Introduction and 200g build thread

[Jwalker814]

So I am recently into saltwater hobby. I acquired my first tank after I bought a second hand 75 gallon for my father. Father's Day 2014, I managed to get my hands on a complete running 75g with refug and my dad had always talked about wanting a saltwater aquarium so I gave it to him as he had just gotten rid of his 55g freshwater system. Well long story short after losing about 5 fish to my devilish golden maroons, my father got fed up and gave me the tank back. Well since the fall of last year I have been elbow deep in research and trying to understand this ecosystem we had sitting in the living room. All I knew at the time was my end goal of having a yellow tang, blue tang and an anemone housing a clown - your poster saltwater aquarium.

I had the clowns and a softball size GBT thriving so I moved onto introducing a tang. One by one they died - back to the drawing board I went and it was then that i discovered the Maroons killing my tangs.

At that point in time I decided to leave the 75g alone and start from scratch with a Fluval M60 24g system. went through the motions of establishing the 24g system and off it went. Fought off a large influx of green hair and now it is my prized mix reef.

In mid summer of this year, we bought a house and my parents were pushing for my to get my 75g from their house. I didnt feel like moving it and I had lost interest after losing 3 tangs to my dang maroons so I decided I would throw it up on Craigslist and cut my losses and began digging for a 6' 180+ tank in hopes of housing at least 4 tangs with ease.
Well needless to say while on the hunt for a 6' I found a local crackhead with a 4' 120 drilled that he was giving away - literally. I snagged it up first chance I had to start my new project however while in the mix of cleaning old silicone, I realized the glass was sanded to 80 grit sandpaper or at least looked it. That sent me back on the hunt.
120:

After several months on the hunt for a used tank, I found a guy selling a 210g custom built 7' tank. Tank was a little larger than I wanted but hey 75g to 210g for a tang tank was an easy decision. I still had the 75g which was now housing a handful of Kenya, 2 toadstool and a blue chromis. I took a shot in the dark and offered the guy a trade, my 75g for his 210g.

Well 2 weeks of him sitting on it, I am now the new owner of a 210g tank. Even trade tank for tank no livestock. Only thing I had to purchase was water and a return pump and build a sump/refug. I decided no to let that 120g go to waste so now I have almost 300g of water with a 210g DT.
included with the 210g was enough live sand to put a 2" bed across the bottom, 2 400w MH with spare bulbs, and a Predator downdraft skimmer. Left over from my tank I had a heater, a Hydor circ pump and my live rock w/ corals.

The stand I am in the mix of redoing, I didnt like the plain plywood without doors PO had. and I just finished a mock up of my canopy skeleton. I plan to have a friend at a custom cabinet company make my exterior panels.

My sump consist of 3 chambers, first is overflow baffle where i will house filter sock, bioballs, carbon and other media totaling 12g, the second is a 24g that i may make into a iso/acclimation/frag chamber or refug and the third is 37g I may subdivide again but is currently return/skimmer chamber.

 

[Jwalker814]

this past Saturday while planing out my canopy, disaster struck. The tank was fitted with 2 3/8" thick glass cross braces. I left a MH on one of the braces for approximately 5 minutes after it had already warmed up. The brace cracked clean across. After emergency repairs, I was able to replace the glass with a new piece of 3/8" glass thanks to George at Coral Connection in Kenner, LA. Construction on the canopy continued and it is now mocked up as seen above.

 

[Dtackett]

nice start, gotta ask, did you fill that tank with tap water?

210 is a great size tank and will house your tangs much better than the 75 would have (they would have outgrown a 75 rather quickly) and im surprised he would do a straight trade but it worked out for ya lol. ill be following along. keep us updated!

 

[Jwalker814]

I wish I would have used tap water. Would have saved me almost $250. I made 2 trips 30 miles each trip with two 55g drums. All freshly mixed saltwater. I actually went to the shop 4 days ahead of time to give them a heads up.

 

[Jwalker814]

I'm trying to get these bulbs figured out. The one in the pic on the right is brand new and the one on the left is unknown age. But the one on the left seems brighter.
I also noticed they are different colors. One on the left is bluer and seems to make the tank look cleaner. Believe it's a 14k.

 

[Jwalker814]

And just because I didn't have them earlier. Here is my 24g

Fish/invert:
3 cleaner shrimp
1 midnight domino
1 blue chromis
1 blue spotted watchman
Unkn red leg, blue leg, turbo, Margarita

Coral:
1 candy cane
1 green/brown brain
1 green plate
1 super blue mushroom
1 spotted green mushroom
1 greed stripe mushroom
Kenya sprigs
1 brown/yellow leather toadstool
And some dying/receeding starburst

 

[Dtackett]

I wish I would have used tap water. Would have saved me almost $250. I made 2 trips 30 miles each trip with two 55g drums. All freshly mixed saltwater. I actually went to the shop 4 days ahead of time to give them a heads up.

bub that would have bought a hell of an RODI system and only taken a day or 2 to fill lol but glad its not tap. that could have been bad lol

 

[Jwalker814]

Yea I was telling the guy at the shop how stupid I felt buying 200g of water when I could have bought a rodi cheaper.

