Paul and Rachael's 180 and 120 Gallon builds

[Cosmojo]

So I originally was going to use a 125 that I had, and upgrade my 65. I also had a 120 laying around in a storage unit. My fiancé and I moved into our new apartment, found a crack in the 125 top brace, and the stand would have needed work to be usable as well, it was pretty flimsy.

When I saw that issue, I decided to use the 120 to upgrade with the contents of the 65, and buy a 180. Go big or go home, right?

So the 120 got the contents of the 65, and is up and running fully now. Decided to go full reef with that one, had an exquisite fairy wrasse jump last night, it was through a 2x3" area, most of it was covered with eggcrate, I was not happy, really didn't think it would find the little area in the corner like that. Aside from that, there is a yellow tang, a melanurus wrasse, an orchid dottyback, one blue/green chromis, and a pair of black clowns. It's mainly SPS and LPS, added a cleaner shrimp and a fire shrimp, going to add one more of each, and possibly a clam. In a few months when things have settled down, and they are happy in there, I am going to add a pair of flame wrasses in there.

The 180 is up and running partially now, the rock was bought fully cured and was in a tank for about a month up and running before the move. Now the structures are build, one island on each side, and one big rock in the middle. Currently there are 5 fish, a pair of snowflake clowns, one saddleback clown, and one regular clown that is missing the middle strip on one side. I know having two pairs of clowns might not work out so well if/when they start to pair up and get to a breeding age, but if there is ever any aggression, one pair will go into the frag tank. I care about the fish first and foremost, they spent time in QT together, and got along well enough that I wanted to give them a big tank and pull them if it ever gets bad. The other fish in the tank is a Smith blenny.

This is going to be SPS and LPS based as well, I tried, and I mean REALLY tried to get into zoas, which seem to really be the only thing that 90% of people in San Antonio do. So I am going to be the odd man out there, and have to just get my coral from the internet, there are worse things in life.

This is going to be a bit of a project tank, the equipment is leftovers from what we have laying around from various builds, and we are going to slowly upgrade everything on here. The first thing is going to be flow, right now we have a few various pumps that I am going to turn on slowly because the little clowns were struggling with the higher flow, so there's just one pump going. Going to get 4 MP40wQD's, I have 2 MP40wes on the 120, they were on the 65, and I have never loved any pumps more than VorTechs, so that's where I am going to stay.

For lighting, I am still torn on what to do, I have a good friend that does amazing with CT Lites, but I have always liked how Radions interact with VorTechs, so that's going to be a big decision.

I am going to run a separate sump and refuge, the sump is going to be a 40b with a skimmer, a 29 is going to be the refuge.

This one is going to be a coral safe tank, but not invert friendly. The next things going in will be a pair of flamehawks. After that, a ruby headed fairy wrasse, a pair of Labout's fairy wrasses, a naoko wrasse, Bristletooth Tomini Tang, purple tang, powder blue tang, and a black trigger.

Might be a little heavy on the fish load, but I have extra space available if there are every any issues with aggression, and I can always adjust if it starts feeling too full before everything gets added.

I have a bunch of things in front of the tank right now, so pictures will be up tomorrow on what's started, the plumbing still needs to be done, and I need one more return pump since I am going to be running separate systems. Those will be coming online in the next few weeks.

Thanks for looking, and if you have any pictures of 180's, equipment you have used, or fish/coral in your tank that you want to share, we always love to see whatever we can get my hands on.

Paul and Rachael

[fishNcars]

I wouldn't exactly call the transition from the 125 to the 180 "going big" haha before you know it, you'll be saying you wish you actually went big(ger) haha

[Cosmojo]

Only the 65 was setup, so we went from 65 gallons of DT, to 300

[nuxx]

Everything should also get easier the bigger you go

Could have got a lot smaller on our frag tank, but ended up doing 150 gallons just for stability and also another 75 gallons for the sump.

[Cosmojo]

Alrighty, added a few fish and a simple birdsnest so I can start getting a baseline for where I can grow coral since I am using two lights to do a three light job currently with the 180. Got a nice sized bird of paradise for $10, I am going to take a picture of it everyday to check growth over a week or two. Then at some point I will frag it to check how far out I can place lower light corals, and when they get to be small colonies, sell/trade them for something else.

We like to get fish small and watch them grow. So we got a flame hawk, whitetail bristletooth tang, and a hippo, all 2" at most.

I found a great deal on a red dragon that I am going to keep in the 120, and frag it to put a backup piece in the 180 as well. The Dragon soul is going into the 180 as soon as I know the birdsnest is doing alright.

The birdsnest




And a couple quick shots of what's in the 120. I need to get some extra sand sifters in there to help out with the new sand.

[Cosmojo]

Hey guys, time for an update. Everything has been pretty busy, doing bi-weekly 30 gallon water changes on each system. Bought a 40b on sale that I am going to use for a sump on the 180. Thinking about plumbing it together with either a 20 or 29 that I have to have a separate refuge, but we will see about that part.

The corals are growing very well, some of them don't have the best color yet, but they have been improving as time goes on. I am going to be getting 4 Lyretail Anthias for the 180, and 4 Squarebacks for the 120.

I would like to get some extra movement in there. I don't have a skimmer running on the 180 yet, but the bioload has been light enough that water changes take care of most of it. And I don't mind a little bit of algae for the tang/snails that are currently in there.

After that, it is going to be about it for fish that I plan on adding until I upgrade some equipment. I will add some coral here and there, let it grow out, and frag it to help with some of it, but I am not in a hurry for anything. Everything is working good enough for now, so everything that I add is really just a luxury at this point, and the whole point of the 180, was a long project.

The first thing I want to add, is going to be variable flow, so 4 MP40 quietdrives. Then a skimmer so I can start adding more fish.

But, we all prefer pictures anyway, so, without further ado.

FTS of the 180


Sunset Monti


Bristletooth Tang


Green Monti cap


Right island


Red Dragon


Red Planet


Acan


Torch

[Cosmojo]

Rough shot of the frag rack, it has two of my favorite corals on there, an Oregon Tort, and a Pearlberry, they will be getting mounted on the rock in the next week or two.




ORA Purple Plasma

[Cosmojo]

I didn't have the fiance turn off the pumps when she took the pictures, so they are a bit blurry. I will have to bust out the macro, and take some with a tripod at some point.

[Cosmojo]

duplicate post

[Cosmojo]

I haven't had the acros in the system long enough to do any growth pictures, the first SPS I put in my system were to make sure I could get some bigger pieces in there quickly. But, I wanted to show some of what has happened so far, and hope to see some growth like this in my acros soon.

6/28



8/10
[URL=http://s238.photobucket.com/user/footballdude2k3/media/IMG_1295_zpszorssnch.jpg.html]

[Cosmojo]

Broke out the SLR and tried to adjust some pictures the best I could with Photos on my Mac, didn't have a Macro with me, but I don't think they're too bad for a normal lens with minimal PP. These are the 180, pics of the 120 will be taken tonight or tomorrow.

[Cosmojo]

Some pictures of the 120

FTS



Pearlberry on the left, Oregon tort on the right. The Pearlberry is starting to color up, it was super brown when I got it



Side view of an ORA Purple Plasma



Red Planet



Green Stag



Green Birdsnest



Orange Monti Cap



Front view of the Purple Plasma



Cleaner shrimp

[Cosmojo]

Melanurus Wrasse



Yellow Tang peeking with an Orchid Dottyback and Fire Shrimp around



Orchid Dottieback



Acans



Melanurus and YT wanted to photobomb



Melanurus