than a few seconds.
Nice, clean, black looking fixtures. Pucks are similar to the Vega's, the body is the same as the SOL's. All in all I went with the Hydra's over the Vega's in most part to save money but also because it already came pre-selected with the led colors I would have chosen anyway. And sticking with the old heatsink body of the SOL's I think helped bring some cost effectiveness to the fixtures for A.I. by not having to develop any new platforms. The controller feels and looks pretty cheap/cheesy, there's like no weight to it. I would like to see them upgrade to something better for the money for sure. But other wise the fixtures and the color are amazing. Very happy with that.
I had salvaged some smoked acrylic doors off of an old cabinet left behind in a house we were working on a while back. They turned out to come in handy. Perfect fits to cover the holes that I had original cut out of the canopy top for lighting. They support the lights and keep a curious cat from falling into the tank.
I took a hole saw bit and drilled some holes directly under the pucks themselves. Didn't want to lose any light, ya know.
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Startin to see some green on my screen. Not a trace in the display yet. I'm starting to think there might be something to beaslebob's idea of establishing macro right from the beginning. Hopefully, if I can get the algae scrubber established first and foremost then it will have a head start on anything that tries to get a foot hold in the display (fingers crossed).
New lights arrived. Aqua Illuminations (Hydra's). Right out of the box the fixture has a very cool color temperature look to it when all leds are powered equally. If you like being able to run a nice violet look to the tank then you'll probably like these.. Reminds me of folks who run T5's with the purple and pink lamps thrown into the mix. Right now I'm running everything at a strait 45% power across the board. When I turn everything up to 80% the shimmer and brightness is intense enough to bug my eye balls out when I try to focus in on one specific point for more than a few seconds.
Nice, clean, black looking fixtures. Pucks are similar to the Vega's, the body is the same as the SOL's. All in all I went with the Hydra's over the Vega's in most part to save money but also because it already came pre-selected with the led colors I would have chosen anyway. And sticking with the old heatsink body of the SOL's I think helped bring some cost effectiveness to the fixtures for A.I. by not having to develop any new platforms. The controller feels and looks pretty cheap/cheesy, there's like no weight to it. I would like to see them upgrade to something better for the money for sure. But other wise the fixtures and the color are amazing. Very happy with that.
I had salvaged some smoked acrylic doors off of an old cabinet left behind in a house we were working on a while back. They turned out to come in handy. Perfect fits to cover the holes that I had original cut out of the canopy top for lighting. They support the lights and keep a curious cat from falling into the tank.
I took a hole saw bit and drilled some holes directly under the pucks themselves. Didn't want to lose any light, ya know.
/height/700" />
Startin to see some green on my screen. Not a trace in the display yet. I'm starting to think there might be something to beaslebob's idea of establishing macro right from the beginning. Hopefully, if I can get the algae scrubber established first and foremost then it will have a head start on anything that tries to get a foot hold in the display (fingers crossed).