150gal FW to SW conversion

[gmoney243]

so i finally got rid of the rest of my fish(neighborhood cats love me) and get to convert my FW to SW and work on getting a real reef tank set up. i know lot of people hate tall tanks but personally i like the looks better and thats all that matters ill just have to deal with the cons. its going to be a mixed reef mostly LPS and Softies since i really dont like all that many SPS least not enough to want a SPS dom tank. dont get me wrong theres some cool ones but i like action and movement :tongue:

my plan is to build a tall reef structure ,probably have to epoxy it to make it work, that runs down toward the front with lots of caves and places for fish to swim and places for corals. so any advice you pros have would be appreciated :wink: later on after the tank is estblished i will start building some type of canopy with leds.

i am also resealing the corners since the old silicone was peeling off and is white and looks like junk and sticks out about 1/2 inch. other than that i wont be doing to much modifications to the tank ill get some kind of overflow very soon like a CPR box or even a cheap PVC overflow. need to find a return pump first though.

heres a pic of the tank drained i did it wednesday and today should be filling it up to let it recycle going to add a black molly to help it and also they r good algae eaters. and i didnt really feed my fish to the cats i gave em to jay! :cry:

 

[mapn4reef]

"Neighborhood cats love me" Wahattt!?!?

I'd consider this overflow: prefilter box, siphon box, overflow box, siphon overflow, Eurobrace, Euro-brace, Euro-tank

 

[Jennifier615]

Well I have mostly LPS and softies......when I thin this tank down maybe you need to take a ride on out my way!

For those of you reefers about to "rock"- we salute you

 

[Dowtish]

What kind of rock are you going to use? If you are planning on building high, I would suggest dry rock that you can drill, epoxy, ziptie etc.

 

[gmoney243]

mostly be DIY rock so yea it will be dried when i epoxy etc. of course i will accept any donations of course for rock and such lol .. and jenn cool yea ill be looking around for cool stuff once i get everything all ready lol

 

[Dowtish]

DIY! wow. what are using to do it?

 

[gmoney243]

Aragonite and Portland Cement a friend is making it but i have a couple buckets at my house curing takes like a month it raises ur PH super high till its done curing. i couldnt find the Quickwall which is what Gary recomended but the home depots around here dont seem to carry it but he says that stuff doesnt need long curing.

 

[Dowtish]

So when this cures, are you then going to add it to the tank to start cycling?

 

[Dowtish]

or are you just going to use the water and the fish? I'm obviously confused...lol

 

[gmoney243]

yea i wont really put any fish in till the rocks all rdy and i know the tank is safe .. other than the black mollies. but for now i will fill with water and start the cycling then start working on some kind of overflow probably to an algae filter setup.

 

[gmoney243]

Made a couple tops out of eggcrate to start replacing my glass tops since jay told me they would end up blocking light. I might paint them black

 

[Dowtish]

hate to be a downer but the eggcrate will block light as well, you need to get some clear screen from BRS and some screen framing from Home Depot, it's easy to do and looks nice.

 

[gmoney243]

Coo thx for the tip lol it'll b a while I had the eggcrate already so just messing around with it

 

[gmoney243]

Some updates early aquascaping its temp while I wait for diy rock to cure

Goby

New clowns

 

[gmoney243]

Heres a pic of some diy rock curing