Well im back.. :tongue2: After a year of being out of the hobby because of work and a new baby i've got the itch again. I thought i'd share my build as it comes together. Im going with the smallest tank i have ever owned a 70 gall. It'll be easier to maintain then my previous tank, plus i moved into a condo on the 10th floor and weight is an issue. (not for me but im sure for my neighbor downstairs)


My former glory.....
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC01869-1.jpg

This is going to be good. I loved your last tank.

Awesome to see you back. I still have a few of the frags I got from you a while back. You had an awesome setup, cant wait to see how you pimp out a 70g.

my toys as they arrive

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05093Medium.jpg

A tease as to whats inside

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05094Medium.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05097Medium.jpg

Your skimmer pump is worth more than my whole tank :)

lol... nah thats not the skimmer pump.. thats my return pump, the skimmer has a red dragon pump of its own.

lol... nah thats not the skimmer pump.. thats my return pump, the skimmer has a red dragon pump of its own.

Haha didnt see the 1200gph. SWEEEEEEET.

Slayer!!! Good to see your back. Hit me up if you need any help.

thankx Alan, but it might take you 5 hours to get to me,,i now live in Destin, Florida.

inside the boxes... A vertex 200 and a sunlight t5 fixture

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05114.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05119.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05121.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05122.jpg

After a quick rinse its plug and play

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05124.jpg

Nice! What stock list are you thinking of going with?

As its only a 70, im limiting myself to LE sps only, As for fish just a pair of perculas, maybe picassos.

thankx Alan, but it might take you 5 hours to get to me,,i now live in Destin, Florida.

I grew up there and was down for the past 10 days on vacation. Tore up some redfish by the mid-bay bridge.

thankx Alan, but it might take you 5 hours to get to me,,i now live in Destin, Florida.

NICE, Im in Savannah now so Im probably one of the closest to you. Werent you just in Tennessee? Ive still got that papa smurf milli I got from you and if is one of my favorite millis.

I really love the 2nd picture with all the boxes, The tallest box has Fragile wrote on the side and it still looks like they ran it through a meat grinder. Got to love Fedex/UPS. Glad your back by the way.

hey jamie, let me know when you swing through this area and i have some frags of city red milli and rainbow monti if they are "LE" enough for you.

Sweet, can't wait to see the setup:jumpy:

This will be a cool lil' tank. Good to see you back on the horse, Jaime.

only 2 fish in a 70??

yeah, only 2 fish, and thats only because of my daughter. Im going to try and keep a nutrient free tank, therefore less fish= less waste. Im going to implement the blue coral method again. Im going to experiment with some "stuff" -cough cough,,now that the tank is smaller it shouldnt cost as much to dose.

Hey Jerry yeap the ups guys sure did trash the packaging. It says not to stack on top of one of the boxes but you kow how that goes.

Jon - thankx bud.. my original frags came out of your tank. Would love a piece of you green birdsnest, tourch and hammer again..

Raj - Im back in town over thankx-giving we'll have to go out for a beer..

some more equipment -


kalk reactor

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05127Medium.jpg

carbon and phosphate reactor - special order from mrc

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05134Medium.jpg

not posting a pic of the tank yet as its still cycling and going through its algae bloom... but heres a pic of it before. Its a 70 gall rimless from glass cages. i know, I know,, but i've never had a problem with their tanks. Yes their customer service sucks, and there can be excess silicone but the tanks i have ordered from them over the last 7 years have served me well.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC04904Medium.jpg

note how clear that starfire is, you can hardly see it

yeap the chiller from the 2006 power buy is still running strong!!

speaking of cycling heres pic of the alpha cone 3 days after skimming....

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05106.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05111.jpg

man that's going to be sweet. im also closer to you also im in richmond hill just 1 hour away from the florida line. cant wait to see this come together.

yeah, only 2 fish, and thats only because of my daughter. Im going to try and keep a nutrient free tank, therefore less fish= less waste. Im going to implement the blue coral method again. Im going to experiment with some "stuff" -cough cough,,now that the tank is smaller it shouldnt cost as much to dose.

Hey Jerry yeap the ups guys sure did trash the packaging. It says not to stack on top of one of the boxes but you kow how that goes.

Jon - thankx bud.. my original frags came out of your tank. Would love a piece of you green birdsnest, tourch and hammer again..

Raj - Im back in town over thankx-giving we'll have to go out for a beer..


Oooh, you're juicing that tank? Awesome!

