Hello friends. It's time for me to start from scratch again after uncontrollable circumstances forced me out of this hobby a little while ago (I had a 55 softy tank for a number of years.) While in the middle of remodeling our front room recently, I decided that now is as good a time as any to get back into it.
I picked up this sweet 100 gallon (60x20x18) tank/stand/misc goodies off my local craigslist a few weeks ago, and I've been lurkin on these forums in the mean time and picking up things as I go along. My skimmer is showing up Monday and I think I'm about ready to start filling this bad boy up with water. Probably tomorrow.
Time for some pics:
Ze Full Tank Shot, with a pile of power heads and some pvc that I was messing with for aquascaping. Most of the powerheads came with the tank deal.
Wet dry converted to refugium, plumbed into a generic target bin for sump (roughly 40 gallons of extra volume total)
Power outlets/timer array to be mounted under the stand, as far away from the sump as possible. I'm gonna rig the 5-stage somewhere in my garage and get creative with making it get to the tank
One of the many goodies that came with the tank. This was brand new, never even opened.
My camera died after that last pic but I'll keep this all well updated. As I said, my skimmer is showing up monday (NW200) as well as a bunch of testers and other junk from marine depot. I'll order the lighting soon. I'm going to order the 4x60" t-5 retro from reefgeek with Blue plus x 2, Aquablue, and GE 6500k. Overdriven 60 inchers put outabout 100 watts each, so this should be plenty of light for my tank since it isn't all that deep.
This is going to be the full setup:
100 acrylic tank w/ overflow
20 gallon fuge
~20 gallon sump
Octopus NW200 skimmer
4x60" t-5 retro (2x icecap 660)
~100 lb live rock, with a few base rocks if I need them
rio2500 (return pump)
seio620 x 2
maxijet900 w/ mod
rio200 to hide in the rocks
25 watt UV sterilizer
80-100 lbs of sand
2 heaters (I think one is 300w and the other is 150w)
20 gallon gravity fed auto top off (still in the works)
My goal with this tank is to keep it as simple as possible to maintain. It doesn't get too hot where I live, and with only t-5 lighting my evaporation will be minimal (My last tank I remember was reeeealy slow.) A 20 gallon brute trash for auto top off can be cleverly hidden in the garage behind the wall that the tank is on. With proper amounts of kalk mixed in it (with an air tight lid I'm told,) should make maintenance a breeze. I don't plan on keeping SPS, but if I ever get bitten by the bug, I have enough room in my hood to add 1 or 2 more bulbs. I wont even need another ballast. I might even be able to get away with one or two forgiving specimens kept way up high. Other than that, I plan on a fiesta of soft and hard corals with a clam or two. I see frags for sale all the time on my local craigslist and I plan to stock up on as many different colors as possible and let the tank grow out. Fish list I still have time to work on. As soon as the skimmer arrives (assuming I finished the plumbing and got it filled with SW) I think I'll hop down to the LFS for live rock.
Questions, comments, concerns, don't hold back. I'm sure I forgot to list something. These threads are some of my favorite to read (and I know I'm not the only one) so I am doing my part to give back to this wonderful community. I am getting anxious now to fire up the RO/DI. Probably a good idea to plumb it first. Feel free to tag along, there will be plenty more updates to come.