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Dyspnea's 120g tank build
Well this is my fourth saltwater tank thus far. I moved to Edmonton over 2 years ago for school and now that I'll no longer be living the "student life" I wanted too upgrade my tank.
Prior to coming to Edmonton, I had a 75 gallon sumpless tank, and and 20 gallon nano with sump. and prior those i had a 75 gallon with sump and fuge. The tank I ran just before this upgrade was a 75 gallon sumpless. To put the quality of this tank it was ghetto at best. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/1a.jpg As you can see thing were rather ghetto, the skimmer I had from my previous tanks and I was unable to sell it, so thought i might as well use it :p After this past Christmas I began to explore options for a new tank. I began to consider corner tanks, cube tanks and other configuration. Looking at prices from store to store, tank prices seemed ridiculous. So I just decided to be patient and find something used, since tank prices seem to deprecate like a new car. Eventually I found something suitable to the area I planned to place the new tank and something that i thought i could work with. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/1.jpg Minus the fish of course :p The tank was is approxmately 120 gallons of actual volume and the glass had round couners which looks great.:mrgreen: Moving the tank the tank from the sellers home to my condo was nothing less than a ordeal. The tank was far heavier than I expected. Thankfully with help from my girlfriend, her father and brother. We were able to wrestle the tank to its new home. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/2.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/3.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/4.jpg |
So I began planning, Identified serveral issues that I need to deal with in order to make the tank suitable for my needs.
The first as you can see in the photos above is the sump, consumes nearly the entire stand. Second the the overflows drilled holes were drilled at an unsual size, so i would need to drill them larger. Third the stand was scuffed and slight damaged prior to moving it, and third the "fake wood" look was dated and just wouldn't do. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/6.jpg Stand all cleaned up http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/7.jpg I added some extra verticle supports, I really didn't have any doubt's about the stand, but better safe than sorry. So added and extra 6 verticle supports. Now to paint the stand, I wanted oto be sure that the paint would stick. The finished on the stand was really smooth, I ended up sanding every nook and cranky with course grit sand paper. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/8.jpg Stand primed http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/9.jpg Stand painted, (i forget how many coats that that point) |
Looks like a great build, I will have to stay tuned. Just out of curiosity are you a doctor or do you have painful breathing?
Levi |
I began to paint the doors to the stand, I removed all the slats in the doors and painted them separately. After the slats were painted and the door were ready i began to place them back in the doors. Unfortunately I broke three of them.
http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/10.jpg Then one night at work while trying to sleep, I got a brilliant idea how i should replace them. :mrgreen: http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/11.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/12.jpg So finally everything was painted, and I could put the aquarium on the stand and get it out of the way :p http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/13.jpg as you can see you don''t notice the replacement slats. Now I know when everybody gets a large tank they had to take the obilgatory photo of themself or of their childern in the tank, Since I'm 6'3" i couldn't do that and I have no childern. So the girlfriend and I did the next best thing. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/14.jpg She was not impressed :p Well I'll stop here for now, but more will be added quickly. |
Look like a pretty sweet setup....
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Tank drilling time!
TOOLS! :lol: http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/16.jpg I order both holesaws off ebay, bought them both for about 20 dollars canadian (free shipping :) ) The goal of drilling the tank was to allow me to add a closed loop. I drilled all four holes on the bottom pane (intake/exhaust). I chose the bottom pane, because it was drilled previously for the overflows, so i knew it wasn't tempered and I did not know the type of glass on the rear panel. I'm not overly concerned about the intakes to sucking sand or anything else since the tank will be barebottom. I drilled 2 holes for a 1.5 inch bulkhead and 2 holes for a 3/4 or 1 inch bulkhead. I chose to drill 1.5 inch intakes because the super dart requires a 2 inch intake. And if the flow is reduced at one of the intakes the pump preformance would be impacted less. Pics of pump :p http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/23.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/17.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/17a.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/17b.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/17d.jpg The drilling went very well, no major issues. In fact each hole was drilled out rather quickly, faster than i expected. I watched videos online before drilling, i found the basic technique for drilling which worked very well. The holes which concerned me the most about this project were these ones. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/17c.jpg They are the holes in the overflows, four of them in total. They were originally drilled with odd sizes. In fact the previous owner just used male/female threaded fittings and used and crap load of silcone.:confused: They concerned me becuase, I wasn't sure how they would react with re-drilling, and because how close they are to each other. I thought they might explode or crack or numerous other things. My other conern was with the larger hole, I wasn't sure i would get enough clearance from the overglass for a 1.5 inch bulkhead. Fortunately they drilled fine, they were a little harder to start, and i went slower with drilling them. And after drilling I did a test fit of a1.5 bulkhead and a 1 inch bulkhead, both fit prefectly. :) The overflows will contain one 1.5 inch overflow each. One 1 inch return in the right overflow and a 1 inch emergency overflow in the left. |
Sump building photos to follow shortly! :)
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Pick up where I left off...
