kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

Originally Posted by mseepman

So, I still have a bunch of questions just because this is so close to what I'm doing. What are you planning to run as your return pump? What are you planning to stock? Are you planning to use anything at the overflow end for flow? Lastly, are you planning a sand bed or a bare bottom?

I love questions about my setup so ask away! Makes me think about all the details that I sometimes neglect to think about :-)

Return pump will be a QuietOne 6000. I currently have a QuietOne 3000 and love how quiet it is.

At the overflow end I will reuse my two Koralias 2's for now. I will replace them with a Vortech MP40 by the end of the summer though (hopefully).

I had a deep sand bed (4") in my 90 gallon. When I moved it last weekend I kept the sand out of it because I planned on using the sand in the 150. After seeing the 90 for a few days now all bare bottom I have to say I am loving it. Thus I am going to go bare bottom for the 150 and will sell/give away my rubbermaid tub of live sand that's sitting in my living room :-) I'd like to cover the bottom of the 150 with maybe a sprinkling of sand, some zoas, green stars and mushrooms.

As for stocking, everything in my current 90 gallon is going to go into the 150. For fish I have a Blue/Regal/Hippo tang, yellow tang, pair of perculas, six line wrasse, flame angel, watchman goby, pair of chromis', lawnmower blenny and some inverts like shrimps, an urchin and hermit crabs. The only new addition I am planning is possibly a purple tang or powder blue.

[mseepman]

Sounds great. I would be surprised if those K2's could give you the flow you need though. I assume you are mostly sticking to softies?

[kien]

Oh those K2s are definitely getting swapped out. They are barely enough for my 90 gallon. I have a few SPS' :-) They will have to tough it out until I replace the K2s with at least one Vortech MP40. I thought about getting K4s but I know that I want the Vortechs eventually so I'm just going to save up and go straight to the Vortechs and try to live with the K2s until then. I might have to stick my hand in the tank and stir it vigorously every day for a bit..

[mseepman]

Originally Posted by kien

I might have to stick my hand in the tank and stir it vigorously every day for a bit..

Haha...At least you're willing to do the work.

I recently purchased a MP40W but I haven't installed it in my 70 yet. I might do so on Sunday and see how it goes.

[mike31154]

Yow, Mark you have an MP40W in your hot little hands but are able to wait until Sunday to install it? Talk about patience! They're so relatively simple to slap on, although take care with the alignment & spacer setting for glass thickness. I recently added a second MP40W to my 75 and it's great. I previously ran the single one at long pulse, full power and with a quiet room, it was quite audible ramping up to full speed. Now with the two, I'm able to run them around 75% power, making things noticeably quieter. Flow is much better at the previously 'other' end of the tank as well. When you get yours going, I'm sure you will see a lot of stuff getting kicked up that you didn't know was in there!

[kien]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Yow, Mark you have an MP40W in your hot little hands but are able to wait until Sunday to install it? Talk about patience! They're so relatively simple to slap on, although take care with the alignment & spacer setting for glass thickness. I recently added a second MP40W to my 75 and it's great. I previously ran the single one at long pulse, full power and with a quiet room, it was quite audible ramping up to full speed. Now with the two, I'm able to run them around 75% power, making things noticeably quieter. Flow is much better at the previously 'other' end of the tank as well. When you get yours going, I'm sure you will see a lot of stuff getting kicked up that you didn't know was in there!

Sweet! I'm really looking forward to picking up an MP40 now. Too bad I just dropped $500+ on a protein skimmer. Next paycheque maybe :-) Speaking of protein simmers.. I need to go pick that up. I got a call yesterday that it was in and ready for me. Its the Hydor 700. I will be picking up my QuietOne 6000 and a 55 gallon tank today as well in preparation for the sump build this friday/weekend.

[kien]

It was quite a debate.. black stand or white stand. In the end I ended up going with a white stand. Our living room has white leather couches and the stand being as large as it is would probably look like a huge black hole in the middle of the room if I went black.



While the paint on the stand dried I decided that it was time to tackle the sump. Fortunately all my sump equipment was on hand (very important when you are building a sump!). I picked up the skimmer first. I haven't even fired this thing up yet and I'm already in love with it. Hopefully it does not let me down.

Hydor Performer 700









Originally I was going to go with a QuietOnes 6000 but ended up walking out with a Mag18. I'm such a sucker for an upsell. This thing is heavy!





Now we just need some baffles. I decided to go with acrylic panels. They are easy to obtain and to work with. All you have to do is measure up your panels. Score your lines with a straight edge of some sort and a scoring knife. I like to run 5 scores on either side of the panel. Then, snap! If you're like me and not quite strong enough (or too chicken) to snap the panel (where you scored it) by hand, just wedge it in between two pieces of 2x4s and step on it.



It all went pretty smooth. Here they are, the baffles!

[kien]

The 150g Mixed Reef Video ..

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

[MikeP]

Great vids, that's a nice looking RBTA wink wink

Congrats on the baby!

[JDigital]

Tank looks awesome kien! Rockwork is fantastic!