Kathy and Perry's 225

[KathyB]

So we have taken the leap and are starting to make some progress on our 225 gallon tank; 72 x 30 x 24. We got the tank from Big_Rich who got it from Daily Dime (Thank you both). We decided now was the time to fix up the stand the way we wanted it. The stand it came with had good bones, but was a little tall for our taste, and we wanted to make it fit in with our decor a little better. So we stripped it down re-painted the bones, and are in the process of putting it back together. We cut the stand down from 42 inches to 36. We thought the 42 was a little tall for viewing from a sitting position, which is our preference. Tomorrow we will put the cross bracing and other supports back on, and will start putting some of the finish work on. We are going to re-skin it in red oak - you can see a sample that I stained today in the 3rd picture, and build it a new canopy.

While we are working on the stand, we're gradually collecting all the pieces we're going to need to get it fired up. So far, we picked up the sump (48 x 20 x 20 custom) and return pump (ReeFlo Dart). We have a new Reef Octopus SRO 5000-SSS Skimmer on order. Here are a couple of our in progress pictures on the stand. More pictures to follow soon.

 

[gr1mm]

Looking good guys, 42 is way high for a stand 36 sounds perfect.

 

[pgr11]

Looking good. I have the 5000 and it pulls some nasty junk. Looking forward to seeing it progress

 

[Six2seven]

looking forward to the pics. my old tank was 24'high and my stand was 36". I thought it was perfect to touch the bottom of the tank without a step stool.

 

[KathyB]

Stand is nearly done


We're making good progress on the stand. We are re-skinning it in red oak. Working on the last door today and we hope to stain it this weekend. If all goes well, we will get the tank up on the stand this weekend so we can start getting ready for some water, sand and rocks. Here are some progress pictures.

 

[Zoarder]

View attachment 28814
We're making good progress on the stand. We are re-skinning it in red oak. Working on the last door today and we hope to stain it this weekend. If all goes well, we will get the tank up on the stand this weekend so we can start getting ready for some water, sand and rocks. Here are some progress pictures.

That looks really nice!

 

[KathyB]

Would love some input on plumbing

So here's a basic diagram of my tank and sump (not to scale). I'm wondering where I would plumb in carbon and GFO reactors. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[newtothis]

Depending on your rtn piping, get some 1/2" T's and place them in btwn your reedflo and check valve. gfo&carbon can be link together or individual. As a suggestion, you can add a ball/gate valve on a T of course for WC and take reefing to another level....

 

[KathyB]

Thanks to feedback and reading lots of the larger tank build threads, I've greatly enhanced my plumbing diagram. This is where I am now. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. We have also finished the stand, drilled the tank for a glass holes 3000 overflow and returns, and have just about finished re-sealing the entire tank. Hope to have it in the house on the stand this weekend. :high5:

 

[KathyB]

And here's the finished stand. Working on the Canopy next.

 

[pgr11]

Why do you have your carbon and gfo going up to the tank?

 

[KathyB]

I was thinking that it wouldn't matter where the carbon and GFO return to and that it would be clean so the tank would be good. Should it go back into the sump?

 

[Jhuneke]

I only recently started using a reactor.. but I have it going into the sump.. only because it's closer and in case any "fines" get through it will dump into the sump chamber and settle hopefully. Just my 2 cents Can't wait to see this fill up..your stand looks beautiful!

 

[newtothis]

I was thinking that it wouldn't matter where the carbon and GFO return to and that it would be clean so the tank would be good. Should it go back into the sump?

Yup back into the sump it goes. Samething with a chiller if your planning on one.

 

[KathyB]

Great, thanks for the plumbing feedback. Here's the revision I'm hoping to not need a chiller, but where I live, I'm afraid it's going to be inevitable.

 

[pgr11]

I was thinking that it wouldn't matter where the carbon and GFO return to and that it would be clean so the tank would be good. Should it go back into the sump?

Yeah have it go back to the sump. The reactors will need a much slower flow

 

[KathyB]

Progress

Lots of updates since the last posts. We finished the plumbing in late December. Bought about 200 lbs of Live Rock from Florida and got the tank up and running. Here are some pictures:


The live rock that we initially purchased was covered in sponge, halimeda and other algaes, turkey wing and other clams. The rock was also all heavily encrusted with coraline algae. There were also quite a few brain coral, organ pipe coral, and several that I really can't identify. We had the sand and rock shipped air freight so it got to us same day very fresh. We went through all the rocks carefully removing anything we thought might be bad or not very much alive. We flushed and cleaned all the rocks with fresh salt water. We wanted to cautiously allow some of the Halimeda and other algaes stay because we like the natural look. And, we anticipated that some Tangs would be able to control the growth. Following some extensive research on line, we concluded that with some pretty heavy water changes early on, along with running some carbon to keep amonia minimized, that we could keep most of what was on the rocks alive. We also started measuring and dosing calcium from day one to retain the coraline algae. We are now almost 12 weeks in, and almost everything on the rocks has survived.

 

[Vnghost]

That's what u call live rock.

 

[KathyB]

The live rock has been really good so far. There are challenges with starting off with this much life on the rocks. We got live sand at the same time, also collected in Florida/Gulf of Mexico. I tested water daily the first 2 weeks, then 2-3 times a week after that. We have measured 0 amonia and 0 Nitrite from day 1. Nitrate is a different story. Even with heavy water changes of 20-30% weekly, I'm still running high Nitrates in the 35-50 range. I'm hoping that will start to decline soon as those bacteria get better established, and the more fragile sponges and stuff on the rocks die off. Amazingly, almost all of the sponges have survived so far, and some are spreading. All of the Corals have survived and are growing, and I have some new baby brain corals showing up. Also all but one of the clams have survived. They aren't fancy, but it is kind of cool having them and I think that they probably help filter the water. The downsides - The rocks come with hitchhikers - I believe I got all of the mantis shrimp out before I put the rocks in. They didn't survive the trip very well so getting them off was pretty easy. There were a lot of crabs in and on the rocks. We went through all that we could find and any with hairy or black tipped claws were culled out. However, some got by and are in the tank. For now, they are earning their keep as part of the clean up crew. Later, I expect I'll need to start setting little crab traps to capture and get rid of them if they start doing any damage. I've not found any true Aiptasia on the rocks. There are Curley Cue Anemones that are in the Aiptasia family. They don't seem to be going crazy, but I am using Aiptasia X on the ones I can find just to be safe. The other down side of the rock is that it doesn't have great shape. So I'm using it as a base and adding nice shelf and branching rock from my LFS to better aquascape the tank. I'll take and post some current pictures.

 

[KathyB]

More Progress

We finally finished building the hood in oak to match the stand. We set it up to hold 5 Radion lights. I have 2 and am still working on buying 3 more. We have a T5 fixture sitting on top temporarily till I get all of my lights purchased. We have also added about 200 lbs more rock to the tank and it's looking about how we want it from an aquascaping perspective. We've added a couple tangs, a leopard wrasse, and a rabbit fish. We have also added a few zoas, mushrooms and a small clean up crew to work on cleaning up the tank.


We are also working on automation. We added an apex controller and a Tunze Auto Top off. Both have been really great additions and have greatly decreased the maintenance overhead.