Nano to 75 gallon

[Kai]

Back in May I started a 29 gallon tank. Well I started a 10 gallon, then a 29 gallon. And I thought I was good with that, I got the fish who are in QT, tank all cycled, a lovely CUC, some corals and it was all great. Only my plumbing has been one gurgle after the next, my light which isn’t even up to full brightness yet gives headaches, and the tank is so wobbly on the metal Petco stand that when someone tripped next to it I had nightmare visions of a tank crashing to the ground, frantically searching for shrimp, corals, and buckets... luckily that didn’t happen but since my tank is in a high traffic area, paired with the headaches (literal not figurative) I started looking at some local selling sites for cabinets. Just cabinets I told myself.
One bad purchase later, and some help from everyone here on NJReefers I discovered Fish Town USA and how they’re downsizing and selling their tanks. I went down on Friday night, just to ‘check it out’. I tried unsuccessfully to convince my mom I should get a 125 instead of a 75, future proofing and whatnot
I know a losing battle when I see one, so the next day I went to pick up my brand new to me 75 gallon reef ready tank!

It spilled all over my moms car with some nastiness but all is well. The sides had a ton of algae on them, I hated scraping some of that coralline off but I didn’t want to go introducing any of that system to mine. The overflow box was covered in different sorts of algae, it’s got salt everywhere, hard water stains but I spent Saturday, and part of Sunday cleaning it off. Even working into the night.

There was algae on the silicone and in trying to clean it off I realized it was kinda floppy so I ordered some tubes of silicone on Amazon. I love nothing more than same day shipping.
I got a last minute day off today, so instead of having to do it in parts I get to do the silicone today! Had to move it inside because of the thunderstorms later but it’s too hot out anyway.

I’ll update later once I’m on my computer with other parts and details about the build as it goes along.


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[Trio91]

Back in May I started a 29 gallon tank. Well I started a 10 gallon, then a 29 gallon. And I thought I was good with that, I got the fish who are in QT, tank all cycled, a lovely CUC, some corals and it was all great. Only my plumbing has been one gurgle after the next, my light which isn’t even up to full brightness yet gives headaches, and the tank is so wobbly on the metal Petco stand that when someone tripped next to it I had nightmare visions of a tank crashing to the ground, frantically searching for shrimp, corals, and buckets... luckily that didn’t happen but since my tank is in a high traffic area, paired with the headaches (literal not figurative) I started looking at some local selling sites for cabinets. Just cabinets I told myself.
One bad purchase later, and some help from everyone here on NJReefers I discovered Fish Town USA and how they’re downsizing and selling their tanks. I went down on Friday night, just to ‘check it out’. I tried unsuccessfully to convince my mom I should get a 125 instead of a 75, future proofing and whatnot
I know a losing battle when I see one, so the next day I went to pick up my brand new to me 75 gallon reef ready tank!

It spilled all over my moms car with some nastiness but all is well. The sides had a ton of algae on them, I hated scraping some of that coralline off but I didn’t want to go introducing any of that system to mine. The overflow box was covered in different sorts of algae, it’s got salt everywhere, hard water stains but I spent Saturday, and part of Sunday cleaning it off. Even working into the night.

There was algae on the silicone and in trying to clean it off I realized it was kinda floppy so I ordered some tubes of silicone on Amazon. I love nothing more than same day shipping.
I got a last minute day off today, so instead of having to do it in parts I get to do the silicone today! Had to move it inside because of the thunderstorms later but it’s too hot out anyway.

I’ll update later once I’m on my computer with other parts and details about the build as it goes along.


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You're off to a good start bud. Just make sure you leak test it 1st

 

[etmanning1]

Looks great, keep us posted!


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[DangerDave]

That’s a huge jump in size. You’re going to love it. There are plenty of helpful peeps on here to give you their perspective. it’s really helpful when you’re putting your plan together.

Best of luck!

 

[diana a]

Wowza! Congrats on the new tank.

 

[Kai]

You're off to a good start bud. Just make sure you leak test it 1st

Thanks! I’m planning to seal it let it dry, and just keep it filled with water in the garage while I do the stand. Maybe have the plumbing just into a bucket to have that being tested too. Anything specific I should be looking for when I test it, I mean other than leaks that you can visually see.


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[Kai]

Wowza! Congrats on the new tank.

