Rebuilding my 120 the right way, need help/suggestions.

[grain-o-salt]

I bought my 120G AGA a while back and had all the best intentions of setting it up to be the SPS dominant reef tank that I have always wanted after spending so much time reading about (and drooling over) them on here. Somehow life had different plans for me and I haven't had the time or resources to devote to it again until now. My equipment is as follows:

120G AGA Reef Ready Aquarium (Corner Overflows) 4ftx2ftx2ft
30G Acrylic sump
Gen-X PCX40 External return pump
Euroreef CS 6-2 Protein Skimmer
2 IceCap 250W MH Ballasts lighting 2 250W XM 10k bulbs
1 IceCap 660 Ballast lighting 2 4ft Super Actinic VHO bulbs

I have a 3-4" sandbed which is mostly Caribsea Aragalive. I have about 120lbs of live rock which is a combination of Fiji and Tampa Bay Saltwater. I know that more rock is needed. I have been kicking around the idea of buying some dead base rock from one of the LFS's around here. I have also considered making some of my own rock. Opinions are welcome on that one.

I am trying to decide between building a new stand and canopy or doing a built-in under this funky space we have under the stairs.

I know that I really need some more flow in the tank. I would like to go closed loop if I could, but being that it is a glass tank, I don't know how I could easily get water down to the CL pump without drilling the tank. Again any suggestions are welcome on what everyone else has done.

Other than that what can you think of that I should do to set this up the right way for a successful SPS dominant tank. All suggestions and comments welcome.

 

[Anonymous]

I will never put a deep sand bed in an SPS tank again. Well, I'll never set up an SPS tank again, but that's beside the point.

Current, CURRENT, CURRENT! This is at least as important as lighting, and lack thereof is responsible for more SPS problems than most keepers are aware of.

This is just too hard to do properly with a deep, fine sand bed in a small glass box. What you need to do is some research, there are various ways to achieve ideal current levels in an SPS tank, to much for me to type here but maybe someone else will chime in.
If I did have the desire, the time and the money to sink into such a project again, I'd use a combination of closed loop pumps, a large surge tank.

Again, not compatible with a dsb IMO. Although the problem gets easier to manage in larger tanks.

Jim

 

[grain-o-salt]

Well the DSB was a left over from a previous tank that I had. I am thinking about setting up a smaller tank, around 30G, in a different room and I could put a fair amount of the sand into that tank.

As for the current, I knew that I needed more than what I have. I have looked at a lot of different people's setups. It seems that a lot more people are going acrylic lately. So it is a lot easier to drill and install extra bulkheads if needed. I had never thought of a surge tank before though.

Why would you never set up an SPS tank again, just curious?

 

[Anonymous]

Greetings Grain...
There are several reasons why at this juncture, I don't see myself setting up an SPS tank again.
For starters, after keeping reefs very successfully over the past few decades, I'm moving my focus back to my roots, freshwater. Namely cichlids and planted aquaria.

Reefs are expensive, I've had enough of burying my wallet at the bottom of them. It's too much money, both setup and ongoing...it's insane quite frankly. I have other things I need to do with my money. A reef can too easily be taken out by something very small going wrong, and we have lots of power outages up here during the winter.
My life priorities have changed, as has my tolerance for sinking silly amounts of money ($125 dollar light bulbs anyone) into something so easily taken out. I've never had it happen, but I'm done with the risk.
I also want to travel, and I hate the anxiety of leaving a reef tank at home.

I'll set up a 12 gallon or so nano reef again at some point, and I'll always keep marine fish tanks, but never again will I keep a large reef.

A 500 gallon Amazon biotope tank however, THAT is in the works!

About the sand, it' also traps nutrients...bad for an SPS tank.

 

[Anonymous]

I have about 120lbs of live rock which is a combination of Fiji and Tampa Bay Saltwater. I know that more rock is needed.

I have a 120 gal. set up as an SPS dominated tank and I have less rock than that in my tank. I believe that many people fill their tanks up with way too much rock. Open aquascaping looks more appealling (JMHO), and less rock makes having high flow much easier. As Jim said, flow is very important for an SPS tank... and I also agree with him about the sand bed, but that is a contentious topic.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, and you don't need to drill a bunch of holes into your tank to get a lot of flow. That is one way to do it, but I have never drilled any holes other than for the return and drain. I have one closed loop that goes up and over the back of the tank, but most of my flow is provided by two vortech powerheads.

 

[grain-o-salt]

I agree, I like the look of open rockwork much better and if gives more room for flow and coral growth. I guess I was thinking along the lines of the old 1.5 to 2 x's your tank size in lbs of rock. Like everything else in this hobby opinions/views on what is appropriate change by the minute. Thanks for the advice.Do you have pictures of your setup?

 

[Anonymous]

I have this picture of the tank from the side, taken about a month ago. I took some pictures of the tank from the front today which I will post as soon as I can get them loaded into my drop shots account (I'm on dial-up at home and sometimes uploading pictures can be an adventure)

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I never could upload anything to drop shots. Lets see if I can resize this pic of the front and attach it.

This tank is still relatively young (just over 1 yr) and still has a lot of growing out to do.

 

[Anonymous]

This is my best attempt at a full tank shot.
You can see (kind of) the plumbing for my closed loop in the back left corner. I used black PVC pipe and tried to make it as unnoticeable as possible.

 

[trido]

I cant see the over the top CL in that pic. You can see some more pics of another CL if you take a look at pg.5-6 of my tank thread in my Sig.

 

[grain-o-salt]

How do you get water into your closed loop system?

 

[Anonymous]

I have a pipe that runs down to the bottom of the tank. I drilled a bunch of holes all through it, until about 3 inches before the surface.

Here is a pic from an old tank I had before I finished putting rock into it.

This tank had two over the back closed-loops. I assembled the entire unit, and then primed the pumps before finishing off the return nozzles. In that pic, one of the closed-loops has outputs blowing across the bottom.

 

[trido]

I have a pipe that runs down to the bottom of the tank. I drilled a bunch of holes all through it, until about 3 inches before the surface.

Mine is the reatively the same. I cut slots with my table saw instead of drilling holes. I have a "T" and a 90 with a threaded end cap for priming the system before start up.

 

[grain-o-salt]

Trido,

Do you have a picture of the priming piece and also of that intake that you have cut the holes in with the table saw?