My First SW tank

[FLESHY]

Badass! I love that the clarity has gotten so much better already.

I would recommend maybe taking out some of that background rock you put in there originally and use that in the sump. It will hold bacteria, but isnt as cool as your live rock. I would also suggest ziptieing or acrylic rodding all of your rock.

I just did some zip tie work on my 125g, and its starting to look pretty solid. Cant wait to show it to you guys in the beginning of january.

I would go to an LFS, and pick some strange and unusual LR shapes to add a little to the look of the rock as well...some flat pieces for ledges ect.

 

[Cliff519]

Thanks Fleshy.

I am planning to move a lot of rock into the sump to give me some room to work in the tank.

I like your suggestions, I think I'm going to give that a try

Thx bud

 

[Heathd]

Good looking sump. The spacing on your weir plates looks correct. I am assuming that the empty section is for macros?

I saw earlier back you had a question about acrylic. Its easy to work with. I know at this point I am a little late on the response. You need to use cell cast acrylic, and you can cut it using a fine tooth saw (like 36 teeth) or a router with a router table. The adhesive is a chemical bond that pretty much melts the pieces together.

My sump is built out of glass too, and my only gripe about the process was cutting the glass, and the fact that its sharp. I shaved a few knuckles during the build, haha.

 

[FLESHY]

Thanks Fleshy.

I am planning to move a lot of rock into the sump to give me some room to work in the tank.

I like your suggestions, I think I'm going to give that a try

Thx bud

Cliff...I tried to take some pictures, but all i got was the starting layout...I will take some final pics tonight, and although it will be incomplete, if I can get my printer to work, I will upload them to show how it works/looks. I have two kickarse caves now.

I have made tank canopies out of acrylic, and if you try and use a regular miter saw blade...it can be explosive. I would know...too lazy to buy/change it out though, so some of my canopies have rough edges.

 

[Cliff519]

Good looking sump. The spacing on your weir plates looks correct. I am assuming that the empty section is for macros?

I saw earlier back you had a question about acrylic. Its easy to work with. I know at this point I am a little late on the response. You need to use cell cast acrylic, and you can cut it using a fine tooth saw (like 36 teeth) or a router with a router table. The adhesive is a chemical bond that pretty much melts the pieces together.

My sump is built out of glass too, and my only gripe about the process was cutting the glass, and the fact that its sharp. I shaved a few knuckles during the build, haha.

Thanks Heathd.

The empty space will be for some live rock and some cheato marco algae

I was thinking about the acrylic, but I figured I would leave that for my next project so I can take more time to look into it.

I did get a great deal on cut glass from a local glass shop, and they sanded all te edges for free.

Thanks again

 

[Cliff519]

Cliff...I tried to take some pictures, but all i got was the starting layout...I will take some final pics tonight, and although it will be incomplete, if I can get my printer to work, I will upload them to show how it works/looks. I have two kickarse caves now.

I have made tank canopies out of acrylic, and if you try and use a regular miter saw blade...it can be explosive. I would know...too lazy to buy/change it out though, so some of my canopies have rough edges.

Thanks Fleshy

I'll be waching for the photos

 

[Cliff519]

Wow, I should have asked my wife to check the parameters while I was out of town last week. It looks like the cycle is really moving along nicely now

PH 8.0
Ammoina, between 0.5 and 0.25
Nitrite, just over 1.0
Nirate, about 30

I'm a little concerned about the 0.2 drop in the PH so I'll have to read up on that a little.

I'm guessing and hoping the cycle will be done over the next two weeks. I'm thinking the nitrites are on there way done as my nitrates climbed from less than 5 to 30 in 6 days. No signs of any algae yet so I'll hold off on a 75% water change until the nitrites and ammonia are both a zero.

I'm going to be changing my heaters and move rock around latter tonight. I'll post some more pics when I got that done.

 

[Cliff519]

I did a lot of work on the tank and sump this weekend

I removed a lot of the dry rock I had in the tank, and put that rock in the sump. I made a rock structure with the live rock I bought and moved two pcs of that rock in the sump as well. Almost 35 lbs of rock in the sump now. I had a 24” double T5 fixture that I put on a timer in the sump as well.

One of my heaters burnt out so I replaced both with two 300 watt titanium heaters. I really like them because they have controls and sensors that are separate from the heater itself.

The pics are not the clearest because I took them right after I was done moving things around in the tank.

 

[Juxtaroberto]

Looks great so far.

 

[dgk9723]

man i boughht a 30inch coral life fixture about 2 weeks ago its already broken, first week the antic bulb when out week later day light went out, even had some spare bulbs and they didnt work