My 65G reef tank build thread

[GilliganReef]

Alright, I have been planning a tank upgrade for my 40B for little over a year now. I decided on a 65g since I wouldn’t need to upgrade my lightning and found a 65g on craigslist for $30 6 months ago. We closed on our house two weeks ago and I started the stand build last week. I was exposed to have it up and running last weekend on Sunday, Father Day. But I had a few unexpected things happen. One the overflow kit I purchased on eBay didn’t arrive until yesterday. Took 2 weeks to get it, seller said takes 1-3 days for shipping after receiving payment not 7. Also Lowe’s screwed up my laminate floor order and that arrived yesterday also.

Now I am hoping I can start the flooring tonight and hopefully get all done by Saturday morning to start the build of the tank! Get the tank filled and running Sunday. Give my tank a week to settle before the fish go in. Don’t worry my dry rock been cycling for 6 weeks now or even longer. Also all my tanks been sitting in my garage filled with water and vinegar for 6 days. Leak test/ cleaning them out!

Tank will be setup as 65g DT with a 20L for protein skimmer, gfo reactor, and carbon reactor. 20L will be hooked up to my first SW tank. A 29g for my refugium and the return pump. I will have a closet that will be setup as a sump room. One of many reasons why I picked the house we purchased!

[GilliganReef]

Pictures of my stand build!

[GilliganReef]

My dry rock cycle looks like it is complete!!!

[GilliganReef]

Hoping I get my flooring finished so on Sunday I can place these bad boys in my tank!!!

[GilliganReef]

Today I finally got my tank up and running. Last few days found leaks in my overflow box I purchased on eBay. Had to wait a few days for the guy to send out the acrylic glue to fix his crappy job. Don't buy a overflow box for holytexas or w/e on eBay. Let's just say none of the joints on the front overflow box was not bonded correctly.

After that was take care of I learned to just build it my self next time. At least I know I wouldn't have any leaks. The shape it was shipped in I would never expect someone to build something that bad.

Then when I pulled all my cured dry rock out of my tote. Most of my rocks I built using putty fell apart. So another two day wait fixing and building that again.

Well doing my water test I found out I forgot to glue a few PVC joints. Doh! So I fixed all that and added a few more unions.

Went to LFS today got myself a ball of cheato and got my refugium up and running.

Took me about an hour today messing around to figure out flow of my new Jaebo DCT 6000 and adjust my piping. I did about 3-5 power outage test to make sure everything would work with no flooding. I think my sump leave me with about an extra 7-10 gallons until they flood.

Now hoping everything works out so I am get my fish/coral transferred this Sunday!

[sixpackgarage]

like the rock work a lot. Looking forward to progress

[GilliganReef]

[GilliganReef]

Added my fish and coral to their new home on Sunday. Every looks fine, tested water parameters yesterday. I am currently working on getting my salinity up.

Temp 81.1
Sal 1.023
Amm - 0
nit - 0
Nat - 0
Ph 8.0
Alk - 11
Mag -1600
Cal - 490
Phos - .03

This weekend I will will be setting up my Phos reactor and carbon. When I reset these up what would you guys recommend for amounts? Half a cup in both? Tank total volume is about 90g.

Other question is I cleaned out my protein skimmer when I mean clean. Washed in vinegar and scrubbed it down. It has been skimming quite wet. Should I allow it to keep going? Right now I have it overflowing into my filter socks.

[GilliganReef]

Here are few pics of the fish/coral!

[GilliganReef]

Here's better updated picture from my new setup!

[GilliganReef]

Little update on my tank. I added 8oz AlgaGen tisbe pods to my refugium to hopefully get my pod population up. I know while transferring my LR from the old 40B. I saved about a dozen from dying when I was scrubbing my rocks. I also added two trochus snails. I notice last night my Duncan started to grow two more heads on it!!! I only had this coral for about 3 months. Wish my hammer would start splitting lol.

I have some diatoms blooming which I know is normal and also started to notice nice lime green algae also underneath it. Now the wife wants too add more fish to the tank, where I have to keep reminding her we have to wait few more weeks before we add anything else to the tank. Also I haven’t set up my QT tank since it my HOB filter is buried with all our junk in the garage from moving. Hoping in August to purchase a few more corals and in September add a fish. Hoping my Algae is good enough to add a Lawnmower Blenny by Christmas.

Here my Duncan.


Picture of my splitting frogspawn

[GilliganReef]

A little update:

In September I added a starry blenny to tank to help with some algae. I thought he would help with the diatoms. But to my amazement he got rid of all my bryopsis algae. Now I have just a few spots of hair algae I pluck out every other day, leaving some since I notice they are covered in pods. Just last weekend I purchased a nice 3 headed Torch Coral. Sad news is I lost my blue damsel who I had when I started back in the hobby 3 years ago. R.I.P Jamal.

Tanks looking amazing, have coralline algae growing nicely in the refugium and DT. My refugium is covered in pods and I might have lost my peppermint shrimp, but I thought I lost both before I transferred tanks and found them hidden in my rock work.

Once I get home I will upload a few updated pictures.

[GilliganReef]

Here is an updated picture of my corals.

Here is a picture of before and now picture of the corals.



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[GilliganReef]

Update year and 4 months. I did a 35% water change yesterday. When I got home I notice a little green stick hanging on my rock. I take a second look and it turned out to be a broken branch off my birdnest. Just the fork of the coral hanging onto the rock and a vertemid worm. So I took the branch and super glued back on top of the rock. I am trying to figure out or if I clipped that branch during my w/c. Or did a fish knock it off. Oh well little branch already 2 hrs later full extension of the polyps!

Tank running at
Temp 79.9-80.6
Cal 420-430
Alk 10
Mag 1380
Nit 0
Nat 0
Phos 0.01
Amm
Salinity 1.024











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[sde1500]

Tank looks good. Very cool seeing the GSP grow up the glass like that.

I'm sure you've noticed, but you got some Aiptasia in there some of those pictures, doing anything to manage those?