Walnuts Custom 65 Build

[walnuts24]

I have been keeping freshwater fish since I was 10 years old and my mom bough my brother and I a 29 gallon tank that we used for oscars and plecos. I have grown up on the water spending most of my summers fishing or at the beach.

I got my first reef tank about 10 months ago after lurking on MR and other websites for a while. The tank was a stock BC 29 that I got brand new. It allowed me the opportunity to witness first hand the amount of work and dedication needed to succeed in this hobby at a reasonable cost. I have been reasonably lucky with my first set-up as I have read so many horror stories of tank crashes, yet have never had any with my tank.

I am in need of major help in terms of plumbing, equipment, etc... as I have only had experience with a AIO BC 29. So enough with the monologue, here are some pics.

Before I Put in Water:

With Lights On:

Moved to the office and put in Rock, Sand, and Salt with RO:

Rough Scape (Still Need to Add the Rocks From my BC)

Thanks

 

[Awibrandy]

Niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee:starfish:

Please keep those pix coming!!

 

[NewfiDog]

Whats the help you need? Nice tank.

 

[walnuts24]

So here is my dilemma. I have a GBTA, pair of clowns, pair of cardinals and a yellow corris wrasse in my current tank. They are all happy. I am a little confused on how to go about transferring everything. As you can see I have about 45 pounds of rock in the tank now and have about 35 pounds of LR in my current setup. Should I just go for the whole transfer and put everything in the new tank and hope I don't get an ammonia spike?

I have been neglecting the other tank for a while and although there is a lot of GHA and other algaes, the residents are happy and healthy. I had waited 8 months before putting the anemone in my tank and I am concerned that if I transfer everything over and I get a spike in nutrients that it may die and take everything with it.

What is the best way to go about this? Should I just wait for a whole cycle in the new tank? When I do a water change in the old tank if I swap it with some water in the new tank will that help? I definitely don't want the algae and stuff from the old system in my new system so I am not sure what to do.

 

[walnuts24]

Also, is it ok to put the heater in the overflow? It will be covered with water.

 

[NewfiDog]

Normally i would say transfer some of the water but because of the neglect and algae i would say no.

Cycle the tank, use a fresh or frozen shrimp works well dont wast your money on the cycle additives. If none of that rock is live rock buy at least one peice.

After the cycle, and you get your algea growth i would add a clean up crew, then i would add some of the live rock you now have, but sounds like you will have to clean it very well which may create die off. Then add the fish slowly like 1 a week and keep checking the water parameters.

Im sure i missed a few things there but you get the point.

If your overflow cannot run dry then its fine but if it can run dry then no.

 

[walnuts24]

The overflow will not run dry unless there is a catastrophic leak in the bulkhead. What about the GBTA and the Clowns? They are pretty much a family and moving them all together would seem like the best idea but I worry about the water not being stable enough to house the GBTA so quickly.

 

[NewfiDog]

Make them the last move.

 

[walnuts24]

This is my first setup with a sump. It is a 10 gallon with DIY baffles that I did terribly, yet effective. It has a deep blue 3 pump, coralife skimmer, all DIY plumbing, LR Rubble and Chaeto from the LFS. There is a towel under the bulkheads that I put there when I first ran the system in fear of a leaky bulkhead. It has been running for a little longer than a week and has not leaked yet. I cannot fit my heater in there so it will go in the overflow. I am going to connect 2 TLF reactors off of the manifold.

I have a couple of questions.

How do you attach the PVC pipe to the side of the stand? I cannot seem to find a stainless steel or plastic piece to use.

How do you quiet the vibration of the PVC on the stand? I have used some of those felt pads that you put under furniture and it has worked fairly well but there are still some points that contact and makes excess noise.

I ran my skimmer for a little while and noticed that it started collecting water, is this normal since there is no livestock in the tank? And the Skimmer is LOUD. Will the noise go away once it is "Broken In"?

