Smack's 90gal Build!

lol. That's awesome. Thanks for your help - much appreciated. I hadn't thought about the mirror as far as water. That sound like a good idea. I might do the same, but with a smaller mirror, if I have some extra money. I won't glue it though of course. lol

 

Yeah def. don't glue it lol. Not sure what the other owner was thinking. Thought they were hiding a hole or something at first, but behind the wall everything looks fine.

Update: Tank is still too cloudy so I'm going to add a few lbs of gravel just to kick start the biological cycle and hopefully place some LR in there tomorrow. Went by one of the LFS today and they had a 1 inch long hippo tang! Very tempting but unfortunately it did not look healthy enough and was breathing a little too heavy. Still not sure what I want for my "trophy" fish to be.

 

Do you have any 50 micron filter pads or socks? They will clear up the water in about 2 hours. Just make sure you are around so that you can change the pads/socks. They will clog quickly, but it is worth it.

 

I do have a 200 micron sock filter on my sump I could set up but isn't it the sand in the water? Do I really want to filter that out or let it settle? I also have a xP1 Rena filter I could use on it, but again is that really worth? I'm curious to know, since I always took the position that letting it settle is most proper.

 

Friday Night Update!

The sand is well on its way to settling, I may have a 3 inch base which would be nice. The sand is very fine(silky to touch), it says .5 mm - 1.7mm so I'm assuming its closer to the low end.

I set up my canister filter and it seemed to be clearing it up well. Got my sump return line up (not running yet) and everything there looks good. Could use some Loc-Line spray nozzles so I'll need to go to Home Depot (for like the 20th time) and grab that.

I caved in and bought a AquaPure Nitrate system. With all the good reviews on it I've read, I felt like it was worth the investment if it could reduce the frequency of water changes which would make it pay for itself after a year or two.

I added some gravel, 5 lbs of LR, and a bunch of pods and worms to the tank as well. Most of the pods died, but most of the worms seemed to make it. Hopefully that die off right there will help spread the bacteria from the gravel and rock. I plan to add 10lbs of LR tomorrow along with 5-10lbs of gravel too.

So tomorrow is the big actual moving day to the house (couches, beds..ect). That will be fun... just hope I get enough time to tend to my tank too. The drive between places is 20 mins, so shouldn't be too long of a move. I'll post some pics tomorrow of underneath and other areas!

 

Sounds like it's going pretty well. Hope the move is a quick and easy one for you. Acn't wait to see those pics.

 

Hey! Sorry for the lack of updates, moving all my stuff took a toll on me yesterday, plus my camera battery died so no pictures at the moment. It's charging so soon enough.

So today is the big day! I just got back from moving my hermit crab and clownfish. The water was pretty clear before I added them, however my crab is kicking up a lot of sand when she runs around. This sand I added is very fine so my crab tends to sink in a 1/4 inch on each step. It seems happy though and ate some food I feed her so all in all sounds good.

My clownfish on the other hand acts kind of scared. While she found a new little cove to hang out in around the overflow box, she seems to not like the current. I have 2 750 Evolutions running on each side of the tank, along with a spray bar, and a HOB filter(just to clear up the water faster). With all that flow the clown will go out into the current for a few seconds then retreat back to calmer water. Unfortunately due to all the sand getting kicked up, I don't think the clown is very happy. I'll have to watch it as it comes along.

I transferred about 20 lbs of LR, with about 10lbs left in the old tank. So current totals are, 15lbs of gravel from old tank, and 30-35lbs of LR from the old tank. That on top of the 80lbs of live sand, and 45 lbs of base rock should be a good start. I'm going to wait another hour before I bring over the next 2 fish(YT damsel and sailfin blenny) in hopes the water will clear up again before adding them. I have a 10 gallon staging tank with almost all water from the old tank in case something goes wrong so I'll be able to make a quick move if necessary but I don't plan on having to use it.

Wish me luck =D

 

Oh and forgot to mention... this really ticked me off. So I was adding a clamp to my return line to make sure everything was tight. Well while I was doing that, I slipped and my arm fell on the return line, and split it open right before the bulkhead . Just my luck... so I won't be starting up the sump today unfortunately (maybe for the best if that POS line ripped with just some slight pressure), since I'll need to do another trip to Home depot to get a new flexible PVC line to put on there... uhg.

 

Here's some new pics:

cloudy tank! Abby my crab kicked up everything!



Poor benny. He's pretty scared at the moment.



The culprit of all the cloudiness!




The move went well. Everyone is doing well. Got both the 90gallon, and the 10 gallon staging tank up and running with fish now. Just no sump yet. I bought the new part for the drain, but I need to get a clamp. I'm installing the aquapure filter tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to get the sump up and running too.

I measured out the dimensions of the overflow, and it is 2.45 gallons of water. I have about 3.2g of space from my last ballast so it looks like I'm good there in case of a power outage.

 

Tank was completely clear this morning! Woohoo! New pictures tonight.