SeaHorse_Fanatic's 165g mixed reef - THANKS CHIN!!!!
 

So, as most of you have heard, September has been a very eventful & wet month for me. I set up a beautiful 225g Starphire front tank at the end of August, beginning of September. On Labour Day, the night after returning from a 5 day trip to the interior with my family, the front pane cracked, releasing a literal deluge of sw all over my living room, including wetting my loveseat.

After recovering from the resulting injuries, I started my rebuild.

First of all, need to really thank Chin Lee for his great generosity and friendship. When he heard my 225g blew, he offered to tear down his 165g and give it to me as a replacement tank. With Victor's (Veng68) help, we brought Chin's tank home last Monday (Sept. 20th) but the move reaggrevated my injury so I waited a couple days before starting the rebuild.

Painted the tank blue, cut out the old silicone and resealed the tank on Thursday (23rd). Had a couple guys come by to pick up the broken 225g and so they helped me carry Chin's tank into the house and onto the stand.

Here's a pic of the empty tank:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0161.jpg

Started making RODI water over the weekend and added a bucket of IO salt & turned on the Hydor Koralia Magnum8 powerhead to mix it up on Sunday evening.

Finished plumbing the tank on Monday (Sept.27). Had to fill up the 90g wide sump with the hose and pump out the dirty water using a Maxijet. Cleaned out the skimmers. Replaced the return pump with a Sedra9000 off the 120g and cleaned out the external overflow box.

Came home from a BCAquaria staff dinner on Monday night and decided to try aquascaping after having several Sakes and Asahis:razz:

This was the result last night:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0187.jpg

Here's pics with my little Felicia to show off daddy's tank:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0181.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0180.jpg

Spent over an hour to wash 100+lbs of sand (mixed aragonite):

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0188.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0194.jpg

Then after testing the water early this afternoon, I started transferring the fish & corals out of the 120g & 90 refugium into the new tank:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0198.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0197.jpg

Since this is a smaller tank than the original, decided on a more open aquascaping with the spare rock in the refugium section of the 90g wide sump I built inside the stand.

Thanks for looking.

Anthony

Shot of the tank from my computer desk:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0200.jpg


I have since removed the HK4 powerhead since I have sufficient flow in the tank.

One last pic tonight from the other side:

I'll be over tomorrow and then the new tank will crack next week ^_^

Cheers,
Vic

Looking good Anthony.
Wow, has Felicia ever grown since I've seen her! She's such a cutie-pie. :biggrin:

Wow Anthony sorry to hear about the 225 but that 165 looks really good!

At a quick glance I thought the puffer had these booties on and some cheerleeder pom poms. "Rah Rah! Anthony's Tank! Rah-ah-ah! Ok feed me now."

She's standing on a chair, but yeah, she's grown a lot since last year. She's just under 3' tall & only 27 months old.

Only Anthony can get away with 4 yellow tangs and 2 purple tangs in one tank...... something about that house makes those fishes act differently. I think i will change Anthony's name to Fish_Whisperer
It looks good bud. thought you would have drilled the holes through the stand and put it flush. Nevertheless, it looks super nice with the blue background.

It would have been a tight fit & any work on the plumbing would have been a PITA. This way it may not be as clean looking, but far easier to work with or to modify.

Again, thanks for the tank.

Whoa man, sorry to hear about the 225 cracking. Did most of the livestock make it?

The new tank is off to a good start, Hopefully this one will be better luck!

Lovely tank. Cant wait to see more pics :)

Saved over 90-95% of the livestock. Would have been much worst if the tank had blown 36 hours earlier since nobody would have been home & we would have been out in Manning Park still. Then it would have been 300+g of sw on the floors, dead rock, dead fish, dead corals, ruined drywall, carpet & furniture, burnt out equipment & a royal stink throughout the place.

So yeah, could have been waaaaaay worse.

Wow and you even got the rock to look much like the last layout. That itself is a reefing miracle nicely done.

Your fish sure love the hand that feeds. They're all jammed into that end of the tank for photo ops lol.

