The "She Said Yes!" 120 Gallon Build

[dangles]

Awesome clean build !!
I keep going back and forth on where to put my UV(25 watt also). I am curious about yours . I don’t see ball valves/unions and yours is mounted low and behind sump. I cannot tell from pics. How are you planning to change bulb and also remove unit w/o getting some water dripped in stand w/o ball valve unions attached to UV?

Great question!

My UV plumbing is not ideal. There were no good options for placement, and I *believe* my placement was the least bad of the options. I plan to use the unions built into the UV if I need to remove the whole unit. But that will result in some spillage. If I had it to do over again I’d also add ball valves to be able to shut it off. I may still modify that at some point.

For simple bulb changes I should have space to unscrew the bulb and swap it without removing the whole unit.

Here are a couple of better shots of the placement and plumbing…

 

[Reign1]

So you are exactly in the same spot i was in and and just settled on where to put it? Yeah I have gone between behind stand to on side of stand to on top of sump to likely on the "roof" of stand. Looking at your pictures IDK how you are going to get bulb out w/o it hitting side of stand. Either way good luck. I have also been running into the same dilemma as far as dual main pumps although yours are way larger than me I did want 2 for redundancy. Now I keep going back to maybe i should just have one large main pump and back up IDK .
Either way FOLLOWING!!!

 

[dangles]

So you are exactly in the same spot i was in and and just settled on where to put it? Yeah I have gone between behind stand to on side of stand to on top of sump to likely on the "roof" of stand. Looking at your pictures IDK how you are going to get bulb out w/o it hitting side of stand. Either way good luck. I have also been running into the same dilemma as far as dual main pumps although yours are way larger than me I did want 2 for redundancy. Now I keep going back to maybe i should just have one large main pump and back up IDK .
Either way FOLLOWING!!!

I hope you’re wrong about the UV! But you might be right lol

I really would have liked to do dual pumps, but when I had so many problems during setup tuning the flow it was just so much simpler to do a single pump.

On top of that, it WILL be nice to have a backup ready to go for maintenance and pump malfunctions. I have it plugged in and the wires run so it’s sitting right behind the sump, ready to swap out when I need to.

The Vectra pumps also have a way to “calibrate” the flow and identify the lowest and highest flow rates. That would have been MUCH more challenging with 2 pumps.

Anyway thanks for the follow!

 

[Reign1]

I hope you’re wrong about the UV! But you might be right lol

I really would have liked to do dual pumps, but when I had so many problems during setup tuning the flow it was just so much simpler to do a single pump.

On top of that, it WILL be nice to have a backup ready to go for maintenance and pump malfunctions. I have it plugged in and the wires run so it’s sitting right behind the sump, ready to swap out when I need to.

The Vectra pumps also have a way to “calibrate” the flow and identify the lowest and highest flow rates. That would have been MUCH more challenging with 2 pumps.

Anyway thanks for the follow!

Just making a observation as those bulbs have some lenght to them. Hope I am wrong for your sake. have a RO Varios 4 and a RD X (40 watt) so really two small pumps bought a 1/2" flow meter for UV but Apex says it max should be 250GPH flow so idk now if I can use. *** lol

 

[dangles]

Just making a observation as those bulbs have some lenght to them. Hope I am wrong for your sake. have a RO Varios 4 and a RD X (40 watt) so really two small pumps bought a 1/2" flow meter for UV but Apex says it max should be 250GPH flow so idk now if I can use. *** lol

I have 1” return plumbing. I could get a 1” flow meter but I have not heard a single good thing about them. Nothing but problems. I’m just going to flow my return into a bucket and time it

 

[Reign1]

I have 1” return plumbing. I could get a 1” flow meter but I have not heard a single good thing about them. Nothing but problems. I’m just going to flow my return into a bucket and time it

yeah same I am wondering if this was a waste as between them lasting only a year and the threads not being NPT IDK.

 

[dangles]

Ugh. My female clown jumped out of the tank last night

I really need my lid to get here

 

[tsharpe291]

yea a lid is a top priority for a tank IMO. never had a clown jump out on me

 

[dangles]

yea a lid is a top priority for a tank IMO. never had a clown jump out on me

Yeah I ordered it a month ago as soon as I got the tank in (they required exact measurements from the tank).

I never would have guessed one of the clowns would jump.

 

[ralquist]

Ugh. My female clown jumped out of the tank last night

I really need my lid to get here

O no that's so sad. What lid did you go with? I just got my clear view in from a black Friday order, the pisces exo and its beautiful!

 

[Harpo]

My wife has begrudgingly agreed to a new tank but is constantly ******** about it. She has a very sensitive nose and claims my tanks smell.

 

[dangles]

O no that's so sad. What lid did you go with? I just got my clear view in from a black Friday order, the pisces exo and its beautiful!

Yeah my wife was pretty bummed about it. Me too of course.

I got the same lid! I'm a little worried about salt cream in the corner joints. We'll see. Telegraham has one and loves it. He doesn't hold back on criticism so I take his opinions pretty seriously lol

 

[dangles]

My wife has begrudgingly agreed to a new tank but is constantly ******** about it. She has a very sensitive nose and claims my tanks smell.

