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Arvind's 180g Chronicle

arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
This thread is long overdue. Better late than never.

I originally had a 72g bowfront for nearly two years and upgraded to a 180g like four months ago. Its huge! Sometimes it makes me proud and other times I am worried if I bit more than I can chew. Anyway here is the complete specs of the system.

Water Movement:
Closed loop with Oceans Motions powered by Sequence Reeflo Dart rated at 3500 gph. Three Koralias - #3, #4, #5. Dont ask me why. This is all I had lying around so I am using it for now until I replace it with a vortech someday.

Lighting
Coralife Aqualight Pro MH 150w X 3 with CF Actinic & four LED lamps. MH running for 6 hours a day.

Live Rock:
Dont really know how many lbs in total. But I do have some in the fuge as well.

Skimmer:
ASM G3 - Mesh moded.

Calcium Reactor:
Korallin with ARM media in it. Just got it hooked up.

Sump:
70+ gallon sump in the basement.

Fuge:
75 gallon

Salt:
Tropic Marin Pro

Water Change Schedule:
Weekly 5-10% with occasional misses.

Livestock:
Two Clarkii clowns (on their way out soon)
sailfin tang
brown tang
a pair of anthias
royal gramma
and couple of other fish that i dont know the name of.

Corals:
Brain Coral, some zoas, a frogspawn, galaxia, couple of frags of purple caps, poccilopora, bunch of acan frags.

Now without further ado, here are the pics:

IMG_5220.JPG


Another one:
IMG_5225.JPG


Your feedback is highly appreciated! :)​
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
+1 on the rockwork, the whole tank look really clean. I like the blue background too, seems to brighten the tank up, is it vinyl or paint?

Well done.
 
arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
mnat said:
+1 on the rockwork, the whole tank look really clean. I like the blue background too, seems to brighten the tank up, is it vinyl or paint?
Click to expand...

Paint. I remember when I first set my salt water tank I bought one of those vinyl backgrounds and placed it inside the tank so that the water holds it in place. This is from my prior fresh water experience. It did hold the poster in place but the salt pulled all the vinyl stuff from the poster and the next day I had 72 gallons of sparkling water!
 
H

hurtback

rock work looks great!!!!
is the rock positioned in the middle of the tank, and not up against the back wall?
looks almost like 3D
i like the fact that the fish can swim thru the rocks

nice job!!!!
steve
 
arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
hurtback said:
rock work looks great!!!!
is the rock positioned in the middle of the tank, and not up against the back wall?
looks almost like 3D
i like the fact that the fish can swim thru the rocks

nice job!!!!
steve
Click to expand...

Yes, it is positioned in the middle. Does not touch the wall. I like it also that the fish has lot of hiding places and caves. Except when I am trying to catch that Clarkii!!

Thank you for your kind comments.
 
ricwilli

ricwilli

WOW! Arvind. The tank looks great. I was woundering when you were going to post some pics up. Glad things worked out for you with the closed loop. You did a real nice job with the rockwork.
 
arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
gg291 said:
Beautiful job. Are you getting algae build up at the bottom with so much sand?
Click to expand...

Nope. Actually there is not so much sand. I have an aggressive Clarkii clown that keeps kicking the sand all the time. Because of which the sand gets piled up in one spot and the bare bottom shows up in another. I am planning to get him out soon.
 
arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
Some updates....

So my return pump broke one fine day. Ever since I upgraded to a 180g, I wanted to do some upgrades to my plumbing work which is nearly three years old. This may be a good time to do that I thought. However there was one problem. I was scheduled to undergo a surgery in three days. Hospital stay of three days and few weeks of recovery time after that, I didnt have time for elaborate plumbing work. I just wanted to replace the pump for now and think about all other changes later on.

I went to Hidden Reef on their Anniversary Sale and bought an Iwaki 70 RLT which is similar to the Panworld 70 RLT that I was using. Thanks to all the union valves the pump came off easily. However when I put the new pump back I noticed that there was about 1/4" difference in the height of the pump. So I had to cut the pipes and had to make few changes. Now that pipes are being cut, I went ahead and make a manifold that I always wanted to have. Here is a picture:

IMG_5279.JPG



This is not the dream manifold that I always wanted but considering that I made this few hours before I went under the knife, I think I am alright for now!
 
arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
Yet another setback in my saga of reefkeeping. My sump is leaking for no apparent reason. I have to rip apart all my equipments including the fuge to replace the sump and then put them back. I am planning to do during the Christmas weekend. I hope the leak holds up until then without getting worse.

Here is a new stand I made today. I used the template from RC.

IMG_5289.JPG



I went sump hunting for the last two weeks and finally found one:

IMG_5288.JPG


It is 48"X24"X24" made of 1/4" acrylic. I have one question. This sump has only two baffles all the way to the left. I am wondering if I will have to deal with micro bubbles.
 
ricwilli

ricwilli

Is your skimmer going in this sump? Normally the baffles would go after the skimmer if I'm not mistaken. Can you explain all the ports on this sump?
 
arvin

arvin

NJRC Member
The skimmer goes in the sump. I would like to forgo the additional baffles in the sump. There are three sources of mircobubbles in my setup. The first is the intake coming from the display tank. This is not an issue since this is located before the existing baffles. The other two are skimmer and the diverted water from the pump. I use the ASM G3 with gatevalve mod. I can divert the gatevalve mod to throw the water behind the baffles. I can do the same with the water that comes from the pump. Will this eliminate the need of additional baffles?

I like the sump as it is and I dont want to mess with it with my own diy baffles. Hence the reluctance.

I bought the sump used. It was used on a setup of 500 gallons so it is over configured for my setup. Most of the ports I dont have any use. Left most I have two black long pipes protruding on top. That will be used for water intake. I will be using only one of these two. There are two smaller black pipes on top, one was used for a UV. I don't intend to use it. To the right side bottom, I have three ball valves. Of these three I want to close the center one and convert the other two to union valves and connect it to my pump. There are two 1" outlets on top of this and I have no idea what to do with them. I am thinking of closing it with a cap. Unless someone has a better idea...
 
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