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-   -   Eric's 90gl Reef (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2656262)

Esh1 10/27/2017 09:52 PM

Eric's 90gl Reef
 
I finally pulled the trigger and I am setting up another 90gallon. Once its up and running I plan to stock with SPS and everything else that will get along with it. Even though the tank is new, I've been around the hobby as far as I can remember. Growing up I went from freshwater to eventually a 90gallon FOWLR tank that I bought used through a newspaper ad. I had this tank up for about 4 years. When it came time for college I took the tank down, and sold everything but the stand. The stand, a custom cherry wood with lacquer stain, has stood the test of time. It's spent some time in the back of my parents unheated garage making it through about 4 WI winters. It got run into by a few cars and now has a few license plate scratches on the front door panel. It served as a bar during some parties, moved around with me throughout my active time in the military and eventually became a TV stand. 14 years and about 12 moves later, I'm finally settled and ready to start things up again.

I decided to setup another 90gallon in my office as a starting point, and found a 90reef ready Marine land tank from a local fish store. I thought about going larger, but couldn't find the right space for it and will wait till I finish the basement. With that said, the amount of changes I'm seeing in the hobby are amazing. Lots of great tech out there to make managing the tank so much easier. The amount of information online is great, but I'm glad I kept all the books about the hobby to see where things have changed.

Equipment
Water flow in the tank
-2x MP40s

Sump
-Lifereef CLF1 Berlin, signature series
-Mag12 pump
-Skimmer upgraded to a flanged SVS3, signature series
-Mag 9.5 pump
-3x Media Cylinders, sig series (still need to install, not sure if I'll need them all yet)
-2x 150w Eheim heaters (only 1 seems to be needed)
-Lifereef 10gallon refugium (still need to get a light for this)

Lighting
-2x Radion XR30 G4 Pro's

Control
-Reef Link
-Neptune Apex
-Neptune ATK

On Order
Lifereef LRC1 Calcium reactor, sig series. Hopefully this will be in by the end of the year
Seaswirl - I will be switching the overflow over to the herbie style overflow then plumbing the return line through this. This should be here in the next week or so.

All the pictures I have up so far can be found on my flikr album
https://flic.kr/s/aHsm6UEJUo

Some of the pictures of the setup so far
Only shows 1 of the two lights, need to get an updated photo. The cabinet to the left houses all the electronics, plus a 5 gallon bucket for the ATO. Door will get added as soon as I get around to installing hindges. So far the tank is evaporating about 1.5-2 gallons a day, so I'll be upgrading to a larger size container.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4491/...a41f8cd8_n.jpg
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4456/...da62ac48_n.jpg
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4460/...ecea34b9_n.jpg

Basement RODI station. BRS RODI unit with 2x 35gl water tanks that I picked up at a farmer supply store. I wanted larger standing tanks vs this style, but once I saw what shipping was, I went with what I could find locally.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4496/...f10603fe_n.jpg

Last, Tampa Bay Live rock order should be on the plane tomorrow AM and in the tank by the afternoon!

Thanks for looking!

Cammunoz 10/28/2017 07:10 AM

Nice setup!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

James404 10/28/2017 04:03 PM

Nice setup, how much weight are those shelving units rated for? When full your water system will be close to 600 lbs.

Esh1 10/28/2017 10:30 PM

800lbs per shelf. Did the math on that before I filled them up to make sure it would work.

Live rock and sand is in the tank. Unfortunately my phone crashed during an update so pic's will have to wait.

Esh1 11/19/2017 02:52 PM

Tank has been up for about a month now and so far so good.
Picked up 120lbs of waltsmith liverock from TBS as well as 60lbs of sand to mix in with the amount I already put in. Tons of critters! Part two of the package went in on the 10th.

Water has a lot of debris in it. Seems like the critters are spitting out things causing what looks like dust particles in the water. Not certain if its from this or possibly micro bubbles, though Im not seeing any place where bubbles might be getting in.

Ammonia has held at 0 and never went very high. TBS does a great job shipping everything, getting it from their farm , boxed and on the plane.
Only thing I'm waiting on is Nitrites to go down. Its been holding at .2 for the past week. Nitrate is somewhat high too and water changes don't seem to adjust much of this. Hoping the carbon in the media reactors will assist with this until the algae in the refugium can get going, otherwise if time doesn't solve this I'll look for something else to assist.

I also changed the overflow plumbing a bit, converting the reef ready to a herbie overflow. Started with a true union ball valve then switched to a spears gate valve as the union valve was hard to be precise with. With that said, it worked, it just wasn't as easy to adjust.

Ecotech battery backup added to one of the MP40s yesterday, and I finally got around to adding in the media reactors. Every inch of space is used in the cabinet. All of the electrical is in a separate cabinet to the side and is packed itself.

For ATO, I ended up getting a 10gl tank from petco which fits perfectly in the side cabinet. Started with a 5gl bucket, but I'm seeing about 2gls per day of evaporation. When I'm out of town, I use one of the 32gl brute garbage cans.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4528/...a3c46189_c.jpgDSC_0988 by E, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4556/...6054aa2305.jpgMore tank pictures , plumbing pics etc. by E, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4577/...12865a56_z.jpgIMG_0159 by E, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4567/...e86803c5_z.jpgIMG_0152 by E, on Flickr

Refugium is holding lots of critters (gorrilla crabs, pistol shrimp, and 1 mantis shrimp) that I found checking over the liverock. Mantis is ruling this tank.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4558/...d68f0ecc_z.jpgDSC_1007 by E, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4548/...7e991148_z.jpgDSC_0004 by E, on Flickr

Reefpuck 11/19/2017 04:18 PM

Nice looking setup!

Esh1 11/22/2017 10:51 AM

Thanks! everyday I keep finding more and more critters. Found a tiny pin cushion sea urchin last night and 3-4 other smaller ones nearby.

pauldrapeau 11/22/2017 12:17 PM

I love the sump... I went back and forth between picking up a lifereef for mine or going the trigger systems route. Just came down to having used trigger before. Yours looks awesome tho. Great setup. I'll tag along since we did TBS around the same time will be interesting to see how it goes :)

Looks like so far they're 2 for 2 delivering mantises :) Mine's ruling a 10g in my basement right now.

Esh1 11/26/2017 01:57 PM

Did some work on organizing cables, and fixed a plumbing issue between the main pump and refugium where I didn't have the fitting tight enough causing some slow drips. Took that apart, rewrapped the fitting with plumbers tape and its looking better. I moved one of my two heaters to the refugium. Both of the 150watt heaters fit in the sump with everything, but were making it hard to get access to anything. One is plugged into the Apex unit, the other the wall. The apex unit has yet to turn on and the wall outlet is the only one operating though temps have stayed relatively consistent.

Nitrites are near zero (reading .05) on the test, Nitrates are starting to go down too (reading around 20). Phosphates are higher than Id like, .08. I aded 500ml of Biopellets XL to one of the media reactors yesterday, and am running carbon in the two others.

Updated and better pictures of the Lifereef setup.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4558/...1719cfcb_z.jpgIMG_0200 by E, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4548/...d7a9576f_z.jpgIMG_0204 by E, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4577/...4ee1c454_z.jpgIMG_0205 by E, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4524/...c909f3f8_z.jpglifereef_setup by E, on Flickr
as I mentioned, very cramped quarters, however everything fits perfectly. The venturi from the skimmer just barely fits between the two down tubes.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4555/...dd7c297c_z.jpgspace is tight by E, on Flickr


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