Astrick's 75 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

Well, I did it. I decided I'm upgrading when I move in August. I just bought a tank off of Craigslist for $400 that has a ton of extra stuff with it. Of course, I will be customizing my own set-up with this as the basis, but it had a lot of the components I wanted (drilled tank w/ overflow, stand, 80 lbs of pest free live rock, etc). Picture of the tank that I bought is attached.

It currently has a large lionfish and large snowflake eel in it, but I will be finding new loving homes for them shortly, as they would probably eat all of my current 46g inhabitants.

I also just ordered 80 lbs of live sand from reefrocks. I've never used them before, but I've heard good things. Hopefully that will arrive by the end of the week.

I will be picking up the tank this weekend, so I will post pictures of it when I get it set up again.

 

nice one!! glad to help

 

Love to watch "the build" Looks like a nice tank....

 

Yea, I am pretty excited about it! I've always wanted a larger tank, but didn't have the money to invest into it.

Now, I am going to do things the right way with a sump, phosban reactor, etc. I am tired of fighting nuisance algae- it is unbelievably frustrating and I won't do it anymore! Time for my tank to auto-eliminate it lol

 

BTW any advice for sumps, filtration, and flow would be greatly appreciated! I am pretty new to anything other than HOB.

 

I got a sump build thread..it is one example of many...but it works great for me. 8)

http://www.3reef.com/forums/refugiu...ld-thread-installed-done-page-5-a-131595.html

 

yeah, get a sump/fuge

 

Alright, it needs a bit of scrubbing... ok, a lot of scrubbing, but here is the sump I am buying. It comes with a filter sock holder and a magdrive 5 pump.

I figure the magdrive 5 should work well as I've heard that it should pump about 10x your sump size. At 4' of lift, the magdrive produces 310gph, which should be just about perfect.

The left side is where the filter sock and protein skimmer will sit. The center is open for my heater and I plan to put a pump for a phosban reactor there too. The return pump outlet is drilled in the center partition as you can see and the actual pump will be external.

The right is the refugium. I'm still debating as to how I want to get water to that area. I may split the downtube from the overflow so that 1/2 goes to the skimmer area and 1/2 to the refugium. Any suggestions?

 

Sounds good, but I wouldn't worry about a 50/50 split, youre going to want alot less flow to the fuge. I'd just use a T and drop it down to like 1/2" return to the fuge and put a ball valve on it to adjust the flow ya want it at

 

perfect sump /fuge /return...just as cosmo stated...split your return line, and T valve it..to control the flow to fuge..check my diagram...almost same setup.
what did ya pay for it??