New tank time! Woot woot!!! This is the biggest tank I have now! 24 g
JBJ nanocube.
DIY LED lights, good condition, and came with lots of equipment!
Lets start with what this build is going to be. I will be breeding Bangaii Cardinals, and use it as a growout tank for euphyllias and softies, mainly zoas and shrooms.
I drove out to this guys house, well, I didn't drive but I was driven out there lol. Anyways, I walk in, and I see the tank in a corner I'm like DANG this thing is huge. Seems way bigger then my 20 long. I look it over, its dirty,
sand is full of detritus, but I'm super happy to find there's this MASSIVE hollywood stunner
chalice in it. Literally it is in a bowl shape and as wide and deep as the tank. Massive. The
lights 5
LED's are out, but all I need to do is purchase whatever LED's I want, and take it to him and he'll fix them up. He'd sold the rock, but there was still the sandbed. The tank was covered in algae, but no scratches. The hood looked to be in good shape, but the little feeding flap didn't lock in, you can just lift it out, and the hood itself, you know how you should be able to prop it up, it didn't have those two props.
In a corner, he had this giant pile of fish stuff. He asked if I wanted the tank, and I said yes. I shouldv'e got pictures, but I was too excited lol. Anyways, he starts draining it, and says I can have whatever of the fish stuff I want. I go over and start sorting stuff and there's a ton. Pumps, heaters,
driftwood, filters, you name it. So I pull most of the stuff out, and start taking it out to the car. He fills my Brute I brought with about 10 gallons, then puts the cinnamon palys, the few tiny
live rock pieces, and the chalice in. I put the brute in one seat of the minivan, strap it in. Then he finishes draining it while I start carrying stuff out. We put the tank in the front seat, and fill the foot area with stuff. Then I fill the side door area, and the backseat, and the trunk with stuff, including the water. I leave just enough room for me to have a seat.
When I come home it was pretty late, so I unloaded the tank, and PHEW it stunk on the way home. The sand was NASTY and the live rock rubble too. It about stunk us out on the ride home. Anyway, I unload the tank, and shuttle stuff up to my room. It covered the floor of my room lol. In the morning, I had to go to school until about 12, but when I came back I ate and immediatly started setting stuff up. I started by taking a jug of old saltwater that he gave me, and I'd scoop the sand out into a collander, rinse it until it ran clear, and then put the clean sand in a
bucket. Did that with all the live rock rubble too. He'd filled the second and some of the third chamber with live rock rubble. After that, I took the tank to the hose, and sprayed it out really well. Then I got a bucket of vinegar, and started all the pumps and heaters running and soaking. Then I scrubbed out the tank really well, scraped the glass, all that good stuff. Looked like new when I was finished!
For the stand I'm using my dresser. Its well made, with 3/4" plywood on the two sides, and 1/2" plywood on top. I knew the sides weren't giving out, and it had cross bracing as well, so it wouldn't tip, but i was worried about the top as it was flexing under my weight. I went out and got some 2x4s, and 1/2" plywood. I painted and ripped the plywood down to size, and then laid the 2x4s across the dresser, from one sturdy side to the other. 4 in total. Then I attached the plywood to the 2x4s. Its not quite finished, but all I need to do is tack/glue on some trip and paint the edges, which I can easily do with the tank on. I think it looks pretty good actually.
I carried the clean tank up, and put it on the stand. Then I put the sand in, and using the water that was in the tank at his house, filled it up. I did use 5 gallons of clean fresh saltwater, and some clean
RO/DI. This wasn't quite enough water, I needed about another gallon of saltwater. I mixed up 5 more gallons of
SW, and now the water had settled a bit saw that there was a 1/2" of
detritus everywhere. Dang it. I thought iI'd rinsed it well! So I did a good
gravel vac, and pulled out 4 gallons, then replaced it with the clean saltwater I'd just mixed up. I put the return pump (
maxijet 1200, 295
gph), and the heater in (100 watt
finnex titanium heater. Its TINY and I love it. Like, 5 inches short, and less then 1/2 inch wide. Super durable too. I plug it in, and it starts cycling water through. I put floss at the bottom, where it flows under the first divider, then a large cell sponge that it came with, and then floss. I stirred everything up, and let it flow. After it cleared up a bit after about 3 hours I stirred it more. Then I noticed it was super loud water fall noise, and it turned out the floss and sponge were super clogged. I rinsed the sponge, and tossed the floss. I put more in, stirred it up and went to bed. This morning it was mostly clear, definitely not clear like it should be, but i could see everything. The chalice was gorgeous under blues.