This is one of my big worries. I haven't set up a protein skimmer yet but if/when I do that's what I'm worried about. I'm going to look into ozone at some point down the road. Plus the Avast Skimate Locker

 

[Harpo]

I have purchased a make up Air unit that will hopefully pull the smelly air outside and pull fresh air in

 

[Widdlyscudds]

My wife has begrudgingly agreed to a new tank but is constantly ******** about it. She has a very sensitive nose and claims my tanks smell.

6" inline fan moving at least 300cfm, 6" duct muffler, 6" carbon filter, 6" flexible ducting and vent that **** out side. Bonus is if you are running metal halides you can get an air cooled hood and hook it all up keeping your tank area cool and smell free. In theory an inline fan with a large enough carbon filter can eliminate smells in an enclosed area but I've found it better to just vent it outside and replace it with fresh air. 6" is fairly extreme and 4" is usually sufficient but if you have a large system bigger is better.

 

[dangles]

So I’ve opted to not worry about testing ammonia during the early stages with this build.

Here’s why….

I had been pre-cycling my rockscape in a dark bin and ghost-feeding. I had also added ammonia (Dr. Tim’s) decently regularly. I spot checked the ammonia/nitrate a couple of times. Just enough to verify it was indeed processing ammonia.

Fast forward to the new tank. Fish have been in the tank for almost 2 weeks now. I still have not tested for ammonia or nitrite. Seemed reasonable based on the above.

I have tested nitrate/phosphate twice now. Both times I got zero nitrates, which made me start to question whether the new tank was indeed processing ammonia. Fish were acting fine so I was leaning toward another possibility (dilution, testing error, etc).

So I had my local shop test the water:

Minimal nitrate, but no ammonia. So it’s processing ammonia fine. Based on these numbers I’m thinking maybe just not a significant enough bio-load to result in readable levels of nitrate? I just need to get more fish!

But my mag! No idea why it’s that low. Guess I need to get that up. I’ll start dosing kalk soon so that will help with the calcium, pH and dKH (although that’s fine).

 

[TheWB]

So I’ve opted to not worry about testing ammonia during the early stages with this build.

Here’s why….

I had been pre-cycling my rockscape in a dark bin and ghost-feeding. I had also added ammonia (Dr. Tim’s) decently regularly. I spot checked the ammonia/nitrate a couple of times. Just enough to verify it was indeed processing ammonia.

Fast forward to the new tank. Fish have been in the tank for almost 2 weeks now. I still have not tested for ammonia or nitrite. Seemed reasonable based on the above.

I have tested nitrate/phosphate twice now. Both times I got zero nitrates, which made me start to question whether the new tank was indeed processing ammonia. Fish were acting fine so I was leaning toward another possibility (dilution, testing error, etc).

So I had my local shop test the water:

Minimal nitrate, but no ammonia. So it’s processing ammonia fine. Based on these numbers I’m thinking maybe just not a significant enough bio-load to result in readable levels of nitrate? I just need to get more fish!

But my mag! No idea why it’s that low. Guess I need to get that up. I’ll start dosing kalk soon so that will help with the calcium, pH and dKH (although that’s fine).

The tank looks great. I'm doing the same thing as you did, pre-cycling the rock in a dark bin. They have been in there for about 2 weeks so far. How often did you ghost feed once the cycle was complete? About how many pounds of rock are you using? I've never pre-cycled rock before. You see a lot of people say they do it but there's not too much documentation about what they do after the initial cycle. Just curious how you went about it.

 

[dangles]

The tank looks great. I'm doing the same thing as you did, pre-cycling the rock in a dark bin. They have been in there for about 2 weeks so far. How often did you ghost feed once the cycle was complete? About how many pounds of rock are you using? I've never pre-cycled rock before. You see a lot of people say they do it but there's not too much documentation about what they do after the initial cycle. Just curious how you went about it.

Mine was in the bin for roughly 3 months. I'm not sure how many pounds I ended up with in my scape. Maybe 100ish if I had to guess?

I ghost fed about once a week, then did some Dr. Tim's ammonia every 1-2 weeks. I fed and tested kind of (really) randomly, and barely did water changes. My nitrates were as high as 50 at one point. I'm definitely not the guy to emulate lol

However it did seem to work, which makes me think the process is pretty flexible. Maybe try feeding a little bit once a week, test weekly, add some ammonia a couple of months in to make sure it's processing.

 

[TheWB]

Mine was in the bin for roughly 3 months. I'm not sure how many pounds I ended up with in my scape. Maybe 100ish if I had to guess?

I ghost fed about once a week, then did some Dr. Tim's ammonia every 1-2 weeks. I fed and tested kind of (really) randomly, and barely did water changes. My nitrates were as high as 50 at one point. I'm definitely not the guy to emulate lol

However it did seem to work, which makes me think the process is pretty flexible. Maybe try feeding a little bit once a week, test weekly, add some ammonia a couple of months in to make sure it's processing.

I'm getting ready to do a big water change soon and then I will probably just keep adding a little ammonia every couple of days to keep things rolling until the tank is ready for water. Thanks for the details.

 

[Arkayology]

Nice scape! I really like the arches and caves that you have made.