New Project - 66 gal. Half Cylinder Tank

I've purchased some more equipment to get me up to speed. Bought an Ecotech MP 40 and bought a Reefbreeders Super Lux for some upgraded lighting. Should be here later this week. Can't wait to get my hands it. I had an MP 40 on my old tank and it rocked.

 

Excellent, sounds like fun, boy a 40 in a 66 you'll have tons of flow. My new equip gets to me tomorrow, I am so excited I can not stand it.

 

Ok, time for another update here. My plans for this tank are almost complete. I bought an MP40w as before, I had no power head. I used one before and really liked it. Needless to say, the fish seem much happier. I also purchased and installed a Reefbreeders SuperLux fixture. I was very limited in lighting choices as the tank has a custom black acrylic canopy which only leaves about 4" clearance underneath it. The fixture itself is only 1.5" high and I had to modify the legs by cutting them to allow it to fit under the canopy. The light is lower to the water than I really want, but It's not too bad, and will have to work. My initial thoughts of the light is that it is a tremendous value for the money. The fixture is solid and seems well built. It also looks pretty sleek and I would not have a problem hanging it over a tank. The remote is a nice feature as well and allows you to control all aspects of the light, although for me, the canopy blocks the signal so I have to open it to make any adjustments. My favorite aspect about the light so far is that you can adjust the intensity of each channel which now only helps with light acclimation, but allows you get the exact color you are looking for. Overall, I am extremely happy with the light right now. I will see how it does as it is used in the future. You can see that the light actually sits on an acrylic cover. I wanted to remove that cover to get better light penetration but the fixture wouldn't work without it as it would fall in. I couldn't attach it directly to the top of the canopy either as it is acrylic and I didn't want to risk it cracking the acrylic.

I only have 2 steps left. One is to finish removing the bio balls so I can add a skimmer to the sump, and the second is to start using RO/DI water. As the tank is in my office at work, we have a company which comes once a week to clean/maintain the tank, although I have taken a very hands on approach. As the tank started as a Fish Only tank, tap water was fine. The guy placed a few pieces of Kenya Tree to see how they do. They are doing ok, although 2 of the pieces don't look good, although I could have hurt them when I added the new light as they were right below it. He threw in a piece of Monti cap. I didn't have any real expectation of that surviving as for the first 2 weeks, I had my old, completely inadequate light for a reef on the tank. It survived, but not well. I ended up cutting off the healthy section and sticking in a better position. I'll see how it does under the new lights. I did find a mushroom of some kind, looks more like a ricordia. I don't know if it was a hitchiker, or fell off one of the frags. That has done much better since adding the Vortech and the new light. It now has neon green tips and has opened much more. Once I make the switch to RO/DI water, I will start adding some lps.

Here are some pics of the tank. It's not quite as blue as in the pictures, actually looks similar to a 14k Phoenix bulb I used to run.

 

Tremendous progress and a nice looking, very interesting tank! Very nice job with the lights considering the space you had to work with. Im sure the benefits of loosing the bio balls and switching to ro/DI will be significant!

 

Dienerman, where are you in West Chester? I used to live there, not far at all.

 

I am... West Goshen actually. I wish i lived in the Keys but I gotta make a living!! Glad you posted an update. I started following the day you started the thread. You have turned a disaster into a very nice tank which seems to me to be more difficult than starting something from scratch. Im impressed.

 

I was on the other side in East Bradford. Do you know of any good local stores? I used to go to East Coast Aquatics, but I came to find out that it had a fire and never reopened.

Thanks for the comments. It's still a work in process. I really want to get the skimmer up and running as I think it will really help improve the water quality. I just don't want to risk removing all of the bio balls at one time, even with the rock up. I do have to agree that taking on another person's tank is more challenging than starting from scratch. The original tank was fine for what it was, a fish only tank (can't even say FOWLR), but I've had to correct a lot of mistakes. I've even recently thought about replacing the sump with something more user and reef friendly, but that's a little too ambition for right now. (I really shouldn't say ambitious as I've seen many of the DIY projects people do. I made my last sump out of a 20 gal long to have a middle chamber for a refugium. The only real difficulty would be find a tank that would fit.) Maybe down the road. I guess what should have clued me into the the prior owner's mind set was when the guy who used to work on the tank told me that this tank could never be a reef. That let me know exactly what I needed to.

I also feel embarrassed to say this, but I still haven't tested the water, or bought test kits for that matter. I didn't really feel the need to as only fish have been in there, but now, I need to. I'll have to order them in the next day or so.

 

I live right on the E.Brad border near Copeland School. As for LFS, I go to That Fish Place in Lancaster for all of my fish and any equipment that i need to purchase new. Its amazing and the prices are not bad if you get there on a weekend you have a coupon for. As for corals, the old Frazer Zoo, which is now ASR is run by Mike Castiglioni. For having to maintain brick and mortar, his prices are exceedingly fair and he is very knowledgeable. He has a very extensive stock and does a lot of fraying of his own stuff. Worth a trip out in my opinion. Where do you go down your way? Im a road trip fan, particularly to LFS, although i have to say most of the ones i seem to find are not that great.

 

Well, I finally got some of my test kits in. Decided to buy some Salifert kits as I used them before and I liked them. Seem a bit more accurate and reliable than the API tests I also used before but not as expensive as the high test kits. I bought Nitrate, PH, DKH/Alkalinity, Phosphate and Calcium tests. These are my baseline test results (My Calcium and phosphate test will be hear tomorrow):

Nitrate: about 75ppm
PH: 8.3
Alk: 8.0

Clearly my nitrates are sky high. I kind of was expecting this. As I inherited this tank as a fish only (not FOWLR), just fish only, tap water has been used. I am just not starting to use RO water so this should definitely help. The tank has also not run a skimmer ever. I will be installing the skimmer next week as I have been slowly removing the bio balls about a 1/3 at a time. I will put the skimmer whether the bio balls were in the sump which should also help. I also need to clean the bottom of my sump (pic to follow) as it has about a 1/4" layer of detritus on the bottom. I purchased a filter sock with a bracket to hold it which will also be installed next week. This should all help bring those nitrates down to a reasonable level. The good news is that I'm not really looking to have sps in this tank but soft and lps corals, so my nitrates don't have to be perfect.

I also purchased Ca/Alk kit from Bulk Reef Supply to get my Alk up.

I just noticed that one of my blue damsels is being terrorized by the other one. She is really beat up with fin tears and marks all over her body. They were getting along fine for months, but something must have happened. I don't know if I can do too much to help though, may have to let nature takes it course.

 

I just finished the major upgrades to this tank now. I removed the rest of the bio balls added, added the skimmer and a filter sock with bracket. I also added some new corals. I found a great lfs which focuses almost only on coral and is run very well. The prices were very good too. I got 2 mini colonies for about $30/each of zoas, 1 pink, 1 eagle eye. I also picked up a nice leather frag. I also picked up a small piece of live rock as well as I wanted to try to add some more biodiversity to the tank. Pics are below.



Eagle Eye Zoas (still al little closed so look similar to the pink)


Pink Zoa Rock