Szrazzt's 55 Gallon setup

This is the cronicle of my new reef tank setup. I have read a lot of others here and thought I would share. As with a lot of new tank setups it didn't go smooth.

I picked up a used 55 gallon glass tank from a guy I worth with. It was predrilled and the silicon looked fine. The center support bracket was cracked and they had used zip ties to fix it. I didn't even think about this until I had water in the tank and noticed that the front and back of the tank were bowing.

I drained the tank and repaired it with a 5 inch wide piece of acrylic that was glued and screwed to the top support. When I filled the tank back up there was no bowing so I assumed I was good.



Well assume should really be spelled with four letters because yesterday I added my rock. 35 pounds of base rock and 35 pounds of live rock as well as 40 pounds of sand. I had just put my daughter down for her nap when I heard a dripping. I walked around and eventually realized that it was coming from the bottom of the tank. Thankfully it was dripping into the sump but I had sprung a leak around the bottom of the tank at a rate of about 2 to 3 drops per second.

This scared the pants off me so I once again drained the tank, took the rock and put it in a large tupperware tub with a koralia and started searching for tanks.

I got very lucky at this point. There was a 55 gallon acrylic tank for sale on craigslist for $40.00. It came with a 2x4 stand which I didnt need so I have a bit more kindling for the cold virginia winters.. hehe.

I had found on the glass tank that my Quietone 3000 pumps more water up then a 1 inch drain can handle so it was off to Lowe's again. I picked up 1.5 inch PVC and plumbed the tank so the line going up from the sump to the tank is 1 inch and the drain is 1.5 inch.



and the smaller pipe for the return.



One word of advice if your drilling acrylic. Its really sharp when your done cutting so dont run your fingers along it to see how smooth it is. I now have three rather deep cuts on my thumb and index fingers which are really hampering my typing.

I made up some new salt water using RC and RO from my LFS (its only 25 cents a gallon here) because I hadnt rinsed the live sand out and the old water was really really brown and cloudy.

After filling the tank I added the rocks and then the sand. This allowed me to see the rocks when I was stacking them and made sure they were flat on the bottom of the tank so any future sand sifters don't cause an rock slide.

This is the tank now.



There is something missing on the right side of the tank but I will be getting another 5 or 10 pounds of liverock eventually so I will try and stack it there then.

As for equipment.

55 Gallon Acrylic tank
20 gallon long sump
Octopus INT 120 skimmer
Quiet One 3000 pump
Koralia 2 and Seio 600 Powerheads
Marineland 4x54 T5 HO lights
70 pounds of rock
40 pounds of sand.
250 watt heater which wont get used much because I keep my house at shorts and t-shirt temp all year round.


Live stuff I have noticed so far include three starfish, three mushrooms and an Aptasia anemone that got plucked out.

 

looks great!
but you might want to get some aptasia-x instead,
plucking it can spread it even more

 

an extremely high concentration of dKH in a syringe works also

 

By this I assume you mean a baking soda solution? Then just inject into the holes that the little pests retract into?

 

inject it into them

 

Ok, ill give that a try. My dog has alergies so I have some spare syringes. I will post more pictures after the tank settles down a bit.

Thanks

 

I have no critters yet. I was considering options for a surface skimmer but I havent decided what yet. It will either be a small box with a PVC connection glued in and mounted to the outlet or it will be a 1.5 to 3 inch PVC elbow with teeth cut into the 3 inch side.

One thing I was curious about. If I turn the pump all the way up I get a gurgling out of the drain. I have a piece of airline tubing down about a foot into the downspout but it doesnt matter. I have dialed the pump down so that the level stays just below the top of the drain and no more glugging but I'd like the extra flow.