Comments/Suggestions are always appreciated.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

i would move that surge protector to a safer area away from the skimmer and not ontop of your sump

 

[walnuts24]

Is this my cycle starting? I don't remember the color to be so orange/ brown almost like rust.

 

[walnuts24]

Alright so I broke down my other tank and moved everything over into the new tank. I didn't realize how big the foot on my GBTA was and thought that it was only attached to one of the rocks in my tank. I grabbed the top rock and realized that I was lifting up the bottom rock as well. I quickly put the rocks back in place.

I tried everything (cold water from turkey baster, ice cubes ...) to get the nem off of the rocks as I had already drained about half the tank and nothing worked. I decided I needed to move the nem so I took both rocks out as best as I could and put it in a bucket. I then put the two rocks in the corner of my tank and while inspecting the GBTA I noticed a slight tear in the foot (or what I think is a tear). The nem has not moved and I am hoping when I get home from work he will be looking for a new spot.

All the fish did really well in the move and are doing great at least.

 

[walnuts24]

Alright so my tank has been STINKING lately (smell wise). I do not know what it is. It has been happening proir to moving the nem so it isn't that. The guy at the LFS said to make sure I didn't leave any food around baking and stinking up the place. I checked high and low and found nothing. I am absolutely clueless as to what it could be.

Has anyone ever had their tank just start to smell really bad and what could it be?

 

[Will]

Did you move the sand over to the new tank also?? That can be a source of a lot of crap... If the skimmer is collecting clear water , it would seem as tho it is skimming way too wet. Back off on it so the bubbles in the reaction tube are lower. Not sure what you are smelling but i would do some water changes asap.

 

[walnuts24]

Update

Alright so after the move the tank started to smell. After about a week and a half the smell has stopped and everything looks pretty good. I am thinking about upgrading my skimmer since it is only rated for 65 gallon and my tank is heavily stocked.

Everything seems to be doing well except for the anemone. It has not moved since I put it into the tank and the two rocks that it is attached to is covered in GHA. All my fish are extremely happy as seen in the pics.

I think my scape is good for now but I am planning on upgrading to LED's when my T5's burn out and was going to try some SPS so I think I will need to go higher with the rock.

Let me know what you think and if any of you have a suggestion for a new skimmer that would be great (it needs to be HOB).

 

[walnuts24]

 

[walnuts24]

This sucks but I had my first tank crash last night. In my year of this hobby, this is by far the worst day ever. My tank was doing great and I still have no idea what happened. I tested my water and had 0 ammonia, 25 nitrates (they have always been high but have never had a fish die), temp was at 78, pH was 8.2. I took a bunch of water out of the tank this morning and I am going to get it tested at the LFS after work.

I am thinking right now that it was a new anemone that I got and it looks like it died.

I lost everything except my 2 bangaii cardinals. The corals do not seem to be too affected either so I do not know what it could be.

 

[thirty6]

i dont know what they are called, but i bought a few "u shapped" metal clamps in the electical aisle at home depot. i attached them to stand and they secure pvc nicely to stand with 2 screws. my stand is 2x6 and 2x4 so integrity of stand was not an issue for me

 

[walnuts24]

So it has been exactly one week since my first tank crash.

As you can see above the one thing I did not test at home was Nitrite and when I brought it to Aquarium Village and had my water tested..... Nitrites were off the chart, I am talking really off the chart. So they prescribe me a heavy dose of prime and a water change and advised me that the spike was probably from the tank cleaning that I did the night before and that it would probably be gone in a day or two.

I brought the water back on saturday and all the parameters tested fine so I bought 5 chromis to replenish the school and decided if the chromis and cardinals make it then I would slowly add my livestock back.

As you can see in the following pictures everything is still alive and now I can plan a restocking.

Lesson I took from this - When cleaning the tank never stir anything up and do a water change after the cleaning. (at least that will be my new rule).

Pics to follow

 

[walnuts24]