Greetings fellow members. I have put-off posting my build thread by a bit (by almost 3 years). I started my tank in December of 2016 as a way to take my mind off of being diagnosed with Prostate Cancer (and not the good kind, if there is any such thing), and to help get me through the following 2+ years of treatment. I am happy to say that both the tank and me have made it through the "Uglies" and are doing quite well. Enough of the depressing stuff. - I will be completing this build thread over the next several days, so please bear with me ;-):
Equipment:
Stock:
Fish:
Mixing Station Base - designed to lift the mixing tanks high enough to be able to slip buckets under the drain valves:
Competed Mixing Station - stole all ideas from posted threads (thanks to all), but added a drain valve in the middle section in order to clear-out salt water and keep it from contaminating the RODI water:
Display tank - finally won the battle with Dino, Hair Algae and other uglies. Today the rock work is mostly covered with coraline algae:
I call this the "Green Hairy Mushroom River". It stated with a piece of the Fat-Finger leather and a single mushroom. It's now a daily fight to keep the mushrooms from crossing the adjacent rockwork:
The Custom Made refugium insert. AI Prime Fuge light, not visible in this pic really does the job of growing the Chaeto. Sized to maintain NO3 at ~ 5 and PO4 at ~ .08 when running for 16 hours per day.
Equipment:
- 165 gallons Display Tank (~6' x ~23" x ~23" converted from metric )
- 50 gallon Sump with 4 chambers
- 160 gallons of total water volume (including sump volume, rock etc.)
- Custom designed acrylic refugium insert with AI Prime Fuge light (chaeto for nutrient export, pods and other critters)
- 2 x Kessil AP700 LED display lights
- Skimz Monzter SM201 Internal Protein Skimmer
- Skimz Monzter CM 122 External Calcium Reactor - Kamoer FX-STP Peristaltic Pump and Carbon Doser Regulator
- CO2 Scrubber
- Apex Controller (extra PH Probes and Temp Probes, WAV, DOS (x4), AFF) -
- Tunze Universal ATO
- Tident Auto-tester
- Bad-butt Saltwater Mixing Station (all ideas stolen from other members' posts - thanks!)
Stock:
Fish:
- 02-15-17 (1) Hippo Tang
- 02-27-17 (1) One Spot FoxFace
- 01-30-17 (2) Black Ice Ocellaris Clownfish
- 03-4-17 3 (2) Blue/Green Reef Chromis
- 03-4-17 (1) Neon Dottyback
- 02-1-19 (1) Flame Angel
- 02-1-19 (1) Mandarine Goby
- 04-1-19 (2) Algae Blennies
- 09-15-19 (1) Purple Tang
- 03-4-17 (1) Fire Shrimp
- 03-4-17 (1) Cleaner Shrimp
- ~(4) Peppermint Shrimp
- ~ (30) Snails of several types
- (20) Pincushion Urchin
- (2) Abalone
- ~ (20) Hermit Crabs
- 9 Rose Bubble-tip Anemones (started with 1)
Mixing Station Base - designed to lift the mixing tanks high enough to be able to slip buckets under the drain valves:
Competed Mixing Station - stole all ideas from posted threads (thanks to all), but added a drain valve in the middle section in order to clear-out salt water and keep it from contaminating the RODI water:
Display tank - finally won the battle with Dino, Hair Algae and other uglies. Today the rock work is mostly covered with coraline algae:
I call this the "Green Hairy Mushroom River". It stated with a piece of the Fat-Finger leather and a single mushroom. It's now a daily fight to keep the mushrooms from crossing the adjacent rockwork:
The Custom Made refugium insert. AI Prime Fuge light, not visible in this pic really does the job of growing the Chaeto. Sized to maintain NO3 at ~ 5 and PO4 at ~ .08 when running for 16 hours per day.
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