# My headache... Take 2



## goffebeans (Jul 23, 2007)

My Headache... Take 1 
http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17605
Original setup. I realized I never really took much photos of my tank when I got it running so I'll try to document as much as possible this time.

My headache... Take 2.

I think this was written in the stars, things have been looking good since November.

The tank was TKO'd. 
1) Major light change from T5HO to LED 
2) Major house renovations 
3) 7 day power outtage in the dead of winter.

I debated about selling the tank but with a baby on the way in 3 months, it's either all or nothing at this point. I'd be cutting it way too close to get something made and setup.

So on New Year's Day I started the clean up and after 5 hrs I'm left with this and a sore arm.

From this. 
Had I known this would be the only shot I'd have of the tank on my phone, I would've removed the GSP. LOL









to this.
Forgot to take a picture of the tank before I started cleaning it out. I found 4 dead bristle worms ranging from 6-12". Freaky.









to now. Never expected to see this again.









Current Equipment:
Tank - 60" x 27" x 16"
Sump - 30" x 18" x 16"
20 Gallon tank for Top off Resevoir
20 Gallon tank for Salt mixing / Water changes
Return Pump - Tunze Silence 1073.040 
Vertex Illumina LED 200 - 48"
Digital Aquatics RKL
2x Eheim 150w Heaters 
Tunze Osmolator
SWC Mini-S Skimmer.
2x Vortech MP40wES
4 Stage 180 GPD RO/DI

Since I setup the tank there's been a couple of things that I irked me but never got around to do for various reasons.

Here's my to do list

1) Paint Light hangers white
2) Replumb the tank to reduce noise 
3) Improve the sump and possibly add Refugium
4) Clean up the wiring mess.
5) Add leak detector 
6) Improve monitoring and streamline tank maintenance
7) Wash 100+ lbs of bristleworm filled sand
8) Re-aquascape


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## goffebeans (Jul 23, 2007)

Here's how the sump stands in all its glory. 


There's a 40 gallon sump, 20 gallon R/O reservoir, and 20 gallon for water changes. The bottom is lined with a pond liner to catch spills/overflows.
Will most likely keep the same setup but perhaps move around some electrical and remove a lot of the excess equipment I have plugged in that's not being used. I.e. the maxspect ballasts on your right.






I also removed the plumbing. It was quite simple. I had a 1" return that was reduced to .75" with a penductor to increase flow and drain was a 2" straight pipe with a maggie muffler, which helped substantially in quieting down the overflow. It's essentially a fancy durso.
I plan on switching to a herbie overflow.
I had an idea which I thought was brilliant with the two existing holes. I had originally planned to use the 1" as the full siphon with a gate valve to control the water, and use the 2" as the emergency drain. With that I wouldn't have a hole for a return. To solve that, I planned on running the existing .75" return from the pump back up through the 2" emergency drain and into the tank so that it looks exactly the same as it currently did, which quieting down the overflow.

This was all before I decided on getting a Vertex MOcean to increase random flow in the tank. When the tank is up, I'll test that for a while and if it doesn't work out, I'll go back to my original idea.

I needed the maggie overflow in order to quiet


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Good luck! I saw the multibar and was instantly super jealous!!

I'm sure this incarnation of this setup will be just as good as the old one!


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

If there's anything you need give me a shout. I'm not to far from you and don't mind doing bit of labor 

Good Luck with your tank and with your new baby!!


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## goffebeans (Jul 23, 2007)

Oh how time flies. I started working on the tank this past weekend after getting some supplies in.

A week ago I received a shipment. I ordered 50lbs of Tonga Shelf rock during boxing week.


I was quite surprised on how the rock was packed but even more surprised that for the most part the rock was intact. I can understand packing regular dry rock as such but when ordering shelf rock, the whole point of it is to get some nice shelf pieces which are often fragile.


Here's the rock all laid out, the tape measure is 12". The stuff in the plastic is Fijicrete.


I honestly didn't really want to bother attempting to drill the rock to add acrylic rods as I didn't want to risk breaking the rock, I didn't have the supplies, and I just didn't have the heart to really care at this point. 
Since I had all this free Fijicrete that I didn't know what to do with, I decided to try it. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. Here's the results. I tied two pieces of shelf that had bases together with zipties. I then dipped the pieces in water as they say it would draw the fijicrete into the rock. After that I just started mixing and filling in the gap between the two rocks with the fijicrete and some misc pieces of filler rock. In the pictures you can see just how much of this stuff I actually used. To blend the colour, I could add a thin later of the fijicrete and pour sand over it, but I didn't want to attempt to flip the pieces as it's quite heavy and I didn't want to risk breaking it at this point.
I added two more shelf pieces ontop of the "base". It's the structure on the right side. It's not final as the round rock and shelf piece ontop of it are only placed that way until the fijicrete sets.





