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Flounder's Tank Build


Flounder
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On 3/2/2018 at 9:42 PM, redevil13 said:

Sooooooo?? You get it?

Yup yup yup. Busy weekend trying to get things going in the right direction. Working on cleaning it up. Also put about 100lbs of rock in the sump to start cycling while I finish the clean-up and build. Look forward to coming home from work and getting some work done all week. Why can't the weekend be longer?

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2 hours ago, Flounder said:

Yup yup yup. Busy weekend trying to get things going in the right direction. Working on cleaning it up. Also put about 100lbs of rock in the sump to start cycling while I finish the clean-up and build. Look forward to coming home from work and getting some work done all week. Why can't the weekend be longer?

Because then we couldn’t afford it lol. Looking forward to those pictures Crimsonvice mentioned!

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Starting build this weekend. Got the nitrogen cycle going last weekend in the sump with 28 gallons RO/DI, 90 lbs of live rock, marine pure block, 6 lbs Fiji Miracle Mud, 20 lbs live sand. Ammonia has gone from .5 (3/3/18) to 2.0 (3/5/18) back down to 1.5 (3/9/18), Nitrite has been 5 the entire time, Nitrate has been 160 the entire time, Salinity 1.023, pH 8.0.

Happy with seeing the Nitr's up and Ammonia already being consumed. Plan on adding wet live rock from lfs once build is complete to introduce more of the good stuff. 

sump_start.jpg

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1 hour ago, Muttley000 said:

If you can get this set up you could get a supporter membership and get a zoa colony for the grow out contest?  If you are afraid it is too soon I would be happy to hang on to it for a couple weeks for you. I’m in Toledo every two or three weeks and could bring it when you are ready

First frag is on the club!

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4 hours ago, Flounder said:

Starting build this weekend. Got the nitrogen cycle going last weekend in the sump with 28 gallons RO/DI, 90 lbs of live rock, marine pure block, 6 lbs Fiji Miracle Mud, 20 lbs live sand. Ammonia has gone from .5 (3/3/18) to 2.0 (3/5/18) back down to 1.5 (3/9/18), Nitrite has been 5 the entire time, Nitrate has been 160 the entire time, Salinity 1.023, pH 8.0.

Happy with seeing the Nitr's up and Ammonia already being consumed. Plan on adding wet live rock from lfs once build is complete to introduce more of the good stuff. 

sump_start.jpg

You can also use Fritz 9 to jump start your system. You would need two or three bottles, but it will have you up and running in 4 days. You just dump in the bottles throw a cheap fish in and your good to go. The fish poo and bacteria in the cycle get everything done pretty quick. 

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On 3/9/2018 at 2:04 PM, Muttley000 said:

If you can get this set up you could get a supporter membership and get a zoa colony for the grow out contest?  If you are afraid it is too soon I would be happy to hang on to it for a couple weeks for you. I’m in Toledo every two or three weeks and could bring it when you are ready

So, I was already thinking of becoming a supporter because of the great assistance of the group. Not ready to add anything, is there a timeline for the frag? If you hold onto it, can I pick anything out of your tank when I am ready :D

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5 minutes ago, Flounder said:

So, I was already thinking of becoming a supporter because of the great assistance of the group. Not ready to add anything, is there a timeline for the frag? If you hold onto it, can I pick anything out of your tank when I am ready :D

Lol. I’ll hang on to it as long as you need, no worries there. 

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Got tank into the house, plumbed and filled. Didn't want to glue all of the plumbing in case I needed to make changes and might have some final touches with a little drip here and there. Will do some cord management to clean up the cabinet. Lot's of work with the rock to make the aquascape right (reason for the tic tac toe tape). Moving some of the pieces around kicked up the sand and I couldn't see anything. Maybe playing with the rocks will help keep me entertained waiting for the nitrogen cycle to finish.

build1.jpg

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build4.jpg

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17 hours ago, Muttley000 said:

Looks like a lot of work!  I would try to get more height on the rockwork on the right side I think if it were my project. What is the stocking plan?  Maybe you are leaving all that space for a reason!