Sump building time! The sump that came with my purchase as I mentioned in a previous post was far to large. It nearly consumed the entire stand. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/3.jpg In order to make room for the closed loop pump, i figured i needed about 12 inches more of room. In order to keep the cost of this build down, I completely disassembled the sump, into its various piece, and spent endless time and razor blade scraping silcone:neutral:. Since the glass was only approx 6mm thick I figured i could get by without any special tools. I scored the side pieces and cut thme perfectly to the length i needed. THe bottom panel had to be different it was thicker glass (approx 8mm). I scored the glass and when I snapped the panel, the snap line broke away off the score line :( So I had too order a new peice of glass. I really wasn't upset about it just trying to save a couple bucks :) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/20.jpg This photo the glass sides are silconed together. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/19.jpg This photo the glass sides and bottom I believe are silconed together. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/21.jpg Preping to silcone the inside http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/22.jpg Completed sump! :) I'm very happy with the way it turned out. |
With the sump complete and the tank drilled, I need to drill the stand so the bulkheads would fit throught the stand. I bought a cheap holesaw kit from princess auto for $15 which came with 5 different sizes.
When I was drilling the glass after the holes were finished, i scored the stand with the gl******* saw so it would mark for later where i needed to drill the stand. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/18.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/24.jpg Stand reassembled and the bulkheads and locline in place. Now things feel like they are coming together :) |
Plumbing coming up next!
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Looking really, the ghetto fake wood had to go.
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hay those old holes in the overflows look like they are the old style of doing things PVC pipe with fittings and you had to use O rings on both sides of the glass to get them to seal proper but they worked fine. some people when they bought one of these old style tanks setups would silicone the crap out of them and hope for the best as they don't know the old ways. Bulk heads ain't as old as over flows are. I have an older style overflow box on top of a standpipe I would prefer a overflow box and conceal the return line also. This works fine and I can make a change latter. We use to do what ever we could to make overflows work or even a standpipe for that matter. This box on a stand pipe is alright take up less real estate and my bar Gobi's have setup home right at its base the have cleared out all the sand around the stand pipe. they must like the noise of the water flowing down the pipe to the sump.
Bill |
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Wats That box in the sump for???
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To raise my skimmer to the proper water level. in sump skimmers have a optimal operation depth.
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Plumbing
Its time for plumping! The goals of plumbing was to have lots of unions and true union ball valves, to make changes and modifcation and the possiblity of needing to move the tank much easier.
When buying my parts I had to use serveral sources, at one of my sources I bought a 2 inch true union, when i went to pay the guy behind the counter said "ouch 2 inch true union" :sad: and at another store where I found 2 3/4inch true unions and a 1.5 inch true union, one of the guys said "it those expensive thingys":sad: The true unions are expensive, but were worth in in the end. So heres the plumbing all done, after the pictures I'll speak of my difficulties with the plumbing. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/23b.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/23c.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/23d.jpg As for the plumbing difficulties i was nearly pulling out my hair. I felt with this project I would do thing the "right way" by using the PVC Primer, I later felt this was a huge mistake. As my plumbing was "done" I did a freshwater check of the closed loop. I found no less than 3 leaks, Annoyed I disconnected the unions, and repaired the leaks. Second test showed my leaks were repaired, but now I had two new leaks, so again I toke things apart and repaired the leak again. Third test I was leak proof. Now I mentioned that the PVC primer was a mistake, I just felt on the joints I did not use the primer on were stronger and didn't have any leaks. Since teh primer softens the PVC this made the joints less leak proof. |
http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/25.jpg
In this photo I placed a 4 foot long, 2x4 screwed into the wall http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/26.jpg When I was improving the stand, i placed this 4 foot long 2x4 on the back of the stand, Its purpose is too allow me to bolt the aquarium to the wall. also in this photo you can see some of my plumbing i needed to run for a brief span outside of the stand. and the third point of interest is the aquarium back side is painted. My girlfriend want to do the painting. She painted it such a way that it the top starts a lighter blue and then transitions to a dark blue the further down the aquarium. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/27.jpg The bolts I will use to bolt the aquarium, I will bolt the aquarium after the aquarium fully loaded with rocks and water. |
Live stock transfer coming up next :)
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Live Stock Transfer
Now for the best part of the build, live stock transfer :biggrin:. I began by draining as much water from my 75 gallon as possible. I transfered various corals and snails and my fish into buckets while I transfered rock and filled the tank and much as I could.
