Thesilence87's 30g Hexagonal Tank Build

[thesilence87]

So this is my first foray into the saltwater tank world. When I saw my friend's 75g setup, I told myself that I would never start my own tank because it's too expensive, yet here I am.

The tank is a 30g Odell Hexagonal tank that is 24 inches tall with each face being 10 inches across. Coolsurf was gracious enough to give me a killer deal on pretty much a whole setup. Throw in a good 15 lbs of liverock from a friend of a friend and I was ready to start.

This is what the tank looked like when I first got it:
http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32349&stc=1&d=1315029979" alt="" />

The first order of business was to paint the stand. I got three cans of satin finish black indoor/outdoor krylon spraypaint and after having someone teach me how to spraypaint (I didn't know there was so much technique involved in doing a good job), I went to work spraying it a more appealing black:
[IMG]http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32350&stc=1&d=1315029979" alt="" />

When this was done, I then used a straight-razor to trim off any peeling or algae/dirt covered seams in the silicon, and resiliconed the whole thing with some aquarium silicon I picked up from Home Depot.

When everything was said and done, I set the tank up and turned on the light for the first time to see what it was like:
[IMG]http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32351&stc=1&d=1315029979" alt="" />

So at this point, I got majorly sidetracked and didn't get to put sand and rock into the tank for almost five weeks. Luckily, all the live-rock I had was sitting in a friend's QT tank, and so has been just fine this whole time, the live-sand wasn't so lucky. The bucket that the live-sand was in started smelling REALLY bad after about a week. Apparently all the bristle-worms and bacteria in the sand died...that wasn't fun to clean. About three hours of rinsing sand, two bristle worm bristles in my fingers, numerous mosquito bites, and a bit of messiness later, I had clean sand to put in my tank. Here's a picture with about 2/3 of the sand in:
[IMG]http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32352&stc=1&d=1315029979" alt="" />

When all the sand finished being put in, the sand is a little over 4 1/2 inches thick, which is about where I wanted it, I'd rather have too much sand than too little.

I dropped by Rit's, and picked up some salt water and some frags for when my tank finished cycling, since he's got an awesome sale going on :). I'm a bit of a zoa nut.

My tank with all the liverock in, in the process of cycling, I'll be adding more water to it tomorrow:
[IMG]http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32353&stc=1&d=1315029979" alt="" />

Also, a picture of some of the frags that will be going in my tank:
[IMG]http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32354&stc=1&d=1315029979" alt="" />

Excuse the crappy photos, they were all taken with a camera phone.

If anyone has any questions/advice, I'm always willing to hear it.
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[thesilence87]

The water is being circulated by a Maxijet 1200.

I should run the skimmer even while the tank cycles?

 

[acroholic]

Actually I don't know if you should or should not. I've never cycled a reef tank, always bought cured LR. I've read that if you do use a skimmer you can prolong the cycle. Also read that skimming can make it (the cycle) a bit easier on any hitchhikers that come in on the LR. You can find both recommendations on different forum threads.

 

[thesilence87]

Ideally, I'd like to get the cycle over as quickly as possible, but I don't want to rush things and cause a mini-cycle later on.

I have a HOB skimmer I can use, I was just told it'd take the wastes out of the water so there wouldn't be nearly as much for the beneficial bacteria to process and build their populations. I'll do some reading.

I'd consider the rock effectively cured, except for two pieces of it, it's been in a running tank with live inhabitants for at least a month, and came from coolsurf's tank before that. The two pieces in question *were* cured liverock from an established tank, but I let them sit in a 5g bucket for too long, like I did the sand, and all the stuff died over that month+. I gave it a good scrub before putting it into the tank.

I appreciate the input and guidance.

 

[butch]

Glad to see you took the time to paint the stand, which made a world of difference. I'm curious to see how you are going to layout your rock work. Looks like you have a good setup so far.

 

[thesilence87]

I think my rock will stack nicely, but I'm a LITTLE freaked out about it hitting the glass and cracking it, how common is it? The noise it makes when it comes in contact with a pane is unnerving.

 

[butch]

There are a couple of things that you can do to prevent the rock from falling/hitting the glass. Epoxy the rocks together in place once you have your layout set the way you want or drill the rock and put an acrylic rod up through the rock to make it stable.

 

[thesilence87]

I just did the aquascaping about ten minutes ago, I thought I had more rock than I did, because I've got at least 20lbs, but it takes a total of about 1/4 the volume of the total tank, and only gets about halfway up the back side. As a result, I'm going to wait and just let the rocks sit braced against each other like angcot70, so I can change my aquascaping as I get the money for more rock. I'll post pictures of it once I put the rest of the water in today and it clears up.

How common is the acrylic rod support?

 

[thesilence87]

I've finished adding water and it's time to sit back, wait, and test.
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[coolsurf]

Looking real good. :thumbs:

You are doing a terrific job with it.

 

[thesilence87]

Thanks. How high did you stack the rock in the tank when you had it? I feel like there's so much empty space, but I'm probably just imagining things.

 

[coolsurf]

thesilence87;683998 wrote: Thanks. How high did you stack the rock in the tank when you had it? I feel like there's so much empty space, but I'm probably just imagining things.

My design was different as I placed my rock in the center and built it about 3/4 high in the tank. I like what your doing, just run with it and add more live rock as you get it.

 

[thesilence87]

I'm trying to go the shelf/overhang thing so fish can swim through it and hide. Since the tank is so tall, there isn't much room for free sand space, but I'd like to be able to have both liverock and open sand. Darn dilemmas.

So, I've been planning out my livestock for the tank for a few weeks now, and I was wondering if the following list is too much in terms of bioload, or if I could afford to put a bit more than that in there. The additions would be spaced apart in introduction, it's just more of a final list. Any input anyone?

Aquarium Inverts:
Cleaner Shrimp (x1)
Peppermint Shrimp (x1)
Pistol Shrimp (x1)
Porcelain Crab (x2)
Hermit Crabs (x5)
Astrea Snails (x3)

Aquarium Fish:
Royal Gramma (x1)
Blue/Green Chromies (x2)
Ocellaris Clowns (x2)
Yellow Clown Goby (x1)
and maybe some sort of watchman goby?

 

[KrisDeitz]

If you do two gobies do two pistols

 

[thesilence87]

The yellow clown gobies don't pair with shrimp, they just sit around being fat lazy 1" long fish that sit on your corals. They're cute though.

 

[thesilence87]

If I wasn't on a shoestring budget, I'd totally do two pistols though. I'd get a candy to match the tiger I've got waiting to put in my tank when it's ready.

 

[nyk]

looking good

 

[thesilence87]

Patience may be a virtue, but darn if it isn't hard to be patient and wait for the tank to cycle. I keep finding myself just sitting and staring at an empty tank, wanting to put things in and planning where I want to put stuff.

 

[nyk]

thesilence87;685075 wrote: Patience may be a virtue, but darn if it isn't hard to be patient and wait for the tank to cycle. I keep finding myself just sitting and staring at an empty tank, wanting to put things in and planning where I want to put stuff.

get used to this

 

[thesilence87]

So after talking to some people, and having my water tested, it seems like my tank might not cycle at all? I have just a TINY bit of ammonia, and my nitrites and nitrates aren't elevated at all. I've also noticed significant algae growth both on my liverock and on my sand.

As a result, I've added just a *few* things in:
Five TINY dwarf blue-legged hermits
one medium dwarf blue-legged hermit
one scarlet hermit
one dwarf red-legged hermit
one frag of green paly with two heads

I've been watching the tank throughout the day and night, and everything seems to be doing fine so far. I'm happy that there's finally life in my tank.