David C

I will be detailing my journey through my first SW tank build here. I intend for this to be a reef tank although I hope for it to be a slow progression. I hope you all enjoy my journey and learn from my mistakes which I'm sure I'll make plenty of.

Dave

David C

The tank was delivered on Friday, February 5th. I taped it off and put the first few coats on it. By the end of today, I managed to finish painting it and getting the stand pipes in. I also build my sump out of 1/4" glass panels and a 20L tank that was originally going to be my Q-tank. Since the 29g wouldn't fit easily in the stand and my wife didn't want me cutting a hole in the bottom of the brand new stand, I switched rolls for the two tanks and hope it will work out alright.
[IMG][/IMG] Here it is ready to paint.

[IMG][/IMG] Here it is after I finished painting the back and installing the stand pipes.

[IMG][/IMG] Here is the sump after I finished putting in the baffles. It's ugly but should hold.

Dave

harpua2002

Very nice! What lighting do you have for it?

David C

I'm using the Nova extreme 6x54w T5HO. I figure this will get me started and if I want to move into the higher light corals in a year or two, I'll DIY some LED fixtures to supplement.


Here is the cabinet with the sump in. I have to run to Home Depot and get two more fitting to finish the plumbing and some hooks to hide the RKL cords.


Here is a full view of everything, I have 2 acitinic bulbs on for the shot, was using them to see what I was doing in the cabinet.

Hoping to get the plumbing done tonight and the tank filled with freshwater for 4-5days worth of leak testing. The heaters won't even be in until Thursday so there's no need to be in a hurry.

Dave

David C

I finally finished the plumbing last night and filled the tank. Had to carry single gallon jugs from the bathroom 40ft to the tank one at a time. It took 1 hour 20 minutes total but absolutely worth it. Now I'm doing freshwater leak testing until Friday (assuming no problems are found) then I'll drain and refill with RO, add rock, mix salt... all the fun stuff.

Dave

Hussain

Great work, Update us to know where the project is at. Good Luck

David C

I finished adding the rock and sand on Friday, now I'm just waiting for the tank to clear. As soon as it's clear I'll be sure to take some pictures and post them, it looks pretty awful right now, lol

Dave

harpua2002

Cool! How much live rock did you pick up?

David C

I've got 100lbs base rock and 10lbs LR, I'm hoping that cycles the tank pretty quick, I'm planning on 2mos. Also got 4 frozen shrimp rotting away in the tank to fuel the cycle.

Dave

harpua2002

Sounds like a plan! What fish are you looking at for your stock list?

David C

Lol, that's in my other thread and you were the one who turned me onto the beautiful fairy wrasse's. I know... so many different threads they all start to run together

Here's a link to it Reef fish stocking ideas

Dave

harpua2002

Ah, now I remember!

Be warned, fairy wrasses are jumpers! But they're awesome fish with lots of personality.

ATP

Looks really good from the pics. What skimmer are you using? Looking and your plumbing, How does you sump works? A little confused from the pics

David C

The sump is a style F from Melev's homepage. Left compartment is the skimmer, right is the refugium with the center as a return. I ended up cutting out all the plumbing and redoing it to make it quieter, I was having air bubbles so loud I couldnt watch TV. Wife wasnt going for it. I have a marineland 100 skimmer, going to be getting a replacement in two months with the tax return and use this as my back-up. I can finally see the rockwork in the tank, but the cloudiness is still too bad for any pics. Ill post them in a day or two when the water clears.

Dave

David C

As promised, here are updated pics since the cloudiness is finally down. I also tested the water and I finally have detectable ammonia. 4 rotting shrimp and it still took 4 days to get the ammonia to .25ppm. I'm going to add another bag of argonite sand to finish off the sand bed, its 4" in the front and only 2" in the back. I'm going for a DSB so I still have a little ways to go. I'll be getting some more LR to add to the tank late next week after I get paid, not sure how I'll place it yet... guess it depends on the pieces I get.

