Weekly Discussion - If you got to do it all over again....

[Anonymous]

Weekly Discussion - If you got to do it all over again...

If you had to set up your current system all over again, what would you do differently and why?

About the RDO Weekly Discussion:
This discussion is meant to get at your experience and to share information that is in your head, so don't necessarily treat it as information gathering. State your opinion and, if available, use material, anecdotal or otherwise, that will back up your opinion.
Past weekly discussions will be archived in the archives.
If you have topics that you think would be helpful for the RDO community to discuss, please send me a pm or start your own thread! :mrgreen:

 

[dgasmd]

That is an easy one for me. I have had the last year to regreat a lot fo things. Here we go:

-NO SAND. I think if I ever find however was the person that sold the concept of using close to 1000 Lb of southdown sand for a 4-5" DSB I will hang it by his b...
-Drill the hell out of the tank even if I was not using the holes at the time. I know better now.
-Use less rock in the tank and more in the sump/refugiums.
-Would have gotten the wiring in a much more organized way so they would never get wet if the sump was to overflow. It did twice and almost burnt the house down!
-I would have gotten the custom GEO Ca reactor I have now instead of going through 2 others before getting here.
-I would have put up the actinic VHO in the canopy from day one. I didn't at the begining because I was using radiums and didn't need it. Once I found out they last only 4-5 months at best, I went with Ushios. The rest is history.
-I would have gotten a 300g rubbermaid refugium instead of the 100g one I have now. Originally I set things up in my garage so I could still park my car. Turns out the plumbing extends 4-6" too far, so now I can't park the car there anyways. Should have gotten the bigger sump instead :x
-I would ahve gotten the lumenarc reflectors from the begining. Instead, I waited for god knows what and they went out of business. 9 months later, I found them.......
-I would ahve gotten 160 watt UV from day one. The 40 watt I use now is a joke at most.
-Would ahve run ozone from the begining too.


What I would do differently managing the tank is another whole story. :roll: :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

Would have plumbed it differently. Read some of my recent posts and you'll understand. I thought I had my "ideal" system :roll: Other than that I wouldn't really change much. Maybe just get a bigger tank.

 

[Anonymous]

good topic!

i owuld change plumbing too.
i would have put two overflows (one in each corner) in my 90g as opposed to one large one in the center. aquascaping is challenging with the big one in the center.

i would also have drilled and added return lines up through those same overflows as opposed to running them outside the back of the tank. thus i could have the tank tight to the wall.

i also would have run wiring inside the stand differently.
i don't know why, but it never occurred to me that i could place my ballasts in a remote location with very little additional work.
a friend had to point this out to me

another thing is i would have put some type of seismic bracing on the stand. i went pretty tall with it and sways if you push on it.

i should have setup the stand/sump and tank with fresh water outside and piped it before bringing it in the house.
instead i went a much more panic stricken way. cold weather was coming and i didn't want to lose any livestock in my garage so i franticly got everything inside and stocked a partially plumbed tank.
this led to the desire to empty the tank when i realized there were some major oversights in construction. luckily i can still accomplish the work lacking with the tank running but it would be a cleaner looking job if i were able to empty the tank.

i would be more careful with my finish carpentry too!
i mitered a 25 dollar piece of molding the opposite way then i needed to and had to buy another (plus stain it, stain it, clear, clear, clear coat it)
just to make up for my stupidity :evil:

i wanna stop now, i already have the longest list here and i haven't even come close to finishing this project

 

[Anonymous]

I would have used BETTER shims for levelling the tank and plumbed it differently. I would have used spa flex hose instead of the 90's.

 

[Anonymous]

I would have gone with a different tank. I like the 30" tall but the 18" wide is killing me. More rock, less sand. Not BB but just enough for a dressing. I would have used true external pumps not mags. To do over I would have built my own stand and canopy. Would have used a tank in stead of a rubbermaid for my sump, but this ties into the build own stand. Current stand is narrow and has a small door.

 

[Anonymous]

I would have gone with a different tank size. I had a 10 gallon FW on my desk for so long, a 15 tall (same footprint as a 10) seemed natural.
I should have built a larger shelf and went with a 20.

I also wish I would have purchased a bunch of small rocks rather than two big pieces. Not much aquascaping you can do with two big chunks of LR.

