Mickey's 210

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

started this build about 2 weeks ago. its an upgrade from my 75. not entirely sure what direction this tank will go in. i havent been the best reef keeper, mainly overstocking and failing to complete the husbandry my tank required. i'm hoping for a new start with everything I've learned. i did keep freshwater fish about 25 years ago, but only started keeping marine life about 2 years ago.

i am working on a budget, so this build will not have all the bells and whistles, but we'll see how far we can get with what we have and make necessary purchases when required.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

This build actually started with a second hand 150, I just never really liked that tank although I had it for over a year. So after never building the 150, I lucked out on getting a steal of a deal on a new tank. Many thanks to the reef keeper I bought this from.

The fellow I bought it from was nice enough to throw in the stand he built. Think he decided the tank was just too tall after building the stand. What a steal huh?

I moved into an old house down on the jersey shore almost 2 years ago. i havent done much remodeling because we will be forced to raise the house once we reach a certain # on repairs, so we're still figuring out that how to remodel in our budget.

This is the spot where the tank will go, i'll keep it 14" off the wall. this whole house has windows everywhere like 50 or 60 windows when I counted. single level ranch on a crawlspace.

I was going to brace the floor but it turns out that i've got a cement floor in the front room. theres no way to get under this particular crawlspace like the rest of the house, guess it used to be a sunroom or something like that.

Bought some panels i knew my wife would like for the stand. still havent figured out what im doing with the doors/access panel

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

The stand did need a little work, nothing a grinder and some paint couldn't fix. it was also missing a few supports, but I took care of it.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

So I nearly got the tank lifted on the stand by myself, i'm not that big though.. anyway saw a couple of young guys launching a boat next door and i asked them to help me out.

Here you can see one of the supports I added and I've added 1/4" birch on the floor and rear. think adding it on the floor was a mistake. i may pull it off and add plywood down there with the birch on top of that and a coat of plastidip

Birch on the sides. i got all these pieces cut at home depot cause i dont have a garage or tool shop here. i used staples on my brad gun to attach it

Attached the side panels for now. I also picked up these panels at home dept. probably going to put a molding on the bottom. i didnt bother to cover the tank frame because i think leaving it exposed will give you more warning if a seam is releasing. the tank is new but aqueon workmanship is not AWESOME. i practically got the tank for free so I am not in a position to complain.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

So heres where I was at with it. I primed it will Killz. had bought it for the house but I didn't like the way is was spraying out of the gun, bit too thick, didnt have that "factory" look and i'd rather just use water based paint in the gun, easier to clean. This room hasnt been painted yet as you can see.

So my plan was to cycle all new rock with this tank as my 75 had some "pests" not really pest but I'd rather live without them, worms, sponges, astrina stars. anyway not sure how im going to get them pest free without killing all the bacteria and nice color they have. maybe i'll try starving the rock until all the pests consume each other. Bought a few bottles of biospira to kick start my new cycle.

so i bought a new cartridge for my home ro system, its now a rodi system. this addresses one of my previously mentioned husbandry problems. i picked up the di resin from marine depopt pretty cheap and the small bag had enough to fill this cartridge 2 or 3 times.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

My tank is going to be bare bottom and the plastic sheet i ordered finally got here! salesman was nice enough to let me ship it rolled otherwise shipping would have been like 100$. total was like $45 with shipping. my last tank was sand and i had colonies of feather dusters, bristleworms.

super big piece, ended up using less than half. my final cut was something like 22.5x70.70
Bonus! kids had a good time sliding around on it first though! dont laugh at the carpet lol. my kids destroy everything, im not spending money until they learn how to act right. haha

Measured out my first cut. this abs sheet is from a company in california called eplastics. i really tried to source it local in new jersey but couldnt find it. part of the reason it arrived so late.

i scored the back of the sheet and it basically just snapped in half. its textured on one side and smooth on the other side. i scored the smooth side. eplastics will also cut it down to size for you if you want. its $20 per cut. decided to try it myself and couldnt believe how easy it really was. no rooms for mistakes though. just use a steady had on your cuts and no problems. if you have problems with your hands, just let them cut it for you.

the plastic i used was .060 thick. i didnt know how thick that was and thought really that it would be very thin. moreso when the salesman agreed to ship it rolled up. but you can see here i have 2 credit cards to compare the thickness and it is way thicker than i thought. no way a falling rock is going to pierce this.

this is the shorter end i scored, you can see how it breaks when snapping it off.

bad shot of the textured side but you get the idea.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

so my tank has the dreaded old school overflows. i just took a white piece of paper and pressed it real hard against the top of the overflow to get the form.

pretty easy to just cut the form after that. better shot of the textured side in this photo really,

after a bit of measuring, cutting and grunting...

bit of trimming after, this is a custom job LOL but yeah it fit nicely.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

dont want it to float up

i didnt go crazy with it, hope its enough LOL maybe my rockwork will have to hold it down HAHA

drying. tube says 48 hrs after this i put a heater on the bottom theres a plywood shelf so its not right on the glass and i threw a fan on the inside to move the air in there.

believe it or not, rolling up this left over sheet was the hardest part so far!

