# 30Gal FT into a 30Gal DT - The Journey



## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

First, I thought I would start off with a little story of how it all started... just enough to add some substance to this build thread. 

About 2 years ago, I was able to get the green light from my GF to start a fragtank. The conditions were as long as it can fit perfectly in the space i was given (about 25 x 25 inches). I immediately scoured the internet night and day, for weeks after weeks until out of pure luck I stumbled upon the perfect tank. I found someone selling a fragtank bundle which included a barely used shallow tank measuring 24 X 24 X 12, a matching wooden stand, some plumbing accessories, and an acrylic frag rack for a ridiculously great bargain. The issue was that the seller is located all the way at Sorel De Tracy QC, which was 6.5 hours away from me. 

By some sort of weird coincidence, my work was also looking for employees to send to QC for a physical count audit in one of our plants which also happens to be near where the seller lives. Obviously I volunteered thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to go pick up my aquarium with all expenses paid by the company...pretty much kill two birds with one stone. I ended up renting a car, drove down to QC for work and on my day off, I headed to over to meet the seller at his house. Unfortunately I had to find out, a little too late, that the car I had rented wasn't big enough to fit the tank AND the stand together. The seller (an amazingly good hearted human being) even went as far as attempting to disassemble it for me but because 95% of it is glued together, he couldn't break it down. In the end, I just had no other option but to drive back to my hotel and leave the perfectly matched cabinet behind. Although, the very nice seller was kind enough to adjust the already great price on the bundle to accommodate the fact that I couldn't take the stand with me.


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*At the very beginning...*

After finally coming back home from my work trip, I started to look for a cabinet/stand for it. Called up a few friends who have built their own cabinet in the past for pointers, but that didn't pan out as I didn't have the tools or the space to make one. Called up a friend that worked in the steel industry and was able to get a stand made, also found a friend that was able to make me one out of aluminum, so I figured why not...it would be good to have as an option. After getting my steel stand, I had a friend of mine who worked in the powder coating industry coat my steel stand in black... FOR FREEEEE!!! (I still gave them a little gift as a small token of appreciation, but still saved more than I would have had I paid for the powder coating).I then found a sump that fit perfectly under my steel stand from a member on GTAA for a steal! So I was pretty much on my way to having a complete setup  Anyways after both stands were completed, I brought them home for my GF to see and she hated them both lol! So they had to go  That fragtank ended up just sitting in a corner of my apartment for several months without ever seeing a drop of water 

Pictures of the stand my friends made for me:





Pictures of how I had it setup in my little corner:


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*The Cabinet Saga Continues*

I was pretty much convinced that the only way for me to get this tank going was to somehow get the wooden stand that I had left behind. I had shown my GF a picture of it before and she approved of it, the only issue was figuring out how I would get it from QC all the way back home. I even looked at buying one locally but that wasn't an option as it came to about $250 for the exact same one. So I contacted the seller of the fragtank and tried to see if we could come up with some sort of arrangement. We ended up making a deal, that he would deliver the cabinet to my mom's house in exchange for some corals. The problem was still there though. I still couldn't figure out a way to bring it back to my place. I thought about renting a van and to drive there and back but the cost of renting a van, the cost of gas, and the time it would take would be greater than just buying the cabinet here...so the cabinet just sat at my mom's house in Montreal for a couple months.

It's now winter time, Jaysan, his wife, my GF, and I decided to go to QC for a snowboarding trip. They were nice enough to borrow their parent's van for the roadtrip since we had a lot of stuff to bring with us. We stayed at my mom's house to cut the cost of our trip and since we were there I showed Jaysan the cabinet that has been sitting there for awhile. The missing piece to complete the puzzle. He offered to bring it back with us if it can fit, so on our last day while packing up the van, we tried fitting the cabinet with all of our luggage and snowboards but couldn't manage to make it work although we were very close. Only 1 snowboard luggage would have to be left behind to make everything fit. That was a no brainer, I left my snowboard behind knowing I wouldn't be going for the rest of the season and I would come back for it during the summer as I travel back and forth fairly often. Finally made everything fit and we were on the road back home with my new cabinet!!!   It didn't take me long to set everything up and get my fragtank started as soon as we got back 

Pictures of the long awaited 30gal FT with cabinet next to my 18gal DT:



Pictures of the tank finally setup:


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## Rookie2013 (Jan 17, 2013)

manhtu said:


> I was pretty much convinced that the only way for me to get this tank going was to somehow get the wooden stand that I had left behind. I had shown my GF a picture of it before and she approved of it, the only issue was figuring out how I would get it from QC all the way back home. I even looked at buying one locally but that wasn't an option as it came to about $250 for the exact same one. So I contacted the seller of the fragtank and tried to see if we could come up with some sort of arrangement. We ended up making a deal, that he would deliver the cabinet to my mom's house in exchange for some corals. The problem was still there though. I still couldn't figure out a way to bring it back to my place. I thought about renting a van and to drive there and back but the cost of renting a van, the cost of gas, and the time it would take would be greater than just buying the cabinet here...so the cabinet just sat at my mom's house in Montreal for a couple months.
> 
> It's now winter time, Jaysan, his wife, my GF, and I decided to go to QC for a snowboarding trip. They were nice enough to borrow their parent's van for the roadtrip since we had a lot of stuff to bring with us. We stayed at my mom's house to cut the cost of our trip and since we were there I showed Jaysan the cabinet that has been sitting there for awhile. The missing piece to complete the puzzle. He offered to bring it back with us if it can fit, so on our last day while packing up the van, we tried fitting the cabinet with all of our luggage and snowboards but couldn't manage to make it work although we were very close. Only 1 snowboard luggage would have to be left behind to make everything fit. That was a no brainer, I left my snowboard behind knowing I wouldn't be going for the rest of the season and I would come back for it during the summer as I travel back and forth fairly often. Finally made everything fit and we were on the road back home with my new cabinet!!!   It didn't take me long to set everything up and get my fragtank started as soon as we got back
> 
> ...


Sweet looking fragtank pretty much like mine

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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*The Technical Stuff*

*Tank:*
30 Gallon Deep Blue Shallow Frag Tank

*Tank Light:*
Ecotech Radion XR30 2gen with RMS

*Power Head:*
Jebao RW-4

*Frag Rack:*
The Blue Glow 4 tier acrylic frag rack
Blackrock Reef magnetic frag rack MR3.M

*Sump:*
16 Gallon Starfire Tank

*Sump Light:*
Cadlight LED

*Return Pump:*
Jebao DC6000

*Skimmer:*
Cadlight PLS-100

*Controller:*
Neptune Apex Classic


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

Rookie2013 said:


> Sweet looking fragtank pretty much like mine
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Thanks man! Couldn't have done it without the help of all my amazing friends. As it was once said to me: "Friends are the family that you choose" and I still strongly agree/believe that 

You also built your cabinet which turned out amazing! Wish I had the tools, space, and skills to do what you did


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*About a year later: From FT to DT*

After 6 years working in the financial industry, I decided to pursue a different career path. One that had an inconsistent work schedule, that was physically and mentally demanding... but all for a greater purpose.

During that time, this hobby suffered quite a bit. I no longer had time to keep up with the tank maintenance, or continue to sell frags, make new frags, and etc. Everything started to over grow in my fragtank including unwanted algae. The fragtank started to look horrible which just made everything sad and depressing. I was considering at one point just shutting it down, but something inside of me was still clinging on to this hobby. So instead i thought by turning it into a display tank, things would be more balanced out and in turn less work for the up keep.

And this is how it turned out:





I still had sooooo many frags, i just started selling a lot of them as frag packs and even gave some away for free. I was simply just trying to move everything out to make it look less clustered.

Eventually i reached to a happy medium and came it came to this:


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*To Be Continued...*

There is more coming, I hope you are enjoying your read and sorry for the run on sentences lol!


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## Rookie2013 (Jan 17, 2013)

manhtu said:


> Thanks man! Couldn't have done it without the help of all my amazing friends. As it was once said to me: "Friends are the family that you choose" and I still strongly agree/believe that
> 
> You also built your cabinet which turned out amazing! Wish I had the tools, space, and skills to do what you did


Yeah I build it at work with the help of my friend. Yep agreed with the friends comment.

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## Addicted (Jan 1, 2014)

Looks great!


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## zoapaly (Jul 10, 2013)

You have nice show piece  look like acanechitana?


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## poy (Jan 14, 2015)

Very awesome setup!


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## duckhams (Oct 13, 2009)

Great looking setup, nice job!


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone!


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*Rescaping*

After a few months of my new layout i noticed that my water current wasn't moving as well. Felt the rock scaping was too busy and cluttered everything in there. So i took out the big rock on the left and rescaped the whole tank. Now with better flow and you can tell the fishies living in there can now swim more freely.


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

nice tank!!!!