here is the tank with everything tranferred, The tank needs alot of water to added yet, and its pretty cloudy, I also did a very crude rock scaping. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/28.jpg The tank is completely filled, I've moved the clams around to better temporary spot. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/36.jpg Sump filled and skimmer running, You can also see the calcium reactor and co2 cylinder, the reactor isn't hooked up and the co2 cylinder is empty :p http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/35.jpg Here are a few closer up shots. These picture arn't the greatest, I can't figure of the setting on my girlfriend camera. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/34.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/33.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/32.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/31.jpg |
Now that everything has been transfered, The biggest thing to do at this point is too do a better rock scaping.
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Now that I got my old camera up and running a took some great looking photos which i will be adding shortly.
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As promised here are some better quailty photos :)
In this photo you can see the new rock scaping, I'm very pleased with how I have all the rock arranged however I may make some minor changes yet. I would like to make some more caves. My PBT seems to miss all the caves he had in the old tank :lol: http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/38.jpg Close up of the clams http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/39.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/42.jpg Some frags I have on the grow :p I recently picked up a few of them from Dez. i plan of selling some of the corals I have fragged during transfer :p http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/40.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/41.jpg Heres the fuge up and running, I just added some chaeto and lighting to the fuge. And added some carbon yesterday as well since the tank water wasn't as "clear" http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/43.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/44.jpg |
Now your up to date, on the recent events in my tank.
I plan for my days off too hook up the calcium reactor :) and adjust the height of my skimmer stand, It seems to be just slightly to high. |
Upgrades to the tank will include and new lighting fixture (right now its a single DE 250 MH). And adding some more water flow to the display.
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Not alot to report.
Did my first water change yesterday 20 gallons worth. I think I will do water changes every 2 weeks, to make thing easier on myself.:lol: Small algea outbreak in the sump, however i think its due to the old bulbs in the fixture i have. Visable growth and color improvement in all my corals. Lots of coraline algea starting to grow. Plumbed in my calcium reactor, just waiting on my co2 regulator to show up. also hooked up my ATO, that has taken a huge workload off as well:) And as for tank parameters Ca 460 DKH 10 Mg 1320 (my tank consumes mag likes its candy) Salinity 1.026 Temp 77.4 |
Your build is really coming together considering what you started with. The sump rebuild was very impressive! And those clams, man oh man!!! :mrgreen:
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I love clams, the bigger two are about 9-10 inches maybe more, I lost a giga clam about the same size about 6months ago, for an unknown reason. Sucks I cause i really like that one. And I lost my favorite dersa clam when i moved to edmonton, it was about 8 inches, I had it when it was only about 2 inches. The ones in the pictures i've had for 5+yrs. But when i'm confident things are stable and once I do a light upgrade, I'll look for some other clams. |
I love the frag rack. It reminds me of Lynn Valley suspension bridge.
