Adam's 55 gallon Reef (Lots o' Pics)

divecj5 · #1 09/20/2006, 07:00 AM

First off, before coming to Reef Central, I was only planning on running a 55 gallon FOWLR. After reading on here for about two months, I was hooked and decided to jump full hands and feet into it and decided to go reef all the way from the beginning.

For monetary reasons (no job after graduating from college), I've spent the last 7-8 months just reading online and admiring all of the great tanks and ideas out there. During that time, I started getting a couple things here and there when money came along so by the time I actually bought a tank, I had a couple of necessary items to get me started (one of which was a biowheel HOB filter that I promptly resold

).

After reading on here and basing the majority of my decisions on reviews and peoples' general opinions, here is the general setup of my tank:

55 gallon AGA tank
60 pounds sugar fine Aragonite
15 pounds reef rocks (base rock)
20 pounds live rock
Coralife Super Skimmer (125 gallon version)
112 watts T5 lighting (2 Coralife Strip lights w/ 1 10k and 1 true 05 actinic in each)

Since I am currently living in an apartment and still am a little leary of building a sump for myself, I are currently running sumpless. I am planning on modding a AquaClear and using that as a HOB refugium but that will come a little later.

The tank itslef was started back in the beginning of August and other than a couple of minor spills and overflowing my super skimmer a time or two (both of which were my fault but luckily I caught it), everything has been going great. So the pics below will show the progression of the tank up to about 2 weeks ago. I have since added some frags, more live rock, and I will hopefully add those pics soon.

divecj5 · #2 09/20/2006, 07:05 AM

The pics below are of the framing up of the stand (with the help of my dad). I decided to go with more of a "modern" look to the stand since I knew that I wasn't going to have a sump I left the bottom open. Of course now all that room is taken up with salt buckets, food, supplements, etc.

Top and bottom framed out with 1x2" and topped with 1/2" plywood top

You'll be able to see the finished product after two coats of Kilz, two coats of a matte black, and two coats of urethane in later pics.

divecj5 · #3 09/20/2006, 07:13 AM

Here's a pic of the tank shortly after bringing it back from Petco. I was able to get it during a 30% off sale on all tanks they had a while back. Needless to say it's a lot heavier than I thought it would be and I remember the look on my girlfriend's face when she first saw how big it was. I told her, you should see what a 90g and some of the other tanks people have on here look like.

divecj5 · #4 09/20/2006, 07:30 AM

After seeing all of the great tanks here, I decided to paint the back of the tank so that the colors in general stand out more and it looks like more of a natural environment. I tossed around whether I wanted to go with the blue or black background and ended up going blue (for that deep blue see look).

I used what seems like the staple around here, Krylon Fusion paint and I think it turned out great. I used about 3-4 light coats to avoid drips and I think that although it came out splotchy in a few spots, it overall turned out more natural looking (well I guess as natural as a painted background can be).

Here's a pic of the tank after being sprayed:

And here it is with the T5's sitting on top:

More to come....

Adam

woodstock '69 · #5 09/20/2006, 07:35 AM

So far so good! You gonna build a stand? Looks like you could, and believe you me it would save you some bucks. Keep posting and good luck.

Michael

divecj5 · #6 09/20/2006, 07:41 AM

Hey Michael. Yeah, I built a stand, I just haven't put the pics on here yet. I haven't/didn't build a canopy for it yet since I will either upgrade my lighting in the future and will include them in it or I might just wait til I get in a more permanent living setup before I decide what size tank I will end up with.

Thanks for the comments.

Adam

divecj5 · #7 09/20/2006, 07:45 AM

Needless to say that it took my dad and I longer to get the stand done than I thought it would. He lives about 30 minutes away so it was a pretty big PITA going out there, putting on a coat or two of paint, and then going back a couple of days later to do the same. It got done all the same and I'm happy with the way it turned out. I have since added another "beam" in the back middle to prevent any sagging (although we have three people stand on the top without any sagging whatsoever.

All Ready and waiting for sand and water

rodgod20 · #8 09/20/2006, 07:45 AM

Like the paint job....coming along nice

divecj5 · #9 09/20/2006, 07:48 AM

Thanks Rod. I've seen some of your tank pics and you have quite the tank as well. I'm looking forward to posting some of the pics of my tank with what's in it now

Adam

Andrew · #10 09/20/2006, 07:58 AM

Looks like a good start to me.

divecj5 · #11 09/20/2006, 08:48 AM

Thanks Andrew....

divecj5 · #12 09/20/2006, 09:01 AM

I debated my next purchase like I was buying a car or something. I didn't really even put much thought into an RO/DI unit until I came to the forum and really started seeing how many times the issue comes up and how many times people have said they wished they would have gotten one in the beginning. I understand that it can easily be done with treated tap water but since I found out that my tap water was running about 50 TDS, I decided to just bite the bullet and get the unit. I went with the PurelyH20 75 gpd unit and I have been really happy with it thus far. I am getting ready to look into replacing some of the filters as my psi has dropped coming out of the unit some.

When I did the initial fill, I added the sand first, smoothed it all out (which was kind of senselss since it's kind of settled where it wants to now that I have powerheads

). I then just placed a large ceramic bowl in the middle of the tank. I siphoned the make-up water from the container to the tank and just let it fill up the bowl and overflow the sides. I filled the tank up half way and then let it sit for a day to kind fo settle out a bit. I then filled it up the rest of the way and then ran my AquaClear with Carbon for a day or two.

