110g first reef

[cmbspd]

I hope you'll find this unusual start interesting. I'm a total newbie to reefing so please give me advice...This is a less than optimal way to get into the hobby but I bought a unique ~110g used reef setup 7 days ago after several weeks of reading about them and lurking on RC. The kicker is that the tank came with a beautiful adult blue hippo tang that forced me to get my setup working ASAP...he lived in a rubbermaid tub "dungeon" in my basement while this happened:

http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/a...gdungeon-1.jpg


I was able to bring some water and liverock from the original owner to help keep him alive for the past week. So, yes I've violated all the RC advice about "take it slow" - but mostly for the tang's sake.

Here is the basic setup
110g tank, custom built for someone else, 51" x 21" interior footprint, 24" depth, pseudo-half hex - there are short 5" panels on each front corner, corner overflow with 1" drain
2x250MH, 14000k w/ 4x54 actinic and moonlight (unknown brand)
Octopus Extreme 200 in basement sump
Sump is 100g rubbermaid with a 20g refugium above it (with Chaetognatha), BlueLine 40 return pump gives ~ 400gph flow


The tank is upstairs and is intended to be viewed from two primary directions - the front faces the living room and the left side faces the dining area, which is 2 ft higher. Thus, I'm trying to aquascape a tank that is visually exciting from all viewing angles. The tank's unusual shape gives it an interesting look. Here it is during my freshwater test:

http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/a...e.jpg&newest=1

I added some foam/sand/rock backdrops to disguise the overflow and give a sense of verticality to the tank. Unfortunately, it leaked so I had to drain it and reseal while the blue tang spent an extra 3 days in the "dungeon". But that gave me time to refine my sump setup a little bit:

http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/a...p.jpg&newest=1

Here it is in progress. Unfortunately the drier ventpipe runs directly across it but I'm dealing with limited space. The refugium sits on the shelf to the right. I'm currently feeding it from the return flow using one of those three auxiliary spigots that you see. Alas, I discovered that my return pump isn't giving enough flow to keep up with the skimmer and also run the refugium so I'm going to look into feeding it from my drain line.

I have this tang that really needs a home so I'm trying to absolutely minimize any cycling by using cured live rock and as much water from the original tank as possible (only about 60g in the end). I arrange to get my liverock from a local reefer who is taking a "break". Turns out this is a major find. He's super nice with incredibly high quality rock that he sells super cheap - basically doing a favor to get a new reefer started. He'd fragged out most of his corals to friends but these rocks are still covered with polyps, montipora, and many others corals that I've yet to learn. Wow, I don't deserve such nice rocks yet but I'll do my best to keep these corals alive. Thus, I have to do all of my aquascaping in the tank full of water. Oh, and did I mention that I transfered the tang into the tank a day prior to get him out of the dungeon?

http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/a...y.jpg&newest=1

Here he is going into the tank. He was so freaked out by the "small" gallon ziploc that I didn't even acclimate him. He went straight into the water. Luckily it was all his original tank water that I'd been aerating for the past week. Regardless, now I'm aquascaping in a full tank with a fish and coral encrusted rocks. I felt so bad whenever a rock fell over...cringing when a coral got squished. But, they'll recover, at least if I can get water parameters under control quickly enough. I found that a snorkle helped a lot!

Here is the "final" aquascape. I also built a base under the stand to boost the total height of the tank so that it is easily viewed from the dining area (which higher than the rest of the room). I really like the extra height. I'll try to provide a better pic once the water has cleared:

http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/a...2.jpg&newest=1

I've built a large outcrop on the left side with an open area hidden behind. The outcrop bridges to the back wall on one side. The center area will be cleaned up before I add ~1" of sand. There is a small island on the right side. What do you think? My goal was to make it visually interesting, with lots of caves for critters, ledges for corals and good water. Give me feedback because I still have to refine it. Also, any tricks for securing these formations better? I don't really have the acrylic rod option because I don't want to remove the rocks from the tank.

So where am I now? Its day one and my water quality is worrisome. At least some die off is inevitable but I hope this isn't a portent of things to come:

SG=1.023 (okay but I'm going to increase it this week to ~1.025)
pH=8.0 (probably should be 8.2ish)
alk=2-2.5
NH3=0-.25ppm (not too bad considering..)
NO2=.1ppm
NO3=5-10ppm (wow is my RedSea test kit hard to read...)
PO3=.5ppm
temp=72F (apparently the thermostats on my heaters don't work well)

Isn't that PO3 crazy high for a new tank? I never tested the original tank's water, but all of water I'm adding is RO/DI with basic instant ocean saltmix. Its been less than 12 hours since the majority of the live rock was added so I have no clue how stable any of these readings will be but I will test again this evening.

Now that the tang has a home I can slow down a little. My main focus now is to keep as many of the corals alive as possible. Let me know any advice that you have. My immediate goals are:

1) 20g water changes daily to get the nitrates and phosphates down
2) adding a GFO reactor for the phosphate
3) increasing internal flow rate
4) stabilizing the rock formations - How stable is stable enough?
5) adding a 1" sand bed to the display tank and a 4"DSB to the refugium

[Rich D]

Very cool looking tank and I love the backdrop. 8.0 pH is fine. The water tempurature is a bit cold although I have seen tanks do well with low temp. To lower PO4, you may want to look into dosing vodka, make sure you do your research and it can be a very good method but make sure you do you take it slow and do your research on it before hand.
My suggestion would be to make some more renovations on you aquascape in the front. You will probably want room in the front for corals to grow and should keep rocks away from the front glass. Theres a couple of threads on aquascaping, ill see if I can find one.

In photobucket, in the thumbnails scroll over them then go down to the [IMG] link. You can paste that directly to the forum like this...

[Rich D]

messed up the last IMG

[cmbspd]

NOTE: I've moved this thread to the "new tank forum". Please go there if you are interested:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16444735#post16444735