105 Cubish Leather/LPS Tank

[Soylent Wrasse]

Will finally be getting the cycle started tomorrow. Going to get the 105 running, and worry about adding on to it later. Plus this way I get it started before next year

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

And the bottom most piece of pvc was the one I needed! Evidently I had a 3/4 threaded bulkhead in with the slip/slip. Thankfully, just one is all that i needed.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Powerheads in and on, circulating water as I type. Now the long fill time with RO. Since I'm going to let this cycle with some live rock I've got in my nano, I might just use my well water. TDS is 116 out of the tap, with a crazy amount of Calcium in the water already. I did a test when I first bought the house two years ago, I averaged 460-480 Ca right from the well.

Using 50/50 Reef Crystals and regular Instant Ocean, as I've got a box of each with 3 bags in per. Roughly 115 gallons with the cubish and sump.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

So far so good on the leak test!

Need to fix some gurgling tomorrow (the one bulkhead is threaded, so I'll need to grab an adapter and make the drain to be quieter. Other than trying to figure out water level in the sump, no leaks so far!

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

The two islands are for some plants I want to try to attach. Not sure if it will work, but we'll see!

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Two weeks in on the cycle. Getting a nice bio-film on the sides of the tank. I'll be shutting down my Nano tank and moving the sand / rock and a couple of hermits over to the new tank in the next day or so. I did have some soft coral in there, but the water has been pea-green for about three months, even with only four hours of light per day. Not sure what all will be left in there.

Only thing I would worry about is the Weeping Willow Leather, but I'm OK with starting over from scratch as well.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

Sweet setup! We need more pics!

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Found two corals still alive in the nano that was solid green for the past six months. Moved them and one large rock over to the 105. Put an AI Prime on the tank for now, still need to build a top for the T5's.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Trucking along with the cycle. Got the diatoms about three days ago. I need to get some Tisbe in there to start populating and probably some amphipods as well. Looking like Feb will be the first intro for fish/corals.

Speaking of coral, I found two in the little nano I took down (aka pea green soup). Both leathers, one was tiny, and I think is blowing around in the tank somewhere. The other is a toadstool, who is doing great. Really good flow on him and he shed his scum skin in a day or two. Starting to polyp up now, as well as color back up from the fleshy gray they get without enough light.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

If you look in the second to last picture above you can see both of the corals.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Five month update:

In all reality, the fire for keeping salt has gone out. I started in 1991 with my first salt tank, and it's just taken me 29 years to get it out of my system .

It also doesn't help that I'll be moving off grid in a year and a half. Pretty sure keeping a reef tank won't be a priority once that happens.

Tank will be coming down and I'll be unloading all my stuff to some lucky reefer for dirt, dirt cheap.

8 Tanks
4 different light fixtures
Powerheads
Heaters
Stands
UV sterilizer
Pumps
Sand
Rock
Plus all the odds and ends from the past 5 years or so.

I'll post in for sale forum, but asking a rediculiously cheap price for all of it.

Thanks for following this semi build thread!

 

[bigdeeezyyyy]

awww man that sucks to hear! Wishing you the best of luck on your future endeavors!

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

So now that I'll be home for the next two weeks, I kind of did the impulsive thing and put an order in for stuff. Price was too good to say no to. Six fish and some coral/hermits/sponges shipped for under 200. Thanks KPAquatics!

Good thing I didn't take the 105 down!

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

So after going through all my misc fish stuff (I have/had a problem, seriously!) the fire kinda flared up a bit. Another couple orders of stuff and well, Covid or not, I'll have stuff to do Tues/Weds!

(I have a fish tank problem, seriously. This is what I have/had in my 600sq ft house in the woods in northern Minnesota:
75 Gallon
55 Gallon
80 Gallon
105 Gallon
29 Gallon
23 Gallon
60 Cube x2
30 Cube
10 Gallon x2
6 Gallon Nano

Only the 105 is running. Yeah, I need help.

BTW, if anyone wants some tanks, you know where to look

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Bulk Reef order should be here this week, and we'll see how the KPAquatics order goes. Kinda excited!

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Also ordered some (15lbs) of live rock from KP as well. Hoping to get some critters (hopefully good!) to seed the 105. I don't have any copepods or amphipods in there now, just a single leather and one scarlet hermit.

One funny thing I noticed is I started getting some hair algae, which lasted about two months. Took a closer look at my tank and now it's all gone. Granted, the only food in there has been the 8-10 mini pellets of food I put in once a week for the hermit to eat.

I've got some test kits coming from BRS this week, so I'll be able to see what my numbers are. Fun fact: I've been topping off with regular tap water (another fun fact: I have a well with crazy Cal and Mag already). We'll see if stuff blows up when I put a couple little fragments of the live rock in there. I've also been dosing some ammonia very infrequently to see if that will help keep stuff moving along.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

So stuff has been trickling in since yesterday. 1/2 of Bulk Reef got here, and hoping today / tomorrow KP shows up.

Need to figure out a frame for my Fiji Sun t5 fixture. Thinking 1x4's as it isn't all that heavy, with maybe some 2x4 for base.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

It looks like USPS decided two days is better than one in shipping live fish from Florida... Guessing I'll lose just about everything fish wise, mushrooms/algae and rock should be fine.

If the fish come in DOA, the upside is I'll be able to do some work on the tank. Long ranty post to follow after order gets here tonight.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

Stuff came in today, with only one DOA. For an extra day of shipping, I'll expect some of the chromis to not make, but since they are small (around an inch) they might do OK.

Rock looks great, I set up a 10G to cure it, and took a piece about the size of a golfball and put that into the 105.
Pics soon, dealing with a Pine Martin eating my chickens and ducks at the moment.

Thanks to KPAquatics, they put in extras on top of extras, and had to deal with my 900000 emails. I'll order again from them in the near future for sure.

 

[Soylent Wrasse]

10G Rock Cooker tank: