This will take a while and my updates will be spotty - but I've been meaning to get started on a build thread for a while so may as well get going.
Little bit of back story....
We currently have a 30g rimless cube in our bedroom with a lightning maroon, BTA, hammer, frogspawn and few other things. Throwing that out there but will not be covering that tank in this thread.
Downstairs we currently have a 60g cube and a 40b setup. They were plumbed together to a common DIY 40b sump up until about a month ago when I separated them.
The 60 has our other lightning maroon clown (they HATE each other, with a passion I have rarely seen), a blue chromis, cucumber, frogspawn, starfish and a host of "pests" that we have picked up from various places. The only pests that really concern me are the flatworms - and a few carnivorous Whelk snails that came in from some TBS rock we purchased about 18 months ago.
The 40b was originally intended to be a display refugium where I intended on growing various decorative macro algae as well as a place for things we didn't want in our main display - gorilla crabs, misbehaving hermits etc.
When we purchased the TBS rock we got a little more than we bargained for. In one of the boxes was what we now know is an Oyster Toadfish. He was roughly 3 or 4 inches when we received him. We also had quite a few random crabs - gorilla crabs, various filter feeding crabs. Whelk snails, the small pistol shrimps (several I believe), at least 1 polyclad flatworm and a TON of various types of pods.
All was going well - until somehow a couple of the whelk snails wound up in the display tank. At the time we had a really nice Deresa clam in the display, he was doing great. Until one morning when I checked on the tank and the clam was dead - perfect healthy the evening before to 100% flat out dead. When I pulled him out there was one of the whelks attached to the outside of the clam shell. No idea how they managed to migrate, but they did.
So that started our next adventure. I really like the footprint of the 4' 120g tanks - so we purchased one back in November of 2016 and had it delivered to the house. My intention was to build a DIY plywood stand and get the tank moved inside and start the transition to make the 120 a standalone display tank and separate the 40b - which had become home to the Toadfish - which just happens to eat pretty much any crab or snail in the tank.
I started and completed the build of the stand - and was happy with it. I slowly began gathering some of the upgraded "stuff" I knew I would need - a better skimmer, larger return pump, another 40b and built a DIY sump etc. Then some challenges got in the way. March 19, 2017 I had a stroke. Kinda messed up my left arm - no paralysis but completely numb, hand perpetually swollen, no real feeling, coordination troubles, brain kinda freaks out when in stressful situations.
Kinda put playing with tanks on hold for a while. No biggie overall, I've learned to deal with the numbness and lack of sensation in my left hand and forearm. Brings us up to the past couple of months.
Was finally getting back to doing prep work for the new tank - and we had another minor setback. Around December 16 of last year we had a minor flood in the house (NOT tank related!) and had to have portions of our downstairs flood cut, flooring removed etc. Fought with the reno company after way too many delays and told our insurance company to just cut me a check and I'll fix it.
I took it as an opportunity. Since I was going to have to essentially remodel a good portion of our home I decided to do what I had thought about doing for quite a while. Knock out the back wall of one of our coat closets - which just happens to back up to our staircase going to the second floor - and use that space as a sump / equipment room. Doing so meant we would move our tanks from the living room to the dining room. We haven't had a table in the dining room for over 10 years - it's been an unused space for a good while.
OK - now that I've bored the heck out of you - I'll start getting more details together on the fun stuff.
I'll start with some basic photos.....
Toadfish when he arrived
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What was originally going to be our TBS rock supplied display refugium
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The clam mentioned above
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1 of 2 DIY all plywood stands I built - one for the 40b and 1 for the 120g
alt="IMG_0994" />
Little bit of back story....
We currently have a 30g rimless cube in our bedroom with a lightning maroon, BTA, hammer, frogspawn and few other things. Throwing that out there but will not be covering that tank in this thread.
Downstairs we currently have a 60g cube and a 40b setup. They were plumbed together to a common DIY 40b sump up until about a month ago when I separated them.
The 60 has our other lightning maroon clown (they HATE each other, with a passion I have rarely seen), a blue chromis, cucumber, frogspawn, starfish and a host of "pests" that we have picked up from various places. The only pests that really concern me are the flatworms - and a few carnivorous Whelk snails that came in from some TBS rock we purchased about 18 months ago.
The 40b was originally intended to be a display refugium where I intended on growing various decorative macro algae as well as a place for things we didn't want in our main display - gorilla crabs, misbehaving hermits etc.
When we purchased the TBS rock we got a little more than we bargained for. In one of the boxes was what we now know is an Oyster Toadfish. He was roughly 3 or 4 inches when we received him. We also had quite a few random crabs - gorilla crabs, various filter feeding crabs. Whelk snails, the small pistol shrimps (several I believe), at least 1 polyclad flatworm and a TON of various types of pods.
All was going well - until somehow a couple of the whelk snails wound up in the display tank. At the time we had a really nice Deresa clam in the display, he was doing great. Until one morning when I checked on the tank and the clam was dead - perfect healthy the evening before to 100% flat out dead. When I pulled him out there was one of the whelks attached to the outside of the clam shell. No idea how they managed to migrate, but they did.
So that started our next adventure. I really like the footprint of the 4' 120g tanks - so we purchased one back in November of 2016 and had it delivered to the house. My intention was to build a DIY plywood stand and get the tank moved inside and start the transition to make the 120 a standalone display tank and separate the 40b - which had become home to the Toadfish - which just happens to eat pretty much any crab or snail in the tank.
I started and completed the build of the stand - and was happy with it. I slowly began gathering some of the upgraded "stuff" I knew I would need - a better skimmer, larger return pump, another 40b and built a DIY sump etc. Then some challenges got in the way. March 19, 2017 I had a stroke. Kinda messed up my left arm - no paralysis but completely numb, hand perpetually swollen, no real feeling, coordination troubles, brain kinda freaks out when in stressful situations.
Kinda put playing with tanks on hold for a while. No biggie overall, I've learned to deal with the numbness and lack of sensation in my left hand and forearm. Brings us up to the past couple of months.
Was finally getting back to doing prep work for the new tank - and we had another minor setback. Around December 16 of last year we had a minor flood in the house (NOT tank related!) and had to have portions of our downstairs flood cut, flooring removed etc. Fought with the reno company after way too many delays and told our insurance company to just cut me a check and I'll fix it.
I took it as an opportunity. Since I was going to have to essentially remodel a good portion of our home I decided to do what I had thought about doing for quite a while. Knock out the back wall of one of our coat closets - which just happens to back up to our staircase going to the second floor - and use that space as a sump / equipment room. Doing so meant we would move our tanks from the living room to the dining room. We haven't had a table in the dining room for over 10 years - it's been an unused space for a good while.
OK - now that I've bored the heck out of you - I'll start getting more details together on the fun stuff.
I'll start with some basic photos.....
Toadfish when he arrived
What was originally going to be our TBS rock supplied display refugium
The clam mentioned above
1 of 2 DIY all plywood stands I built - one for the 40b and 1 for the 120g
