Shaun's 120G Build

[Shaun_in_Cali]

Today is the tanks first birthday. It has been a year since I first filled it with salt wate, and began the cycle. From zero beginnings and experience the tank now has over 50 inhabitants. There are currently 13 fish, 3 shrimp, an anemone, an urchin, 28 SPS, 4 LPS and 2 Zoanthids plus clean up crew. It is functioning relatively well, although as always there is room for improvement.

I have been through Cyano, Dinos, GHA, and dealt with a few Aiptasia. At the present there is a small, slow growing patch of dinos that I am about to do battle with again!

However, despite the frustrations it has been great to sit down and think that this is something that I have been able to create, with my own hands, from scratch.

Happy reefing.

 

[Shaun_in_Cali]

So the second thing that I would put in my 'I learnt about fish tanks from that' basket was the sump. I made a home made Sump from a repurposed 40G I found on offer up. Got some glass cut from a local glazier and drilled the hole for the external return pump myself.

What I did wrong in this case was that I had fallen into the trap that 'More water volume is better' and in my noob state I raised the baffles/wiers too high. I had intended to use one section as a refugium which was a driving factor for this. As a result there were 2 negative consequences - the first was that return section was only a few inches below the top of the sump. When there was spray/bubbles popping it went above the rim of the sump. You can see the mark this left on the internal wall in the 4th photograph.

The second consequence was that the water height was all wrong when I got my skimmer up and running. As a result I had to block it up.

The last was that in the event of a power failure was that I was pretty marginal in volume - the water draining from the display was very close to overflowing. To the extent that I was uncomfortable.

First sump under the tank. Don't mind the mess!

What I did, about 6 weeks ago now, was to remove the sump, cut the wiers out, cut the glass, and rebuild the sump. This time I measured them appropriately. As a result I no longer get overspray, if I do it is so minimal that I have not noticed. And secondly the skimmer can sit on the bottom, no dramas. Lastly I'm much more comfortable now that if there was a power failure I wouldn't overflow my sump.

Rebuilt sump under tank.

Of note the small black pump in the bottom left corner of the sump is there to provide mixing for where my dosing unit dumps solution in. This is something else that I improved from before. When I didn't have this pump there was definitely some sedimentation when I dosed Calcium (minor) and Alk. Now there is none.

 

[Shaun_in_Cali]

FTS for update this AM, sorry about the reflection. Of note you can see the small frag rack with my first two fragged corals. They were beginning to grow into another coral so I cut them off.