mrukus
Active Member
So I finally got to put power to the main tank and got the QT up and running with the first fish! I learned along the way and wanted to share for future first timers.
-75 Gal DT, 20 Gal Sump, 15 Gal QT and 10 Gal HT
-70 pounds dry rock, 40 lbs dry pink fiji sand
-Reef Octopus 150 Skimmer, Deep Blue Triton 4 return pump
-Ebay LED strips. (CREE DIY strips)
-The plan is for a FOWLR for abotu 6 months and then maybe some corals
-Objective was to be the most cost conscious while not shooting myself in the foot, which I ended up doing anyways a few times.
Learning Experiences:
Stand-DIY Stand, I wanted it most eye level with some shelving space around it. This idea went terribly. Wasted tons of money on birch plywood, trim, paint and primer. Also made it way to big for my Tiny little living room and it was incredibly heavy. I ended up tearing it apart and just doing 2x4's and put a black fabric skirt around it. looked 10x better and woudl have been cheaper if i just did it the first time around
B4:
After:
Next lesson i learned was that i thought the beananimal overflow would be cheaper, while it seems to be safer in preventing flooding, it definitely was not cheaper. between buying overflows/making it on my own, drill bits, pvc plumbing- i feed i would have been better off with a reefready tank for my first time. One thing i also learned was it would have been better to use thread/thread bulkheads. after gluing everything and making a few mistakes it would have made life a ton easier. Also found a creative way to support the plumbing as well. some threaded rod, pipe clamps and eye bolts is keeping everything rock steady. I would also use a plastic gate valve instead of a ball valve. it was a PITA to tune it just right.
Aquascaping was one of the more fun parts of putting everything together. I used egg crate just under the rocks as i plan on getting a few sand sifting fish. I would definitely recomend putting towels to protect the glass though. already scratched a tiny part of the front pain when a rock tumbled down. BRS reefsaver rock was way easy to aquascape. i did 60 lbs, then had to order an additional 15 pounds so just go for the 1 for 1 off the bat. not so much for filtration purposes but just to give you options aquascaping. i used the left over in my QT and in my sump.
Quarantine Tank: This was a tough one. there are so many different ways to do this and i spent countless hours reading up on it. I also used it to experiment as well since its such a small tank. I will be stocking the DT from scratch so i will need one for a while, so i wanted permanently cycled QT. I used caribsea life rock and bio spiria. I let that simmer with some additional dry rock for 2 days and dosed with plain ammonia to alarm levels according to the ammonia alert. 12 hours later it was back to safe! So-this also was a point of contention because literally 100's of threads said it worked and 100's of threads said it didn't. They each are then followed by pages of flaming each other. It was a QT, only 20 bucks and turns out it worked for me. I'll use it to seed the DT as well:
Hospital tank:
I had a spare 10 Gal so i painted the sides black and keep it on had in case any of my new fish come with sickness. I'm debating on prophylactic treatments (such as a fresh water dip right after QT on their way to the display) but i need to read more.
Aclimating:
this is my acclimating setup. Reading up on this was just about as varied as QT. I decided on purchasing a 6 quart bucket from the hardware store. When i got the fish home i dumped it and the water right in the bucket, put an airstone in it and drip acclimated it to my QT over an hour. No ill effects yet so time will tell.
Oh yeah, here's my sump:
Well there you have it. I posted this also for myself to reference back but if there are any questions or advice please let me know.
-75 Gal DT, 20 Gal Sump, 15 Gal QT and 10 Gal HT
-70 pounds dry rock, 40 lbs dry pink fiji sand
-Reef Octopus 150 Skimmer, Deep Blue Triton 4 return pump
-Ebay LED strips. (CREE DIY strips)
-The plan is for a FOWLR for abotu 6 months and then maybe some corals
-Objective was to be the most cost conscious while not shooting myself in the foot, which I ended up doing anyways a few times.
Learning Experiences:
Stand-DIY Stand, I wanted it most eye level with some shelving space around it. This idea went terribly. Wasted tons of money on birch plywood, trim, paint and primer. Also made it way to big for my Tiny little living room and it was incredibly heavy. I ended up tearing it apart and just doing 2x4's and put a black fabric skirt around it. looked 10x better and woudl have been cheaper if i just did it the first time around
B4:
After:
Next lesson i learned was that i thought the beananimal overflow would be cheaper, while it seems to be safer in preventing flooding, it definitely was not cheaper. between buying overflows/making it on my own, drill bits, pvc plumbing- i feed i would have been better off with a reefready tank for my first time. One thing i also learned was it would have been better to use thread/thread bulkheads. after gluing everything and making a few mistakes it would have made life a ton easier. Also found a creative way to support the plumbing as well. some threaded rod, pipe clamps and eye bolts is keeping everything rock steady. I would also use a plastic gate valve instead of a ball valve. it was a PITA to tune it just right.
Aquascaping was one of the more fun parts of putting everything together. I used egg crate just under the rocks as i plan on getting a few sand sifting fish. I would definitely recomend putting towels to protect the glass though. already scratched a tiny part of the front pain when a rock tumbled down. BRS reefsaver rock was way easy to aquascape. i did 60 lbs, then had to order an additional 15 pounds so just go for the 1 for 1 off the bat. not so much for filtration purposes but just to give you options aquascaping. i used the left over in my QT and in my sump.
Quarantine Tank: This was a tough one. there are so many different ways to do this and i spent countless hours reading up on it. I also used it to experiment as well since its such a small tank. I will be stocking the DT from scratch so i will need one for a while, so i wanted permanently cycled QT. I used caribsea life rock and bio spiria. I let that simmer with some additional dry rock for 2 days and dosed with plain ammonia to alarm levels according to the ammonia alert. 12 hours later it was back to safe! So-this also was a point of contention because literally 100's of threads said it worked and 100's of threads said it didn't. They each are then followed by pages of flaming each other. It was a QT, only 20 bucks and turns out it worked for me. I'll use it to seed the DT as well:
Hospital tank:
I had a spare 10 Gal so i painted the sides black and keep it on had in case any of my new fish come with sickness. I'm debating on prophylactic treatments (such as a fresh water dip right after QT on their way to the display) but i need to read more.
Aclimating:
this is my acclimating setup. Reading up on this was just about as varied as QT. I decided on purchasing a 6 quart bucket from the hardware store. When i got the fish home i dumped it and the water right in the bucket, put an airstone in it and drip acclimated it to my QT over an hour. No ill effects yet so time will tell.
Oh yeah, here's my sump:
Well there you have it. I posted this also for myself to reference back but if there are any questions or advice please let me know.