Reason I decided to buy was because I'm impatient and wanted to get the cycle going. If I would have ordered it I still wouldn't have received it until today if not tomorrow due to holidays.

 

[Dtackett]

Yea I was telling the guy at the shop how stupid I felt buying 200g of water when I could have bought a rodi cheaper.

Reason I decided to buy was because I'm impatient and wanted to get the cycle going. If I would have ordered it I still wouldn't have received it until today if not tomorrow due to holidays.

yeah, being impatient gets expensive in this hobby lol what are you using to start your cycle? I recommend buying the Dr. Tims once and only kit. its his bacteria and ammonia that will cycle your tank quickly. youll still have your diatom blooms and stuff but it establishes the bacteria colonies extremely fast.

 

[Jwalker814]

40ml a day of brightwells microbacter and ~75g of my old water

 

[Jwalker814]

So I need advice for fish in this 200g. Tank is 7'x2'x2'.

Gonna have minimal rock structure for now as I would rather have actively swimming fish.

Current wish list is
Blonde naso (male)
Blue hippo
Yellow
Orange shoulder
Caribbean blue
Sail tang

Pair of clowns - anything but maroonshe and tomatoes

A wrasse or two.

And a Goby or two

 

[Jwalker814]

So I need advice for fish in this 200g. Tank is 7'x2'x2'.

Gonna have minimal rock structure for now as I would rather have actively swimming fish.

Current wish list is
Blonde naso (male)
Blue hippo
Yellow
Orange shoulder
Caribbean blue
Sail tang
Open to other types or tang as well.


Pair of clowns - anything but maroonshe and tomatoes

A wrasse or two.

And a Goby or two

@3FordFamily
You seem to be a resident tang expert, thoughts?

 

[4FordFamily]

@3FordFamily
You seem to be a resident tang expert, thoughts?

Your list looks pretty solid for a tank that size. Just add the zebrasoma at the same time and the carribean blue is different enough from the orange shoulder that you should be ok (even though they're both acanthurus tangs, they're different in shape) although carribean blue can be pretty nasty. I would try to add the tangs simultaneously or at least half at a time. Hippo and naso together and then the other 4 perhaps would work.

Be sure to properly qt and great all fish as if they have ich with cp or copper.

 

[Jwalker814]

Well I don't have the place to QT them at this time, atleast not that many so I'm hoping I can get my LFS to help with that. Going tomorrow to see about ordering them and hoping to have them by new years gonna see if they can place them together in their frag tank and acclimate them together. I use their water and our levels should be similar so I'm hoping it will just be a temp acclimation and slight sg for about and hour and they should be good to go.

 

[Jwalker814]

Alright so an update was away for the past couple of days with work and all, so I had lights set up with a timer and I did some evap test while I was away. Not as bad as I was expecting. Now it's time to do some temperature monitoring and see if I'll need to get a chiller. - so far so good. Lights have been up for over and hour and surface temp hasn't changed.

Noticed this amberish film on the rocks and sand. Not concerned just curious to know exactly what it is. I had it when I started my nano and it has since been removed

 

[Jwalker814]

Well another update. Took a trip to LFS to grab some RO water, order my tangs and look for a sand sifter.

Walked out with a sleeper goby. Can't wait to see him change up the sand.

And the LFS is telling me that I will have nothing but issues with my tang wishlist..... Guess it's back to the drawing board.

 

[Jwalker814]

Well I just went and ordered my Caribbean blue today and will hopefully be ordering my others by the end of the week.

 

[Jwalker814]

@3FordFamily just wanted to ask. I may add a vlamingi tang to the list to replace either the orange shoulder or the sail. What are your thoughts on it and the blonde naso together. They are kind of similar in both shape color and sizes

 

[4FordFamily]

@3FordFamily just wanted to ask. I may add a vlamingi tang to the list to replace either the orange shoulder or the sail. What are your thoughts on it and the blonde naso together. They are kind of similar in both shape color and sizes

You should be fine neither are particularly aggressive. Your LFS probable means well but does not seem to know what it is talking about. Mixing tangs is always a risk but with high numbers of different tangs in a large tank the risk is minimized.

 

[Jwalker814]

That's my personal opinion. LFS says that orange shoulder and naso will have issues and that it's a bad combo. Was my first time to that shop. Was an emergency run for RO when my go to was closed.