That’s a huge jump in size. You’re going to love it. There are plenty of helpful peeps on here to give you their perspective. it’s really helpful when you’re putting your plan together.

Best of luck!

Looks great, keep us posted!


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Thanks everyone! I’m really excited to have the room for some different fish and with any luck an anemone. Everyone on here is always so willing to help it’s great, I’ll be posting some questions I have about equipment later.


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[Trio91]

Thanks! I’m planning to seal it let it dry, and just keep it filled with water in the garage while I do the stand. Maybe have the plumbing just into a bucket to have that being tested too. Anything specific I should be looking for when I test it, I mean other than leaks that you can visually see.


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once you re-seal it, just leaks is all you should be looking for really. Aside from anything super obvious like a crack or something

 

[Kai]

There's nothing quite like sticking your head in a tank full of fresh silicone. Not much to see here in the picture, I went with black silicone, taped the sides but left the bottom. It's not the prettiest thing ever but the dies are good, and I don't like the look of bare bottom so it'll always have at least a little bit of sand in there.

Time to work on my stand, I really like a design idea I've seen on freshoffthegrill's thread... hope this link works... I like the separate refugium idea that doesn't require a second pump. My current sump is a 20 high since it fits underneath the 29 stand. However I'm thinking that my ~8" fuge is going to be too small for a 75, plus it doesn't have room for added equipment. A separate place for my fuge would free up more space in my sump so maybe I'll try to drill one of my 10 gallons so it could overflow into the main tank. Maybe I'll even drill the bottom for where the water's going to go in... who knows might be getting ahead of myself there. I've cut glass before, but not drilled it. Do you think a 10 gallon would be big enough for the fuge on this size tank, is it going to be 'future proof' up to what size tank?

View attachment 11731

 

[Kai]

Silicone seems to be a bit not right still. I'm thinking it just hasn't cured all the day since it doesn't stick, but I had to scrape off a couple of blobs that I spilled and it was still wet in there so I'm hoping it'll all cure soon. I decided that drilling a 10 gallon and all that's involved with that is too much. I was going to try it, but then to get a pump that would support the return from the built in area and the 10 gallon was just too much and there's more things that could go wrong when plumbing a separate fuge like that. I picked up a 40 breeder at Petco's $/gallon, I've got some left over glass from the last time I made a sump and bought one more sheet so I'll have all of the baffles I need. I'm considering making horizontal compartments in my sump, the standard way the baffles go being front to back, and I figured I might add a side to side one for things like the return and some sort of filter whatever it may be depending on what equipment I'm going to have.
I'm getting ready to place a reef cleaners order, I really want mangroves and they weren't able to tell me how long they'll be in stock for so I want to get my order now, I figured I'll just dump them in the current tank when they get here and overfeed so that they don't die with such a small tank growing algae. I'll also be ordering rocks, not sure where from. I'm also considering one of those bio blocks to get my LR pounds up without cluttering up too much of my tank. I'm beginning to look at different styles of aquascaping that I like to see what sort of style to go for, only thing is that I'm too cheap to order like the arches or shelves even though I really like the looks you could get with them.
And for the best part of the update... I started building my stand today! Worked on it for several hours this afternoon, my dad gave me a hand with some of it. You ask for advice on what to do with something and he goes ahead and does it, can't say that I'm complaining about that he's 10 times faster than me and I wouldn't have half as much done as I do without his help. We had to stop for the day because we ran out of screws.

 

[Mrx7899x]

Looks good I like it

 

[Trio91]

Looks sturdy, great great job you 2 @Kai + dad

 

[Kai]

Thanks everyone, it sure is a beast. It weighs more than the empty tanks and it’s not even covered yet. I had my dad get 2x3s for the canopy and the side cabinet. We cut them in half for the canopy and left them whole for the side cabinet since I’m going to be putting shelving in there. This part was finished yesterday, and my dad is brining home the wood for the outside so I can work on it this weekend. I just need to build a skeleton for a facade at the back of the tank so the stand is going to stick out the right distance from the wall.

