Gettin' Low - IHaveCrabs Shallow Reef Tank!

IHaveCrabs

IHaveCrabs

Premium member
So it has been about 6 months so it was time to start a new tank.. My name is Jon and I have a problem...

Shallow Reef (48x24x12)
Custom Stand
Some new equipment

The first goal for this tank will be to house mostly LPS and a few nice SPS pieces that don't require absolute perfection as I tend to be a more lazy reefer..
The second goal will be to house more rare (or favorite species) most of which will have symbiotic relationships.

Here we go!
 
First the stand build. Unfortunately I did not get many pictures of this process.

I used 3/4" Red Oak ply (with no other supporting wood.. yes I know I am crazy but this stuff will probably hold a small bus!)
Glue + Brad nails
Stain
Waterproofing spray clear coat for inside.

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Here comes the hard frustrating part.. Fixing scratches in the acrylic!

I used Novus #2 and #3 on top of sandpaper 800, 2000, and 3000 grit. At the end, it turned out really well. Without water you can sometimes see really fine scratches with the light shining in the right direction, but once it was filled with water, it looks crystal clear!

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Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the final product.. You can still see tons of scratches in the pictures above.
 
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Built a light holder out of 1/2" conduit. It turned out really nice after I spray painted it a dark bronze like finish.

.. Didn't attach the light holder high enough so currently the light is sitting on top! Haha. This is a temp light anyway. The evergrow 24" LED will be moved over soon!

As you can also see, I started moving stuff over.

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Now comes the fun part.. Moving everything over.

So I didn't have time to really mess with the aquascape yet.. it still looks pretty much like this so far.

I moved some sand over, moved the large rocks over, and started to acclimate corals. Then I could catch the rest of the fish, hermits, and snails.

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New Equipment Time!!!!!!!

So I wanted to get a more quiet and more powerful return pump. Since I had excellent experience with EcoTech's customer service and warranty, I decided to give the new M1 return a try..

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Let me tell you, THIS THING IS AMAZING. It whispers, puts out some decent power at a 4' head height, and my temperature doesn't even fluctuate from when there was no pump to this one running continuously. I think the head exchange is my favorite part since my I left my AC off and the temp hit 80 in my house. In my previous tank, that would have meant a water temp of over 84.. The new tank didn't even budge!

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Now I have always wanted a separate tank for managing my frags. Something easy to clean and easy to remove and add back on as needed for maintenance. A previous member on CR sold me this little ~18 gallon bad boy.

Today it is housing some of my purchases from last weekends reef exchange in NWI.

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For those of you that do not dip and visually inspect your coral purchases, I highly recommend you start!

I had a few surprises from the frag swap. Found some aiptasia, some eggs (unknown), and some bubble algae. Also a pink astrea star fish.

I removed all the frag plugs and replaced with my own. Dipped and visually inspected many times over. Definitely worth the time to prevent some of those additions!
 
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So now lets go through livestock!

Quite a bit of live rock and sand (unknown how many pounds as I have moved them from system to system).

Fish - Mandarin Dragnet, Midas Blenny, Frostbite Clown pair. I also want to add a Blue Spot Jawfish and a Goby/Pistol pair although the Midas, Jawfish, and goby is just asking for trouble. TBD.

Inverts/Other - Blood Red Shrimp, GT Anemone, Anemone Crab, Conch, tons of Amphipods which reproduce like crazy, and CUC of hermits and snails.

Corals - ~10-12 different Acans, GSP taking over an archway rock which is starting to look pretty cool, Blue Stag frag, 8 different zoos many of which are colony size, purple and green tip frogspawn, and some random yellow and orange leptos. I'm sure I am missing a ton but that's a start.

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Great looking build! Those acans are awesome looking also. Did you get those at the frag swap? I'm a fan of most coral but acans are by far my favorite.


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Built a new hood for the tank and will be adding some T5's in there to go with he Leds!

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I really don't want to switch to T5's but my acans color up much better under them. Does anyone else have the same findings??

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Some Zoas too

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After adding some supplemental T5ho lights to my main display I'm starting to get some rainbow colors coming from some of my previously bought lobo and Acans! Slowly turning from red to some orange and green!

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IHaveCrabs said:
How often do you typically change out your bulbs? How much do you usually spend per bulb and any recommendations on where to buy?


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Click to expand...
Just switched back to t5 but when i had em before i changed bulbs every 12 months . I only use ati bulbs and aqua pros has best prices on em dave and mike are awsome
 
New dosing containers working out pretty well.. I have a few extra if anyone is interested!

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