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

todays plans:

replace bottom shelf with thicker plywood.
screw in additional supports i've already cut and temporarily installed
level tank
begin to fill (ive got about 70 gallons made up as of this morning)
bit of aquascape

planned fish:

tangs
1 sailfin
1 yellow
1 tomini
1 powder blue
1 yellow belly blue

chromis
2 blue-green
2 black and white
2 lemon

cardinals
2 pj
2 benggai

clownfish
1 true sebae

damsels
1 bluefin
1 blue velvet
1 blue
1 lemon

wrasse
1 six line

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

put the new plywood floor in. ripped off one of the side panels with the ***** underneath. going to utilize that space for a control panel. got some of my rock in. and started filling.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

today i'll be working on flow and aquascaping.

flow goals:
1. eliminate dead spots on floor of tank (particularly under rocks + right rear corner and rear wall between overflows)
2. direct all floor flow into rear or front left corner for easy siphoning

Aquascaping goals:
1. move entire rockscape closer to rear wall
2. create extra caves and hiding places



Also:
i've added a couple of rocks from an established pest free tank. will add 3 or 4 more from that tank + a ton of established bio media into display until sump is complete

tank is about 2/3 filled with water, but plumbing and sump/refuigium not done yet

have not decided on what style of drain and returns to use. originally wanted to go bean animal for noise and safety but wife says tank is not in bedroom so noise not a factor and she would also rather have all plumbing in tank/cabinet - so this will eliminate some of my plumbing ideas)

will use 20g long for sump and 10g for refugium with separate return pumps. was unhappy with last sump when combined. i needed different flow rates and it was messy. i like a messy refugium but not sump.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

spent the whole day doing fish stuff. wow I'm exhausted. I broke down 5 tanks holding live stock, got them into the new display. rehoused the damsels in a couple of 10 gallon tanks. and set up a 55 to hold my live rock fallow for several months. I do not believe I have ich in there but I want all the pests dead. although my new display is pretty well stocked with rock but my old display had much nicer live rock. just really nice pieces. I also sold my 56 gallon as well. so a lot happened today.

you can see I have my bricks in there and some established rock along with some mixed bio-media - so plenty of bacteria. I also have about 10 pounds of pumice to drop in there too.i keep it in a fine mesh laundry bag. hopefully before I go to bed tonight. I seeded the tank today with the 3 bottles of bio spira and microbacter 7 as well.

right now this tank is pest free. hopefully nothing sneaks in!!!




this is my fallow tank. I will use covers so nothing goes airborne just in case.


the plan tomorrow is to work on my boat since it will be such a nice day. I'm about 1/3 done on stripping the bottom paint. I'm also going to lift the outboard off the transom to replace the bracket with hydraulic tilt and trim.

in the evening, I will start working on my sump. I need to order the sock holder, but I can do most of my baffles. not sure if I'm going to use valves on the plumbing though. still need to order my new pumps. rest of my livestock should be here on Tuesday. let's hope powder blue doesn't have an ich breakout!

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

my order is in. jebao scp150 and jebao sow20 for flow
4"sock holder and 20 4x14 200 micron socks

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[mickeysreef <*))))<]

so turns out yesterday was not as warm as they predicted so no boat work + it was a migraine day so I was totally out of commish.

whats happening today?

some of the fish are in the tank now for 48 hrs. thats the sailfin, yellow, tomini, pj cardinals and bluegreen chromis....


so sad to say that my true sebae was out of stock at shipping and will not be included. and really if you just knew how much ive wanted this fish for such a long time how bittersweet this fish delivery really is. i could see myself settling for a tomato - would have to be stunning but ehhhh probably not


what else. after much thought, discussion with the wife, have decided to move the sump up to a 40 breeder from the original planned 20 long. the 40 breeder offers an additional 6 inches of length and is capable of holding more water. refuguim is still capped at 10 but maybe i can go to a 20x if i can find one

 

[najer]

Build sounds great, following.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

Thanks for following! I'm actually a bit further along than this thread lets on. Lets catch up then.

Few new inhabitants arrived this past tuesday.

