140g Pennisula rimless

[olaggie01]

Well, after many months, I finally decided to pull the trigger and get a new tank. The timing was a little strange, since I recently took an office job (so I won't be home all day with the tank anymore), but I couldn't pass up the deal on the tank.

I found the tank in Dallas. It was built by Planet Aquarium and measures 60" x 30" x 18" and has an island overflow about 10" off the back wall and 6" off the side wall. Very strange setup but I kinda like it. It also has a PVC bottom and is made from 1/2" glass.

Regarding the lights, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go back to LEDs. I don’t like any of the larger 48†fixtures on the market, and I really don’t like the price of them either. A friend on mine mentioned that a vendor was selling an Aquaperfekt Photon Plus, 2x250w DE MH with 6x54w T5s for $500. I jumped at the chance to own a great German fixture for a ¼ of the cost. I traded my kalk and a media reactor for a pair of Lumatek dimmable 250/400w MH ballasts and started ordering bulbs. Going to go with a pair of Phoenix 15k DE bulbs and the following T5s:

ATI Blue Plus
ATI Purple Plus
ATI Blue Plus
Halides
Giesemann Midday
Blue Plus
Blue Plus

Should offer me 10 good hours of T5 viewing pleasure and 4-6 hrs of intense growth from the MHs.

I will be re-using the rest of my equipment from my 150g build.

• ATB 840 v1.5 skimmer with upgraded pump
• 2 – Tunze 6105 pumps
• 2 - Tunze 6100 pumps
• Dart return pump (also have a snapper)
• BRS dual media reactor (GFO/carbon)
• 40g sump
• Profilux 3ex running ATO, heaters, lights, the world?
• Avast marine biopellets reactor

I have about 50lbs of rock (but it’s covered in aiptasia). I pulled out all the rock from my old tank and bleached it. I figured it would be easier to start new than to deal with all the aiptasia. I have biopellets running, so that will provide some good starting bacteria. More than likely I will add some Dr. Tim's nitrifiying bacteria as well.

Barebottom

Mostly SPS, but LPS and zoas to fill in

Small schooling fish (only have 2 fish remaining from my 150g, lost the rest to ich)

 

[Zoacoral]

sick dimensions.. Ready to see your build.. Did you buy the tnak off the member here that was selling it a while ago?

 

[olaggie01]

Got the tank loaded up (just a buddy and I moved the tank, not the smartest thing in the world, that thing is heavy) and started heading down to Austin. Of course, what is the last thing I was thinking about when I was driving home? Rain. And I even packed a tarp to cover the tank/stand, but I never thought to put it on. Made it home, got the tarp out and figured I'd tackle getting it off the trailer the next day.

I moved the trailer into the garage and started unwrapping the wet cardboard

Everything looked good, except it needed a bath

Here is the island overflow (more on this later)

This is the stand

 

[olaggie01]

Here is what the original owner planned for the stand design. I'm not sure it will work in our house, but I'll see how it looks before deciding.

 

[olaggie01]

Got the light last night and unpacked it. It is a beast, 55 lbs of MH/T5 sexiness.

I got the old rails taken down and am waiting till I can get some suction cups so that I can move the old tank out of the way and into the garage before I can proceed any further.

Here is the temp setup for now until I can get the new tank in place (hopefully next week because after that I'm back working)

 

[olaggie01]

Here is the new ATO/fuge

It had an overflow at one time, but I'm not sure what happened to it.

I figured I could either split the tank in half and put the ATO in one side, and a fuge in the other, or just make it a large ATO or a large fuge.

It also has a blue acrylic panel attached to one side, it is not covering up a hole, it is just there.

Got the BRS reactor mounted as well and I went by HD today and got most of my plumbing. Waiting on UPS to bring valves and the bulkheads.

 

[olaggie01]

And here is the mockup of the sump. Most of this equipment was from my old tank.

I will add the ATO/fuge tank above the 2 part containers on a stand. I need to build the stand and plywood floor this week.

 

[olaggie01]

sick dimensions.. Ready to see your build.. Did you buy the tnak off the member here that was selling it a while ago?

I don't know if he was selling it on R2R. I found it through some locals. In a perfect world (and probably the last tank since my wife will likely bury me in the tank), I will try 72x36x18-20H, but I really like the dimensions of this tank.

 

[olaggie01]

Here is the box that the t5s plug into. This way there is only 1 T5 cord coming from the fixture.

