MikeP's 190g mixed reef...

[MikeP]

Well we're at the year and a half mark. I planned on doing a tank journal thread from the get go but never did get around to it. Better late than never I guess.

Here is what I started with.



The tank was my fathers and he had it set up as a fresh water system for quite a while until the center brace came 'unsiliconed' and he emptied it. He had planned on doing salt and after the tank sat empty for years he finally said I could have it (I had being doing fresh water for a few years and recently started a nano reef). So obviously it needed a little work, I had it rebraced and retrimed and then resiliconed it myself.

Here was the stand...



It's really a metal stand covered with wood. I removed all the wood and was left with this...



I had it strengthened with some additional steel tubing welded in the center (front, back and top) thanks to a fellow Canreefer with welding skills. Then I repainted and started with the woodwork to cover up the metal.

Here is a pic of the stand in progress...



I didn't want to hang lights from the ceiling so I had some brackets welded up that I could attach to the back of the stand and adjust. The lights were 175w MH, I upgraded to 250w about a year ago, then I added a third MH in the middle of the tank and the most recent upgrade is LumenMax reflectors which have made a significant difference. I Also have two 54w fiji purple HOT5's that run along the back of the canopy...



Here's the sump (back when it was clean)...



Here is the tank when it was first filled in May 2007...



The aquascaping changed a few times and to this day I wish I'd done it a little different. Here is a full room shot taken Sept 15th...



Stuff that I added over time have been a second phosban reactor to run carbon, 18 watt UV sterilizer, auto top off system, Seio wavemaker and I'm sure theres other stuff I'm forgeting about. I'll do some other posts later with pics of what's living in the tank.