2 Five Gallons & A Sump

[cindre2000]

This is my first post, so I decided to display the system I have been working on for 4 months.

Tanks:
Two 5 gallon acrylic Flat-Back Hexes
One 10 gallon glass sump w/ glass dividers
PVC overflows

Flow
Jebo Protien Skimmer
Quiet One 1200 pump
Two AquaClear 30 Powerheads

Lights (PC)
Two 13 watt 7200
Two 9 watt 10k
Two 9 watt Actinic
(31 watts per tank)

Live Stock
16 lbs Live rock (soon to be 25)
2 inches of sand (seeded)
5 blue legged hermit crabs*
2 Turbo Snails*
3 Cerith Snails*
2 Nassarius Snails*

*In both 5 gallon tanks

Top Tank
Yellow Polyps
Zoos (various sp.)
Mushrooms (various sp.)
Xenia sp. frag
Acropora sp. frag (soon to be traded)
Neon Blue Damsel

Bottom Tank
Christmas Tree Worm
Star Polyps
Green Chromis
Percula Clownfish (no stripes)

Sump
5 inches of crushed coral
2 Cerith Snails
1 hermit crab (unknown sp.)
3 Limpits (unkown sp.)
Caulerpa sp.

Water
Unfiltered and straight from the tap
Instant Ocean Sea Salt Mix
Salinity 1.025 (Hydrometer)

Ph- 8.0
NH4- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nirate- 0
Alkalinity 300 (with a cheap test stip)

-------------------------------------------------

The camera was a cheap one I borrowed from a friend. So I could not get any clear closeups. I hope to borrow a better camera later on.

I am slowly working the tank up to what I want to look like. I really want to get some LPS frags or low light tolerant SPS frags.

 

[fishinsouthga]

nice tank! welcome to reefs.org! its very friendly here and i hope you like it!!



thomas

 

[garagebrian]

Nice setup! Is this your first attempt at SW? Welcome to reefs.org!

Brian

 

[cindre2000]

Thanks a lot.

Yeah this is has been my first attempt at a reef tank. I had been doing some real indepth freshwater tanks for 2 years and over the summer I decided to jump into saltwater since I was making enough money to afford one.

Of course, I did not have the knowledge I have now and a bunch of couple of mistakes. Mostly the complicated set up (a 20L would have worked much better) and lack of cooling. Also, I could have built a much stronger lighting system for only a little more money. Not to mention the occasional overflow due to some plumping errors (almost fixed) and a hang on skimmer (designing a fix)...

But I forge ahead anyways and am trying to get some money to build a 6' mostly fish tank for the university I am at. I also am slowly building a 3 gallon nano tank from scraps I have laying around. I just hope 52 watts of PC lighting is enough. :? :lol:

Anyways, My liverock for the sump will be coming in tommorrow and I cannot wait. I will get more pictures soon; hopefully.

 

[garagebrian]

Very cool! I think it is required to make mistakes when you start the hobby. At least it looks like your mistakes were all minor and you didn't try to put a lionfish in your 2 gal pico

You might be interested in these articles as reading:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-02/dw/index.php

And a little writing I've done of my own:

The Top 10 Things you NEED to start a SW aquarium

Going saltwater vs freshwater and common pitfalls to avoid

My thread on RC:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... did=659899

You can also see my thread here on reefs.org.

Of course last but not least, I've found TONS of info here:
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7679

Brian

 

[cindre2000]

Well, I have made a number of mistakes. In fact, how about i chronical my tank building experience.

I first decided to jump into saltwater because I was able to purchase a protien skimmer for about $50. I understood some of the basic fundamentals of saltwater tanks; mainly because I did some research after bidding on the protien skimmer (ebay).

Over the next 3 weeks I finalized the plans for my system and amassed most of the parts off of the internet. I got my pumps and lighting (the dual 9 watt coralite fixtures), as well as my bulkheads from www.aquariumguys.com. I bougth the rest of the plumping at lowes and the tanks off of ebay and from wal-mart. I got the sand and crushed coral from petsmart and the live rock off of ebay.

During all of this I was researching as much as possible to get low prices as well as correctly setting up the tank (I learned research is key when I set up planted freshwater tanks). I finally set up the tanks in early july in my brothers apartment (where I was staying for the summer). I let the tank run for about 2 days to let the salt mix, and I grew impatiant and jumped at the opportunity to get a little bit of livestock and live rock from a near by tank.

So I had a week old system with some zoos (that never opened), some mushrooms, 6 hermits (1 died), and 1 turbo snail each. My live rock came in about half a week later. Lots of coraline algea and some hitchhicker red mushrooms. I did not add anything else to my tank because I knew I had to break it down at the end of the month to move into the dorms. However, I did spontaniouly by a 13watt lamp for each of the tanks.

Towards the end of the month the AC went out in the building and the box fan I was using to keep the tank cool no longer could cut it. The average temperature in the apartment averaged above 90. Needless to say, none of my tanks had their lights on and I did not live there for a couple of days.

At the begining of August, I had the wonderful experience of breaking down my tank and moving it into my dorm room. I am now very very very happy I decided to use acrylic since they weigh nothing once you empty out the water. Unfortunatly I placed the sump (a standard glass ten gallon) onto a protusion in the moving card and the 30 lbs of crushed coral decided to break free. It took two week to replace the sump (since I had to move the glass dividers in the other one).

I also spent the time and money to build wood hoods so that the tops of the tank looked nicer. However it was now that i realized that the return pipe needed to be more securly attached since i actually fell out and swamped my room, several times (fixing that this week).

I continued to stock my tank. I bought 2 more turbo snails and then I lost 2. I also got another 5 hermit crabs to bring my total to 10. I purchased my first Neon Blue Damsel (died in 3 days) as well as my Green Chromis. I also have been slowly buying tiny zoo colonies to further my collection. I also bought my 2 emerald crabs, 8 certh snails, and 4 nassarius snails off of the ebay (excellently priced and shipped). Finally, just recently, I bought the calerpula, the replacement Neon Blue Damsel, the stripless clown fish, and the various other critter that my tank description says I have.

As to tank improvments and hind sight, I realized that kinking the hose to slow the flow of my pump was bad and I last week i made it to lowes to get the parts for a T-valve. I hope to put in a bulkhead for the return hose this weekend to completly prevent flooding. I also am trying to increase the flow into my overflow tubes and am thinking of drilling holes to increase the amount of water that can enter the tube. I also want to drill a hole in the collection cup of the protien skimmer to prevent flooding.

The only real hind sight I have is that I should have made the set up simplier (and cheaper) and that I should have done a DIY light setup.

And that is my tank up to today.