I have some pieces of shelf rock that I'm thinking of getting rid of. The tape measure here is 2ft.


After that I started washing the sand (aragamax oolite), but I stopped after a little bit as I debated about replacing it instead. There's more than two full buckets of this sand to wash and I'm thinking a lot of it might end up in my pipes as a lot of it gets suspended in the water when rinsed. I'm considering switching to the larger special reef grade. I never had any sandstorms with the oolite, but did have some bare spots in the tank where the flow was stronger.


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## explor3r (Mar 14, 2010)

Hahhahaha you fell in love again with your set up. Im glad you giving it another try, your tank dimensions are great I remember seeing it at Jhons at the same time I was setting up mine.
Good luck and maybe ad to the list s small generator just to prevent
I love the island to the right it looks amazing!!


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

When I thought I had it bad...

Good for you on restarting. All the best with the 'new' tank. LMK if you want any Kenya tree


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## Flexin5 (Nov 12, 2011)

Great aquascape, i like the shelves.


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## Bayinaung (Feb 24, 2012)

get it done before the baby comes! And congrats on that front too!


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## PACMAN (Mar 4, 2010)

update request!


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## goffebeans (Jul 23, 2007)

PACMAN said:


> update request!


Ask and you shall receive.

I've been meaning to update this but having the family over the past few weekends hasn't given me spare time to type this up.

I re-aquascaped the left side as I wasn't too happy with it and ended up with the following.










I debating for a while and decided to ditch the oolite sand and go with a larger size sand. Asides from the hassle of washing the sand, I wanted to increase the flow in my tank to try them sticks which wouldn't be as practical with oolite without having bare spots on the glass.

I estimated using calculators online of how much sand I needed and it made sense based on the fact that I scooped out two full 5 gallon buckets of oolite.
So off I went and bought three 40lb bags of Caribsea Seaflor Special Grade Reef Sand, which I eye balled to be about 2 buckets worth. Note: I almost bought these at Big Al's as it never struck me that the LFS' carried sand as I never really saw them. While standing in line I realized this and good thing. Big Als: 59.99 x 3 + tax = $203.37, LFS = 45 x 3 = $135. YA! more fish money.









As I started to fill the tank with sand, I remembered how packed the sand was in between the egg crate, essentially creating dead spots. I didn't feel this was much of an issue with the oolite as everything stayed on top of the sand but with the larger grains I figured it would become a detrius trap so I started to remove the egg crate the hard way. Piece by piece with pliers since I didn't want to remove the delicate structure that I spent so much time re-arranging.

























Turns out I bought way too much sand. I used only 1.5 bags. I'll probably add the remaining 1/2 bag and leave it at that.


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*tank*

love it it looks great , love how u got the structures put togeather very interesting and unique ...


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## goffebeans (Jul 23, 2007)

For sometime I was waiting around to receive my Vertex MOcean before permanently gluing all the pvc pieces together including the slip on bulkheads. When I finally got my hands on the unit, turns out it was missing a few pieces so it'll be some time before I'll be able to use it.

As a result I switched back to my threaded bulkheads and re-plumbed the tank the exact same way that I previously had. The threaded bulkheads allow me to take everything apart without having to make any cuts. I used silicone grease to help with the seals and will change it back to a herbie overflow when I do get the pieces. The reason for this decision was to get the tank moving along as I knew I had to cure the rocks and cycle the tank again.

I found this series of pictures quite amusing. It represents many of our stories as salties.










































It's a bit of a mess now, but I'm not keeping any of the rock in the sump. I only wanted to use it to help cycle the tank as there was a lot of die off and then sell it when cured

It took me an entire week to fill but it's finally full. Need to snip a couple of those straps in this picture









now the waiting game for the cycle to finish. In the mean time I still need to clear the top off tanks and the wiring.


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## Addicted (Jan 1, 2014)

Beautiful tank. Sorry about your losses.


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## fesso clown (Nov 15, 2011)

Looks fantastic, I love the 'scape for that tank.... great dimensions! 
Tagging along....


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