Setting up a new 185 reef tank.

[JoelV]

Ya those ballasts are so cool. they are newest technology and are selling hard in the hydroponics industry! pretty soon all the large Aquatic outlets will have them. Here is a link to the Canadian website.

http://www.lumatek.ca

[Cameron]

Looks good Joel,
I might have some time tomorrow to drop off those frags,

[JoelV]

I did what Mark suggested earlier in this thread and used pull straps with the square sticky pad things I had cut the pads in half so they would fit nice in the rim, I also place a piece of black doormat style carpet between the tank and stand as I was adviced to do so by H20 (Seastar).
Most the plumbing is done, Im just waiting now for the Pump and the loc-line fittings to show up. I put in insert adaptors just till i get the loc-line as you can see in the picture. The Tank is filling up over night with water from the R.O unit its a 100 gpd so shouldn't be full by the time I get there in the morning I hope.

[Johnny Reefer]

I notice your tank has only one cross brace in the centre. Is the tank eurobraced also? It doesn't look like it. I have two SeaStar 180s (both 72x24x24). They insisted I get two cross braces spaced apart or they would not warranty the tanks. No biggie as I'm fine with the way they are. Particularly my Reef as a centre brace would conflict with the Aqualight MH lights I eventually bought.
Just wondering.....did they change their warranty policy?

Cheers,

[JoelV]

I didn't like how the skim boxes stuck so far out into the tank with the euro bracing so I went with the cross bracing. I was only told not to have any HID light directly over the brace. I wanted to use two 400's to light the tank. so the brace would not be in the way. I could see having two brace's in your case if you were to use 3 250's there was no mention of two braces nor non warranty issues.

[JoelV]

Just got some new info, the tanks Sea star were making in the past were made of thinner glass requiring more bracing H2O makes their tanks of much thicker glass that requires less bracing. the new tank is built like a TANK

[JoelV]

The live rock Has arrived! The tank is turning over now with the help of a submersible pump. I still don't have the reeflo pumps in stock yet I'm hoping next week.I also have not finished the plumbing as i want to have the pump first to see how it will sit, I,m going to plum one of the over flow drains to the intake side of the pump with use of a tee, this way i will be moving less water though the sump and better contact time with the skimmer while still maintaining max flow at the top of the tank. Thanks to Todd at H20 Aquarium for his advice on the plumbing.





The rock arrived in Styrofoam coolers, all rocks were wrapped in wet newspaper and put in separate plastic bags. I un packed 6 boxes about 300 pounds. It was so cool we found all kinds of interesting things that I still haven't identified like 4 cool anemones that are purple in color in a white tube with what looks like four teeth in its mouth. We found hermit crabs, snails, lots of crabs that we separated out shrimp, and something thats about 4-6 inch's long golden green snake like wormy thing that hasn't come out of the rock yet. we put the anenomies and snails and stuff in one of our Nano tanks till we can identify if good or bad. New creatures are starting to showing themselves all the time.




It has been two days and no testable nitrates or ammonia as of yet, I was told that their maybe only a small amount of die off butt i will keep checking i will start with the water changes when that happens. I only had the rock in the rubbermaid for 20 Min's ... the water went crystal clear wow! the rock is a great bio filter. I'm going to sell 100 pounds of the rock and keep the rest. will start reef building next week. I am reluctant to put any sand in as of yet I want to build the reef first also makes it easier to remove any unwanted creatures that may show them selves.



Will my Tank Cycle with no sand? and just the die off from the rocks?