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*Update: 05-29-2017*

Since my last update, I decided that I wanted to start dosing alk and cal into my tank. I picked up some dosing supply off Albert, learned about dosing, and finally started the whole process. Ever since, I've been able to not only maintain my SPS corals but they now seem to be thriving in my tank. Couldn't have been happier with the end result. The other change that i have also noticed since i started dosing was a slight algae bloom although i'm not sure if the issue is related to my dosing or simply a coincidence.

Anyways, here is an updated picture of my tank. Let me know what you guys think. I know it's pretty stocked right now so i'm trying to move/clear out a few things.


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## Jaysan (Dec 19, 2011)

Went over to see this tank in person.
Its looking much better now then ever before!
Can't wait for those SPS to overtake the tank!


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## duckhams (Oct 13, 2009)

It looks incredible, great job! Dosing could be adding to the algae bloom, it depends what you products you are dosing with, some could add traces of heavy metals, enough to cause algae. I should think siphoning it out during water changes would be enough to combat what little you have.


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

duckhams said:


> It looks incredible, great job! Dosing could be adding to the algae bloom, it depends what you products you are dosing with, some could add traces of heavy metals, enough to cause algae. I should think siphoning it out during water changes would be enough to combat what little you have.


Thank you for the nice words and for the suggestion, I'm continuously syphoning the algae out but it comes back just as fast as it left. I'm wondering if getting a bigger clean up crew would help. I only have 1 turbo, 1 emerald, and 2 or 3 Astrea snails in there.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*Rescape 2.0*

Was home early today so I had some time to clean up the tank a bit and while I was cleaning up, I took the opportunity to rearrange the tank too. I'm going for a "Less is more" kinda theme. Hope you guys like it


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*Fts update: 11/15/2017 - planaria attack!*

Hi Guys,

Guess it's been a few months since my last update... so here I go... for those who cares at least lol 

My tank was infested with Planaria a few months ago, I figured I must've gotten it from one of my fellow hobbyist when we traded frags as I haven't bought any corals from a store in awhile. I know... I know... rookie mistake, I didn't dip my new corals before putting them in the tank. Anyways, they didn't bother my corals or fish so I didn't bother doing anything about it until it got to the point where there was Planaria EVERYWHERE. They multiplied so much that it covered all of my rock and sand surface, they even filled my sump. Despite their overwhelming numbers, they still didn't bother my corals or fish.

I had some free time during the Thanksgiving long weekend so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to tackle this issue. I used the Flatworm eXit made by Salifert and followed the most of their instructions. The only thing I didn't do as per their instructions was to suck out as many of them out as possible before the treatment. I figured as they die off and float around the tank, i'll suck them out then... that was a very bad decision on my part.

The Flatworm eXit worked very well, within a few hours I had so many dead Planaria that it was impossible for me to suck them all out even after several water changes. Soon after, my skimmer exploded with red guck, my water turned into a light red/brown color, and all the dead Planaria left in my tank was poisoning the water. Eventually my fishes couldn't handle the tank's condition and all died. All but one, some of my corals also died off too mostly my montis. Everything else in my tank was extremely stressed out and pissed off. It looked like there was pretty much nothing in there but rocks, sand, and some coral skeleton. I was pretty sure that this was the end for my beautiful 30 gal shallow cube tank. I even told my gf and my friends that if this tank doesn't recover, I'll be quitting the hobby for good.

During the following week, I continued to do several more water changes and continued to dose the tank with Alk, Calcium, and Seachem Fuel. Very slowly but surely I saw some progress in my tank. Some of my corals were slowly opening up again, my skimmer was pulling out normal coral guck again, and the water was clearing up.

Here is the tank a few months later


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## Rookie2013 (Jan 17, 2013)

happy to know you are on your way back with the tank....beautiful set up


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

Thanks! I was VERY close to quitting the hobby after the latest crash. Glad I didn't seeing how the tank is looking like now


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*Update: 01/15/2018*

Started dosing Cal, Alk, about 5 months ago and Mg just a few weeks ago. Here are some updated pictures of my 30 gal DT.

Hope you guys like it


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

*Hardware Update:*

Tank:
30 Gallon Deep Blue Shallow Frag Tank

Tank Light:
Ecotech Radion XR30 gen2 with RMS mount

Power Head:
Vortech MP10WQD

Frag Rack:
Blackrock Reef magnetic frag rack MR3.M

Sump:
16 Gallon Starfire Tank

Sump Light:
Bubble Magus NAC 3.5

Return Pump:
Jebao DC6000

Skimmer:
Cadlight PLS-100

Controller:
Neptune Apex Classic


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