HybridAZN's 180 gallon build

hybridazn · Jul 3, 2016

Fish moving day! Today marked the day the cleaner wrasse and Lawnmower blenny graduate from the qt tank to the 180. The move was quick and painless since temp and salinity match.

I also picked up some fish from @mdbannister since he is tearing his tanks down for the move

Current fish in the qt are:
Blue hippo tang
Yellow tang
Sailfin tang
Melunarus wrasse
Starry blenny
Pair of black ice clownfish.

The clown fish I am just holding for him until he gets his stuff setup after the move (unless the wife grows attached lol

) and the hippo and wrasse will go in the 180. The yellow and Starry will find their home in my frag system. The sailfin will be rehomed to someone else (not sure who yet) after I do treatment. The blue hippo has Ich so tonight I dosed the initial dose of cupramine.

I will take pics of everything sometime tomorrow hopefully.

aquavista99 · Jul 4, 2016

Amazing work on modifying your own recirculating skimmer pumps!!! Those Ehiem 1262 pumps are built to last too! Very nice!!!

hybridazn said:
The Ehiem 1262 is the pump I chose to use as replacements for the recirculation pumps on my skimmer. I'm just replacing the one for now since the impeller in the gx-4100 swelled and stalled the pump.

Now I'm sure everyone is like, "the ehiem impeller isn't what you want for proper skimming" and that was a question I had when I was searching for a proper replacement. I know that Reef Dynamics uses the 1262 as the recirculation pumps on their external skimmers so that also helped in the decision.

Now on to the impeller issue, I thought about just buying the 1262 from the Reef Dynamics surplus store but the price was nearly $300! A little out of my price range, so I thought I'd just order the needle wheel impeller they use and it's $150. Again, a little more than I expected. By the time I buy the pump and impeller I should just buy it from them directly. So I needed to figure something out, I went ahead and ordered the pump because it's the one I wanted and I figured I would make something work.

So the pump arrives

I open it up and remove the impeller. I used a razor blade to cut off the paddles

There is a ceramic insert in the impeller so if you do this be careful not to break that. After I cut off the paddles I took my dead sedra 5000 impeller and ripped off the needle wheel

My plan was to install this onto the ehiem impeller to make a needle wheel, and it was insanely easy. The hole that goes thru the needle wheel where the ceramic shafts goes is a little small. So I took a 1/4" drill bit and drilled it out. I then took the NW and pushed it onto the ceramic shafts of the impeller. It was a little snug but that is what was needed to hold it on. It was the perfect size! I thought I took a pic of the NW beside the paddles to show that they were the same size width wise but apparently I did not, whoops lol.

Here is the new needle wheel installed in the pump housing

I put the cover back on and test ran it in my frag tank to see if it would run and it was a quiet as can be. Not bad so far, the price of the pump was $144 from BRS, and if you had to buy a new sedra impeller for the needle wheel it runs $50. So for under $200 you can have a 1262 needle wheel skimmer pump, not a bad savings if you ask me.

I won't be able to install it onto the skimmer until maybe this weekend, but my weekend is booked solid so it might not be until Sunday night I can get to it. So stay tuned for more updates

hybridazn · Jul 4, 2016

aquavista99 said:
Amazing work on modifying your own recirculating skimmer pumps!!! Those Ehiem 1262 pumps are built to last too! Very nice!!!

Thanks Tim!

redsea01 · Jul 5, 2016

Wow congrats on the new fish additions. How did the Lawnmower Blenny and Cleaner Wrasse take the move? I hope well.

hybridazn · Jul 5, 2016

redsea01 said:
Wow congrats on the new fish additions. How did the Lawnmower Blenny and Cleaner Wrasse take the move? I hope well.

Thanks!

The 2 took the move wonderfully, the salinity and temps matched so I just dumped them in. The blenny went into hiding for about an hour and has been out ever since. The wrasse stayed in the open and acted like he owned the joint lol.

Afishionado · Jul 5, 2016

wow that's some haul on the fish... stinks to hear that @mdbannister is tearing down his tank.

Daniel@R2R · Jul 5, 2016

Afishionado said:
wow that's some haul on the fish... stinks to hear that @mdbannister is tearing down his tank.

Only temporarily, my friend. We're moving next month to sunny SoCal, so as soon as we get settled, I'll be getting a new reef going.

hybridazn · Jul 5, 2016

Afishionado said:
wow that's some haul on the fish... stinks to hear that @mdbannister is tearing down his tank.

Yea it does stink, but he'll be back with a bigger, better setup

mdbannister said:
Only temporarily, my friend. We're moving next month to sunny SoCal, so as soon as we get settled, I'll be getting a new reef going.

Booooooo cali hahaha

Arron209 · Jul 5, 2016

@mdbannister Welcome to the best coast!

Afishionado · Jul 5, 2016

mdbannister said:
Only temporarily, my friend. We're moving next month to sunny SoCal, so as soon as we get settled, I'll be getting a new reef going.

glad to hear that! It's hard not having a tank. Trust me, I'm twitching from withdrawal right now lol.

hybridazn said:
Yea it does stink, but he'll be back with a bigger, better setup

Booooooo cali hahaha

can't wait to see the new set up!

redsea01 · Jul 7, 2016

hybridazn said:
Thanks!

The 2 took the move wonderfully, the salinity and temps matched so I just dumped them in. The blenny went into hiding for about an hour and has been out ever since. The wrasse stayed in the open and acted like he owned the joint lol.

Awesome, happy to hear that! LOL at the Wrasse...I love a good confident fish!

Daniel@R2R · Jul 7, 2016

Boooo...No pictures of the new guys in QT.

hybridazn · Jul 7, 2016

mdbannister said:
Boooo...No pictures of the new guys in QT.

Haha, I have been home zero minutes it seems lately lol. Maybe this weekend?

redsea01 · Jul 7, 2016

hybridazn said:
Haha, I have been home zero minutes it seems lately lol. Maybe this weekend?

We will be waiting anxiously for the update! No rush though.

hybridazn · Jul 7, 2016

redsea01 said:
We will be waiting anxiously for the update! No rush though.

Well @mdbannister is coming down Saturday, so maybe I'll give him a quick tutorial on shooting pics and let him take some and post those hehehe

redsea01 · Jul 7, 2016

Sounds good! It will give him so good practice, AND we get to see the new guys. Sounds like a plan to me. Thumbs up.

hybridazn · Jul 11, 2016

Some pics from tonight, @mdbannister came down saturday but we didn't get to take any pics really. So I have to take "credit" for these ones I suppose lol. So here they are

Lawnmower Blenny chilling in the 180 like a boss

Cleaner wrasse that just would not sit still for me to take a pic, sorry for the quality of the pics. Best I could get with the time I wanted to devote to getting pics tonight lol.

DJ the Desjardini Sailfin photo bombing me while I was trying to get a pic of my Coral beauty angel.

Elegance Coral looking really good. I can't wait for this thing to get bigger

Now time for pics of the guys in the QT. Pics were harder to take here because light is lacking here lol.

Up first is Dory

Send in the clowns….

Sailfin Tang "hiding"

Yellow tang

Melunarus wrasse would not face me to take a pic, I thought I had him here but he turned his head at the last second lol

But then I got him on this one hahahaha

The pirate ship seems to be the cool spot for blennies to hang out at in the QT. The lawnmower loved it here and now the Starry blenny is loving it haha

Today marked day 10 for the copper treatment. All fish in the QT are looking good and are eating like pigs. More updates to come later

Thanks for looking!!!!