I replaced the floss and rinsed the sponge again, and this time added a polishing felt as it was clearing up faster now. Then I stirred it up with my hand and a
turkey baster. Then I realized I could add another of my 4 or 5 maxijet 1200s to get better water movement to keep stuff in the water column until it got sucked up. So I threw another one in there and now had really good circular water movement. That was a good stirring, and when I came up after breakfast it was clogged up again. I rinsed the floss and sponge, and the felt. Then I realized I could use the maxijet to stir instead of a turkey baster and sand... So I blew EVERYTHING up. Sand everywhere, you name it. I probably need to replace the stuff again lol. I think its close though. Hard to do much with the massive chalice in there.
I broke off quite a bit, still barely took any off, but I put the frags in my 20 for now. I'll be calling
LFS and seeing if they want them. I'm sure I could sell them frags for $5 each at least, as long as I don't offer them 20. Supply and demand! I'll also offer as much as a local reefer wants for a good price. Really pretty
coral.
So heres the tank! I took these pics right after I stirred it up with the
powerhead, oops! I'm leaving for tdoay, but tomorrow I'll have all afternoon to do whatever I want with the tank, so I'll take clear pics then. You can sort of see the chalice.
And the view from my bed! Excuse the mess, still a lot of fish stuff.
I'm planning on getting a little drawer thing to go beside my dresser, it'll store all my fish stuff for it, and I can rest the big box that the lights go into on top.
Since 5 LED's are out, I think I'll be getting 3 UVs, and two royal blues. He'll solder them in for me.
I need about 10 more lbs of sand, I think I'll get oolite or fiji pink as its like a larger bimini pink mix, needs some smaller stuff. I will also be ordering 15 lbs of BRS Reef Ready rock soon. I can't really do anything until I get most of this chalice sold. Hoping I can make my $100 back from it and get all this for free.
I finally sold my
skimmer! $300. That will help for this build. Thank goodness!
Gobiwan has 7 more days in metro, and then he's clean of brook and
ich. I'll run him through prazi and then it's just sitting through the rest of the fallow period. I was thinking... what if I took him out of
QT when he's gone through prazi, and put him in the
biocube? He'll have sand, he'll have rock, he'll be happy. He'll be clean, and he can stay in there in comfort until my 20 long is finished. What do ya'll think?
Some of the cool stuff I got: 4 or 5 maxijet 1200, one seio or something like that 850 gph pump (big ole' beast), everythign for hatching
brine shrimp, eggs, hatchery, ect., 4 stage spectrapure
RO/DI unit, probably need to replace everything but I bet I could sell it. I'll run some water through and see what the
TDS is.
Gloves, scrubber brush, lots of additives, which will be very useful. Multiple heaters. Also a super useful working eheim auto-feeder, just in time for
vacation! Pill boxes too, so I can give people exact amounts to feed on what days when I'm gone.
Also got the Hydro Rotating Flo Deflector. Basically a cheap RFG. Its not random, but it spins, and shoots water everywhere. I'll definitely be using it.
Right now I need to get the rock ordered, get the chalice sold, get sand,
cycle it. My 3 compartment AIO are number one, where it overflows into. This is where I have my mechainical filtration. Then I have the second compartment half filled with
LR rubble, and the carbon on top of that. Eventually when I get a light this will be where my
chaeto will be. The third compartment is equipment, heater, return pump. Wierdly, his water was really low
sg, 1.021. So I mixed up at my usual 1.026, and so
salinity is about 1.022. I'll be adding some saltwater as topoff, along with the usual RO/DI, to raise salinity to 1.025. I don't have an ATO yet, but as I already have the pump, its cheap to get the relay, powercord, float switches. I'll be building one eventually.
I'll be back tonight late, but I'll be able to update with better pics and stuff tomorrow afternoon!
