125 gallon "Uniquarium" reef build

Hello ya'll, just want to start a living diary of my tank build up. My goals for the tank are simple:

- Larger capacity (100 gallon +)
- No external plumbing mess
- Streamlined and easy to use / maintain
- Reef ready
- Acrylic tank for better optical clearity / weight / and easy of maintenance

With this in mind, I chose a TruVU Aquasystem setup for these reasons. This tank setup features a built in wet/dry filter chamber, which fortunately can be converted to sort of a sump setup. After scouring Craigslist for a while, I found a nice 125 gallon used tank with some nice show dimensions of 60"L x 18"D x 24"H. The tank came a little scratched up, but luckily, with acrylic, these can be buffed out.



My plan for the tank is to strip out the wet/dry section of the tank and convert it to a sump w/ a Skimmer and lots of chaetos there. The other section will house the standard pump return. The main section of the tank will be housed with live rock as the main filtration with a very shallow bed of aragaonite just for ph buffering.

 

very nice estee. look forward to seeing it move along

 

Cool, can't wait to see it setup.

 

I have the same tank minus the wet/dry filter chamber. I got it used for a good price as well, in the process of making my stand so it's just sitting in my garage...like yours

 

I have the 40 gallon version of this. Looks like you have the same back section as on my tank. In the first compartment far left I have a 4 inch sand bed with two mangrove trees, second compartment from the left I have a UV filter third compartment houses my heater. For the next two compartment that came with the bio balls in them I removed those blocked the underflow that goes to the return pump compartment and put chaeto in both of those. This way it has to overflow to get to the return and the pump doesnt suck up any chaeto. Hope this helps you out.

 

This is going to be enjoyable - nice canvas size to create a work of art.

Steve

 

Alright, went and bought about 150lbs of "premium" Fiji rock from a wholesale hookup from my fish buddies. Notice that these pieces are basically hardened old corals. Even though it was only about 150lbs, they were pretty large pieces. Off to clean them, since i bought them "dried" (had plenty of time to cycle/seed them, so didn't want to pay the for the "live rock" selection. In the interim, I threw in the "reef ready" aragonite (about 50lbs) that i picked up on the way. Took overnight before the cloudy water cleared up..










Afterwards, it was time to aquascape everything. This has to be one of the most frustrating, yet rewarding parts of the hobby. Took me about 4 hours between cleaning and trying to get good placement of the rock! In the end, I just placed wherever that looked good enough....



Next up, the equipment...

 

Looking nice. I like the old dead coral thats good stuff.

 

ahhh fiji i absolutely love that stuff. Be happy that you were able to get your hands on 125 lbs of it that stuff is rare to find these days. It has been ban from exporting from the fiji islands

 

thanks for the comments!

mikejrice - i think you have the seaclear 2 version of this. i know because i have one as well but appreciate your feedback. I think i will turn my middle compartment to be a chaeto farm as well!

now as for the equipment...

- Heater: Marineland 250w (x2) stealth heaters: Pretty self explanatory. Self-shutoff, unbreakable, etc.

- Return Pump: Marineland Maxijet 4500 Pump (1245gph): Quiet, reliable and adapts to 3/4" output hosing easily.

- Pumpheads: Marineland Maxijet 1600 (290gph x2) w/ "eco mods". One on each side of the tank to help with water movement.

- Skimmer: Marineland 100 Skimmer. Wanted an all in one unit that will fit in the back uniquarium compartment. Fits like a champ fortunately, but like others have said, has been very finicky with microbubbles and water level.

- Lighting: Current USA Orbit 2x150 HQI, 4x54W T5 420nm Actinic / 10K Sunlights. This is an upgrade from my previous Coralife Lunar PC lamp (in my previous pics). Hopefully this should be sufficient lighting for most soft corals and a few hard ones. The unit is huge, so I plan to convert the rear T5s to be exclusively for the mini-fuge for the chaetos, etc. cultivation.