DKoKoMan's 150g Reef Tank
 

Hey Folks,

I have decided to attempt to create and share a thread on my new 150g reef tank. I purchased the DT and Sump from a local Edmonton Reefer in December, 2017 as he no longer had the time to keep up with the hobby. I am in desperate need of a larger tank as many of my fish are at the larger sizes and they need the space. The build officially started late January 2017 as I am in the middle of my basement development and trying to balance both. The DT is 60" long, 24" wide, 24" high and the sump is a 50g (single baffle setup). The tank and Sump are nothing special but they should work well for me.

I have ran my 75g mixed Reef for over 6 months, I can honestly say that I have had many ups and downs. My love of diving and the ocean has kept me grounded and I absolutely love the saltwater fish. The wife has even grown fond of the tank (she has taken the time name them and feed them).

The goal for this setup is to setup a mostly SPS tank (although I will make room for some select LPS pieces and zoas). The initial moving the tank in to the basement was a struggle. I left it in a corner and didn't do much with it as i designed the overall layout for the basement.

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Here is the tank as it stood for about a month (don't mind how dirty it is). I spent a couple hours cleaning the tank completely inside and outside in between my shift work.

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Here is the sump (also dirty) and the cut plumbing as everything was setup with no disconnect.

Everything was pretty standard and I needed to come up with a plan on how to keep everything simple and easy to maintain. I decided right off the hop that the tank stand was not high enough for viewing pleasure. I ended up adding to the plywood and 2x4 base to provide that extra height.


Stay tuned for an *update* as I need to find the time for next write up.

Nice looking tank and nice dimensions. Mine is black trim as well: 72x22x22.

AquaAddict

The size is perfect for the wall we have chosen to set it up on. Your dimensions are fairly similar!

Nice size tank! Excited to see updates !


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So I went back and forth on my sump design as I wanted to take a minimalistic approach. I spent a couple hours laying out the sump using some cardboard as the baffles and laying out the equipment. The layout I chose is simple 3 compartment setup:

| | SKIMMER ~>| REFUGIUM ~>| RETURN | |


I took my measurements when I was satisfied with the layout and ordered the glass to be cut from Crystal Glass. I went with 1/4" thickness and chose "grey float" to match the current sump and to be darker to reduce the light leaked out from the Refugium area. Crystal Glass was able to cut and polish the pieces the same day.

The big factor for me was to fit a filter sock in or go sockless. After reading the threads on Canreef and RC I noticed that it was a divided result. I looked at lots of build threads on Canreef and saw many successful setups without socks. I decided to leave room for a clamp on sock holder in case it goes sideways and looks like a snow flurry in my tank. My plan is to utilize a filter sock on the overflow pipe (temporary) and then remove it.

I picked up some aquarium safe silicone (didn't want to chance using some from the local hardware store) and began laying out the sump compartments.

The first baffle in the skimmer compartment was siliconed in and is 10" high to maintain the maximum level for my Ice Cap K2 Skimmer. I used the maximum as I will utilize a DIY egg crate stand to boost the skimmer height if required. I then siliconed two additional baffles for the bubble trap (Over / Under / Over). In between the two baffles I placed green filters. I used 1" 90 degree PVC elbows as spacers.

The Refugium section baffles are 8" high and I plan on putting sand and LR. The goal is to grow Chaeto and cultivate pods. I utilized egg crate on the last baffle which separates the Refugium and the return section. I found some smaller black plastic (used for knitting) which I placed in the middle and it will float with the water level. This should prevent any fish making its way in to the return section.

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Skimmer compartment and bubble trap.

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The eggcrate separating the fuge and return compartment.


I was able to make time to finish the plumbing on the tank. I used 1" pipe for the return and 1.25" for the overflow. I kept it similar to the previous owner, except I used a unions and ball valves. I was not a fan of the plumbing having to be cut to come apart. Simple setup and hopefully it functions fine when I do the full and water test.

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I'm looking forward to filling the DT and Sump with water! I will hopefully get this done in the next couple days and test out the plumbing. I had ordered the Jebao DCP 8000 for a return pump from Reef Supplies. So I have been itching to take this thing out of the box and run some water through it!

Lookin awesome!

Nice start! Are you going to have the tank displayed on both sides?

Thanks! Hopefully I can keep moving forward with the progress.

I'm still looking where exactly to place the tank to suite the basement. Considered viewing from all sides or adding a black vinyl background and just having the 3 side viewing against the wall.

Looking good great start

great pump! I have a Jecod DCS 9,000 (10 levels with controller) and it is very quiet. I think Jebao and Jecod and the same company Jebao being American and Jecod being Chinese. Anybody know for sure?

AquaAddict

I'm not sure about the difference between the two brands. But I couldn't beat the price for the DC pump! I'm hoping it will run quiet as it will be in the living room.

Well I have finally filled the DT and Sump with water. I was happy with the way the sump layout worked and how quiet the Jebao DC pump is! I noticed one small leak which I tightened the bulkhead and *poof* gone. I also had to tweak the percentage on the digital controller for the Jebao return pump to control the overflow level and balance everything out. This took a bit but I managed to dial it in to where I was happy.

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Jebao return pump, so quiet! Marked out temporary running and high water levels with tape.

I finally decided on the wall the tank will be setup on. I decided this wall would be best do to being tucked away, yet near the bar and completely visible from the couch :smile:. I applied a black vinyl on the back of the tank as I have saw them in person, on builds and I love how they make the fish and coral pop.


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This is the wall! Also the drywall is up and the taping is almost finished.

I am getting excited as once the drywall is done I will be 1 step closer to setting this beauty up. I will have the textured ceiling done and then I can lay the floor... this means that the tank can finall be filled in place.

I am currently trying to pick two heaters that will be sufficient for the tank. I really like the Eheim Jäger heaters I currently have on the 75g. I was thinking 2 - 300w would be plenty, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyone have ideas or know if this will work? I will also be picking up new Sand this weekend. I will also pickup a temporary clamp light for the fuge area until I can get a proper one as most are currently on backorder.

UPDATE:


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Picked up 5 bags of Ocean Direct Live Sand :biggrin:


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Ended up going with 2 x 300w Eheim Jager heaters as I currently have them in the 75g and I have had no issues!


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Running an LED Daylight bulb in a simple clamp fixture light for the fuge. I will look at upgrading to something a bit better, looking for suggestions on fuge lights.

Looking for any suggestions on fuge lights. Just looking to grow Chaeto and harvest pods.


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Vertex RODI unit installed :razz:


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Looks like someone is wanting me to make this more then just a glass box! :lol:

Sorry for the pictures being sideways, using the tinypic uploads and I'm not sure how to rotate them. Photobucket finally made me pull the pin as it was sooooooo slow... and the spam messages were killing my computer. I will take some more updated photographs, if all goes well the tank transfer will happen this weekend! Long time coming...:wink:

Coming along nicely, a journal is not a journal unless it's pic friendly...
For chaeto I found that at 2700-3500k spiral bulb grows it the best, the red violet LEDs will do the same but leds in that spectrum work better for different macro. Believe it or not my sump/anemone tank grows dragon breath with only blue LEDs.

Plants mostly green will use other colours like red, UV, purple, pink, blue and abit of yellow but bounce back greens. Whatever colour the plant is it will not use that colour. I love horticulture so I've done a lot of research in the best light to grow.

In water the LEDs get filtered abit but for cost the spiral bulbs do just fine. LEDs can cost 2-4x more.

Awesome! I just need something to provide decent growth and maintain. This should work good and it's nice to pickup a Home Depot special. I was initially looking on Reef Supplies at the Evergrow Nova, but for the simple chaeto I didn't think it was worth the money.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good quality algae scraper? Need something that will make for an easy sweep on the glass daily.

I've read good things about the tunze magnetic cleaner look it up. Tanks looking good

Tank coming along good, for magnetic scraper I use the hammer head and the tunze, tunze by far is better, as is easy to use... as refugium I was lucky with just an led light bulb, the daylight ones, I heard good things about the spiral one but I dot really trust them for environmental reason


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Magfloat with scrapper attachment. It will never fall off to the bottom of the sand bed. I have Tunze, but magfloat works much better for me.

Does anyone have the flipper... it looks pretty cool with the blade attachment. I will take a look at the magfloat :)

Tunze for the win!

This is my fav combo too. I'm not a big fan of the Tunze Flipper because they don't float.

Magfloat medium is one I am using on 150g. The magnet isn't too strong so moving it around the tank is not an issue. I have a friend who bought, i think, XL size. The magnet is so damn strong that no one can move it around his tank lol.