Give me a call when you're in town. Sending pm :up:

Oooh, you're juicing that tank? Awesome!

Give me a call when you're in town. Sending pm :up:

Reef roids?

thought i'd post pics of my progress...

first my sump i put together from an old 10 gallon acrylic. I used some acrylic i had lying around to patch a hole already in it that was used for a previous bulkhead. Then i made the baffles and a bracket to hold my probes and tunze osmolator sensor and float switch. (the ones supplied with it suck).

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05201Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05207.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05204.jpg


the probe holder for my ac3 (ph, temp and orp) and tunze osmolator (sensor and backup float switch) worked better then i thought, keeping the water level in the sump perfect.

The inside of the stand already started to show signs of water damage so i slapped on two coats of killz.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05200.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05208.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05209.jpg

this is how tight the fit was for my skimmer

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05211.jpg

Sweet!! More pics, more pics!!! Love the woodwork!

i've been thinking about using pond foam for a background for a while now, the only thing that was putting me off was the constant reports of the eggcrate releasing phosphates from people that had used it. So i decided to use the same method but used an acylic sheet instead. It was a little bit more time consuming but this is what i got...

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05296.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05301.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05302.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05303.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05304.jpg

I had a crazy cycle that i've never had before. Went through the red slime easy but then i started getting hair algae, and it overtook the tank. I guess thats what you get from using old dried live rock and trying to cycle it again. Finally after adding reef janitors, prodibio biodigest, reef booster, bioptim, vodka, and some good old elbow grease it is slowing going away. Now for the fun stuff gathering my coral and livestock to throw in..

That aquascape looks great! Looks like a playground for hermit crabs, lol.

Thankx i was trying to create the look of floating ledges. Im pretty happy with the way it ended up. Had to chisel and drill a lot of rocks to make it work.

Can you get a side profile shot? It looks deceiving, but it looks like there is no room at the front of the tank.

Nice aquascaping. Did you also glue sand on the overflow?
I am going to venture and do the rock wall myself on my 180...

Sure i'll take a picture and your right not much room in the front, just enough for my mag cleaner to brush by. I was trying to maximise as much room for rock as i could without it being a burden to clean the glass.

yeap i used foam and epoxy on the overflow and glued live rock, crushed coral and sand to it. I wanted some depth perception so i didnt do the whole thing.

I was told by Neptune that you cant have the ORP and pH probes that close. They will interfere and give false readings.

Looks great! I love the shelving! Will be good grow out spots for corals.

really, i've been doing it for years?? the only time i had a problem was when i tried to connect the ac via a serial port to a computer, it gave me error readings but that was from it not being grounded. I'll move them apart and see if i get different readings...

I moved the probes apart for a week now, and no difference on readings. did some research and apparently its not advised to place them together (right you are again Jeremy). Never been an issue for me though. Was going to take a side profile picture but that would mean i'd have to clean the glass :yuk:

I had a couple of days off so i've been busy messing with the plumbing of the sump and ahh yes the stuff that i found at my door today also took up most of my day..:D

will take some pics over the weekend of the new arrivals...



http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05350Small.jpg

So finally after 3 months of running fallow my reef tank is up and running. The frags havent been placed in there permanent positions yet, waiting for them to color up to see exactly where i'd like to place them. Some of them though are already popping. Im not the best picture taker in the world so excuse the quality.

fts

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05452Small.jpg

left side

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05454Small2.jpg

right side

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05455Small.jpg

my favorite of all the frags i got is this - a spider sponge...

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05459Small.jpg

Very nice man full of frags already.

Nice setup. What happen to your 300 Marineland DD?

its in storage..couldnt set it up where im living right now. Had to down size considerably. Maybe in a year or two when i finally settle down permanantly i'll set up my final reef tank and use that marine land as a sump..:eek:

Looking good, does the alpha 200 get enough crap in your system to maintain a good foam head?

its in storage..couldnt set it up where im living right now. Had to down size considerably. Maybe in a year or two when i finally settle down permanantly i'll set up my final reef tank and use that marine land as a sump..:eek:
Tank is looking good.
Mmmmmm 300g sump:D. That would make a sweet display fuge under your final tank.

its in storage..couldnt set it up where im living right now. Had to down size considerably. Maybe in a year or two when i finally settle down permanantly i'll set up my final reef tank and use that marine land as a sump..:eek:

300g sump for a 70g tank, that would be awesome. haha jk

I know you have thought of something much bigger.