Tanks looks awesome. |
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Couple new photos
A couple end shots, i realized I didn't have any http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/47.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/48.jpg top off system home depot float valve, It works real well, i've used a simliar setup on previous tanks. Only problem is when setting up the sump I thought i would use a bracket of some sort to hold it. Well i changed plans and I just ended up drilling a hole with my dremel with the tank full of water. Idealy i would have put it on the other side in hind sight. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/45a.jpg Top off tank, just found it at home depot, holds about 12 gallons, so thats good for about 5-6 days of top off. Drilled a hole and put in a bulkhead. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/46.jpg I then added a pump on a timer, it comes on eight times day for an hour each time. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/45.jpg |
I did not like how my power bar setup was working for me. Looking for solutions, I was hoping to find a bench top power bar, however I could not find any. But I did find these at princess auto for $5, I remember seeing these several years ago for over $30.
http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/49.jpg The other thing I did not like about my setup was my fuge lighting. It was an old coralife fixture I hacked apart. I was to big and ugly. While wondering through Canadain Tire I found, this perfect light for my fuge, and on clearance for only $19, which made it even better :) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/50.jpg The lights that came with were only 4100k. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/50a.jpg I found some 7000k while in store, Which will be perfect for fuge lighting. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/50b.jpg |
I'm Seeing spots :p
http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/50c.jpg Fits perfectly and looks better :) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/50d.jpg |
Finally I got my CO2 regulator in the mail.
Heres what I bought, off ebay for $23, shipped :) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/51.jpg Only one problem, when I bought it, I didn't see this picture. http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/52.jpg That little "nub" made it impossible to make a seal against my tank. So I broke out the dremel, and cut the nub off, just lower than the O-ring. I then used a sharpening stone and ground down the roughness until it was smooth. I put it on the tank and tightened it up, and It sealed. :) I turned off the tank and left the regulator pressurized over night. Came back in the morning and the pressure on the guage hadn't changed :) Now it's up and running :) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/53.jpg |
About 5 days ago, i treated for red flatworms. I did not have them previously. I think I got them after putting chateo in my fuge. It's really the only thing that I've added recently.
Now the flatworm invasion Is hardly that, you have too search and search before you can even find one. Either way I decided to treat now before they were out of hand and before they were in larger number and releasing more toxins. As for the treatment I used blue vet flatworm treatment. I followed the treatment as on the box. However I didn't see results until 1.5-2 times the recommened dosage. During treatment fish, coral, clams everything seemed fine and uneffected. The flatworms did not enjoy the treatment however :), They do seem to be gone :) 24hrs after treating I did a 20 gallon water change, It was about 3 weeks ago since my last water change. I also changed out my carbon, again it was due to be changed. The only other update is that, I have begun to use filter socks. |
My coral colors continue to improve and growth is quite obvious.
I'm just in the process of dialing in the Ca reactor. I'm really excited to begin to add some new fish, I have no idea what though. |
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A brief update.
My mated clown fish spawned on monday the 24th, This is their first spawn in the new aquarium, they had spawned previously however this is the first spawn in nearly two years. They laided a small patch of eggs, and are very defensive. The female nips at me when i pick up my fallen frags. The female is so defensive, It looks as though my PBT got a too close to their hosting frogspawn, and the two must have had a small spat. The female has a small cut on her cheek. It doesn't look to serious, and she is still eating which is a good sign :) I also found a health looking Mandarin goby, and brought her home, I had one previous on and old setup and had to get another one. They are one of my favorites :) My tank is only 3 months old now, but I think she will do just fine. I've had her for nearly two weeks now. And a little teaser for my next update. While visiting some family in Red Deer, I came across this little thread http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=64901 I jumped on the opportunity and came home with a couple frags and colonies :) Simon tank was amazing! I only wish my wallet was a little fatter :p |
So as I mentioned in my previous post here are the item I was able to snag :)
Blue Milli http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/57.jpg Loveslight aquagreen/deepwater blue http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/58.jpg neon green suharsoni frag http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/59.jpg And I got a decent sized frag of the apple green tortusa) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/60.jpg |
The last few days I've had a few incidents...
To begin, I got tired of picking up my frags on a daily basis. I was going to wait until I had my new lighting. but I decided to just go ahead and epoxy everything down. Heres how it turned out... (please forgive the photo, I don't take the best ones) http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/55.jpg http://members.shaw.ca/jessehamel/56.jpg turned out pretty good and I'm happy with everything overall. I epoxyed everything around 4-5pm. My lights turn off at 10pm. Everything was working properly before I went to bed. Now around 3:30am, I woke up too a large noise, unrelated too my tank, as I tried to fall asleep again I heard a distinive sound of a pump running dry. My skimmer had gone nuts, it was making clear skimmate. my carpet was soaked with about 5 gallons of water. My return pump was shotting bubbles like crazy into the display. All because of the the stupid epoxy. |
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