102g -ish cube Planted marine

[diablomaster9045]

So I finally have a tank that is unique enough to post a build thread here on R2R.

Equipment:
36" x 37" x 18" rimless tank with overbuilt metal stand
400w halide
rio 3100+ return pump
Bubble Magus Nac 6 Skimmer
40g breeder sump
1x wp-10
Apex full unit


Going for about 50lbs of rock in the main tank and another 100 lbs in the sump.


4 inch sand bed with Fiji Mud mixed in it for the main substrate.


Planned Stocklist:


8x H. Erectus seahorses
2x red knobby seahorses
2x Orange fiji H. erectus
4x dragon pipefish
4x banded pipefish
4x caribbean pipefish
1x randifordi goby
1x hector goby
1x Mated yellow watchman pair
1x blue bullseye pistol shrimp




Plants:
Turtle grass
Manatee Grass
Star Grass
Shoal grass
Blue ochodees
Blue Scroll
Blue dictoma
Red Dragon
Dragon's Breath
Red Scroll
Red petal
Organism's splotched blade
Mermaid's hair
blue hypnea


Sponges/Gorgonians:
Red and orange gorgonian
assorted sea whips
Blueberry gorgonian
purple sea fan
yellow fan sponge
yellow ball sponge
purple vase sponge
red tree sponge
spider sponge
blue ridge photosynthetic sponge
blue creeper sponge


Pictures:
Empty Tank

Basic plumbing


Sump and stand

 

[Kworker]

Love it. Will be following along.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Got sand and 1/2 way filled up with water. And realising that a 20k radium is way too blue for my tastes. Time to start looking for a used 14k bulb.

 

[diablomaster9045]

Got a 6 month old ushio 14k from my LFS that was gonna toss it so I nabbed it up. Finished filling up with water and got some live rock in. And to start the 2 week cycle before plumbing it into my 70g DD planted tank.

 

[diablomaster9045]

So after that 2 week cycle I plumbed it into my 70g DD as a giant refugium.

 

[diablomaster9045]

1 month mark:

added 50 nassarius snails.

 

[diablomaster9045]

1.25 month mark:

Making a feeder trough for the sea horses.

 

[diablomaster9045]

2 month mark:

Added 4 H. Erectus sea horses from my LFS. Tank raised already eating mysis. Have to go the easy route for my first time with seahorses.
Added a pink sea cucumber from my LFS.
Added about 80 ribosomes of shoal grass from florida pets.
added 40 stalks of manatee grass from florida pets.
added a bizarre microfauna mix from florida pets.
added a purple and brown gorgonian from petco.
added 2k pods from Reef2Go.
added some tan gorgonian clippings from my mom's tank.

 

[diablomaster9045]

2.5 month update

All the seahorses are happy and eating. They have really colored up from when I bought them. I bought them brown and black and they are not coloring up to some nice reds, oranges, and yellows.

I have had to add trace elements and macro grow additives on a dosing pump because all the macroalgaes are stripping the water column clean even with the heavy mysis feeding.

added 2 banded pipefish.
added 2 aussi dragon face pipes.
added a red gorgonian.






The aussi dragon face pipes are fairly camera shy.