no the alpha cone is way oversized for my tank and it has trouble holding a stable head of foam. I had to change out the volute to pull more water in and reduce the amount of air intake , and now finally im getting some consistancy. After i place my fish in the tank im hoping it will finally do what its suppose to. Although the reason i think its working for me is the vodka and constant feeding i've been doing. My pappone, phyto and vodka are on a constant drip. So my skimmer always has something to pull out.

yeah my dream is to have a 1500 gall plus system in my basement one day. but for now that is all it is...

no the alpha cone is way oversized for my tank and it has trouble holding a stable head of foam. I had to change out the volute to pull more water in and reduce the amount of air intake , and now finally im getting some consistancy. After i place my fish in the tank im hoping it will finally do what its suppose to. Although the reason i think its working for me is the vodka and constant feeding i've been doing. My pappone, phyto and vodka are on a constant drip. So my skimmer always has something to pull out.

yeah my dream is to have a 1500 gall plus system in my basement one day. but for now that is all it is...

That would be nice.

jamie i'll trade you my alpha 170 for your 200 ;-)

That's a lot of frags!

been a while heres a update..

I decided to tackle staining the cabinet as the water spills were starting to take their toll..


http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05560Small.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05563Small.jpg

first the re-sanding down of the trouble spots...

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05564Small.jpg

Then a practice stain on the door

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05574Small.jpg

Which turned out well and then onto the body

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05588Small.jpg

And then the whole thing

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05611Small.jpg

The waterstained parts seemed to have stained a little darker then other parts. Im gonna have to resand some more and touch those up..

Meanwhile the skimmer overflowed twice last month so i needed a way of shutting it down if it happend again, so heres what i came up with...

I found a piece of plastic small enough to fit through one of the holes in the lid of the skimmer cup and threaded a wire through to which i connected a float switch. I sealed the plastic tube at both ends with silicone. I placed a piece of heat shrink tubing over the top end of the tube and heated it shut. Then i used some ties to adjust the depth of the tube to the level i want the float switch to shut off at. I connected the wire to my breakout box (ac3) and whalla its programed to shut off the skimmer pump through my ac3 if the float switch is triggered.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05500Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05501Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05575Small.jpg

I had the day off today so i decided to finally plumb my red dragon pump in. Its been sitting for a long time. (still using a maxijet 1200 for a return). Im sure thats one of the reasons for a little hair algae im seeing.

First i wanted some feed lines off my return for my carbon, and phosban reactor, and whatever i wanted to expand to later...

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05622Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05623Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05624Small.jpg

then onto plumbing my oceans motions unit.... Didnt quite finish it today but its a start..

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05627Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05629Small.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/DSC05631Small.jpg

looking very good A-plus

well i tried to plug my red dragon pump into my 10 gall sump and it started to run dry because there wasnt enough volume to spare. So i ordered a new 30 gall sump and placed my own baffles. Gonna try and hook it up tonight.


http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05140622.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05140732.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05153838.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05154105.jpg

While i had the camera out i thought i'd update pics of the tank

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05131235-1.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05131141-1.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05131044-1.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05131112-2.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-05-05134445-1.jpg

Looks good. That's a lot of frags!

Wow....and an ocean view. Very nice man....taggin' along. Look forward to seeing all those frags grow out.

Nice! In pic 1..where can I get some of those sea rods?

What happened to only 2 percs going in there? Was your skimmer bored?

lol.. i couldnt do it.. I tried the zeovit / vodka route and the colors on my corals faded to pastels. I added a deep sand bed and threw in fish to increase the bioload and to get rid of my ultra low nutrient set up and bingo, back to eye popping colors and great growth. The zeovit / vodka method did great on my nutrients and i had no algae what so ever, but my corals turned pastel, my zoos wouldnt open or multiply and my leathers would hardly open.

I jumped on the band wagon, spent a whole bunch of money on reactors, media, vodka, amino acids and all it took to get back to the growth and colors im use to was a good old deep sand bed, increased feedings for the fish, a good skimmer and everything just fell in place. My phosphates and nitrates are low again. So yeap the fish population has increased as i was not a fan of low nutrient setups. I strongly believe corals do need some phosphate and nitrates to thrive. I'll try and find some before and after pics for comparision.

Thoses are spiral wire corals. I got mine from live aquaria after seeing them in chingchais tank over on rc.

lol.. i couldnt do it.. I tried the zeovit / vodka route and the colors on my corals faded to pastels. I added a deep sand bed and threw in fish to increase the bioload and to get rid of my ultra low nutrient set up and bingo, back to eye popping colors and great growth. The zeovit / vodka method did great on my nutrients and i had no algae what so ever, but my corals turned pastel, my zoos wouldnt open or multiply and my leathers would hardly open.