I should have put MH in the canopy rather than PC's

B

 

[npaden]

There are just to many things to list!

But my biggest regret is not being into this hobby when my house was built. There are SO many things I could overcome if I had an equipment room behind the tank!

I have a page on my site talking about some of the decision making process and my thoughts on it now here: http://www.padens.homestead.com/Planning.html

FWIW, Nathan

 

[Anonymous]

I would have not bought an aquarium. :lol:

 

[jandree22]

bought a reef-ready 75 :roll:

 

[flounderer]

I would by a larger aquarium fill it full of money, burn it, smash it, urinate on it, then smile. It would probably cost less and be prettier than my hair algae and cyano display tank now, but I love my ugly money pit.

 

[Len]

Nathan reminded me what I'd do differently. I'd definitely would've kept out shrooms from the SPS tank.

I'm going to try a few more butterflyfish to eradicate them before I wave the white flag.

 

[Anonymous]

Len, the orange slug people sell as a orange nudi from the caribbean has been known to eat mushrooms. I watched them do this several times, but never allowed them to wipe the tank out of them because I wanted the mushrooms.

 

[reefland]

Being that I took my tank down recently in a house move... I get to do lots of things differently.

1) Less sand. I never was a big fan of deep sand beds. Just enough for a natural look. Whenever I tried deeper I had clumping problems.

2) No shooms, main reason I had to take my tank down was that shrooms and zoanthids were running rampant.

3) Less sump to tank flow and more intank flow using Tunze Streams.

4) Dedicated wet room for the tank (being built now).

5) Less larger fish and more smaller fish. My last setup seemed to be a tang tank. They were uesless for algae control.. might as well do more smaller fish... maybe a nice wrasse & anthias tank with just 1 tang or two.

6) No more sea swirls.. got tired of them breaking and mailing them back. Gonna try some SCWD units this time.

7) Used to consider ozone to much of an old useless technology. I'm re-thinking that. I've seen it applied correctly and provide awesome results. I'm seriously thinking of starting the new tank with it.. *gasp*

 

[Anonymous]

I would make the 451st call to the LFS to make sure the guy had securely nailed my instructions to his forehead that I want 2 1.5 inch exit holes, not one!

I get my stuff for barter, it was delivered for free to my house, I just didn't feel free to return it.

Most of the rest seems good.

 

[Anonymous]

I would have gone with an 8' or 10' 300 gallon tank instead of the 6' 215 I have now, probably have gone acrylic and gone with 400 watt SE bulbs instead of the 250 DEs I have now.

Larger Skimmer

Possibly go barebottom

Definitely would have drilled for a closed loop.

Would use less rock

 

[srbayless]

Well,

I would have gotten my wife more involved from the start. She loved the tanks I had when I had them running, but just didn't understand the concepts or time involved in maintaning the tanks. It's been about a year since I have had a tank running, and just recently my wife said she would like to have a corner tank. You can imagine how many backflips I did

This time I plan on having her be a part of the whole process.

Scott.

 

[Jolieve]

I have a long list of stuff I'd do differently.

1. Reef ready tank. Nuff said.
2. Glass instead of acrylic.
3. Set up the tank with a dsb in the first place.
4. Smaller rocks. I have four, huge 10 lb pieces in there, pita to move around.
5. Bought the right skimmer, the first time.
6. Started out with the right lights.
7. Standard 75 gallon tank would have made me happier. The 24" high tank is pretty, but 15" of width is too narrow to work around in easily.

That's just the short list. There's a much longer list, but hey... that's what setting up a first tank is all about, right? Screwing it up so you get it right the next time you do it? *chuckle*

J.

 

[Carpentersreef]

More water volume.

Less fish.

Much larger refugium with a much larger diversity of critters that wouldn't eat each other.

Basically anything else I could do to increase general plankton levels.

Mitch

 

[Anonymous]

Weekly Discussion - If you got to do it all over again...

If you had to set up your current system all over again, what would you do differently and why?

I would probably get an Oceanic wet regulator instead of the Aqua Lung, because the cotton mouth really gets me. Also, I would most likely take an 02-cleaned steel tank instead of the current Catalina aluminum 80. I'm a small guy, and the steels are less buoyant as they get drained.