Drew's 120 build

[cdrewferd]

Well, figured I might as well start a build thread and start documenting the things that are going on with the build. This was going to be a really slow build, but amazingly the wife requested that it be sped up. Was pretty happy about that. Anyway, tank is a 4'x2'x2' dual overflow all glass. Got the tank and a bunch of equipment for an amazing price from a member here who had to move. Here's some pics as of now.

While building the stand figured I should use the tank for something, lol.

Got the stand fully built and put it where the wife thought it should go. I told her it would be too big but she wanted to try.

As you can see the standis tall, 40", and my 2.5 yr old decided it was a great place for a fort. This lasted about a week before the wife agreed that it was to big and needed to move.

So I took it outside, but the tank on and filled with vinegar water to clean the tank up.

Soaked it for a couple days and scrubbed it down. Got 99% of the coraline off to give me a nice clean slate.

I then started messing with a rock scape. At first I thought about doing 2 pillars in front of the overflows, but couldn't come up with anything. I did get this though:

Lots of room for corals, but not many hiding places for fish. Since I want a lot of fish I had to rethink the design.

With the wifes help we were able to come up with this:

I really like this design as it still feels open, isn't touching any glass, has lots of hiding spots and lots of space for corals. I'm sure it might get tweaked a bit, but this is what I'm going with. I picked up some mortar from Erika and will be making this permanent soon.

 

[cdrewferd]

Now that I had a scape I had to get some other stuff done.

I got to work on the basics of the canopy and had everything sitting together in the garage to see just how big it was going to be.

Built the basics of the doors and got them routed.

While this was going on I had Brian put the baffles in my 40 breeder sump.

Now I had an electrical problem. No electrical was on this wall so I had to run it fresh.

All done.

Ineed a pump to run this thing. Originally I had decided on a Water Blaster HY12500 as it's got a lot to run. I kept hearing good things about Reeflo and their Blow Hole series pumps. I emailed them to see if the BH1450 would be enough for me and they agreed that it wouldn't. They did offer to let me get in on the beta testing phase of their new Blow Hole pump though, the 2700.

This thing is really small. Hope it's as much pump as they say it's going to be.

 

[cdrewferd]

During all this time I've had the rock curing in a stock tank on my back porch. It hasn't been at 70+ degrees, but it's something.

After lots of reading and asking people that have it, I decided to go with black sand. I have a black sand in my nano and love it. I ordered extra so I wouldn't run out and have to order more.

Time to move the stand into place.

Now the tank.

Wait a second, this can't be water can it?

Yep, decided that once the tank was in I should get the rock, sand and water in the tank so everything can do the cycle dance. I placed the rock on the glass and then filled in the sand around it. This wasn't too bad. Amazingly I only used about 55lbs of sand. Guess I have a lot extra.

View from the top.

About 90 gallons of saltwater that I had on hand.

This is how it's currently sitting. Made about 40g more water last night. Hope to plumb it all together tonight and get the sump and fuge online.

 

[cdrewferd]

About the beginning of October I was on LiveAquaria and saw a fish that I had wanted for a long time. Talked to the wife and ordered him, plus another.

This meant that I had to get a QT together real quick since my main tank wasn't even close to being done.

Quick, simple, and easy. 40 breeder with a filter, power head and some hiding places. The QT was up for about 36 hours before I got the fish in the mail.

That's a Saddleback Butterfly and a Tibican Dwarf Angel. The Saddleback is the one that I really wanted. Since I picked him up I decided that I would just go FOWLR for now as it would make things a little easier in the beginning. Plus I didn't want to have to pull either of these fish out before I was done enjoying them.

I also picked up another fish on my wish list.

That's a Whitetail Bristletooth Tang. He's awesome.

All three were doing great in QT until one day I went to check on them and found the butterfly dead on the bottom of the tank. This really bummed me out. He was a beautiful fish and I really wanted him to make it. Oh well, can't win them all I guess.

Right after this I decided that I should break down my nano reef and just put the focus on the big tank. Once I had all the corals sold, I added some more fish to my now 2 QT tanks.

Current fish list in QT:

Whitetail Bristletooth Tang
Klein's Butterfly
Tibican Dwarf Angel
Flame Dwarf Angel
Carpenters flasher wrasse
Swales Basslet
Dragonface Pipefish - pair
Red Mandarin - had for about 5 months

I'm going to add a few more and we'll see how the tank handles it. I'll be ordering a lot of pods to dose the tank once it's cycled so I can at least give the pipes and mandarin a fighting chance.

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved3

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved4

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved5

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved6

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved7

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved8

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved9

 

[cdrewferd]

Reserved10

 

[Haulin Oates]

Reserved 11? lookin good bro!! I might have a few more big rock for sale if your interested... They're in bleach now...

 

[cdrewferd]

I'm good on rock. Have over 100lbs that I didn't use. I did say I wanted more rock than needed, but didn't realize how much I had. LOL

 

[Mav]

Ya you had a fricking pile haha lol. Sorry i missed this thread, subscribed

 

[ReefCheif]

You wanna sell some of that extra rock Drew?

 

[cdrewferd]

MSwift is buying all of it.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Coming along nicely. You need some AI Sols for it .

 

[cdrewferd]

If I had the money. Course if I had the money to get some SOLs, then I'd probably build my own. Just have to wait and see what happens in a couple months.

 

[09bumblebee]

Got Drews sump all scraped clean and resealed the whole thing. Time for baffles.