Third Time's A Charm!

[dascharisma]

Alright, at this point I think all of you know about my mysterious tank crash. I figure that since I have already ripped all of the corals off the rocks that it is a perfect time to upgrade. This thread will follow my upgrade, but before I get to the new tank I want to show you where I started in this hobby.


The first tank was a 75 gallon tank and stand from Corallville Bay in Iowa City. I spent way more than I should have for such an inadequate setup. Spending $8 a lb. for low quality rock and $50 for a maxijet seemed reasonable at the time. I thought my skilter filter was hi tech.

Tank number 1 August 2004

Obviously I had no clue what I was doing when I started this tank. I had a castle and had dreams of covering the sandbed with GSP to make it look like a field Over time I realized that saltwater was cool because you didn't have to have a castle to make it interesting.





Tank number 1 January 2005

By this point I had upgraded to 150w halides and spent a fortune on live rock (something I will never do again). I kept a few easy corals and never lost a coral the entire time I had this tank set up.






Tank number 1 July 2005

This was taken about a month before moving from Iowa City to Ankeny. I had a hob fuge, a skilter filter, and some living sps frags from Bob and Allen.



I also kept this little 10 gallon tank when I lived in Iowa City. I really liked the idea of an algae filled tank.



Brad

[dascharisma]

My move from Iowa City to Ankeny was not planned far in advance. I made the mistake of transfering all of my corals to Dan Hinch's table tank of death. Everything looked real bad when I took it back from him, and it took a few months to recover.

When setting up tank number 2 at my house in Ankeny I was determined to do things "right". I decided to use a sump and I ended up plumbing the new 90 gallon tank into my basement. I also decided that I should use a better skimmer than the skilter. I upgraded to a remora pro. Here was tank number 2 when i first set it up in August of 2005.

Tank number 2 August 2005


Here it is showing the room it is in.




At the end of November I upgraded the skimmer and lights. Dan Hinch built me a hood to match my stand and we installed 400 w 20k radiums on an hqi ballast. I also went with vho actinics. I upgraded the Remora to an MRC.

Here is a pic with the new canopy, lights, skimmer, and my first Tunze.
Tank number 2 December 2005




In February or March i figured out that I had monti nudis. The nudis were a very big setback, since I had planned on letting the tank become dominated by montis. The tank looked like this before removing the montis and some of the lps. Can you tell I got a new camera for christmas?
Tank 2 February 2006




In May I bought a bunch of frags from atlantis to take up the space lost by all the montis being removed. I think I was running both the mrc and my ASM G5. At this point the tank was simply starving. Looking back now I can't believe I ever thought the corals were healthy.
Tank 2 May 2006




Fast forward 7 months. My corals all looked healthy and had put down some very big bases. I was installing a prop tank in the basement and adding a new skimmer. Then, as you know, disaster struck. Here is the tank 1 day before the crash. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was getting closer.
Tank 2 December 23 2006




Brad

[dascharisma]

Now for the fun part.

I am going to order a new aquarium to replace the old one. The new tank will sit exactly where the old one did. The old tank is 48" X 18" x25" (90 gallons). My wife Sarah and I have discussed it and decided that 60" x 30" x 25/30" (190-230 gallons) is as big as is reasonable in the room. Also, I should have most all of the equipment necessary to run a tank that size. The tank will have low-iron glass and be made by glasscages. They will have a truck in Des Moines on Thursday February the 11 and I plan to pick my tank up from them then.

I realize that there are much better quality tank manufacturers out there, but for a custom size tank I can't even get a tank from the fancy guys for twice the money that glasscages is charging. I am going to steal Bob's idea of the corner inserts on his tank in order to disguise the sloppy silicone work and finish on the new tank. Here is a pic of what I am talking about.




I am going to have Dan Hinch build me a stand and canopy for the tank. I haven't decided on the style but I know that I want it to be very simple and black. If anyone has any cool simple plans I would love to see them.

I know I will have a number of questions for everyone in the next couple of months. I plan to describe the build in a lot of detail (and with lots of pics) so that this thread will help others as much as it will no doubt help me.


Brad

[waverz]

Originally posted by dascharisma
Dan Hinch's table tank of death.

I have that tank in my garage.....

[overanalyzer]

Originally posted by waverz
I have that tank in my garage.....

I saw he had his house up for sale - anyone know what is up with Dan?

[Coralfreak]

Hey Brad,

Cant wait to see the new tank!! I wish you the best, if you need some replacements for anything you lost from me, give me a shout and I'll hook you up.

Allen

[leeweber85]

If you're gonna get a custom tank/stand you might as well get a nice stain finish to match the house rather than just 'black'.

