JWoo's 120G

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Been waiting to see this!

An upgrade from the 45 to a 120... NICE

Bummer man. Plumbing is my least favorite part of reefing. I feel like no matter what, I always have to run back to home depot 5 times.

Well it's been a busy week! I had some major issues with the plumbing that I've finally got fixed and have started to move on with the tank build again.

Our story so far!

So after getting the stand down in the basement I went to go get the tank out of the garage. Did I mention that it had been sitting there for 6 months? Looks how filthy the tank and sump are! Gross!



Got Disneymania (Jeremy) to help me move the tank down stairs. Shortly after getting it on the stand it had it's first piece of livestock in it! She enjoyed the filthy tank so much that she didn't want to get out!



I then proceeded to plumb it. This is where I got stuck for a week because I got frustrated. I had a major issue with flushing from the overflows in the durso drains. It was like an explosion in my sump! After much research I decided to try out a reverse durso in the sump. I finished it up Sunday and it's DEAD silent now.

I did all flex tube except for the reverse durso which is standard PVC. I only have this one picture of the plumbing for now.



So I mentioned that the tank was filthy right? I was able to clean the sump up but could not get the etching off of the glass on the tank. I also needed to fresh water test it for a few days. Enter vinegar water!



I ran the vinegar water for four days before emptying it out again. I was able to get the glass and back wall crystal clear again. The coraline algae on the overflows would not come off though even with the vinegar water! The mistake I made was using only distilled vinegar apparently you need to use pure. However being able to get the coraline off of the back wall and side glass and koralias was enough to satisfy me.

Once cleaned up I did the rock work!



I wanted a fairly simple design that allowed me to have a lot of sand bed and not look overcrowded. About 40 lbs of this rock is stuff from my old tank and the other 45 is man made reef rock. Fish should be able to swim behind both structures as there is a one-two inch gap between the back wall and the rocks. The front has about a 6 inch gap to the rocks at the start of the little grotto and in the middle of the crescent about 20 inches. I love wellso's and plate corals so there should be ample room for all of that.

Today I'm going to get the sand cleaned up and put in and hopefully water! I'm on vacation as of Friday for 9 days so I'm hoping to get thus cycling so that I can get my fish moved when I get home!

BobC63 wrote:     The rockwork looks great!   Love that juvi female homo sapiens you put in there     ÂÂ

Do you think a 120 is big enough for her? I've heard that they can get to be SIX feet in length!    Maybe I'll just have to get a bigger tank when she grows out of this one!

UPDATE!

I've had the tank cycling for the past four weeks. A week ago I started to slowly move the few fish I had left in my 45 Gallon. This weekend I finished moving all of them and added clean up crew.

At this point the tank is not ready for coral as I don't have any lights yet. However I will be receiving my lights come Tue! I ordered the new AI Vega lights. I'll take more pictures later in the week so that everyone can see the new Vega's and how they look.

I got two Vegas. It's a 48" tank so with the newer optics and the increased spread when I talked to AI they recommended two. I think three would be overkill on this tank.

I'm VERY excited.

LOOKS AWSOME! Cant wait to see it all come togather

Looking forward to seeing how the Vega's do. Did you get the color ones?