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG] My 2yrd old being adorable

ATP

this could be useful for aquascape-you could break the rocks with a chisel and a hammer to make it the shape you want. I just throw the small pieces of rubble that breaks into the refugim.

David C

That's a good idea ATP, will make it easier to pick out rock knowing I can adjust the shape if its not quite right.

Dave

David C

Tonight's water test was excellent, ammonia has finally leveled off so hopefully it begins to drop soon. Nitrites also seemed to level off. I tested my nitrates and can't tell, but it's somewhere between 0 and 10, lol. I'm color blind and have the most trouble with yellows and that's the range of the nitrates so I may have some, I may not but I did start at 0 so I'll test again this weekend with my wife here to read.

So today's results were:

Ammonia .5ppm
Nitrites .5ppm
Nitrates 0-10

Good thing I should be setting up the QT on Friday and I'll be cycling that with bio spira and LR from my LFS.

Dave

David C

Today's water tests show some really good signs. I'm at:

ammonia .5ppm
nitrite 1.0ppm
nitrate 20ppm

Ammonia is almost completely back down and nitrite has already peaked and dropped considerably with a substantial rise in nitrate. I'd say in another week or so the cycle should be complete, yeah for me!

I've set up my QT tank and I'll be buying my first fish tomorrow, it's going to be an ocel. clown fish. I've been watching him for the last two weeks at the pet shop and he seems to be doing really well, eating well and is very active in the tank with no visible signs of illness. I'll post pictures tomorrow of my QT setup and my first fish. I'll bet noone can guess what his name is going to be especially since my son is naming him.

Dave

David C

Here are pictures of my first ocellaris clownfish and my QT setup. Critiques are always appreciated

My 29 gal QT complete with poorly constructed homemade stand
Here is Nemo in acclimation
Him just saying "Hi"
And another

Hope you all enjoy the shots.

harpua2002

Looks like you're off to a great start! That's a healthy looking clown.

David C

Thanks harpua, I've been watching this clown for 2 weeks to make sure he was the one for me. I had a little problem acclimating, the water started to get cold for some reason if with a heater so I have to figure that out. I only drip acclimated him for one hour instead of the two I had planned on. He seems fine in the QT though so I don't think there was any harm done. This is why I started with a hardy fish, so he wouldn't mind a couple noob mistakes.

Dave

David C

I have the first signs of algae in my reef tank. Until last weekend, I was running the lights only 3 hours per day to keep the algae down, but my wife really wanted to see something in the tank so I boosted daylight hours and now have brown algae on most surfaces and a few spots of green algae. Guess after I confirm the cycle is complete I should start thinking about some snails.

Dave

harpua2002

Blehhhhhh, I hate the diatom outbreak stage.

If you're interested in ordering online, I have been reading really great things about www.reefcleaners.org . I have never ordered a clean up crew online, but supposedly the guy is a pleasure to work with and will send unexpected freebies. There's also some really neat macro algae available on the site.

treve

Great job on your tank Dave I am really impressed looking forward to seeing more pics.

jr177

ohh man...the anxiety that you have right now...i feel you.

David C

Today's test results show a completed cycle, 0ammonia, 0nitrite, and 15nitrate. I went ahead and picked up a couple snails to get to work on the algae, and I think I'm going to use harpua's link and order online, the prices are irresistable. I'll have to exchange a couple of emails with them before I commit though. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

Dave

harpua2002

I hope that goes well for you. I've never ordered anything from them, but I'd like to... did you see that red gracilaria?

David C

I hadn't even looked at the macro algae, that is really nice though. Wonder if I should get some and add it to the refuge with the chaeto or figure out a way to keep it in the display.

Dave

harpua2002

I keep a couple different kinds in my display and a ball of chaeto in the fuge. I super glued my macros to some rubble and they didn't seem to mind.