I have the flipper and I also bought a tunze scraper. The flipper is annoying.

Like Mindy said it doesn't float so heaven forbid you should drop it whilst trying to flip it. It also scratched my glass in quite a few spots. I didn't find it as easy to flip as the videos made out either.

The tunze one seems to work well and doesn't make me too nervous when I'm scraping right down to, and into the sand. Plus it rolls the algae into a nice sausage shape and detaches from the blade for awaiting herbivores.

Thanks Mindy for this! I had no idea this thing didn't float and I have had experiences in the past with my cheap magnet getting away from me. Is the scraper attachment an add on accessory?

LOL... bigger isn't always better. Wait that didn't come out right. Thanks for this information as I would have been the guy who probably bought the bigger one thinking t was better.

Thanks! The videos were sucking me in as the flip looked simple enough and I was sold on the scratch resistant design... guess that's not the case :wink:

I will take a look at the Tunze one being referenced as well! Thanks for the feedback guys and gals. Saved me some money as I throw these across the room when they don't work as I expected. :twised:

I have three of the tunze (two nano, one normal), they're great and no scratches so far.

They just mount on via magnet? Does the Tunze have only the scraper blade or a scraping pad as well?

Just a plastic scraping blade on the tunze but it seems to work. No pad like a mag float or anything.

Oops. Tunze scraper is what I was refering to, not the Flipper. I haven't used the Flipper. The Tunze scraper doesn't float.

Ha ha ok no worries.

Let there be water
 

UPDATE:

Saturday March 18, the transfer from the 75g to the 150g began. I planned ahead and left the day open as I anticipated this process would take anywhere from 6-8 hrs. The wood floor was installed up to the point where I needed the 75g out of the way to finish the other half of the room. Now or never... then the process began.


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The wall all painted, flooring finished and the wife approved spot for the 150g to sit :lol:. I needed to leave room to allow the electricians to put the GFCI outlet and the baseboard would still need to be attached.

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Tank moved in to place and leveled. This thing was heavy for two people to lift in to place!

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The first of the water being pumped in to the tank :surprise:

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Half way point! Surprisingly this went a lot faster then I had anticipated. Pretty sure my RODI system hates me, luckily I prefilled a bunch of 5g pails on other days.


Ugh... Cloudy water. I wanted to be able to aquascape all at once but unfortunately that didn't go as planned. Transferring the fish went a lot smoother then expected, as it was just across the room. All the LR was placed on the sandbed (scattered across the tank) and I meticulously made sure that every fish was accounted for as you couldn't see anything. I then went on for the next half hour or so collecting all the CUC from the sandbed. Once I was satisfied everything was out of the 75g and in to the 150g, I setup my skimmer and reactors. A long day... but definitely worth it!

CONTINUED...Sunday March 19.

After I finish working night shift I briefly checked on the tank, no leaks etc. When I woke up the tank was now cleared up and I could see inside. I'm not sure if this was such a good thing... I found my corals were pretty angry from the move, I lost a decent size SPS frag (completely receded to the skeleton) but the rest appeared to be ok. I expected the corals to take a hit as the water parameters would veer off track. My leopard wrasse and carpenter wrasse were out, however the royal gramma is still hiding (only in the tank for about 3 days).

Everyone else seemed a little stressed but were out and about. All the fish appeared to be eating fine, but less then normal. I associated this with being stressed out from the move.

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Prior to scaping.


At this point I began to scape the rocks and get a design I was satisfied with. I originally tried to recreate a bigger version of what I previously had in the 75g bow front...Well I quickly found out that it never goes back the same. I was able to mimic some pieces but then just strayed from there.

I noticed that the skimmer had pulled some stuff up, however I will keep my eye on it as it seemed wetter then usual. The compartment it is placed in is set with a baffle at 10" which the Ice Cap K2-160 recommended water level is between 7-10". I may need to make some sort of stand to boost it out of the water to change the water level. I haven't touched it or attempted to dial it in as nothing was really settled in.

I snapped a couple photographs (sorry crappy iPhone photos at the time the lights were on). I will try to take some better ones later on to show the scape better.

After scaping, you can kind of see :)

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CONTINUED... Monday March 20

I went downstairs as usual to feed the fish. I started looking around the tank trying to locate all the fish... Unfortunately I located my Powder Brown "Mocha" dead :cry: on the sand bed near the overflow. I removed him and began testing the water parameters frantically.

