New 55 Gallon Reef Aquarium Build
 

So Ive debated for some time as to wether or not I wanted to log my build of my new 55 gallon reef tank build. I think I'm going to give it a shot especially based on the comments from all of you and your intrest. Let me know what you think and if there is intrest I'll post more and add photos. But here's what I have so far

- 55 gallon all-glass aquarium tank
- Custom built stand
- 10 gallon custom sump with custom baffles
- 10 gallon refugium with standard fluorescent light
- CPR cs-50 overflow box
- Coralife Super Skimmer 125 Protein Skimmer
- Odysea 4x 48" (2 daylight, 2 actinic) lighting with led moonlight and timer
- 1 aqueon 700 gph circulation pump (plan on adding another)
- everything listed above is installed and running tanks filled with ro water and instant ocean reef crystals.

So let me know what you think and if you want to see more. :fish2:

Any rock or sand yet?? If u don't have any try marcorocks.com. I have a 55 gal I just inherted and trying to figure if I'm gonna work out plumbing or just get another canister. This is reef central tho u know we wanna see pics... Good luck and ill be following

Sounds good! What are your stocking plans?

Here is a picture of the tank u can see the lighting, return from sump on right as well as circulation pump and overflow near the left.
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/f1e141d2.jpg
Here is whAt will be my refugium water enters on left and drains through bulkhead and strainer on right.
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/e750f5da.jpg
Here is my sump will be adding heaters yet and adding stronger return pump a mag probably just not sure which one.
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/9ea92824.jpg

Will be purchasing Fiji premium uncured live rock and curing it in the display tank, not sure what I will use for dt substrate but am considering miracle mud for refugium. I'm not really sure at what point I should set up the refugium, after curing?

I'm very intrested in soft corals, I love the way they move in current as well as anenomes for the same reason, I've been trying to keep in mind a mixed soft and hard coral atmosphere just in case I branch into the harder corals. I will also definitely have fish as well but haven't figured out what I'm doing in regards to quarantine.

Might want to ditch that skimmer outlet sponge, it'll clog pretty quick.

Looking to get rid of the flex piping and add a new outlet made out of PVC.

Trip to LFS
 

So made a trip to the LFS today called That Fish Place. They claim they are the largest pet store in the world. Have almost everything you could imagine for fish.

Got a second circulation pump a aqueon 700 , two 200w THEO heaters, and a light timer for my refugium light. I also got sand but I'll talk about that in another post.

<a href="http://s863.photobucket.com/albums/ab199/coasterfrk/?action=view&current=eca1cc73.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab199/coasterfrk/eca1cc73.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

Here's a pick of the heaters in my sump. Only took 2 hours to get temp up.

http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/ba9a1d69.jpg

Here is the sand I bought. I wasn't really planning on live sand but it was 60% off clearance so I couldn't pass it up. It's Nature's Ocean Austailian Gold Live Sand. So I grabbed 9-10 lb bags. (90lbs) I think it will be enough.

http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/bfde2f63.jpg

Looking good......

I love the "No Waiting...Just add fish" at the top of the sand bag :thumbsup:

What size tank are those heaters rated for? I ask as we have similar size tanks and I have two 150W Jagers. Two smaller than required is better so incase one fails "ON" it wont cook your tank.

cheers :beer:

They are rated for 55-75 I believe I have about 70 gallons total. See I was thinking if one dies the other one will be able to maintain my tank. Not the way you just put it.

great start off so far.. i was thinking of upgrading to a metal halide exactly like that one. Is it good?

I don't have metal halide I have t5

Oh yea metal halides gave the two lights in the middle plus 2 at each end. But there's one just like that with the same company odyssea. I thought it was. Guess not.

Yeah hard to decide which way to go....If you have two small ones, and one dies then the other will be on all the time and the temp drop will be gradual and hopefully you'll pick up on it.

If you have two heaters rated for the size of the tank, and one fails "ON", then it will very quickly heat up your tank and cook it......

HTH's

cheers :beer:

Looking good!

I am not fond of leaving the swing arm hygrometer continuously in the tank. It will cake with calcium and whatnot, and give rise to erroneous readings down the line.

You don't believe that "Just add fish", do you? 90 lbs should be plenty for a SSB on a 90 gal. Good deal at 60% off!

So you have 700 gph X 2 in-tank circulation. Have you decided on a return pump yet?

No rush on starting the fuge, though some say it's not a bad idea to sart it early. Might make it hard to pick up a nitrate rise on the cycling, though.

My return pump is only like 360gph feeding fuge And dt. Haven't upgraded it yet or decided on which one I'm getting.

I put like 3" of sand in fuge then In 2 weeks I'm adding live rock and then rest of sand to dt.

So I added 30lbs of the live sand to my refugium tank. Boy did that make a mess.
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/c7179593.jpg

Wow that is really cloudy :o

It will settle. Tanks is looking good so far. Heaters are best ran in pairs I think. I usually run two rated for the next size tank than I have. I also place them at oppisite ends of my sump to regulate the water temp better (atleast I tell myself it works that way).

Video Update #1
 

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That always makes me laugh

Ok so massive update today. THE LIVE ROCK IS IN.
It's 31lbs of Soloman Rock and 19lbs of Carribean Rock. Was labeled as uncured since they only put them in water from received to selling. However, the rock had no foul smell to it as I added it to my tank. So I'm hoping it was at the fish store long enough to have cured. Well here are the pics of my rock.
http://tapa.tk/mu/18730236-502f-b672.jpg

Sweet setup. I enjoyed the video and wished more people would post them. Keep up the good work