I then added the 15 pounds of base rock to the tank and let it sit that way for 2-3 days just to make sure there were no leaks or other problems before I introduced the live rock.

After that period of time and with no problems to mention, I decided to get about 12 pounds of live rock from the LFS and add that to the tank to get things cycling. Here are some pictures of the tank with the 15 pounds of base rock and 12 pounds of live rock:

This is how it has been aquascaped up until 2 days ago when I got more rock and moved things around a bit:

divecj5 · #13 09/20/2006, 09:02 AM

Here are a couple more to tide people over til my next update

Adam

captbunzo · #14 09/20/2006, 10:03 AM

Nice work so far! I love the stand - very different, simple, nice.

I will be staying tuned.....

divecj5 · #15 09/20/2006, 10:36 AM

Thanks for checking it out Paul. I appreciate the comments. I thought the design was nice and clean and different as well. I'm glad that it turned out the way it did.

Adam

divecj5 · #16 09/20/2006, 12:23 PM

Since I have the time...I figure I'll post a little more about my tank. Everything went like clock work for pretty much the first week or so: checking parameters, making sure nothing was out of whack, etc. My readings looked pretty normal to me for the initial cycle at first . All of the live rock that I bought initially was cured so I figured I might get a little spike in NH3 and NO2 but nothing too major. For the first two weeks, I was getting a reading of NH3= .25 and NO2= .4 . I just figured it was a pretty normal thing but thought it was a little strange that ammonia was staying so high.

After another couple days of the same readings, I decided to test something out. I made up some fresh salt water and tested that. Low and behold, the new water was testing at .25 NH3 and .4 NO2 as well. I then took some water to the LFS to make sure I wasn't just testing wrong and they got 0 readings for everything except nitrate that tested at ~4.0. So needless to say that all the testing that I did for the first two weeks was for nothing

but at least I got used to getting into the routine of regular testing.

I went ahead and bought a Laborett test kit and things have been testing at 0 since.

Live and learn I guess....

divecj5 · #17 09/20/2006, 12:32 PM

So after I cleared up the whole testing debacle, I decided to slowly start getting a clean up crew together. First off, thanks Frank (a fellow Reef Centralite in Columbia) and others on here for the suggestions of what types, how many, and when as far as the cleanup crew goes. After I started seeing a little algae developing on my rocks, I figured it was time to get a few snails and hermits.

The first members of house keeping that I introduced were: 3 nerite, 1 bumble bee snail, and 2 blue-legged hermits. Needless to say that they helped out but not really to the extent that I was hoping for. The hermits just tended to scoot along the glass or flipping and crawling along the rock.

I did end up finding a small hitch hiker snail and now it has multiplied somehow and I have three small snails. Here's a picture of him/her on my mag float:

After they were in the tank about a week and a half, I saw that the LFS had some Astrea snails in stock so I went ahead and got 2 of these to add to the crew. I placed them directly on the patches of green algae I had and they went to work and shortly mowed down the algae. Now they spend the majority of their time either chilling motionless on the rocks or cleaning the glass and everything else in sight. There was something pretty funny that I saw and thought I was going to have to step in. I was getting ready to shut the lights off one night and saw that one fo the nerite snails some how got on top of one of the astreas. It was hilarious watching the astrea go crazy, literally trying to shake the nerite off

It definitely provided some entertainment.

Here are some pics of the astreas going to town:

That's all I have time for today but hopefully tomorrow I'll get this caught up to the present and I'll be able to post some pics of my new aquascaping and two corals I now have

Adam

theatrus · #18 09/20/2006, 12:33 PM

What test kit were you using before? That 0.25 Ammonia reading in any salt water seems to be a common problem.

ttomkat1 · #19 09/20/2006, 12:35 PM

Looking good! Can't wait to see more...

Keep the pics coming!

---ttomkat1

divecj5 · #20 09/20/2006, 12:37 PM

I was using the Red Sea Reef Master kit. The pH test ended up being off as well. It could have just been a faulty or expired kit since I got it off Ebay. I'll know better now to get things either in person or from a reputable site (at least for tests and such).

Have you heard others having the same problems with freshly mixed saltwater? Just curious

divecj5 · #21 09/20/2006, 12:38 PM

Thanks ttomkat1....there will definitely be more to come. I just need to go through some more of my pictures and get them loaded up and then I'll post away.

Adam

captbunzo · #22 09/20/2006, 12:42 PM

I'd love to know, specifically, what Laborett test kit you bought. I am always interested to know about test kits that might actually measure accurately.

And if you haven't read this article by Eric Borneman, I'd highly recommend it. It is one of the better intros I have every seen to what it REALLY takes for a reef tank to become established...

divecj5 · #23 09/20/2006, 12:49 PM

Hey Paul. I ended up getting the Laborett test kit that has the NH3, NO2, pH, and several other freshwater tests that I'll probably never use.

Thanks for the link. I actually read that a while back and followed a pretty good thread that I have marked from Eric. Great info. that everyone should read there.

Adam

captbunzo · #24 09/20/2006, 01:05 PM

If you don't have them yet, add a pH meter and a refractometer to your list. Email me and I'll send you some links... I'm too busy at work to dig them up now...

divecj5 · #25 09/20/2006, 01:09 PM

Sounds good Paul. PM sent. I already have a refractometer that I got on sale from Drs. F&S but will be looking to get a pH meter in the future.

Adam