Jason's 75g Build

Well, I'm a starting this thread a little later than most I think, my initial build out is pretty much complete, I still wanted to share though.

I'm building my first saltwater tank, I had 10-30 gallon freshwater systems most of my childhood, but always wanted to move up.

Here's a list of the equipment I've put together:

75 gallon Marineland tank
30 Gallon (+/-) Acrylic Sump
Reef Octopus 6 Protein Skimmer
Aquaticlife T5 HO 4x54 w/Lunar LED lighting
Aquaticlife 100GPD RO/DI Powered
Reeflo BlowHole 1100 return pump
Marine Depot Pro Refractometer
other misc equipment

I drilled the holes for the overflow (BeanAnimal) and returns myself, and custom built the overflow with glass from a local source. The overflow is 36x5x5, with about 6" on each side where the return lines come back into the tank.

As of right now, the tank is running at 77 degrees and 1.025 sg. I have one 6lb piece of live rock in the tank, I picked it up from the Live Rock N Reef store about 1.5 weeks ago. I ordered 100lbs of dry rock from reefcleaners that should be here Thursday, and 80lbs of Arag-Alive Special Grade sand that should be here tomorrow.

 

As far as stocking the tank goes, I'm still trying to figure that out, although I do have a couple of fish that I really do want.

I have young kids so of course our first fish will be a clownfish. The second one that I know I want at some point is a One Spot Foxface.

Any other stocking suggestions? My wife has requested some sort of blue fish, but after looking there isn't a lot of blue fish out there, she may have to wait until down the road for some sort of blue coral?

 

Sounds good so far!

If you add Clownfish, you may want to add them last, depending on what other fish you get.

You may want to be careful with the One Spot Foxface. They can nip at some corals and their spines are also poisonous.

A good choice for a blue fish would be a big group of Blue/Green Reef Chromis. They are very active and stay together.

 

I should add the clownfish later on only if it's one of the more aggressive types right? We are most likely going to get the common Ocellaris Clownfish, from what I've read they're pretty peaceful.

How many would you consider a "big group" for the chromis? I have looked at them, but don't want to have so many of them that it severely limits the amount of other fish we can keep. I do understand it's not a large tank to begin with. (on a side note, it's a ways down the road, but my wife has already started talking about a 180+, love that women)

 

All Clownfish with be territorial, and, although Ocellaris are known to be peaceful, they can be aggressive.

You could do 3-5 if you wanted. They have a very little bioload. You could also check out Blue Eyed Cardinalfish.

 

yes, 3-5 reef chromis. I know you should look at adding clowns last but the orange ocellaris are pretty peaceful. Were you planning on having one or two clowns? My opinion is that if the clowns are pretty small when you get them, they should be ok going in among your first - that's been my experience with them....my two bother very few new inhabitants - they check them out but don't aggress - I have two black and white ocellaris. Blue is a hard color to get but there are quite a few blue corals. I would love to get some dark blue clove polyps that biocube is actually trying to destroy in his tank because they multiply so much....a coral beauty angel fish has a good amount of deep blue on it....they are generally reef safe. There are so many types of fish to look at. One thing I really like is a goby/pistol shrimp pair. Your kids will love the "pop" noise the shrimp makes and the goby and pistol have a symbiotic relationship....some gobies especially yellow watchman can get pretty territorial and aggressive. I have a pink spotted goby and he's not aggressive at all...he's usually always out though and is very interested in checking you out when you come up to the tank. Just some thoughts for you....

 

Jason's 75g Build w/pictures

I thought I would add a couple pictures, they aren't much, typical cell camera.

 

One more pic, it would only let me add 5

 

Looks like a really nice set up! Congrats! Your rock looks lonely I know you said you're getting a bunch of dry real soon. You can have a very beautiful tank with your set up and the size of your tank is a great choice!

 

It looks great!