I jumped on the band wagon, spent a whole bunch of money on reactors, media, vodka, amino acids and all it took to get back to the growth and colors im use to was a good old deep sand bed, increased feedings for the fish, a good skimmer and everything just fell in place. My phosphates and nitrates are low again. So yeap the fish population has increased as i was not a fan of low nutrient setups. I strongly believe corals do need some phosphate and nitrates to thrive. I'll try and find some before and after pics for comparision.

I have come to the same conclusion as you. There is a fine balance between too few nutrients and too many. I think setting up your filtration properly and water changes every so often are the key to keeping it all happy.

BTW nice view you have there. :)

Thoses are spiral wire corals. I got mine from live aquaria after seeing them in chingchais tank over on rc.
There we go. Thank you

Nice tank and great to have you back in the hobby. Looks like you are doing well in Destin with the family growing up fast.

how's about an update?

will do,, im in atlanta right now, as soon as i head back home this week, i'll post some pics.. i've had a few disasters on my part with the tank the last couple of weeks but things are starting to bounce back. I thought i could get away with keeping a smaller tank ,with my time contraints with work but should have stuck with what i know (more volume equals more stability)

hey chris long time how you been?

so, i've read about kalk overdoses time and time again causing wipeouts and crashes of tanks but i never thought it could ever happen to me. Well in over 15 years of me reefing it finally delt me a swift hand.

The sad part was i saw it coming but i thought the kalk the ato was pouring in would be handled by my tank. (forgot i had downsized from a 900 gall system to a 100)

My top off water reserve had emptied and i replaced it with fresh ro/di water,as my sump level was very low (about 2 gallons low). Ironically my ac3 turned on my kalk reactor at the same time. So freshly mixed kalk (2 galls worth) was dumped in my tank and i didnt think anything of it. well this is what happened - (the first pic is two hours after the incident)

within 15 mins all of my anthias were dead, and my yellow tang showed signs of distress, i couldnt pull out my fish because i couldnt see them.

this pic is from the following day. i lost my yellow tang. all that survived was my regal tang and green chromis. i lost alot of sps and my elegance

its slowly starting to come back together again, i'd post some pics but now im battling hair algae probably from the yellow tang and 2 of the anthias i could never find leaching phosphate and a whole bunch of other stuff. Ive started phosban and the usual water changes, as soon as its presentable again i'll share some more pics...

dang, hate to hear about your loss... from what I have seen from you though, it will not be long until you have everything looking amazing again!

thankx bud... oh well lesson learnt. It didnt take long for me to get over it though, i went out that night with the boys and drowned my sorrows away. My new toy kinda helped...(sorry i had to throw that in- i know how many of you are motor heads in here)

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/jaiminandnish/2010-06-26222339.jpg

WOW... I would guess so! haha

Wow sorry to hear about that, hope everything else makes it fine

And I love the Lambo.. :yes:

Not the update I was looking for. Sorry to hear about your loses.

following your thread is more interesting than VH1. we get to see a great build, a great car, can't wait for the next update.

I would love some more info on someone that has some experience with Glass Cages. I was thinking about getting them to build my custom sump. How well does the delivery thing work? I have heard hints of execess silicone but how big of a deal is it. Did you get what you wanted? This is approx. what I want. PM me if you want

You might want to tank to chris or fish scales 2. He is a sponsor and builds tanks and sumps.

I would love some more info on someone that has some experience with Glass Cages. I was thinking about getting them to build my custom sump. How well does the delivery thing work? I have heard hints of execess silicone but how big of a deal is it. Did you get what you wanted? This is approx. what I want. PM me if you want

Thats a LONG and sordid query. GC have a long list of very unhappy customers, but also some that havent had any issues. IMHO, I want equipment that I KNOW will survive and work. Not stuff that "might be ok".

Also, FWIW, I have spent a bloody fortune at My Reef Creations for just that reason.

Didn't you JUST get a viper too? LOL

I would love some more info on someone that has some experience with Glass Cages. I was thinking about getting them to build my custom sump. How well does the delivery thing work? I have heard hints of execess silicone but how big of a deal is it. Did you get what you wanted? This is approx. what I want. PM me if you want

That looks more like a job for MRC if you dont mind acrylic

NICE CAR!!!!!:thumbs: