My 75 gal build thread from Alabama

[bfbrown]

Brian from Huntsville Alabama. Here are some pics from my 75 gal reef build. These pictures are from the start back about a year ago in Nov 2013. This is the original curing of the dry rock from Bulk Reef Supply and the build of my stand. I let the rock sit in circulated heated saltwater for about a month before rearranging and starting with livestock. Was a good start i thought, but as the next few posts will show, there were some setbacks and things went downhill. Maybe my experience can help others avoid costly and time consuming mistakes. Lets just say RODI and quarantine seem critical to me. Now a little over a year later, I'm where i should have been after 3-6 months, but I think back on track.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Moved to current forum: Member tanks.

Looking good!!

 

[H@rry]

Great job on the stand! You can drive a truck over that one! Craftsmanship is awesome and it looks very sturdy.

 

[ReefKeeper09]

That stand is remarkable. Do you have any additional pictures or video on how you made that stand. I am in the process of making one myself & this one just looks amazing!

 

[YHSublime]

Nice rock work! Tagging along!

 

[spspirate]

Coming along! Very nice stand you built.

 

[bfbrown]

I don't have any more pictures or videos of my build, unfortunately, at the time just didn't think about it. but it's pretty much like this guys: Building the 75 G Aquarium Stand - YouTube much like his, I wanted to make sure the load was carried evenly so i did the corner 2X4 supports between the top rectangle and the bottom. The longer 2X4 in the inside is only for stability, which i didn't make support as tall as the guy in the vid. I also put a 2X2 cross brace span between the corners to help keep it square, which turns out they work great to hang stuff by. If you noticed, my top rectangle is also 2X6 cause i had some extra lumber that size plus it assured i wouldn't need a center brace (with no bowing under load) which makes it easier to work in the sump. i think the floor is 3/4 inch (might be 1/2) cut to fit around the legs. After the frame was built, the rest was just for looks. I wrapped it in 1/4in ply, then used the table saw,chop saw, and router to do all the trim work. The rounded piece under the lip was purchased, along with the hinges and knobs. If i had to size it again i probably would have made it hold a 40B. harry is right, It's way overdesigned, this stand could probably hold well over 10k lbs (prob close to 20k) and the various bracing helps with racking, which would be more likely. if you look at commercial stands they are much less robust (usually 2x2 frame or maybe just ply), but still hold the weight. Guess you could say I prefer some extreme robustness and no worries even years down the road.

 

[bfbrown]

Initial Setup

So after the rocks finished curing (which was in a 55 btw) i got the 75 reef ready setup on the new stand in it's final place. (btw leave room behind the tank to get a magnet cleaner and move cords, i didnt and wish i had). This is the equipment i had (most was second hand):
Lighting : 4 bulb HO t5 with 2 atinic and 2 10k,
water movement: started with one koralia 1050s and added another one a month later
return pump: quite one 4000
50 pounds of dry rock and 40 lbs of figi pink arag alive sand
Skimmer: coralife needle wheel 125
Sump: a 20L that i got glass cut and added the baffles
heater: aqueon pro 100watt
I used the clear vinyl tube from lowes for drain and return. Started with no sock, but microbubbles were annoying and adding one helped with the noise. turns out i like using a sock and doesnt take that much time to clean. This is a picture from December 2012.

I really liked the idea of a refugium when i was researching , so I started with one in the center chamber of my sump with sand, chateo, and little rubble. I used a clip light from lowes with a 6500k bulb. and some eggcrate to hold the cheato away from the return pump. looked all over and couldn't find a picture of this. Added in my first little clown fish and a clean up crew with various snails and crabs.

After waiting a few weeks (to let the bio filter catch up) and performing drip acclimation was followed in the next couple months by a 2 chromis, a diamond goby, a royal gramma, a fire fish, second clown, cleaner shrimp and a couple coral frags from friends ( a few from a frag swap NARC had) leather, xenia, dragon eye zoa, green trumpet, yellow poylps, GSP

everything seem to be going well, so i added the more expensive livestock: a hippo tang, a flame angel, bought a grape coral and red montipora frag by the end of March 2013 (5 months old) the tank looked like this.