So what happened to Chin's stuff he had in the tank? That sounds crazy (and super swell) to just up and empty a tank for a buddy...did he have a new tank ready for them?

He had a 120g downstairs that he transferred most of his fish & corals into. The LR he's selling off and most of the remaining corals were also sold. I ended up with a couple small fish (yellow wrasse & candy hogfish) as well as a couple of corals from the teardown.

Yeah, totally unexpected act of generosity to help me out in a crisis. Chin's really stand up guy & a "friend in need" indeed.:mrgreen:

I left the left side of the tank a bit more open since that's where I will see the fish while working on my computer. Seems like 80% of the fish hang out in the left 20% of the tank, hehehe.

Anthony

Nice aquascaping Anthony. Going to be a nice tank.

Hi Anthony

The new tank looks great.

May the Aquarium Gods watch over you new tank.


Tom R

You should come over for a visit soon & see it live. Haven't gotten together in quite a while.

Anthony

Sorry to hear of the disaster, fortunate you were home, new tank looks great, I am due for another city trip, I'll give you a call when I figure out my schedule.

Some new pics from today:

More full tank shots:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0243.jpg

(You can see the new Yellow & the new white YT in this shot)


Orange shoulder & Vlamingi tangs hanging out:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0257.jpg

A "white" yellow tang I just picked up from my friend Mike:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0259.jpg

Elongate or A. mata tang:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0258.jpg

Juv. Emperor angel - so far reef-safe (crossing fingers):

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0255.jpg

Black Leopard Wrasse - eats pellets & nori & frozen foods:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0254.jpg

Regular Leopard Wrasse - also eats everything:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0248.jpg

Blonde Naso tang:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0251.jpg

Poofie the Porcupine Puffer:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0246.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0247.jpg

Looks like 75% of the fish crowding into 33% of the tank:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0264.jpg

Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoyed.

So this is 58 hours after most of the fish were transferred from the 120g holding tank and everyone looks happy and healthy. Tank is running well & everyone is eating like pigs. Going through about 3 full sheets of Nori a day, plus pellets, dried prawns (for Poofie), and some frozen food.

Added a "white" yellow tang from Mike and a YT and Blue eyed Kole from Scooby :) tonight. The white tang was chased a bit by one of the purple tangs but otherwise no problems at all with the new introductions.

Anthony

Everyone is still doing great. The transition into the new tank went so smoothly that its scary.

Looks great! That's a cool aquascape. You could use more tangs though maybe. :lol:

How big is that tank that many yellow tangs hmmmmmm makes me think what I should do.

Each yellow tang was bought separately from other reefers, but added into this new tank within 3 days.

I'm not recommending going tang crazy like this to anyone else. I just like to do something different & since conventional wisdom is to keep only 1 tang of each species per tank, I wanted to see how possible it was to keep multiple specimens of the same tang in one tank. My 210g reef also has a school of yellow tangs so I knew this could work.

New pics of my newest fish. Thanks to Jim & Wendell at OA for this beautiful specimen of one of my all-time favourite fish, the Harlequin Tuskfish. Haven't been by OA in a while but got a deal that I couldn't pass up. Worth the drive out.

Here's some quick pics:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0437.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0441.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0435.jpg

And the Money shot:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...g/DSC_0442.jpg

Jim told me they had this beauty for 3 weeks already & it was eating pellets while I watched, so had to take it home with me:biggrin:

Thanks again,

Anthony

Nice Tusker Anthony! Is he still playing shy? It took a few weeks for mine to become comfortable in the tank. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine.

It's been out & about within an hour.

On the other hand, I have (I hope) an ornate wrasse that dove into the sandbed as soon as I released it from the bag & haven't seen it in almost a week now.:sad:

Love the spectacular colours and pattern on the Harlequin Tusks!!!

The only fish in the tank that mine bothers with is the Lunare Wrasse, whom he chases fairly often even though it is quite a bit larger than the Tusk. (never any damage though) I don't think I could put another wrasse in this tank with these two.