Introduction and my 75 gallon build

adubson

adubson

New member
Hey everyone,

So I've lurked around here for awhile now, gathering information as I start, and eventually picking up jrwoltman's 75 g setup. Luckily, I had some time off from school when this all started so I put a lot of time in right away to customize it all to my liking, and now I'm excited to finally show it off to all you guys.

So this is jrwoltman's picture of how the tank looked when I picked it up.


First up: priming and painting it black so my wife will be happy with it matching our living room furniture. I also painted the back of the tank black because I didn't want to have to worry about cleaning the film.






After getting it all painted, I set it up in order to run everything will dilute white vinegar.


Then, my RO/DI system and reef saver rock came in from BRS, it was like Christmas.


Pump the brakes, as I was getting ready to finally fill it all up with salt water and put the tank into its final resting place in the living room, I realized that it would be quite difficult to replace the sump after this is done. The setup had a 29 gallon sump in it, and this made getting your hands in there very difficult, and I didn't want the maintenance of the system to be a pain or it'll start to really suck after awhile. So I made a quick trip to PetsMart and got a 20 long, slashed out the old baffles, and re-siliconed them into the new sump.


Another huge motivation in my rehab of the tank, was to be whisper quiet since it was in our living room. I found a gently used Eheim compact 3000 on ebay for cheap, and then grabbed an Eshopps S-120 skimmer from the classifieds here. I remade the plumbing draining into the sump, creating a reverse durso. Now I'm pretty proud of how dang quiet it really is! And here is how it looks now.


I seeded the tank with 20lbs of live sand, a friend's live rock, and using Dr. Tim's One and Only. I used fish food, and a bit of the ammonium chloride that I got with Dr. Tim's to get my ammonia up to around 2 ppm, and now everything has dropped down to zero. Did a water change to drop the nitrates, and now I'm ready to slowly add things to look at in the tank! So if anybody out there is looking to pay it forward to a new member, let me know!:a08:

Oh, and I'm trying to go down to New Fish today at 1, so maybe I'll see some of you down there!
 
Yes, well done. If you remain as methodical about your stocking as you were with your setup I believe you'll really love the hobby. A couple of suggestions. 1) remember to keep feeding the tank until you get the first inhabitants in there as tanks can lose their cycle. 2) would suggest looking into a BRS reactor for carbon and GFO. New BRS dry rock is said to initially leach phosphates (what I used and awesome stuff, but does have this reputation) and with the tank in the living room the carbon will help prevent any odor. Will be following your progress.
 
100LL said:
Yes, well done. If you remain as methodical about your stocking as you were with your setup I believe you'll really love the hobby. A couple of suggestions. 1) remember to keep feeding the tank until you get the first inhabitants in there as tanks can lose their cycle. 2) would suggest looking into a BRS reactor for carbon and GFO. New BRS dry rock is said to initially leach phosphates (what I used and awesome stuff, but does have this reputation) and with the tank in the living room the carbon will help prevent any odor. Will be following your progress.
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Andrew, I am pretty sure that the Fluval canister filter would work fine as a reactor, if you decide to go that route.
 
Oh it never crossed my mind to use as a reactor. I've been running carbon and gfo in a media bag in the sump so far. Forgot to mention I picked all that up with the rest of the BRS stuff. I have been measuring for phosphates and haven't seen any spike from the rock.
 
Wow was a nice tank before with the brown but that black makes it even better looks great man lools brand spanking new
 
very nice , the scape shows alot of potential good job ! stand looks great and nice move on the sump , more volume is a plus but if its hard to get in and out makes it a pain 20 long will be best in long run imo . nice start
 
lunacris said:
very nice , the scape shows alot of potential good job ! stand looks great and nice move on the sump , more volume is a plus but if its hard to get in and out makes it a pain 20 long will be best in long run imo . nice start
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You are totally right about the more volume being a plus, but it was next to impossible getting in and out of the sump. He definitely made the right choice.
 
jrwoltman said:
You are totally right about the more volume being a plus, but it was next to impossible getting in and out of the sump. He definitely made the right choice.
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Especially with the dimensions of the new skimmer in there. I wouldn't have been able to pull out the skimmer cup!

Only issue now is that it just has two chambers now, so the option of running a refugium is going to be a little trickier.
 
Well I setup plenty of ventilation and fans while doing it inside, and worked on top of paper laid out. It was the best we could do while not having a garage or patio :/
 
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