As you can see some warning signs were starting (specifically the hair algae)...

 

[3Twinklets]

Very nice!

 

[shovelrider]

Looking really good. Do you have any pics of the sump area? What size return pump are you using?
I enjoy seeing home built stands, and you did a very nice job on yours.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Nice!!

 

[bfbrown]

I'm using the quiet one 3000 rated at 780gph. This is picture of my sump now.

I removed the refugium because it seem to clog up stuff too much and made the sump a pain to clean, plus having the light down there just made algae grow everywhere. If i do a refugium again it will be a separate tank.
Thanks for all the compliments on my stand.

 

[YHSublime]

Is that one of those coralife skimmers? I used one on my first build for about a week, I would highly recomend trying something else.

 

[sprinklerdudes]

I moved my refugium to a seperate tank, the light not only made the stuff in the refugium grow, but also on everything else in the sump, and a pain to clean. I have a five gallon acrylic tank, with media and cheto and a cheap 24" floresent light, works great.

 

[bfbrown]

Things started down hill

So from my previous post things were going well, but if you noticed there was a mighty tuffed of hair algae. I didn't know it at the time, but this was a sign of the terrible things to come. These are pictures from about a month later. As you can see the hair algae is in full force. At this point it was starting to overgrow and kill the few corals i had. So what did I do? Like a noob I decided to get a couple more fish to help with the algae problem - a lawnmower blenny and a yellow tang. (i.e. breaking the "don't get more livestock to solve problems" rule)

There are not any more pictures after these because the hair algae only got worst spreading like a slow moving wildfire across my live rock, killing a few corals. The majority of my fish got ich (or something along those lines) and died. The only survivors where the cleaner shrimp, one chromis, and the diamond goby along with the few corals that were on frags and i could move away from the hair. I pulled them and moved them to a friends house. At that point i had a decision to make, give up on the tank i had only 6 months in (but a good chunk of $) or try to fixed things (which would also take $).

 

[chefb_5]

I would def keep ur head up we all had to go through this and what I think works is a sea hair those things clean up like a hoover vacuum! It might take a few days for the slug to notice, but when it does wholly cows! I have a 90 gallon that happened to and when it started cleaning it only took about 2 weeks. With only one sea hair amazing right! When u get that bad boy in make sure u can keep up a bi-weekly water change. Have any more ? LMK

 

[bfbrown]

The restart

As you can guess since I'm posting here, i decided to fix my mistakes, restock, and try to get the tank running smoothly.
First off, i let me tank sit fishless for 6 weeks to allow whatever parasite/illness killed my fish to goes through it's life cycle and die. Second, I took out each rock and painstakingly scrub off the hair with a toothbrush. After study and inner reflection i determined what had gone wrong:
1) i was lazy and didn't do enough water changes, thinking back i figure only about 2 changes in the 6 months
2) i was using tap water with declorinator for top offs
3) i didn't test my water after the first month so i had no idea what the levels were
4) i didn't use a quarantine tank which wouldn't have stop the algae, but could have help prevent the fish deaths
5) maybe not a cause, but i also didn't utilize any chemical media and had old bulbs

Big Change #1
So first thing I set up a water change station in my garage. This way i could make way and use a pump to do changes and not have the biggest deterant of lifting buckets. i also bought a bulk reef 75gpd RODI. (the one picture was borrowed from a friend till my arrived) This picture is from July 2013. already had to change the color-changing DI resin

Big Change #2
I started doing 20 gal water changes, cleaning the sock and skimmer, vacuuming the sand, blowing rocks, cleaning the sump, and other general housekeeping every 2 weeks. I attach a siphon to a garden hose to drain down the driveway and to the sewer and I connected up a Mag 7 with an attachment to the same hose to pump from my mixing barrel into the tank.

Big Change #3
I setup a quarantine tank. 20L with hang on the back filter,light and heater. this picture is from Aug 2013. All my current livestock has spent min 3 weeks in it. My royal gramma and firefish had ich and were copper treated in it and are doing great in the DT now. I won't lie, it takes a bit of work to have the quarantine. More water changes and cleaning, more top off, another tank to feed, more water to test, and more equipment (though not terribly expensive). I drain the water out the window to the sewer and refill using the same pump as the DT. In my opinion its well worth it.

