Joe's snail speed build..

[scav1180]

I'm going from a 90g to 120g. I dont have much going on but hopefully that'll all change.. keeping track of it here will show me and you all how much progress I made later on..

Here is my craptastic 90g.

As you can see not much is happening here.. I kinda lost interest middle of last year and just left it as is with just fish..

Finally this year I decided I was going to change all that and start working on my tank..

With the help of everyone here I started building a sump/fuge..

As soon as I was done with that.. I decided to purchase a 120g.. I want to turn this tank into a zoa land.

So now.. I've been just trying to get that up and running so I can transfer stuff over...

Fish list..

Coral Beauty
Six Line
1 loner chromis
Clown goby
Lawn blenny
Tomato Clown
2 more new fish on the way.

Hopefully soon I'll have a lot more stuff in the tank with the help of eveyone here... I hope to be TOTM 2015!!

so to be continued..

Oh and thanks to eveyone that has helped... roud:

 

[nahtanoj]

right on, you are gonna love that 120g. keep us updated on the progress.

 

[primetime]

Keep the pics and updates comin Joe.

 

[Fishaholic]

look great so far, I love DIY projects!!

You will be WAY happier with a bigger tank. .... the only problem is you will want bigger in a few months

 

[scav1180]

thanks guys...

this whole process has been fun and I hope that it'll get more interesting later on and im sure it will.. I hope that if i'm doing something wrong, i'll be corrected or what not.. I've got tons of questions im sure of that..

update for later in the evening, I plumbed the drain. The one that was there before was a 1.5 bulkhead that went to a 1" pipe. So I opened it up and put a 1.5 pipe with a ball valve all the way to the sump.

The picture below was the previous plumb. I just removed that and now its just straight down 1.5" all the way. No pictures of the new one.

As for the return I removed the old one and put on the existing one from previous tank. The line was 1" all the way to the top of the tank so i kept it at 1". Even if i changed the lower part to 1.5" it would have bottleneck at the top.. The line goes up and splits at a Y and then enters the tank. One in the middle and one on the far right side..

the picture below was previous return plumbing.

Sorry for the pics, its camera phone. my slr is being cleaned right now.

 

[glOckcOma]

Off to a great start, keep us posted Joe, I like the fish list too

Patience is a great thing to have in this hobby, wish I had some.

 

[scav1180]

Here are a few updates..

I finally had some time today to get the tank up and running.. I didnt have time to move over the rocks so i'll be doing that tomorrow.

I ran into some problems getting the sump into the stand so I had to take apart a brace in the back to put the sump in. You can notice the middle black wood.

Shot of it filled up and running..

Everything is opened full blast.

random shot..

I didnt get a shot of the top part of the tank cause its dark and only thing in there right now is sand and a powerhead running..

hope to have more up later..

 

[Puffalicious]

nice manggg

 

[scav1180]

So I put about 80% of the rocks in the 90g into the new tank.. I rinsed and scrubbed off whatever i junk wasnt needed and rinsed and put in the tank.

I noticed how much more rocks I really needed to fill in the remaining gaps. I guess i'll have to put that on hold for now..

I still have a few more bigger chunks of rock left but I dont think that'll help much.. I'll put in the rest tomorrow. It was stirring up a grip of junk that was under the rocks and I dont have a filter running on the 90g right now so I decided to leave the bigger chunks that was deeper in the sand. Maybe I'll the remaining rocks later after live stock is in the 120g.

I'll test my water levels Sat after everything settles..

I hope everything goes smoothly once I start putting the livestock in there.

 

[primetime]

Joe,
In my opinion, I think an "open look aquascape" looks great. I wish I had done that before. Keep the rocks to a minimum and place in your sump if you can. (if you like the open look)

 

[TheJedi]

You are one of us now!

Yes, less is more in most cases.

 

[scav1180]

got me some new lights for the system..

 

[scav1180]

Here is the latest shot with the teks... Only the blues are on.

A bit lonely in there.. Going to try to redo the aquascaping later on. I did put as much caves and open areas as possible. Its hard to see since I took the shot a bit far back but I do want to get more rocks later on to work with.

Everything is on halt right now due to lack of time. Will be out of the country in a few weeks and prepping for that.

When I get back let the fun begin..

 

[Puffalicious]

wowwwwwwwww nice.... now i miss my 120

joe, do you want some orange monti caps? i was cleaning my tank and a big piece broke away.

 

[scav1180]

lol. how big of a piece fell off.. how much?

 

[Puffalicious]

lol. how big of a piece fell off.. how much?

about 3-4" free

 

[scav1180]

yeah sure i'll take it.

do I gotta feed it anything or does it eat anything that floats around.

 

[scav1180]

Some quick boring updates.. Still not much going on in the tank as you see. Got a few new things but still have been busy to do much..

 

[scav1180]

As you can see the tank scaping is still ugly but here is a shot with upgraded lights..

MH 2x250watt

As you can see not much is still going on.. Got a new blue tang..

Few zoos here and there and others but the tank is so big it'll take massive amounts of money to let it look full but watch it'll be there soon.

 

[scav1180]