I just placed an order from reefcleaners for 50 pounds of rock, and will be purchasing some clean up crew from them soon. I hear John gives you more than you actually order so I’m not sure what size to get since I already have some snails and things in my tank. I was going to get the 75 with hermits since it comes with express shipping and I wanted to get limpets and a chiton I probably would’ve thrown in a peppermint shrimp or two as well. And I’d love an urchin, but their site says that the limpets and chitons are very sensitive to nitrates and I’m going to be playing around a lot with my water changes trying to find a balance to do as little as possible and I don’t want to stress them out. I plan to do some more research on that tonight.
I wrote out my plan for how I’m going to do this transfer. The 75 is going in the same spot where my qt and 29 are now. Only we need to install floor in that spot before we put the new tank in, So one day I need to empty the existing tank. The next my dad will put the floor in in that area, then that night I’ll be able to put the new tank in!
I plan to need to keep my livestock out of that tank for a few days just in case it cycles with all of the sand and rock. I really want to do a DSB too but I’m worried it might look weird.


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[Trio91]

I wouldn’t, that amount isn’t necessary for a cuc. Eventually the food source will run out and they’ll start to die, dumping back the waste they consumed. It’s way too much for a new tank.

I’d go atleast half that after the tank cycles and you start to see diatoms

 

[Trio91]

If you get urchins, you can go a lot less on the snails.

 

[Kai]

If you get urchins, you can go a lot less on the snails.

ReefCleaners is out of the urchin I was going to get and only has one that gets 4 inches and it'd likely be too big for my tank, then I'd need to worry about securing my rock work so maybe an urchin in the future. For now I'm just going to stick with the snails, my tank has an abundance of... brown hair algae? That none of the snails are willing to eat, even takes a toothbrush and a bunch of scrubbing to get it off when it grows too close to my zoas. And of course while scrubbing I knocked one behind my rock work today and need to break some stuff down tomorrow in the hopes of finding it. At least now I know to keep that in mind when aquascaping my new tank, make sure there's no inaccessible spots.

 

[Trio91]

ReefCleaners is out of the urchin I was going to get and only has one that gets 4 inches and it'd likely be too big for my tank, then I'd need to worry about securing my rock work so maybe an urchin in the future. For now I'm just going to stick with the snails, my tank has an abundance of... brown hair algae? That none of the snails are willing to eat, even takes a toothbrush and a bunch of scrubbing to get it off when it grows too close to my zoas. And of course while scrubbing I knocked one behind my rock work today and need to break some stuff down tomorrow in the hopes of finding it. At least now I know to keep that in mind when aquascaping my new tank, make sure there's no inaccessible spots.

Take A good look at it, if it looks like brown GHA and no one is touching it, it maybe dinos

 

[Kai]

Take A good look at it, if it looks like brown GHA and no one is touching it, it maybe dinos

I’ll see my grass shrimp eating some on occasion they just mow down a little spot. I think it’s Calothrix since it’s not slimy, I do have red Cyano as well. And a dozen (it seems) different kinds on my glass. I have a little spot of purple coraline starting, and all over the front is tiny circles of a brownish algae that doesn’t come off with the mag float, it’s even difficult to scrape off with a finger nail and I keep forgetting to bring my scraper up. The algae on the rocks is covered in bubbles and my snails are going rather nuts over all of the other film algae on the front glass. I also noticed that I’m getting some new feather dusters or worms cropping up, haven’t remembered any pictures of them yet hopefully I’ll remember tonight and I’ll try to get a proper ID on them.

PH- 8.2-4
Salinity 1.026
Ammonia- 0 (.25 reading with API kit but it reads that all the time even on freshly mixed water)
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 0 I ran this test three separate times with my API kit and always got the same result which I find very odd seeing as I haven’t done a water change in a few weeks now. I’ve got a pseudo deep sand bed in DT and I can see some bubbles in spots, and a mangrove which has roots covered in the GHA/Calothrix
Phosphate- 0-.25. Again ran it twice with API, the reading could’ve gone either way I’m not the best at matching the colors.
Calcium- 360
Alk- 8
Photo period is 11 hours, so since everything else is in order I’m going to assume that I just have too long of a photo period. There was a time I had 10, had too much algae and cut it down to 8, then my CUC cleaned everything out so I increased it again, I guess I just need to find that balance.

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[Trio91]

Did something die in your tank? Like snails or a crab or a coral or something?

And if you were to brush it, it comes off easy right?

 

[Trio91]

I think your right on the calothrix.

Could you also cut your lighting to about 6hrs per day? To see if it starts to die off?