Other Changes #4
I bought a media reactor and run a mix of GFO and carbon changing it out about once a month. I put a bag of purigen in the sock (which ive revived once). I also bought 4 new ATI bulbs (2 blue plus, coral plus, aquablue special) for my fixture since it seem like the bulb were original. The picture below is bluer than reality.

So fast forward to now... i have 6 fish and cleaner shrimp (the survivors made it back!) in the DT and have just added a RBTA. I have a flame angel and yellow tang in quarantine doing great so far. These pictures show the tank as it is right now.

I wouldn't say things are perfect, but things are going much better. I still have just a touch of nuisance algae and for some reason can't keep xenia alive, but all fish are doing well and other coral (frogspawn, candy cane, yellow polyps, even montipora) are doing good too. Well that's my story thus far. In short, use RODI, setup a quarantine, and don't avoid water changes! if anyone has questions ill be more than happy to help the best i can. Brian

 

[Flameback Pair]

Subscribed.

 

[EW_Fish]

On the brute can is that copper or brass valve fitting?

 

[PCygni]

As you can guess since I'm posting here, i decided to fix my mistakes, restock, and try to get the tank running smoothly.
First off, i let me tank sit fishless for 6 weeks to allow whatever parasite/illness killed my fish to goes through it's life cycle and die. Second, I took out each rock and painstakingly scrub off the hair with a toothbrush. After study and inner reflection i determined what had gone wrong:
1) i was lazy and didn't do enough water changes, thinking back i figure only about 2 changes in the 6 months
2) i was using tap water with declorinator for top offs
3) i didn't test my water after the first month so i had no idea what the levels were
4) i didn't use a quarantine tank which wouldn't have stop the algae, but could have help prevent the fish deaths
5) maybe not a cause, but i also didn't utilize any chemical media and had old bulbs

Big Change #1
So first thing I set up a water change station in my garage. This way i could make way and use a pump to do changes and not have the biggest deterant of lifting buckets. i also bought a bulk reef 75gpd RODI. (the one picture was borrowed from a friend till my arrived) This picture is from July 2013. already had to change the color-changing DI resin


Big Change #2
I started doing 20 gal water changes, cleaning the sock and skimmer, vacuuming the sand, blowing rocks, cleaning the sump, and other general housekeeping every 2 weeks. I attach a siphon to a garden hose to drain down the driveway and to the sewer and I connected up a Mag 7 with an attachment to the same hose to pump from my mixing barrel into the tank.

Big Change #3
I setup a quarantine tank. 20L with hang on the back filter,light and heater. this picture is from Aug 2013. All my current livestock has spent min 3 weeks in it. My royal gramma and firefish had ich and were copper treated in it and are doing great in the DT now. I won't lie, it takes a bit of work to have the quarantine. More water changes and cleaning, more top off, another tank to feed, more water to test, and more equipment (though not terribly expensive). I drain the water out the window to the sewer and refill using the same pump as the DT. In my opinion its well worth it.


Other Changes #4
I bought a media reactor and run a mix of GFO and carbon changing it out about once a month. I put a bag of purigen in the sock (which ive revived once). I also bought 4 new ATI bulbs (2 blue plus, coral plus, aquablue special) for my fixture since it seem like the bulb were original. The picture below is bluer than reality.

So fast forward to now... i have 6 fish and cleaner shrimp (the survivors made it back!) in the DT and have just added a RBTA. I have a flame angel and yellow tang in quarantine doing great so far. These pictures show the tank as it is right now.


I wouldn't say things are perfect, but things are going much better. I still have just a touch of nuisance algae and for some reason can't keep xenia alive, but all fish are doing well and other coral (frogspawn, candy cane, yellow polyps, even montipora) are doing good too. Well that's my story thus far. In short, use RODI, setup a quarantine, and don't avoid water changes! if anyone has questions ill be more than happy to help the best i can. Brian

Now we're talking!