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Blown76mav

About me and my tank

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Blown76mav
, 01-06-2010 at 11:33 PM (891 Views)
Well where to start?

A little about me, my name is Lonnie and I am an instructor at the University of Northwestern Ohio. I teach in the hi performance division of the automotive side. I've been into reef tanks and saltwater about a year and a half. It started when I wanted to surprise my daughter with a larger 10g tank for her goldfish (that she had for 4 years). Well long story short I ended up killing the goldfish and feeling bad. Whats a dad to do? Set up a saltwater take of course.... so with the help of a friend I bought a 55g tank and started to do research. Before I put the first drop of water in it I knew it would be too small and not what I wanted so I bought a reef ready 65g (another mistake) and set it up. I soon out grew that tank and grew tired of the noise in the living room. So the wife wanted me to move it to another room so I decided if I had to move it why not upgrade to a 150g with a basement sump. So six months after my first tank I come home with a 150g tank and proceed to start improving what I had learned so far.

A lot about my tank

Tank: 150g drilled AGA
Stand: Custom stand and canopy
Sump: Custom acrylic 90g in the basement built by me (after spending countless hours at Marc's site)
Pump: Ree-flo Barracuda
Lights: 2 250 14k MH and 1 400 w 14k (thinking of going to 20k)
Powerheads: two Korilla 4's and one MP40W (soon to add the second vortech and lose the K4's)
Skimmer: Octo 350
100 # of live rock
100 # of live sand and crushed coral (keeps the dust storms down)

The tank is a mixed reef with SPS, LPS and zoa's

I have two small linkia star fish (one red one orange) , a school of 7 small Chromis, Sailfin Tang, Kole Tang, Purple Tang, Yellow Tang, Royal Gramma, Pair of mated Clowns, Long Nose Hawkfish, Green Clown Goby and a CBB along with the normal snails, hermit crabs, peppermint shrimp etc..

Future plans call for a larger tank but I will either have to buy a new house or move everything to the basement. I'm hoping to go at least 300g but would love 500g.

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Comments

  1. VulcanRider's Avatar
    My girlfriend cringes whenever I mention another tank that I see for sale.
  2. melev's Avatar
    We want to see pictures!! I love basement set ups. Look at all the tangs you picked. Is four your limit for this tank? I have two in my 280g and that's plenty for me.

    Let's see that sump!
    Updated 01-07-2010 at 02:34 AM by melev
  3. Blown76mav's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by VulcanRider
    My girlfriend cringes whenever I mention another tank that I see for sale.
    Whenever my wife catches me looking at a new tank she is quick to remind me we don't have the room. I'm sure I could find some space somewhere
  4. Blown76mav's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by melev
    We want to see pictures!! I love basement set ups. Look at all the tangs you picked. Is four your limit for this tank? I have two in my 280g and that's plenty for me.

    Let's see that sump!
    I'll get some pictures up a little later today, as far as the tangs they were not my first choice. There was this guy getting out of the hobby and he had 3 tangs (only one I really wanted) the clowns, gramma,six line wrass, long nose hawkfish, one large chromis and two HUGE green serpent stars for sale and wouldn't break them up (and they were all in a 75g) For the price of a Med Purple Tang here I got all those fish. I quickly learned the serpent stars had to go as they decided to make snacks out of the Juv. Bengi Cardnals I had.

    I could do without a couple of them, but so far they have all gotten along with each other. They are one of the reasons I want larger tank. I don't want anymore as they are a huge part of my bio load.
  5. Blown76mav's Avatar
    Ok, home from work for the moment. Time for some pics. I'll post a few of the sump here for Marc and then start a build blog with all the pictures.

    Here is the sump before I put it on the table and drilled it. I didn't polish the edges because I'm lazy, now looking back I wish I would have. All the other sumps I build for others I polish and they look so much nicer.



    a few of it in action right after setting it up. I mounted the pump below the table to save space and to keep from having to prime it everytime I shut it off.



    Updated 07-25-2010 at 05:27 PM by Blown76mav
  6. melev's Avatar
    Why did you make that narrow alley in the back? Only for the water to pour through the teeth, then flow around to the middle section?

    Tell us more about the pump underneath and the need to prime it. That sounds like an unusual problem.

    You may want to put some type of strainer over that bulkhead in the base in case a fish gets lost down there. An eggcrate box would be pretty easy to fabricate and not need a lot of maintenance.
  7. Blown76mav's Avatar
    The narrow alley in the back was another mistake I quickly learned from. Yes it was for the water to pour through the teeth and not get bubbles in the intake of the pump. I had read in the manual for the pump that if I shut it off with a high head pressure I may need to prime it, it has a bleed screw on it so I guess its pretty common. I figure with it below like that it would not only save on counter space but be self priming. So far so good. I have fixed the bulkhead with a piece of drilled PVC another lesson learned.
  8. Blown76mav's Avatar
    I had forgot about this blog.

    Marc,

    I did build a intake pipe with drilled holes in it to fit into the bulk head and I slide a filter sock over it and use the sock backwards.

    I also made this cool little light holder. I'm using 6500K Lights from Lowe's. I have to prune the cheato about twice a month with two bulbs running 12 hrs a day.

  9. melev's Avatar
    Look at that holder. Pretty neat!