Well, let's say I got TOTM....before the pics, I'd cover the exposed area with sand. Nobody would know it was there, and I wouldn't admit it :)

I don't think it traps anything, other than some smaller snails. The bugs and worms seem to move around, although I do notice I don't have the same fauna I used to have with plain sand. I also don't think it's a concern either way with pressure points. If there is enough weight focused to go through the glass, it's going to go through the plastic at the same time. Which isn't likely :)

I realize that I'm a rookie at this, and my expereince is very limited, but I'll add my 2 cents to the conversation as well . . . I choose to use the eggcrate on the bottom before I added rock with the thought that it may keep me from scratching the tank and possibly damaging the tank if I was clumsy and dropped a rock. At the same time I had seen some tanks with exposed eggcrate and I didn't like the look of that. So . . . after the aquascaping was done I took my sidecutters and snipped the eggcrate as close to the rock as was feasible. It took about 15 min of time. My thinking was that if the sand gets blow around there is less chance of having some eggcrate exposed. So far I have not has any eggcrate exposed.

Dropping a rock while in water inside a larger tank won't damage the tank. Last time I removed a 1/2" piece of cross brace, I had to whack is 5 times with my framing hammer to actually break it. It's pretty strong stuff :) Conceptually, nothing wrong with that extra layer, and especially a good idea to trim away the excess.

I thought about doing that to remove the cross brace on this tank, but was worried that it would put to much pressure on the front and back panes of glass that it's siliconed to and crack them.. Kinda late to do it now as I would have glass shards all throughout my tank now. :lol:

the problem i have with eggcrate is nobody ever keeps their origional rock scape it gets changed a million times everytime a new huge coral or rock is introduced.

like brad said ive dropped some pretty big rocks in my day alot of gasps but not one break.

i dont see any huge disadvantages in using it just unsightly to see, and later your going to have to either move it or remove it:)

use a dremel tool to score a line across so that when you hit it it wont break past the score mark:) or just dremel it completely:P

I suppose that's a option.. Will have to give it some thought.

I'm glad I didn't go with a RO/DI that does anything less that 100GPD... I came into office for 9 hours on Saturday to let the water flow, and then it ran for another 8.5hrs on Sunday.. that got the tank to about 55-60%.. It's been running since 7am this morning and I still got about 20% in the DT to fill + the sump.. Glad I only have to do this once!

Patience, Patience, Patience..... :razz:


On a side note...

Does anyone have experience with Reef Lobsters in a reef tank?

My general manager asked me today if he could have a lobster in the tank.. Immediately I was hesitant, asked what kind he was referring too, and told him I would research it as I have zero experience with them.

I gave him two options after browsing Live Aquaria..

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p......&pcatid=555

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p......&pcatid=752

Any input would be greatly appreciated before I get myself into something I have no experience with.

Well the tank and sump is finally wet and circulating (during office hours until I get my check valve from The Reef Shoppe). The sand will be getting added as soon as I get the skimmer online in combination with a filter sock to polish the water after.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...Tank/photo.jpg

Picked up an Ocean Runner 2500 return pump yesterday to use a my feed for the Skimz 202. Unfortunately the seller broke the thread connector on it so I've got to fix that today before I can use it. (At least I got the pump for free because of it)

I've put reef lobsters in reef tanks before without any issue. Seem to be pretty secretive hiding 99% of the time, so don't expect too much from them. Hit or miss with other inverts like shrimp, personally if you're planning on keeping things like shrimp and decorative crabs scratch the lobster as the risk involved hardly seems worth something you'll never see.

I like, I like.

Are you going to get a pH probe for the RKE you just bought?

That might just be my reasoning to persuade him to pick something else.. :lol: I'd rather have some cleaner shrimp which will probably be more beneficial to the tank anyways. Especially if we're not gonna see the lobster much.

I'm actually buying that for myself.. :lol: Although until I can find a place to rent/own that will allow me to start my 62G I may run it on this tank... but to answer your question, Yes I will be adding the pH probe.. :razz:

Well it seems like if something can go wrong with my builds it does.. No super serious, but looks like I will have to take my brand new Water Blaster HY7000 pump into to Concepts to get checked out... I fired it up this morning and it was fairly silent, after a few hours I could hear it from my office. Loud humming noise that started to get a bit of a clicking noise that you could hear in the rotation.. unplugged it at that point. :neutral:

Hopefully it is a simple fix.

Well Dave made my life easy today..

Took the WB7000 back to him.. and downgraded for the 5000. I really think the 7K was too much for this system... I know fishytime is running the 7K on his 260G (+100G sump).. My overflows were getting a ton of bubbles from the flow crashing over...

So I took the WB5000 and a Sedra something-er-rather that I need to feed my skimmer and called it a day.

The 5000 works MUCH better IMO, it's quiet, and the overflows aren't filled with as many bubbles.

