Tank rebuild

Well 3-4 months after my seam broke on my reef tank, we are going to go ahead and reinstall a new one this Sunday! I am hopeful that we will get everything plumbed and up and running this weekend. We are going to put the plans to plumb it into my basement off for a little bit longer until we are closer to finishing the basement.

We went ahead and ordered a new 125g (they do not make 135 anymore) and it came in Wed. I have been making water for the big move. My rocks have been in a rubbermade container with sw and the container is about ready to burst open .

Most of my corals did not survive as I had a big outbreak of RTN and lost all my sps. The only corals I have left alive that looks awesome is a dendro and my sea apple. Everything else is bare skeleton. I am going to try to salvage what I can. We tried to bring some corals into Curts store, but they too had RTN. I just tossed a very large flowerpot yesterday and it broke my heart!

But now the fun is going to begin! I am working in the LFS very small amount of time, but I am working strictly for store credit. Plus with Curt being able to order us just about anything we want, it is going to be a blast! I am going to take it slow and be more particular in the corals I want. We are going to get a schoal of lyretail anthias and a purple tang (that much we know) and going to focus on SPS particularly deep water acros.

 

very cool mel. great to see you divin back in with both feet. looking forward to your updates as things move along. full pictorial documentation is demanded. lol

guy

 

Great update shackmel

its great that your focused on the positives, potential for the new tank
it is very sad when we end up losing corals that we liked, had for a long time etc
but its good to be able to focus on the future opportunities

Steve

 

well we pushed the install back one week......our condo association is a PIA......
it has poured all last night and most of the morning today, making the ground very wet and soft...we planned on pulling the truck up on the grass and unload the tank at our door, but decided the association is already upset with us over stupid stuff and better not push it when the ground is wet! Next week though!

 

Sounds like a wise choice to me
upsetting the neighbours is not something you want to dampen the joy of the new set up

Steve

 

Good to hear that you are jumping back in the pool!! Can't wait to see what you come up with.

 

well, week 2 of the attempt to reinstall.....and guess what IT IS RAINING AGAIN! LOL...the Gods are not wanting me to have the tank! ;] shooting for next weekend...dont think i will ever get it up at this rate!

 

Dont let it get you down. it will all come together in do time. The bright side of it could be more/better planning on the set up. it will all work out

 

well, plans have changed all together yet again! :} I am very excited about this plan, although it is going to take a while and more money to do. This is Curts (inwall) plan!
basically put the sump, frag tank and everything downstairs again but using a closed loop. We will either use a 150g or 300g trough depending on our next thought.....use my old sump as an external refuige which can hold some other interesting things along with all the macro. That will be downstairs too and run slower. Since the RO/DI unit is right tehre in the basement we can hook up the ATO that i have. I have 2 skimmers a ASM and a big external MRC skimmer. Drill the 135 to make tie into the external MRC skimmer. Run that skimmer wet Still use the ASM skimmer and run that one dry. I have a frag tank that we can hook right up to that system downstairs!

That is going to give us at least 200g filtration, and if we go to 300g then it will be 380g filtration.

The one deciding point in what size sump to use (the store has both used) is our next plan. We are going to move the predator tank out to the same room as the reef tank (as we are never in the room with the predators anymore) We are not sure if we want to tie the tanks together however as this predator tank has a LOT OF POOP and junk as they are big predators and are piggies! If we do connect the tank, then we will have issues with nitrates....so we will have to go with the 300 sump. There is going to be a lot of pros and cons that we (Curt) will have to decide what that plan will do

All I know is that this will allow us to optimize our resources while adding a lot of extra filtration to our reef tank.

We....ha ha (Curt) will have to do some major rewiring of circuits, and a lot of plumbing, but I am very very excited. No clue now when the big move will be.

 

and there will be pictures?

it sounds like a logistical nightmare to set up, but I reckon the results will be amazing

Steve