New Here, been Reefing for 10+ years

Hello and welcome to 3reef

 

Thanks for the welcome guys. It was a very nice tank and I actually cried when I let many of those pieces go. especially the football sized frogspawn, the softball sized hammer and a few others. the fish were also very hard to see go as several I have had for over 5 years. But it was best for us all as the move was sudden and we wanted to do this tank right. Some history of that old tank for those interested. it was a 75 perfecto. I added a custom build 20l sump to it and had a mag 9.5 return pump. i had a "closed Loop" system with a gen x-pcx-40 pump. overall I was very close to 1800 gph circulating in it. It didnt use a skimmer for hte last 2 years or so with no visible effects. I had a DIY coil denitrator. I also didnt dose chemicals or minerals nor did I test the water. everything just grew. I did add the sealab # 28 cubes from time to time, but that is all. In addition, I didnt change the water. EVER. just replinished evao with fresh RO/DI water. I did have to add salt to it every few months, but that is it. I had 440wt vho lights and experienced tremendous growth out of most of my corals. the Cap grew like mad. I sold it when it was so large, all you could see from the viewing pane was the bottom. it had escaped the water and due to its location proximity to the overflow, it caused some unsafe flows that at one point, caught my powder brown tang in the overflow. Almost lost that fish that day. if you looked close, yes, I did have 3 tangs, and all 3 got along great. also had a mated pair of GSM, 2 dispar anthias, and a royal gramma.

I did very well with SPS and regularly sold frags to locals and at frag swaps. it was a very successful tank. hopefully I can get this one to that point.

I did learn several things.
1. dont ever put anything like Green star polyps, Xenia, pavona or tulip anemonees in your tank unless you are prepared for them to spread like wildfire and cover your tank. I woudl regularly pull handfulls of xenia and throw it in the yard. regularly killed off 100's of tulips and gps. these 4 items will NEVER go in my tank again. no matter how pretty they look.
2. I took the tank for granted. it was 10 yrs old, very established and almost bulletproof. the one thing that led to its decline was me not spending the required time in it. keeping nusiance corals at bay, dealing with keeping the ATO bucket filled. it ran dry, got a bubble in teh line and forced the wife to shut the return pump down for 12 hours. this killed off a pocillipora that had spawned in the tank and had babies all over the rim. this massive die off led to several other issues with some good pieces. I lost most of a stylopora and several acro's from it. i will never let that happen again.

for the new tank, it will be a mixture of LPS (frogspawn and hammers) and SPS. it will be mostly SPS dominated and yes, I will get another Massive cap. (the one pictured earlier was 4 years old and started off as two pieces the size of silver dollars). as for fish, you can go ahead and get the tang police on speed dial, cause there will be SEVERAL of them in this tank. at least one of each body type. that said, there will be NO yellow tangs. I may get brave and try an angelfish.. but we shall see.

Scott, NO euro brace. i have ordered a new rim for it. I will also brace that with some 8" wide glass panels underneath the frame's braces for extra support. I will install them when the frame comes in. it will have a glass holes Dart overflow in the middle. I may do a rock wall in teh back with spray foam and sand. that is yet to be decided. it will have two islands, one on each end with a large open area in the middle.

Telgar, yes, I had a powder brown tang, purple tang, tomini tang, 2 GSM clowns (mated) fat royal gramma, 2 dispar anthias.

 

Welcome to 3reef!! Your old tank was absolutely gorgeous - and I'm sure your new one will be as well! Can't wait to see the progress.

 

Welcome to 3reef!

 

I've been called worse buster

 

+1 to that...just amazing

Oh and welcome to 3reef.

 

Welcome to 3reef.

So you never dosed apart from Sealab #28 cubes, did water changes or tested anything? You must have some magic water up there in Tennessee.

 

Welcome,
Your 75 must have been quite a conversation piece.
That monti is superb.
Your 225 should be an amazing build. Good luck and keep us posted.