Dock Ellis
Community Member
Been meaning to start up a thread to chronicle the past 3 months and the upcoming years, so I'll go ahead and get this thing started. My wife and I started shopping about 4 months ago and visited each of the local fish stores and found one near our home that we really liked. I spot checked some prices with internet retailers and they were pretty close so I felt good from a price perspective. The owner was really enthusiastic about helping to get me set up and came up with 3 different equipment lists - a starter list, an intermediate list, and an all-in list. Unfortunately I'm not one of those blessed with the ability to take things slow, so I went ahead and jumped head first and ended up with the following list of goodies:
-Custom stand and canopy (my father-in-law and I enjoy woodworking but I was antsy to get started and the price was honestly pretty close to what we would have paid for materials anyways)
-Deep Sea Aquatics 120 gallon glass tank
-Crystal 36 sump
-2 3ft flex hoses
-SRO 2000 internal skimmer
-Sicce Syncra 3.0 pump
-ViaAqua 300w titanium heater
-2 AquaIllumination Hydra FiftyTwos
-AquaIllumination Wireless Controller
-2 Hydor Koralia Evolution 1500s
-ReefKeeper Lite Plus controller
-Double float kit
-Aqua Lifter AW-20 for ATO
Those took 2-3 weeks to arrive and another few days to con friends/the father-in-law to help me move them to the right spot. Considering the tank itself was around 300 pounds and the stand around 150, I went ahead and did my water tests with RO/DI water so that I could just add salt when I was satisfied. The plumbing portion took me a while because I've never done anything like it before. My initial setup was like this:
I did this because everything came with insert fittings and I really hadn't done my research so I just went to Home Depot and bought some tubing and a T and hooked everything up. There were some small leaks so I had to rethink my approach. I also didn't like the fact that the tubing went up and then down into the "T", so I enlisted the help of the FiL and we ended up making the following adjustments:
There was still a small drip so I had planned on swapping out the flexible tubing but ended up just reversing the ends and that cleared things up. At this point I slowly was able to fill up the entire tank over the span of 3 or 4 days using a 32 gallon Brute trashcan and a 150g/day RODI system. After day 1 of filling up I also set up my RKL with my computer and made all of the adjustments I wanted to make. There was one small problem I would realize, however...the tank was only half full and the pumps and powerheads were plugged in and ready to go. I'm afraid they ran all day while I was at work with no water, causing me a minor panic attack. I got everything filled up though and said a little prayer and after turning them on, they still worked, so that was a disaster averted. I bought some Instant Ocean salt and got the salt level to around 1.025, which is a little bit higher than I would like but still within range.
With a tank full of saltwater, I focused my attention on live rock. I researched many different options, went to LFS after LFS, and finally decided to give Richard at TBS a try. I had heard great things about all of the life these things came with and the extras that he tends to throw in, so I was able to justify the cost. I bought the rock this past Sunday morning and I had it in my tank by that night. It was an extremely easy experience picking up the 7 boxes of rock/sand from the Southwest Cargo area and getting everything in the tank. There was so much life on these rocks! I've already taken care of one gorilla crab but have one that I'm after. I also keep hearing a clicking sound, which is likely either a Mantis or a Pistol shrimp (I'm hopeful for Pistol). I set up a trap (seen below) to try and catch it if it is indeed a mantis. Lots of cool feather dusters, corraline algae, hermit crabs, snails, etc.
I waited until Monday to let everything clear up and started rockscaping. I finished up last night and here is how it looks currently:
Next up I will be adding a fuge light and fixing up the sump with sand, miracle mud, and algae, with some media. Still need to find a good ATO container and setup the float switch and pump for that as well so plenty of work still to do before adding anymore livestock. Ammonia levels are currently around .5ppm and I'm hoping when I get home they are going to be decreasing rather than increasing, but I've got RODI water ready to go in case I need to do a water change.
Anyway thanks for looking and I will be adding plenty more pictures in the future.
-Custom stand and canopy (my father-in-law and I enjoy woodworking but I was antsy to get started and the price was honestly pretty close to what we would have paid for materials anyways)
-Deep Sea Aquatics 120 gallon glass tank
-Crystal 36 sump
-2 3ft flex hoses
-SRO 2000 internal skimmer
-Sicce Syncra 3.0 pump
-ViaAqua 300w titanium heater
-2 AquaIllumination Hydra FiftyTwos
-AquaIllumination Wireless Controller
-2 Hydor Koralia Evolution 1500s
-ReefKeeper Lite Plus controller
-Double float kit
-Aqua Lifter AW-20 for ATO
Those took 2-3 weeks to arrive and another few days to con friends/the father-in-law to help me move them to the right spot. Considering the tank itself was around 300 pounds and the stand around 150, I went ahead and did my water tests with RO/DI water so that I could just add salt when I was satisfied. The plumbing portion took me a while because I've never done anything like it before. My initial setup was like this:
I did this because everything came with insert fittings and I really hadn't done my research so I just went to Home Depot and bought some tubing and a T and hooked everything up. There were some small leaks so I had to rethink my approach. I also didn't like the fact that the tubing went up and then down into the "T", so I enlisted the help of the FiL and we ended up making the following adjustments:
There was still a small drip so I had planned on swapping out the flexible tubing but ended up just reversing the ends and that cleared things up. At this point I slowly was able to fill up the entire tank over the span of 3 or 4 days using a 32 gallon Brute trashcan and a 150g/day RODI system. After day 1 of filling up I also set up my RKL with my computer and made all of the adjustments I wanted to make. There was one small problem I would realize, however...the tank was only half full and the pumps and powerheads were plugged in and ready to go. I'm afraid they ran all day while I was at work with no water, causing me a minor panic attack. I got everything filled up though and said a little prayer and after turning them on, they still worked, so that was a disaster averted. I bought some Instant Ocean salt and got the salt level to around 1.025, which is a little bit higher than I would like but still within range.
With a tank full of saltwater, I focused my attention on live rock. I researched many different options, went to LFS after LFS, and finally decided to give Richard at TBS a try. I had heard great things about all of the life these things came with and the extras that he tends to throw in, so I was able to justify the cost. I bought the rock this past Sunday morning and I had it in my tank by that night. It was an extremely easy experience picking up the 7 boxes of rock/sand from the Southwest Cargo area and getting everything in the tank. There was so much life on these rocks! I've already taken care of one gorilla crab but have one that I'm after. I also keep hearing a clicking sound, which is likely either a Mantis or a Pistol shrimp (I'm hopeful for Pistol). I set up a trap (seen below) to try and catch it if it is indeed a mantis. Lots of cool feather dusters, corraline algae, hermit crabs, snails, etc.
I waited until Monday to let everything clear up and started rockscaping. I finished up last night and here is how it looks currently:
Next up I will be adding a fuge light and fixing up the sump with sand, miracle mud, and algae, with some media. Still need to find a good ATO container and setup the float switch and pump for that as well so plenty of work still to do before adding anymore livestock. Ammonia levels are currently around .5ppm and I'm hoping when I get home they are going to be decreasing rather than increasing, but I've got RODI water ready to go in case I need to do a water change.
Anyway thanks for looking and I will be adding plenty more pictures in the future.