[Covey]

The best way to bonce back from a crash, UPGRADE.

[got2lb]

Congrats on the upgrade!

How are you planning on lighting the new tank? I have a 5' tank and when it comes to lighting it sucks! Everything is either made for 4' or 6' Just something to think about. Are you going to put 2 or 3 halides over it? T5's maybe?

[dascharisma]

Originally posted by leeweber85
If you're gonna get a custom tank/stand you might as well get a nice stain finish to match the house rather than just 'black'.

I agree that doing something to match the house is the best idea. Thing is, my hifi, flat screen and coffee table legs are all black, so having a black stand and canopy matches as well as anything would. Plus, I love black. The background will be black and so will the tank's bottom. I think it makes the corals stand out better. I want the stand and canopy to look plain so as not to be distracting, and I want it to be finished like a piano so it looks classy.


Brad

[mwood]

I believe you can get black stain so you can show off the wood grain and quality of craftsmanship and still have black. Menards is where I saw it.

[dascharisma]

Originally posted by got2lb
Congrats on the upgrade!

How are you planning on lighting the new tank? I have a 5' tank and when it comes to lighting it sucks! Everything is either made for 4' or 6' Just something to think about. Are you going to put 2 or 3 halides over it? T5's maybe?

My plan is to do two 400watt 20k radiums on hqi ballasts in Lumenarc mini reflectors. Then in front and in back of the halides I will put a set of 3 4ft flourescent bulbs. Two vho super actinics on either side of a single t5 daylight bulb. THe photoperiod will start with the 4 actinics, then add the 2 t5s, then add the halides, then remove the halides, then remove the t5s, then remove the Vhos and have moonlight on until the cycle starts again.


IT will look something like the crude sketch.


-----------------VHO--------------------
------------------T5---------------------
-----------------VHO--------------------

moon * HALIDE * moon * HALIDE * moon

-----------------VHO---------------------
------------------T5----------------------
-----------------VHO---------------------



I should have just enough room in the canopy to make this all fit. Right now I have my 6ft frag tank lit with a 4ft t5 fixture. It works just fine, so I figure that 5 feet should be even better. Plus I will finally be getting to use lumenarcs. I have always wanted to use these reflectors, but I never had the room to do it.

In case anyone is wondering why I am using Vhos and T5s, the reason is this. There are not any T5 actinic bulbs that come close to the vho super actinic bulb. I really like the actinic look and I want to have as much "pop" as possible on the corals. I currently have the ballast and endcaps to run four 4ft VHOs. So I figure I might as well use it. If anyone ever makes a T5 actinic bulb that I like as much as the URI Super Actinic VHO, then I will just swap out the VHOs for T5s.

The reason I am going to use 2 T5 daylight bulbs, is because I really like the look of actinic, with just enough white in the mix to take pics. In my current tank, I used to take pics of corals with the actinics and the halide on the opposite side of the tank on. That provided a very cool look. I hope that running a limited amount of T5 bulbs will give a similar effect of mixing actinic and little bit of white. Also, I have heard of some T5 bulbs with a strange spectrum that brings out the reds in things. I might try running those and see how it looks.

Here are a couple of pics I took with a halide on the opposite side of the tank as the corals.

The Chronic rip.


Blue unknown rip



That's not photo shop, it is just a lighting effect. I want to improve on those effects with the new lighting.


Brad

[dascharisma]

Well today I went ahead and tore down my tank. I put everything in the frag tank in the basement, and replumbed things so that the display is simply bypassed. All told it took around 6 hours from start to finish.


Here is the last pic I took in the tank before I started tearing it down.



Here is the tank mid-drain.


Here is the final product. My house feels so empty now.



Here are the corals and fish in their temporary housing.




Brad

[leeweber85]

Your corals are definitely going to 'pop' with 20ks and 4 actinics. You are going to attract all the pot smoking hippies from miles around. Sounds like the new setup is going to be quite impressive.

I wish i had a 125g frag tank!

[Double-J]

What a pretty little nano tank you had lol.

I've talked with Brad about his future tank and it's planned out very well. I'll be anxious to help you set it up when you get it!!! Brad think about getting the 60" versions of the VHO's and T-5's They will fit just fine in the cannopy and your 660 ballasts will run them so the only thing you have to buy are the bulbs and I'm sure your URI bulbs are in need for replacement anyways, although I know your prop tank T5's are 48" which sort of sucks because you won't be able to swap them out to fine tune the look you want. Anyways I know you lost a crap load of $$$ to the tank crashing and I give you props for going back at it in full force! by the time this tank is setup in Feb. I should have a bunch of frags to give ya.

