Rob's 3X2X2

[seffieuk]

all sounds very complicated

Seffie x

 

[ben1987]

i wouldnt advise that mate, i would get all the plumbing done first, then you can have a tap water test run. I went straight in and did what your planning and ended up draining the whole 400L into buckets and water butts. Not a nice day

 

[Anguilla82]

Sorry Ben, but couldn't resist getting on with things, and the missus was starting to get a bit peeved with the vats of water and rock lying all over the lounge floor!

we've had a very busy weekend getting everything sorted.
i've ordered the pipework bits i'm in need of from coral culture along with some solvent weld to hold it all together.

i managed to get some silicone after a trip to Real Reefs on saturday, so the afternoon was spent siliconing in the bulkheads. for a first timer i think i've done a pretty good job, though getting some of it on my fingers was not good as it took several washes with soap and water and wipes with grappa and gin to remove it!

my wife meanwhile cut the egg crate to cover the base of the tank:

i stained the shelf to hold the halide and moved the tank into position.

next came the filling with water.
took several trips to the LFS, and we managed to empty their RO storage tank!
we filled the tank up to a level of a couple of inches above of where i've placed the Votech pump. its several inches from the top still, so we're gonna need a whole load more water when we do the final top up, not to mention whats gonna be needed to fill the sump!

got the rock in on saturday evening and got the room tidied up. we finished about 9pm.
anyway, yesterday was spent arranging the rockwork and then we put the sand in.

have moved over a couple more peices of the live rock from my nano.
this should help seed the new rock even more, and hopefully transfer over some pods and starfish to help with the initial clean up.
One of the rocks had a smallish mushroom attached so i'll keep an eye on this as a test to how the conditions are. also moved a red leg hermit across for the same reasons.

this morning the tank had all cleared so i took a few pics for you guys:

under actinics:

looking from the left:

down the tank from the right side:

and the obligatory full tank shot:

the pile of dark coloured rocks on the left are gonna be going into the sump, we're currently thinking that this area would be good as a zoa garden, as its out of the main light area and lowish flow.
i've tried to create lots of shelves to place corals on and lots of different zones, i.e. high light/high flow, high light/low flow, low light/high flow etc. etc. i think i've managed to get most conditions covered.

am really liking the 'fake' tonga branch stuff, as you can't tell its not real now its intermingled with the actual live rock.

Rob

 

[ben1987]

looks good mate, whats the pump like? what settings are you using it on?

 

[Anguilla82]

looks good mate, whats the pump like? what settings are you using it on?

pump is v. impressive,
used it on full whack to clear the rock when i first put it in.
since adding everything i have put it on to lagoon random mode, which is a nice random medium flow. Set it up for night time mode last night which halves the strength of the flow for 10 hours then goes back to the original strength for the next 14.

it is easily enough for my tank, and means i have no dead spots that i can see, but as it is soooo adjustable i can make sure that i can cater for pretty much any coral.

i would highly recommend them!

 

[ben1987]

il deffinatly be buying one at some point, soon i hope.

 

[bagu]

WOW! MATE!

that looks friggin great!

I love the rock scaping, brilliant, this is going to be great !

keep it up

 

[Trod]

Really really like that scaping

 

[bagu]

Really really like that scaping

its amazing lol! i love it!

 

[Anguilla82]

cheers for all the compliments!

 

[seffieuk]

Oh wow, that is looking great - you are obviously a natural at scaping like our Ben

Seffie x

 

[Truck]

looks brill that! you should be proud!

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow, I really like that scape, this is gonna be a great tank

 

[TigerIssey]

Amazing how the fake stuff blends in so well with the real stuff

 

[Anguilla82]

cheers everyone!

bit of a blow last night. i finally received the Deltec MCE 600 skimmer i bought off of another forum and surprise surprise it doesn't fit in the sump even though i told the makers what skimmer i had bought!

measured the sump up this morning, and although the standard sump size they do for my tank is 24x18x17 i've ended up with a L 27.5 x W 16.5 x H 20!
a fair bit bigger! means that the skimmer cannot sit on the edge as i then can't remove the collection cup.
have tried puttting it in various locations in the sump but it just won't fit/work the way i want it to.

sooooooo think i'm gonna have to remove some of the internal baffless and redesign it somewhat!

Marines is never easy is it!

so any ideas how i remove silicone?
BigC you've done a fair amount of modding.....hints please

current setup only allows a DSB, but if my thinking is correct i can redesign it to house a decent sized DSB in the first chamber and then an eco system (live rock, MM, algae) in the second.
hopefully also be able to put the skimmer on the baffle between these zones.
anyways we'll see

Rob

i'll put together a plan of what it is like now and the redisgn plan.