• Temperature 79
• Salinity 1.026
• Phosphates 0
• Nitrate 0.2ppm
• Nitrite 0
• Ammonia 0.25 ppm (Usually undetectable)
• Alkalinity 9.52 dKH
• Calcium 440 ppm
• Magnesium 1350 ppm

So my wife was down looking at the tank (she usually goes down at night) and she noticed that the Fox Face was acting strange. I went down and watched for some time (I'm already panicked as I lost the Powder Brown). The Fox Face was definitely showing signs of stress, but he normally swims around and at this time he continued to lay down near the sand :sad:. I re-tested the ammonia (0.25 ppm) and elected that I would do as close to a 15% water change as I could (20g change).


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CONTINUED...Tuesday March 21.

I woke up this morning and went downstairs dreading what I would find. I tested the Ammonia (0 ppm) and the Salinity (1.026). I was expecting to find the Fox Face on the sand bed, however he was sleeping (camo coloured) in his angled position. I didn't have a chance to look for the other fish, but I am hoping the Royal Gramma comes out at some point or I am thinking she may not have made it :sad:.

I am currently at work, so I am eager to get home this evening and take a look at the tank. I apologize for the delayed build thread, but I think at this point I am finally caught up and can document the progress in real time.

Has anyone had similar experiences? I am just hoping to not lose anymore fish as majority of my fish are mature (prior owners). I am eager to get everything back stable so I can start placing "sticks all over :biggrin:. The tank definitely looks bare for coral now! I do have a lot more real estate on the sand bed maybe I will acquire a clam.

I may have misunderstood the order here but it seems like you may have done things a little backwards.

I have had the pleasure of moving house/switching tanks a few times and I learn from every one of them.

Personally, I would have got the rock in first and set it up how I wanted prior to adding any fish. Then I would have added the sand, let the tank clear, checked parameters and only then would I have started adding fish and corals. I can appreciate that some of the corals may have been encrusted to the live rock.

I doubt the corals would have liked the cloudy unsettled water, neither the fish for that matter. Plus the fact that (from what I understand) that you would have had your hands in the tank moving stuff around would have been pretty tough for livestock too.

It probably would have been a good idea to leave the fish out until the tank had settled and I think a couple of losses would have been saved. I have done this overnight, even a few days, in totes/buckets and every fish was fine.

You live and you learn.

Nah... your probably right on a lot of the points. I definitely got the rock in but wasn't able to stack and setup due to the cloudiness. I'm sure all the livestock was stressed out with all the disruptions. I wanted to avoid the buckets / totes to minimize stress, however I think I may have done the opposite. I definitely would do things a little different when the time comes for the next move.

Came home today and unfortunately had another loss being the Royal Gramma. That brings the death toll up to 2 now. I couldn't find my carpenter wrasse so I now fear the worst for him as well. I have been doing my best to minimize disruptions in or near the tank to allow everything to stabilize. As I am still paranoid I tested ammonia (0 ppm) and all other parameters were in check. Unfortunately I don't know how much damage is done and hope to minimize any further losses. I watched the tank for 30 mins. And everyone seemed happy, most corals had the polyps out and some still seemed angry.

See what tomorrow brings...

I am happy to say that my Watchman Gonh was able to locate both pistols and they were reunited. They began working hard on the new tunnel project :biggrin: I was able to snap a picture (sorry kind of hard to see).


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Cool, I loved watching my goby & pistol - when I had sand.
Coming along, looks good

Hey, it happens. I'm actually looking forward to getting my tank again as this time I can set it up from scratch and not have to rush to get fish from buckets to the tank and such.

I enjoy a pistol/goby pair. It's a lot of fun to watch. My tank was by my bedroom so when the shrimp started snapping it was a little frustrating. Next tank I'll have away from my bedroom and perhaps get another one.

Build looks really good so far.

Thanks! Ya they are pretty funny to watch.

Definitely some learning lessons with this build. Thanks for the kind words. You should definitely get another tank! I went too long without a tank and as much as it's stressful, I enjoy the challenge.

Lost my yellow tang today. He seemed fine and not stressed which is a huge concern to me. All my water parameters checked out, I went ahead and did a 20g water change after removing the fish. Is it possible that the stress from the initial transfer could have contributed to the recent death toll?