Doing the rock work now and plan on adding the height. Gives me the opportunity to work on the tank while it cycles. Does not feel like I am just staring at an empty tank waiting for the cycle. I get to work on the aquascape a little every day.

I should have a better livestock plan and would welcome seasoned advice. Want a reef friendly tank and going to start with Zoa's and maybe a Toadstool, but I would like to work my way to Montipora (like the look). Fish plan is going to be slow since I am a rookie. Start with Chromis, then Clowns and will work my way to Foxface, Sailfin Tang, Powder Brown Tang, Green Mandarin (if I have the pod population). Mixture for the CuC and cleaner shrimp and clam well down the road. 

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Looks fantastic so far. Your stocking list looks good. I am not sure how much research you have done on tangs, but they can be aggressive towards one another at times. This does not mean that you cant have more than one tang in a tank, you just need to be aware that they will establish a pecking order. Some people will add less aggressive tangs fist to let them get established to the environment, and then will add the more aggressive later. Salfins and Powder Browns are kind of in the middle when it comes to aggression, meaning they can swing either way. My only advice would be to add them at the same time or as close as possible. It wouldn't be bad if you didn't, you just might see one or the other picking on/ chasing the other around some. 

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do not add more then 10% of dry rock at one time once it has cycled you will start a new cycle 

go to home depot and grab a large 32 gal or more i use a 50 gal and take a live piece of rock and put all your dry rock in there with it and leave it alone for a month that way you can guarrentee 1 its bad crap free and you then can work on the scape however fast or slow you want.  that brute will after its housed the rock become the new salt water for your changes and at 50 gals will give you atleast a 33% emergency water change option

stay away from damsels and clownsfish same family to start add them last is always the best method  think anthias to start with chromis   tons of color there   

your tank is big enough for a manadrin in about 6 full months with a fuge DO NOT add a 6 line wrasse though they will outpace the pods all fish will graze on pods so keep that in mind for your stock load  only 1 pigmy angel 2 if you add them at the same time and i second what crimson said  yellow and.sailfin if yellow.is.smaller ....etc 

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1 hour ago, redevil13 said:

 50 gals will give you atleast a 33% emergency water change option

 

Does RO/DI have a "shelf life"? If I stash an emergency supply should it be stored in smaller batches to be rotated? We just updated our crawl space to a sealed room and it would be dark to prevent any growth. Added benefit of pleasing the wife by not using more house space.

Edited by Flounder
only wanted to quote part of statement
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3 minutes ago, Flounder said:

Does RO/DI have a "shelf life"? If I stash an emergency supply should it be stored in smaller batches to be rotated? We just updated our crawl space to a sealed room and it would be dark to prevent any growth. Added benefit of pleasing the wife by not using more house space.

rodi is as clean as possible as can be stored forever as long a contaminated is not introduced

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all you need is a small 1 to 2 gal reserve for your ato    fresh salt does have a time limit and you will see a ton of answers on how much you should change in any given time 

I have a ato with a apex atk that opens a value that allows my rodi to fill the 1 gal container about once a day

I have a 50 gallon brute with new saltwater that is emptied into the tank completely once a month ... so every 4 months I have to buy a box of salt and that's at a min, without doing any cleaning or big waterchange

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4 hours ago, Flounder said:

Does RO/DI have a "shelf life"? If I stash an emergency supply should it be stored in smaller batches to be rotated? We just updated our crawl space to a sealed room and it would be dark to prevent any growth. Added benefit of pleasing the wife by not using more house space.

Test your containers. Many leach phosphates over time. Brute does make food safe rated trash cans that are perfect. I used a regular Brute heavy duty container and it didn’t leach, but I have read many accounts of the same container that did. Good advice above on not adding too much dry rock at once. I added about 85 pounds of supposedly clean dry rock to an over 400 gallon system at the time and trashed my system for almost a year!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Aquascaping has been fun. Nitrogen cycle complete and have been ghost feeding without any ammonia spikes. Looking forward to life in the tank. Wife has been judging me for staring at an empty tank. Having to explain I was evaluating the rocks and where they would go.

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