Proposed rock work. We will see how this ends up, but I don't want much rock as in my last tank I could never keep the detritus from finding it's way underneath the stacked rock. I may not stack any rock, but just put a few large pieces on the PVC bottom.

 

[olaggie01]

Been a busy week. I started to repaint the stand with rustoleum because the red was coming off in spots and I don't want rust stains on my tile. I found a rug that I will put under the stand as well.

I got a great suggestion from Rich (entropy) about how to hang the light. I went to HD and picked up a pair of ceiling fan hangers. These should hold the light perfectly as the ceiling joists run parallel to the tank instead of perpendicular like I originally wanted.

I have an electrician coming out today to install another 15 amp circuit for the tank. With the new light fixture, I was a little afraid of putting everything on one circuit, so I'll run the lights off this single 15 amp circuit and the rest of the tank off the other circuit in the room.

I have my rock bleached and now soaking in RO water. My plan is to flush it with LaCl a couple of times to get all the remaining PO4 out of the rock and then add it to the tank along with my biopellets and SW to get the bacteria population up and running.

Look mom, no more aiptasia:

 

[olaggie01]

Got the lights unwrapped and the bulbs installed. The fixture is so sweet and comes apart pretty easy for bulb replacement. I will have to take it down though each time I want to change the bulbs though, since it is pretty heavy and I wouldn't want the fixture to sway or move.

Hopefully tonight I'll be able to get a picture of the light over the tank.

I ended up opening up my lumatek ballasts and adding some extra cable to the ballast and terminated it into an outlet that I will mount under the tank. This will allow me to put plugs on the fixture and disconnect the fixture from the ballasts later down the road. The lumatek ballasts are very nice on the inside. They are coated with a water proof resin and it is a mess to try and remove.

 

[olaggie01]

IT HAS ARRIVED:

 

[olaggie01]

Got the light up and fired. It is nice and bright. The fixture is 7" off the top of the tank or about 9" off the water. I may raise it up a little, but it is such a hassle to do with only 1 person that I doubt I will until my wife gets home or I talk someone else into helping me.

Bulb combo is nice, but I crossed a wire on my outlet so I couldn't get the 2nd MH to fire, but that will be fixed shortly.

Not a groan from the ceiling while hanging it, unlike what came out of me. 55lbs is pretty heavy especially over 4' of length.

I also moved the tank over slightly since my fixture was slightly askew to the right.

 

[olaggie01]

Next up is to level the tank and fill it with tap water and vinegar to get the tank clean. Then I'll finish up the plumbing, minus the frag tank (waiting on the acrylic for the overflow).

I have all the rocks in RO water but after I put them in the bucket, I realized that pill bugs (rolly polly's) really like dead LR.

Guess I'll have to take the rock back out and spray it off before I rinse it in SW.

 

[olaggie01]

 

[olaggie01]

Sump:

Fuge:

Sump (other side):

Ballast and Tunze pucks:

This is why you don't give a 16 month old run of the house:

 

[olaggie01]

Just got in a nice fish order from LiveAquaria.

3 yellow tangs
6 lyretail anthias
3 PJ cardinals (tiny little guys)
1 pygmy angel (to go with my other pygmy.

I have 1 other PJ cardinal, which is bigger than the 3 YTs

I am getting a frag order delivered tomorrow and I hope to place a large order of SPS in the next two weeks.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of pictures tonight, but if not, then this weekend definitely.

 

[olaggie01]

Got some pictures of the fish and acros that I added over the last week. Most of the acros are browned out, but I got some nice pieces. Also bought some from Tim (wizard) here on ARC. Talking with a vendor on R2R about buying a box of colonies and talking with Prof about drilling the back of the tank since I'm not happy with the overflow situation as it stands. I should be getting in my self cleaning head for my skimmer and skimmate locker from Avast Marine. Trying to figure out if I want to re-do my sump, but now that I have all the wires cleaned up, things look better, so who knows. A little uncomfortable with only 1 drain.

You can see the 2 of the 3 baby PJ cardinals and a couple of the anthias. I think I might have already lost of of the anthias though.

More fish

You can see 2 of the 3 yellow tangs here.

This was one of the frags, called Pinky the Bear Acro. I really like this acro. Should color up nicely.

 

[miyags]

I put dead rock that I had out side, In my tank and those bugs,I call armadillo bugs. they crawled on those rocks for two days in salt water!!!. I could not believe they could live that long in salt water.

 

[lps1212]

Sweet tank so far so good it seems