The Sedra on the other hand seems to be too much pump for this Skimz 202... It calls for a 500gph feed pump, which the sedra maxes out at, but I am getting MASSIVE amounts of micro-bubbles throughout the sump and returning up to the Display.. So I picked up some plumbing supplies tonight including a ball valve so I can control the flow and dial in the skimmer.


I can't wait to get this thing running smoothly so I can finally work an 8am-430pm shift, instead of the current 8am-8pm.. :lol:

Photo-dump!

Eggcrate gone.. Sand in..

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...Tank/tank1.jpg

After adding the sand in the light from the tank no longer lights up the sump area. Not impressed with that (although knowing it was inevitable), I decided to shed some light on the situation. :lol:

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...Tank/tank2.jpg

In a giant box of misc aquarium stuff that came with the tank, I found myself 3 Marineland LED lights. While not powerful enough to use over the tank, I decided that one of them should work nicely in the sump area. Tossed some screws into the stand, a few zip-ties later and voila!

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...Tank/tank3.jpg


The Skimmer slowly seems to be breaking in. I was having a **ck of time with it yesterday, overflowed a couple times, I was getting an incredible amount of microbubbles back into my sump/DT.. I turned it off last night when I left the office, however I've had it running the whole time I've been here this morning and so far is seems a better. I don't have the light overs the tank on, so its difficult to tell if I have any microbubbles making their way to the DT.

I'm really not sure if I should even run the skimmer for now as there is nothing alive in the tank yet, I only start adding Zeobak yesterday. Will pick up a few prawns or shrimp today to kick start the cycle. Only reason the skimmer is really running it to break it in, and in combination with a 300 micron sock, try and polish the water after adding the sand.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...Tank/tank4.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...Tank/tank5.jpg

Well this weekend was a bit of a pain in the arse..

I wasn't sure what my evaporation was going to be like on this tank. This weekend opened my eyes.

I topped it off Friday night before going home, with plans of coming in Saturday anyways to rearrange my office so I actually have a view of the tank. :lol:

Came in Saturday about 10am. And checked the tank, only to realize my sump had dropped by about 1.5" in water level just overnight, and that happened without any lights on. So its obviously dry in the office, needless to say I had to get a ATO sooner than later as I can't be coming into the office 7 days a week. :lol: Although I never budgeted for a $175 Tunze ATO I figured it was time to DIY this part of the build.

Put in an order on Aquahub.com this morning..

http://www.aquahub.com/store/media/TopitOffPremium.jpg

Hopefully it gets here before next weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

I love the build, looks great so far. Dave has a very good idea with the baffles in the sump, one of the biggest cause for bubbles in my tank was the waterfall off my last baffle, this idea fixes that. One thing you could do to "failsafe" your ATO is to have your water enter the sump through a float valve AFTER your ATO setup. Since you won't be around for weekends, it could be very bad to have a switch stick on. Here's what i use for mine http://www.jlaquatics.com/product/ro...O+Filters.html Up to you really, most people run just the ATO without problems.

Yup, I agree. We had it in the 180 display at proreef (before closing down) and I had a few choice words for the stupid eggcrate. Just put rock inbefore sand...same stability! Also when u decide to up grade to some kick as vortech pumps, the sand could move more water and expose the eggcrate. also love the overflow, very sharp looking. But I think there is one SUPER IMPORTANT piece of equipment you may have over looked.....chiller??? Especially with halides. Also, drilling ur rock can give you more open areas and unique aquascaping options rather than the rock wall or rock pile looks. More negative space is nice for bigger tangs and then u will have more room for SPS ;0)....just saying!

Oh dandy. :lol: I just did my new 30g with eggcrate and sandbed because yours looked so good.

I figured he meant eggcrate gone under sand :)

Bingo! I thought about changing it after, but meh...

If I only had one float switch on the ATO system I would probably consider the float valve, but this ATO system comes with 2 float switches, the 2nd acts as a failsafe to shut the pump off in case the first one gets stuck in the "on" position. If they both get stuck on, well I'm SOL sorta, but at the same time, my reservoir will be not larger than 5-7G. That is only 2-3% of my total system volume which should never bring my tank out of the 1.022-1.026 range 'safe range'.

I received the ATO kit from aquahub.com last week, finally got around to setting it up yesterday. Pretty simple system to setup.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo-1.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ank/photo1.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ank/photo2.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ank/photo3.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ank/photo4.jpg

Looks like I still have a few zipties/wires to clean up, but the system is working flawlessly.

Slowly making progress with the initial cycle. Currently dosing 2mL of Zeostart3 daily and 8 drops of Zeobak 2x/week (originally started with 3x the dosage, have been easing off as the cycle climbs).

As of tonight, nitrates are getting up there,
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo-2.jpg

Oh my, you've been a busy bee! Love it! Coming together nicely.

Hey that looks like Ken's tank. Isn't he the Mesh Pad guy? If so you should really put some Kenya Trees or Colt Corals in there. He loves those things.

Hmm.. How do you know Ken? Mesh Pads and more these days... And yes it is his tank (well, the companies now, ;) )

I actually added a few tester things tonight to the tank after a 50G water change over the past 24 hours.

1 Orange Digi frag
2 Zoa frags
10 Snails
5 Hermits
3 Small Chromis.

if ever there was a good reason to work overtime this is it lol. excited to see this unfold =)

It's not all glitz and glamour.. sometimes I actually have to work.. :lol:

Tank is doing well, Nitrates are well down from the previous post above. I've made some additions over the past little while.

Hollywood Stunner Chalice:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo1-2.jpg

Can't remember the name of this piece. Alien something Chalice:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo2-1.jpg

Ricordia Rock (Blues, Green, Purple/Orange):
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo4-2.jpg
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo5-1.jpg
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo-3.jpg

Wall Hammer Colony:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo4-1.jpg

SPS Colonies:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo3-2.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo2-2.jpg

This is the remains of a colony I had to do some emergency fragging of today to save it from some RTN that I noticed last night before it went in. Hoping the rest of it holds on.
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo3-1.jpg

Got 2 of these guys today as well. They looked like a pair at the shop, but not 100% sure. Was only able to get a shot of this one though.
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ank/photo5.jpg

Well it was definitely a bit early for SPS (I kind knew that to begin with) I lost 2 of the 3 colonies I picked up, but on the other hand the shop that I got them from lost eve more than that, so I'm not completely convinced it had a whole lot to do with my system. I still got one colony left, and while it has lost some color (probably to much light right now) it's still kicking.

All of my LPS/Softies are going great though, so I have been slowly adding a few pieces. 6head Torch Coral, 2 heads of Purple Tip Frogspawn (Thanks to lastlight)... And I keep eyeing up Acans, but have yet to pull the trigger.

I've also recently added a few fish over the past couple weeks...

I started off with 3 Chromis after the cycle, lost one for unknown reasons, the other 2 are still doing good (much to my disappointment :lol:)..and I've added in the rest in the following order.

- Female Leopard Wrasse (eating frozen like a champ! thanks Denny!)
- Mated pair of Diamond Spotted Gobies (burrowing caves under EVERY rock in the tank. Not regretting that eggcrate now! smile.gif )
- Pair of Clownfish (Thanks Lastlight)
- One Spot Foxface (just last night)
- Multi-Colored Pin-cushion urhcin (I don't know how my boss talked me into it, but fingers are crossed that I'm not to early with this addition, My parameters are staying pretty stable though so.... The temptation of new additions is difficult, even for a reefer who's been around the block :redface: )

The tank is really coming alive these days though. The Torch, Hammer and Frogspawn definitely add some motion to the system, and with the addition of the current fish stock, the office is at an all time low for productivity! :lol:

Also really starting to like the performance of this Skimz SM202 Skimmer as well.. I was actually starting to get very annoyed with it as I was having a heck of time trying to dial it in. It either wouldn't foam up at all or it would be overflowing the collection cup. In the last week I think I have finally found the sweet spot on the setting, and along with the current bio-load in the tank, it's finally pulling some seriously dark skimmate. Might need a bit of fine tuning to get it to maximum efficiency but glad to see it pulling out the gunk it should.

I'll try and get some pics to follow up this post.

Will you be creating a reply of sorts to Dez's skimmate in a bowl post?

Everything else looks great though.

Where did you dez post? haha or did you post in the wrong thread? :lol:

Some photos as promised.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ank/gobies.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo12.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo1-3.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo22.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo2-3.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo32.jpg

Blurry pic of the Leopard Wrasse
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo3-3.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo42.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...k/photo4-3.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...nk/photo52.jpg

Looking good man. Must feel nice to be stocking up that bad boy after being out of the scene for a while.

Yes, it does, unfortunately. :lol: Especially with the pressure from the co-workers, but now that there is a bit in the tank, and more alive, they've sorta piped down. :mrgreen:

Hey Josh.
Hows that ATO working from aqua hub? my jbj kicked the bucket and i was looking into getting one of those

Smooth sailing so far! I have had NO issues what so ever with it. I would recommend it to anyone working on a budget.

How's your tank doing?

Awesome...... Marine Velvet has hit my tank. :sad:

I've lost my Powder Blue Tang, Blue Throat Trigger, Sailfin Tang, and 1 Clown in the last 3 days.

Been reading up on quarantine tanks but keep seeing that I need to run a cheap filter or filter sponge on my main tank for 2 weeks to build up the nitrifying bacteria, prior to getting the QT going.

Any recommendations for speeding up this process? I'd like to get the remaining fish out and QT'd and start some meds ASAP.

Sorry to hear josh :(

If you are in a real hurry then you can take some live rock out of your display tank and use that. Sadly the rock will have to be sacrificed if you use copper meds tho.. unfortunately there's probably no good quick solutions to this one. I like to float dish washing pads in my sump for these occasions.

Really sorry to hear about this. I'm far from an expert, but in a situation like this would it not work to do daily water changes in the QT? Running a filter sponge for several weeks is great, but . . . it does not seem like you have many options.