New here but not so new to hobby

chew*

chew*

Murphy's Law
Well to sum up a long story about 3 years ago my house burned down and took with it a 75 gallon reef tank but not due to fire but more due to the smoke and airborn pollutants caused by the fire. Needless to say the smoke settled and the tank water was literally dark gray and preety much everything including equipment was contaminated. Took a year to rebuild house and took another 2 for me to regain the courage to start another tank.

So here we are I started off with a 22 gallon nano ( finnex ) a few months ago realized i was limited in use of filtration and upgrades, so i got a 65 w/megaflow and started buying equipment while trying to eliminate some mistakes made with my 75. So far i'm using a model 3 megaflow, blueline md40 pump, gamma 15 watt UV ( My opinion is neutral on this ) 40lb (need another 40lb) live sand although skeptical ( good thing I bought it more for the grade/color then the life ) and have come up with a list of other goodies that I will be using such as an ETSS reef devil, tunze circulation pumps,finnex submersible titanium heater ( more for compact size ) and an outer orbit hqi/t5 36" should supply enough light. cant forget about 80lbs liverock........

Just added a 10 gallon quarantine tank w/ emperor 280 to the mix also due to an angelfish purchased form rumford ( not rumfords fault ) that was given to them by a distributor w/ich ( was still in the bag w/blue water )

Anyway I live in R.I. and for the most part I deal with John at Sea Creature which is 5 mins from my house. Hoping to learn more/share info on this addiction called reef tanks
 
heres what the finnex tank and stand look like for the nano.

tankstand.JPG


Here was after it was cycled

cycled.JPG


and this is it today

tank%20today.jpg


and this is my clown fish which thinks that my plate coral is "HIS ANENOME" and anything that goes near it gets pecked at including my fingers.

clown%20plate.JPG
 
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65 gallon tank just started up saturday

65%20gal.jpg


current equip in 65 gal

equipment.jpg


What i have is a 15 watt gamma UV w maxijet 1200, Blueline MD40 pump, All glass megaflow model 3 sump and 40lb live sand running atm. Also tossed a power sweep in there for now which locked up in a day.......I knew it would though.

Dont have much equipment atm but the following will be added over the next couple weeks.

40lb more of live sand
80lb live rock
ETSS reef devil ( ca1800 or maybe a mag7 )
finnex submersible titanium 250w heater
2 tunze circulation pumps
AC for computer room (thats where the tank is you can see the reflection of monitor in the pic)
Last but not least an outer orbit 36" 2x150w hqi / 4x39w t-5 and moonlights built in

This is all to be powered off 2 individual breakers which are plugged into 2 decent size APC battery back ups with 3 backup + surge protection per unit to keep flow going in case of power outage.

any suggestion feel free as in this hobby know one knows all.
 
Welcome to BRS. Sorry to hear about the fire. That really stinks. I run a very low tech system so I will not offer any advice. Be sure to keep us posted on the new set up. Are you going to keep 2 tanks now?
 
saltnut said:
Welcome to BRS. Sorry to hear about the fire. That really stinks. I run a very low tech system so I will not offer any advice. Be sure to keep us posted on the new set up. Are you going to keep 2 tanks now?
Click to expand...


going to sell it once new one is done.

Cheetos its a decent beginner setup but.....it has some flaws, For one the pumps could be larger but it's hard to modify the setup they use and probably not worth the money to do it. The skimmer is ok, its not horrible but its no comparison to the reef devil i used to use. The tank itself is very good at least the 22 gallon M tank I have, On the site they now list them as acrylic however mine is glass. The filtation system is built in, its not bad its not great I would give ease of changing them a 4 out of 10 as the trays they have are somewhat hard to pull out, I only use a micron pad in mine and tossed the foam pad and bio ceramic.
 
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Funny you mentioned the tang, I'm surprised no one else noticed. You can however have one if your not lazy on water changes. I do 5 gals per week cuz of that little guy.

Out of curiosity if you don't use the rain trays how do you keep the water crystal clear? I ditched the foam pad for 50 micron cut to fit pads. I actually have a great Idea for the M tank with a few modifications. The idea would be to ditch the rain trays, attach a much larger power head that will attach to glass up higher as the current one only does 343 gph, replumb it and run a DSB about 10 inches deep or deeper.
The skimmer could also benifit from more pump power with the current one only doing 211gph


It appears you have the older version than mine, Mine has seamless curved glass corners in the front and they also added a plastic frame to the top edge.
 
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Well for me the bio load in the shop tank is really only 2 Black Osc. Clowns and the water has always appeared pretty clean without anything except the stock skimmer. If you are ever in Seekonk PM me & stop on by the shop.

As for the YT, I'm sure it was noticed.:eek: :)


Kevin
 
This tank is preety much crammed, It has 30 lb fiji rock, a large leather,starburst polyp, a very small orange polyp, flower pot, xenia, a plain mushroom cluster, a green hairy mushroom cluster, galaxia, plate, clown, flame angel, Y tang, about 20 snails, 20 hermits, 1 sally lightfoot crab, 1 emerald green crab, and a green brittle star.

Nitrates arent to bad though averaging .20-.30 ppm by the next water change.

I think the DSB Idea would be a great project, maybe I'll do it once i get my 65 in full swing.

I almost did stop by your shop btw, CRA told me to go check it out prior to me buying it from them :)
 
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Cheetos said:
Kevin, I forgot you have one of these. Does yours have the MH lighting?
Click to expand...

Why no Mark it does not, thanks for reminding me.:D

Actually I have to say that all the softies in there seem to be showing good growth, even the Orange plate on the SB is growing quickly.
 
Well my fish made me redecorate mine last night, kind of had a scare doing a freshwater dip though for the ich, I thought the flame angel was a goner but they are all in quarantine tank now and seem to have an appetite.
 
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