My 72 Mixed Reef (She's Coming Down)

Success! Drilling the holes was too easy, no problems, didn't make a practice run, I just watched the videos and with light pressure let the bit do all the work.

Drain and returns are in place. I start calculus and organic chem tomorrow at FAU, so I'll probably finish the tank after class.

Livestock will have spent 48 hrs bagged at 3pm tomorrow, and they all look fine being kept in the AC around 75 degrees.

The sump I biffed a while back is in place, and looking sharp. I'll post pics as soon as I can. Our new place is a 3 story condo and I'm worn out from hauling boxes up steps, gotta sleep.


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Your condo is 3 floors? That's a big condo. lol. Congrats on the tank.

 

Here's a few pics of the patch test. Gl*******s 700 and return, plus my new 29er sump.

We're putting thick curtains over those windows.

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Looks good, congrats

 

So far so good. The only deaths were two small bags of rics. All the the rock was submerged and I detected no scent o' death from anything other than the rics. Which means the live rock and sand stayed fully populated with bacteria. I also kept all the LR rubble and chaeto in a small bucket covered in old tank water. Nothing stank or smelled dead, so I think we are all set.

Squamosa is pulsing up real good enjoying the 1.025 Coral Pro Salt from Red Sea!!!

Love my tank now the stock overflow is gone!!!!!!


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That looks pretty good for everything just being transfered. Big Squamosa. I hear a lot of good things about Pro salt, I think member blackraven uses it and reports very good growth with it. Hmmm I just changed to Reef Crystal, not too sure I really like it.

 

Thank You! Now I gotta run off to class, I'll get some better pics up after I set up wifi again.


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Looks good, too bad on the rics

 

Wow great job! I woudnt like the huge a$$ overflow box top to bottom either.

Enjoy more space/option for the scape without unwanted vortex! And.... pics?

 

Here's a few better pics. The distortion is from the bow and the tank has been up again for about 12 days.

To recap, I removed the stock overflow by cutting the adhesive with razors and the overflow with a jigsaw. It's important to protect the surrounding glass with towels and cardboard while using a jigsaw. To remove about 90% of the existing plastic overflow, I laid a jigsaw on it's side and cut about 2 inches from the back glass panel all around the overflow back and bottom.Then with razors and limited amounts of elbow grease everything else came off pretty easy. Being very careful not to over torque the bottom panel where the overflow was attached around 2 big holes.

I then patched the bottom with a 3/8's tempered panel 6x10 inches with a lot of silicone.

Next, I drilled and installed the Gl*******s box and return. Everybody's happy!!!

All and all this was pretty easy. If you have a stock overflow that you dislike and want to remove, this method works pretty well.

Even though I still ended up the a 'back wall of rock", I was able to bring the larger base pieces forward which allowed for some nice 3D caves and overhangs along the back.

The fish have open water for swimming and cover when they need it, plus water flow is drastically improved. It seems like the water flows better throughout the entire system with less focused points of turbulence.