Azoox Tank Re-Build

[PFoster]

I am not sure if we should call this a tank build as its really a tank re-build.

We have been running a 24g Non-Photosynthetic tank for about 2 years now and have learned an absolute tonne!
But in this learning we have hit a few stumbling blocks that warrant a tank rebuilt.

The old tank is a 24g Current USA Solana with the following equipment:
Sapphire skimmer
Sapphire reactor for carbon and phosban
MP10's for flow
Ozone generator
Reef Brite 24" 50/50
Reef Brite Mini Mag Moonlight
And a dosing pumps for feeding.

Here is a pic:




As for lighting, this tank is an NPS tank so it does not require any lighting for the corals to grow but you do want some light so that you can see the corals of course.
We tried quite a huge variety of LED lights for this tank and in the end our favourite light was the Reef Brite LED strip so after going through several other lights we settled on a single 24" 50/50 strip and a moonlight.

Before I get into the rebuild I will touch on why we are rebuilding the tank. With the existing system and the level of dedication we were able to give to the tank there were some great points but also some limitation to the old setup.

First off was the skimmer.
While the Sapphire skimmer work really well, we found that the foam impeller + the heavy bio load on the system meant that the foam impeller kept getting clogged. When the foam was clogged skimmer production decrease but every time you cleaned it fully you also lost some foam and so the foam need replacing periodcally. Ultimately what this meant was that for a tank that requires constant feeding, this skimmer probably was not the best skimmer. A needlewheel style skimmer that was HOB would have been better but as you can see in the pic if we had put a HOB skimmer on this tank we would not have been able to adjust the heat in the house
If we were to do it all over again I would use a skimmer rated to a MUCH larger tank.

Water changes.
As the sump for my main display has been in the basement for so long, I am very spoiled. While it is good to do weekly water changes on every tank, it is very important to do weekly water changes on an NPS tank. Azoox tanks require constant feeding and excellent water quality, two things that just do not go hand in hand. When Trina or myself missed weekly water changes you could definately see it in the corals. On my main system I have it plumbed so that I just turn a ball valve and the sump empties to a drain in the floor. For the 24g though we had to empty 2 buckets of water from the tank into a bucket then carry the buckets of water up to the next storey to dump it out. All the new water had to be brought up a full floor too from the basement. Kudos to you if you are ok with doing this weekly but both Trina and myself will admit that it did not happen as often as it should.

Place to hide equipment.
The cardiff is a fantastic looking tank and stand and it matches our display tank so we really liked it. But as the wood that goes around it is one solid piece there is nowhere to hide any equipment. We were thinking of putting a fridge in the stairwell to the left of the tank on a shelf that could onlt be reached from the second floor. In this fridge we would keep the foods chilled so that we could just refill the food container once a week for feeding as opposed to having to refill the food container every couple days. The feeding lines coming from the fridge we had planned to run through the wall and have them come out of the drywall and directly into the tank.

Tank Size.
Well thats obvious. Bigger is better. Enough said.

So to sum it up these were the 3 main reason or rather excuses for a tank rebuild.
Water Quality
Cleanlyness of the tank setup
Size.