Is anyone interested in seeing Reef builds anymore?

[daworldisblack]

That was an amazing series of posts! *Drools* Really nicely done man!

[Mike L]

That is incredible. Do you have a rough idea of your hours spent. Can't wait to see the tank when finished and running to your satisfaction. One more thing. Evil cichlids.....haha.
Regards Mike

[Stussi613]

Simply amazing, my friend you have outdone any other build I have seen on OVAS - congrats!
Errol

Thanks buddy, that's a big compliment coming from you

[Stussi613]

That was an amazing series of posts! *Drools* Really nicely done man!

Thanks allot!

[Stussi613]

Do you have a rough idea of your hours spent.

I would say hundreds, all told the background alone was 50+ hours, but it was spread out over a few months.

One thing I should say here, I wouldn't have been able to do this tank without David from Got Fish.  I can't tell you how many times we lifted that tank from its back to upright, then onto to its back again on just the background section...much less drilling holes bigger, plumbing, stand building, euro bracing.  So many things.

[guck]

Wow, I don't know if I will have the guts to post any picture ever again.  The bar is rather high.  There are no words to describe what you have accomplished.

[FocusFin]

This is Rain Man level of detail.

I'm an excellent driver lol

Awesome job!

[fischkopp]

Looking good! One can see that a lot of dedication went into the project. It will be a joy to see this tank mature. Thanks for sharing!

[AdamN]

awesome build!

[Parisiot]

Looks amazing! Got me dreaming up my next build. Fan of the white. Not going to be for a while unfortunately...
Keep posting the progress!

[Graham]

I can't believe I only just looked at this now! Everything looks amazing and very high quality. Excellent job Stuart! I hope some day I'll be able to pull something off as good as this!

[Stussi613]

Thanks for all your comments and compliments!  And sorry for the lack of updates...

Here's a couple of progress shots from today, it's really starting to colour up and take on some life...so to speak.



From the side a bit closer.



This bubble coral is always hungry, that snail better watch out!



I'll post some pictures of the equipment and put up a current fish list if people are interested in seeing more.

[ajm1961]

Very nice Stu!
Love the background and layout!

Thanks for the updates - look forward to seeing more.

[bitterman]

Awesome Stuart! Can't wait to see more!

Bruce

[k1ng]

That is insane from when I last saw it picking up the labs.
Nice job man, keep it up!

[Stussi613]

That is insane from when I last saw it picking up the labs.
Nice job man, keep it up!

Thanks bud!   You still keeping cichlids?

[sas]

Looks awesome Stuart!

[k1ng]

Ya I still have the breeding group and they are doing fantastic. No loses and they're breeding like crazy.

Thanks for the high quality fish!

[Stussi613]

Okay, I haven't really done an equipment show and tell yet.  So here goes a quick view "under the hood", so to speak.

This is inside the lower side cabinet, to the right side of the tank in the picture above.


You can see the Apex controller and EB8 power bar mounted on the back wall of the top shelf, and then my Fauna Marin 3 pump dosing pump on the shelf in front of it.  Below that are my Vertex dosing vessels with CA, ALK and MG in them, as well as my skimmer juice jug.  I keep my skimmer juice in the summer and dilute it with tap water, then use it to fortify the plants in my front flower garden.

This is the bottom right part of my sump.  The measurement of the sump is 48Lx18Dx15H and it holds about 50G at the water level it sits at.


The water enters from the corner overflows through 1" PVC and goes into the first chamber on the right where I have my heaters, some Cermedia MarinePure Ceramic High Performance media and a mesh bag with some Fauna Marin Ultra Phosphate remover.  I've been running the Ultra Phos instead of GFO because I used Marco Rock to do my rockscape and that stuff is known to leech phosphates for a while.  From there it spills over into two 4" filter socks and enters the middle chamber.  I have my Bubble Magus Curve 7 skimmer in that chamber, as well as a CadLights nano Biopellet reactor that has carbon in it and feeds my refugium.

The Fuge has marco rock rubble, Cheato and Halimeda in it. I routinely add pods to the system, turning the pump off for a few hours to let them get settled in the rubble and algae before starting the pump again.  The whole thing is lit on an off cycle to the ank lights with a 50W Daylight bulb with a clip on reflector from Walmart.  I have to trim the cheato all the time, so I know it's a good spectrum.



The furthest chamber has my return pump, a Speedwave DC1000 rated at 2460GPH.  I know it's overkill, but I'm planning to add a supply bar to my return line with a bunch of T's to run some Two Little Fishies Reactors with Carbon and GFO and feed the visible refugium I'm planning to add in the future and I'll need a pretty good amount of power to get all that fed.  Beside that on the left is my budget auto top off reservoir.  I got it at Ikea with a lid for under $10.  It holds about 7G of water and it has a Tunze nano ATO in it.  I am planning a project using some float switches and Toms Aqualifter connectd to the APEX that will email me if the water level goes high, or low, for the future, but the Tunze is working for now.  On the far left are some power bars that have the lights and return pump connected.  I have another EB8 power bar to connect for this side, but I just have to get a long enough cable to hook it up to the controller and none of that stuff really needs to be controlled since the lights and return and power heads have their own controls built in.

[Stussi613]

Here's a quick update, the tank will be a year old in May

Here's a full tank shot (sort of).


Got a pair of green Mandarins and Starfish from Got Fish?




Here's a quick view of some of my algae eating types going after some Nori.  Magnificent Foxface, Yellow Tangs, Hippo Tang, some green chromis and one of my Blacker Ice clowns who goes to check out all food, LOL.



And last, but not least, my clowns have ignored the Rose Bubble Tip and are now hosted by this Green Star Polyp.