Murdoch's 160G Tank Build

[fishytime]

Looking good man..... You've got some really nice pieces in there!

[doch]

My first SPS!! Got this little guy as a brown and kind of yellow frag from Blue world. Since the upgrade, it has turned to this really nice pink.

The little green frag on the left of this rock was by far my favorite... I just need to get it to grow and clour up again. When it's happy, it's a beautiful turquoise with deep blue tips. Unfortunately, it's been a VERY slow grower, and since we moved up to Fort Mac it's been miserable. I actually almost lost it, so I'm very happy that it has survived... hopefully it heals up! Also, the coral that most people show up and call their favorite... the little hot pink Pocci towards the top of the frame... Courtesy of Dez

Candy Apple Reds, OC

Magicians, AI


My new Majestic courtesy of J&L. LOVE this fish.

Male Lyretail Anthias, MA

My favorite part of my aquascape... and a Maxima, "Teally" from Dez, and another little frags that I LOVE, but need to get growing. Oh, and I love the little neon gobies. They went to this rock as soon as I dumped them, and have hardly left since.

Rainbow Acan, RCE

Flame Hawkfish, V2, MA

And last of the fun shots... Chilli Pepper Monti, OC

[doch]

Please pardon my pictures... I'm just starting to get interested in photography, but do not have the camera to back it. I'll be fixing that soon. Some of the pics above would just not focus for me... but I still wanted a shot in the journal, so they'll have to do!

[doch]

And here are a few of the utility/fish room.





And finally, two full tank shots. Unfortunately my battery crapped out before I could take a shot of either side. Next time!!



Hope you've enjoyed! Let me know what you think.

[doch]

Oh... and please excuse the hair algae! I'll be getting to that asap... just figured I'd wait until the new tank cycle was toned down.

[doch]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Looking good man..... You've got some really nice pieces in there!

Thanks Doug! Mucho appreciato!

[doch]

So, I'm not sure why I wouldn't have documented it in here vs the new post that I created, but I am now at the tail end of a big crash. It could have been MUCH worse, but it sucked bad enough. Anyways, the best thing that I can think to do is to put the link to it here:
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=78717

For the record, I learned a valuable lesson the HARD way. When people suggest to roll, shake and aggitate your salt before use... LISTEN. There were several factors contributing to this crash (I think), but the high levels in the bottom of the bucket of salt definetly didn't help.

[Coralgurl]

Beautiful tank Doch!

[doch]

When I got home this morning I did A LOT of work in the tank. I scraped the back wall with a fish net, scooped up all of the hair algae that I could and flushed it. I missed a few spots though... oops. Then, I took out one of my frag racks, sprayed it down in the bath tub and got rid of all of the hair algae on it. I'm going to do the other one tomorrow when I ge home from work at 7am!! Then, I took my skimmer and zeo reactor out, cleaned the skimmer from top to bottom, and emptied the zeo reactor. Once emptied, I set the flow of the pump to ~250gph as per the recommendations of the Zeo forums. The skimmer is now back in the sump, and the zeo reactor is awaiting the new zeolites that will be arriving tonight via delivery from RCE (Thanks Steve!). When I get home, I'll scrape the rest of the gunk off of the back wall, set up the zeo reactor with the right amount of zeolites, flow and proper dosing to get things started right.

I also ran a few water tests... PO4 is sitting a little higher than before at 0.04 compared to the 0.00 that I had it down to... oh well, still better than the 0.20 that it crept up to. Ca is at 442 on the Hanna... judging from the tests that I've made, I'll call that ~400ppm. Alk/kH is down to a whopping 168ppm/9.99dKh. Getting there... slowly but surely!

As frustrated as I am right now, I'm starting to feel better about this. A few more days of work, and she should A-OK!

[Myka]

If you're going to use Zeolites you should be using Start and Bak too. That should really help you out.

If it makes you feel any better my tank is really trying to crash right now too...I hope I can stop it.