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After a five year hiatus from salt tanks, I have started another tank. Part of the reason of the break was me buying my first house, having a new baby, trying fresh water for the first time in over 15 years and just the fact that I had bigger fish to fry then an aquarium. The tank has had water in it for a few months... Err a year...( long leak test lol). I put the dead shrimp in it early October.
I have been working on getting this going for probably a year or so. Puting it on the stand , then not touching it for two weeks. Then tinkering with it here and there. I kind of purposely took my time, i figured it would give me more time to think about things. And maybe I wouldn't be kicking myself over not doing somthing. Having done this for a long time and picked up on things here and there I wanted to make sure I incorporated the knowledge I have gained over the years, from building custom tanks to doing maintenance on them. My biggest thing is just keeping it simple and easy to maintenance. Because if it is easy, then i am more inclined to give it attention.
The stand I built probably 10 or 12 years ago. ( dang its already 2020) The top of the stand is at 42", this puts the tank more at eye level. Being six foot tall, I hate having to bend over to look at tanks...like o! Thats a nice tank, let me just lay on the ground to look at it... I plan on adding a side compartment in the future to hide the electric items. And to incorporate a switchable power bank.
The tank and sump are both the standard 40 breeders from petco. The sump is actually my old display from my previous set up. I was not satisfied with how I drilled it then, so decided to start fresh with the a new display. I originally had a 20gal long mocked up as the sump. After putting my skimmer, return pump and wanting space for other equipment, I realized that the 20 wasn't going to cut it . So I just went in the attic and grabbed my old 40 and switched them.( this was about a week of looking at it and thinking). I cut the baffles and built the sock holder myself out of my stock pile of acrylic. I put two spots on the return line for future equipment... I.e. uv, reactors, frag tank.
The drilled the display for two return lines/ports that have ball valves on each. I used an eshopps overflow. It works great, the only problem is that the water level in the display was too low for my liking. To solve this, I just filled the intake slots on the overflow box with black silicone to my desired height. This worked and hides the top of the water behind the top trim.
The light is a four bulb t-5 ( club t5 yea yea!!). I may go l.e.d in the future, but can't get past the tried and true t5s. I tried a current marine orbit led fixture a few years ago and was not impressed. I actually still have it in the closet. As far as pumps I have two jebao rw-4's. I am happy with them, but have been looking to get some mp10s. My skimmer is a skimz sk181. I really like the skimmer, but with skimz out of business, it is only a matter of time before I will need to get another one ( annoying).
Current livestock. All my rock is stuff that I have collected over the years when I did fish tanks professionally. It is a mixture of Fiji, branch, base rock etc.. I had all of it plus more "cooking" in a brute for over a year.
I have 10 blue legs ( evidently red legs are hard to get right now). Two Photon clowns from Bobz. I have had the clowns for a week today and are eating and seem happy.. Bob gave me a deal on an anemone I could not pass up. And Rit gave my 2 year old a piece of xenia. Shout out to Rit at Atlanta Aquarium. I plan on getting some snails today, if I can find some.
In the future i plan on only having a few different corals and adding maybe two more fish. I really do not want to go crazy with it, ( been there done that, and spent the money!) I just want something nice to look at while we eat dinner ( thats not the tv) and something that my kids can enjoy.
Thats all i can think of currently. I will up date periodically.
Chris c.
Sent from my LM-K500 using Tapatalk
I have been working on getting this going for probably a year or so. Puting it on the stand , then not touching it for two weeks. Then tinkering with it here and there. I kind of purposely took my time, i figured it would give me more time to think about things. And maybe I wouldn't be kicking myself over not doing somthing. Having done this for a long time and picked up on things here and there I wanted to make sure I incorporated the knowledge I have gained over the years, from building custom tanks to doing maintenance on them. My biggest thing is just keeping it simple and easy to maintenance. Because if it is easy, then i am more inclined to give it attention.
The stand I built probably 10 or 12 years ago. ( dang its already 2020) The top of the stand is at 42", this puts the tank more at eye level. Being six foot tall, I hate having to bend over to look at tanks...like o! Thats a nice tank, let me just lay on the ground to look at it... I plan on adding a side compartment in the future to hide the electric items. And to incorporate a switchable power bank.
The tank and sump are both the standard 40 breeders from petco. The sump is actually my old display from my previous set up. I was not satisfied with how I drilled it then, so decided to start fresh with the a new display. I originally had a 20gal long mocked up as the sump. After putting my skimmer, return pump and wanting space for other equipment, I realized that the 20 wasn't going to cut it . So I just went in the attic and grabbed my old 40 and switched them.( this was about a week of looking at it and thinking). I cut the baffles and built the sock holder myself out of my stock pile of acrylic. I put two spots on the return line for future equipment... I.e. uv, reactors, frag tank.
The drilled the display for two return lines/ports that have ball valves on each. I used an eshopps overflow. It works great, the only problem is that the water level in the display was too low for my liking. To solve this, I just filled the intake slots on the overflow box with black silicone to my desired height. This worked and hides the top of the water behind the top trim.
The light is a four bulb t-5 ( club t5 yea yea!!). I may go l.e.d in the future, but can't get past the tried and true t5s. I tried a current marine orbit led fixture a few years ago and was not impressed. I actually still have it in the closet. As far as pumps I have two jebao rw-4's. I am happy with them, but have been looking to get some mp10s. My skimmer is a skimz sk181. I really like the skimmer, but with skimz out of business, it is only a matter of time before I will need to get another one ( annoying).
Current livestock. All my rock is stuff that I have collected over the years when I did fish tanks professionally. It is a mixture of Fiji, branch, base rock etc.. I had all of it plus more "cooking" in a brute for over a year.
I have 10 blue legs ( evidently red legs are hard to get right now). Two Photon clowns from Bobz. I have had the clowns for a week today and are eating and seem happy.. Bob gave me a deal on an anemone I could not pass up. And Rit gave my 2 year old a piece of xenia. Shout out to Rit at Atlanta Aquarium. I plan on getting some snails today, if I can find some.
In the future i plan on only having a few different corals and adding maybe two more fish. I really do not want to go crazy with it, ( been there done that, and spent the money!) I just want something nice to look at while we eat dinner ( thats not the tv) and something that my kids can enjoy.
Thats all i can think of currently. I will up date periodically.
Chris c.
Sent from my LM-K500 using Tapatalk