I ordered 1 tiny yellow belly hippo tang. 1 medium powder blue tang, 2 lemon chromis, 2 black and white chromis, 2 small captive bred banggai cardinals and 1 true sebae clown.

whole order shipped last night from California. guy from UPS did not ring the bell but my son saw the truck and we were out there as he was driving away.

opened the box and everything was packed nicely. each fish either double or triple bagged sealed with a metal clamp. the hippo tang had black protective plastic to keep out light.

every fish was packed individually except the banggai cardinals and lemon chromis.

the black and white chromis are pretty big, nearly the same size and were fighting a bit later on so I understand why they came separately.

my go to has been the Petco in brick but recently I've had 3 bad experiences there. I won't flatly blame the store as it's impossible to know exactly what happened each of those times but just figured I'd try something new and with a guarantee. I was actually going to order all these fish at ACC because I've always had good experiences there but again I just wanted to try something new.

sad to say that the true sebae never shipped. I don't know if computer inventory was wrong, he didn't look good enough to ship or what it was but they shipped my order without him. I knew he wasn't coming when they confirmed the order as I could see I the charges. I have really wanted this fish for a long long time and my wife kept saying no no no. I finally said I'm getting it and I don't care what you say LOL. she was ok with that

my order was placed on Thursday however Saturday shipping is suspended because of covid 19. I called Monday morning just before 9am Central to update my order with some supplies. they stated to me that my order had already gone for processing however they would waive and shipping and boxing fees. I didn't end up getting anything else at that point though because it was just supplies and not fish. supplies ship separately and they come ups ground.

I emailed LA as soon as I opened the box and confirmed everything was alive because there was no signature (probably a covid thing) and I wanted to try preserve my guarantee.

I took about 2 hours to acclimate the fish.

all the fish look very good and healthy. I am super impressed with the powder blue. Hippo is so small! he looks good, I'm guessing he is sensitive since he came in the black plastic. everybody eating already and swimming about. I have mirrors up on the front and 1 side to quell aggression. lights are off and I'm very happy with purchase, condition of fish and guarantee I'll have for 2 weeks. would have been absolutely awesome if I could have gotten my clown but everything looks great so far.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

This was past thursday...


not too much happening over here with the tank. seems like all fishys made it through the first 24,b almost 48 by now. just one chromis hiding out probably. don't see him.

bought a bunch of food and prime. also couple extra bottles of bio spira.

have a light I'm throwing on there. picked it up for 120 on Amazon for my nano but way too big for that


my helper for the day









didn't fit in the rim. had to rig it up a bit but did not cut rim











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[mickeysreef <*))))<]

also picked up sump on wednesday




have some old tanks







just made 3 chambers decided to keep it simple


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[mickeysreef <*))))<]

uh oh. the original 20 would have fit in though the side but this 40...

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[mickeysreef <*))))<]

ok so just a few updates. the big one is that I'm nixxing the refugium. because A. I don't have the space under the stand. 69 inches. 40B is 37 inches. leaves very little room. and b. this dual sump idea of mine isn't so great. tanks will have to be connected otherwise flood. so to compensate for the loss of the refugium, I'll be adding a coralife 12x uv and a denitrification reactor. - this is going to be less work than a refugium so it just makes sense.

so I gave the floor of the cabinet a coat of plastidip. I didn't go crazy with like 5 coats because it was stinking up the house. I also used white so I didn't have to worry about overspray.




so yeah I had to drain 3/4 of the tank, remove that marked up brace and slide the sump in. I left all the fish in the tank while I did this, they were fine.



I also decided to hard plumb the tank because I had a return hose get loose on my 75g and don't want that happening again... here are some old bulkheads I'll be using. they are all 1". no worries I used all new gaskets



since I'm upgrading the return from 3/4 to 1. I can run a bean animal drain. I'll still use the adjustable drain pipes that came with the tank though cause they are 1" and... I won't have to cut more PVC



here are my drain lines, the main line and the siphon line. have to order my gate valve still. but I did use some straps. we'll see how it works for now.



here I set up my return line and my emergency drain



yep I broke the baffle...



all fixed. scraping of all that silicone was so much fun!



you thought I did a bad job on the silicone when the sump wasn't under the tank...



so this is probably a temporary return because the tank only came with 3/4 loc-line. I'll have to find some 1 inch soon. that's my emergency drain next to it



for hard plumbing... buy this, it's awesome. I used to do plumbing 25 years ago and I wish we had this.



holy crap, did I buy too many fittings? uh yeah this is what's left over cause I hate going back to the store to pick up an extra 45. lol




soooo. I'll probably fill up the sump later tonight, giving the silicone at least 12 hours to dry. I have a 38 par lamp on it so pretty sure the uv will help it cure a bit faster

not here yet but already ordered. 2 pumps, uv light
will order later today. the reactor, gate valve