[dascharisma]

Originally posted by tinytool
Brad think about getting the 60" versions of the VHO's and T-5's They will fit just fine in the cannopy and your 660 ballasts will run them so the only thing you have to buy are the bulbs and I'm sure your URI bulbs are in need for replacement anyways, although I know your prop tank T5's are 48" which sort of sucks because you won't be able to swap them out to fine tune the look you want.

Ok, this brings up a good question. Where should I buy my T5 retrofit from. I know I want 2 bulbs, 2 reflectors, and probably a ballast that will overdrive the bulbs. It could be either 48 or 60 inches. If it is 60" it needs to truly be no more than 60" including endcaps and mounts.

As for the VHOs... I thought that my Ice Cap 660 would only light 16 feet of VHO blubs, which would mean that four 4ft bulbs would max it out. Am I wrong about this? Can I light more than 16ft of VHOs with that ballast I already have? My bulbs are over a year old, and I might as well take the opportunity to replace them, seeing as how they may have been related to me losing all my sps.

My last question is what moonlights should I get? I have seen a few different "moonlights" and the only ones I like are the blue ones that come stock in the coralife aqualight pro. JJ had some from the "lesbos" i believe, and they are no good. I am looking for something that is blue, and makes things glow like actinics. They also need to be strong enough so you can see that they are on with a tv going in a dark room.

Brad

[Double-J]

The best place to get the t-5 retrofit would be reefgeek.com or DIYreef.com (although I don't think they sell 60" bulbs). your right about the VHO's I didn't think about that, you would only be able to run 3 rows of 60" vho bulbs. you could run 3 60" rows of t5's and 3 60"rows of VHO's. If you wanted to run 4 rows of VHO's you could buy two 430 ballasts which would give you some more options for sunrise sunset, and it so happens i'm looking to buy a 660 ballast at the moment so.... and two sets of endcaps... For moonlight, here is what I'm using now: http://www.fishbowl-innovations.com/product/moonlights
puts out way more light than the lebos and has some cool features plus you can add another row of 3 making a total of 6 light (12 led's) more than enough light!)

[dastratt]

Don't know if this helps or not but here is a link to a Coralife parts supplier that sells some of their aqualights ... I was steered to them by Coralife and placed my first order with them last week (skimmer parts).

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppro...t_replace.html

[dascharisma]

I plan to build a rock structure out of base rock for the new tank. The problem is, I don't know where to get any base rock. Hirocks.com seems to have gone under, and Reeferrocks.com doesn't seem to be there anymore either. The hirocks site is gone, and although the reeferrocks site is there, you can't order directly off the site at this time. I emailed reeferrocks last week to find out if they are really still in business, and I haven't heard back from them.

So, I need a new place to order base rock from. I already have lots of live rock, so I don't need any of that. Also, I need dry dead rock in order to build the structure the way I want. I would like good quality base rock, but almost anything is better than live rock.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?


Brad

[dascharisma]

I should mention that I also tried calling reeferrocks.com and got no response.

The only other place I have found is marcorocks.com I haven't heard anything about this place, but $3 per pound shipped seems a little steep for base rock.


Brad

[mwood]

If you continue to have trouble finding baserock, I would watch for reefers getting out of the hobby. Can't find a better deal in most cases. May also what to check with Brad Collins to make sure he isn't selling some.

[got2lb]

I heard reeferrocks closed down a while ago but then someone bought it out and they're in the middle of reorganizing things. I heard that capt. jer is still going to be running things though. If you ever hear back from them that's the way I would go. They "had" some pretty nice stuff. That's all I have in my tank.

[dascharisma]

Originally posted by mwood
If you continue to have trouble finding baserock, I would watch for reefers getting out of the hobby. Can't find a better deal in most cases. May also what to check with Brad Collins to make sure he isn't selling some.

Well, here is the deal. I figure that most rock that was sitting in somebody's tank is going to need to be dried out completely in order to kill any undesirables. Then I would need to "cook" the rock for a number of months to get rid of all the organic matter left over from the die-off and from higher nutrient levels in a non-sps tank.

With true base rock I would simply put it in a container of rodi water for a couple weeks in order to let the rock leach anything nasty out of it. Then I would dry it out and start the construction process.

I am pretty sure that if I were to order base rock today, it would be the thing that would delay the setup of the new tank. Using live rock, or dried out live rock, would just add to the time.


Brad

[lllosingit]

I read a thread here on RC where a guy bought from www.marcorocks.com The rock looked really good, It might be worth checking into.
They also sell on E-bay under the name marco.67
I don't have a premium memnership so I can't use the search function on RC right now or I would look for the post.

[lllosingit]

Edit:Fixed bad link.