Sheol's 180-Gallon Aquarium

[Sheol]

SLOWEST. BUILD. EVAR.

So... back on April 27, 2008, I bought a 180-gallon aquarium from a guy on Craigslist.
Link to post in my other thread.

It has taken me so long to get it going that I am going to try now and figure out what the hell I did, and when, before I had to start using it before it was ready today due to my 80-gallon spontaneously giving up on life.

We picked up the aquarium in a Honda Fit and a Toyota Tacoma. Those Honda Fits are magic. The back was clear, because the aquarium is meant to be able to be used as a room divider (meaning the overflow boxes are positioned on the sides in the center instead of the back corner - boo, but I'll live).

On May 5, 2008, we did a tap water leak test and found & fixed leaks.

Some time before May 19, 2008, my brother painted the back black.

Then, later in May, I bought some shelf rocks and dry Fiji rocks from MarcoRocks and bought 300 pounds of aragonite from Dick. I also bought a RO/DI system from eBay on Dick's recommendation. My brother started hooking that up for me on May 31, 2008.

Actually, I just realized that in May I TRIED ordering the rocks from MarcoRocks, but actually received them in August 2008 - which doesn't matter since I did NOTHING with them until months later.

The chiller that came with the aquarium wasn't working - so I took it to work to have a guy troubleshoot it - he found that the motor was broken. I ordered new parts, and he installed them for me. That was in late August or September 2008.

At some point, my brother cut and drilled holes in PVC pipes to use as rock stands per Dick's deep sand bed model.

On February 25, 2009, my brother got the urge to work on my aquarium some more, so he poured in the 300 pounds of sand.


Some time around there, I bought another sump to use as a refugium so that we could get everything set up and plumbed in its final state. My brother drilled holes in the sump and the new refugium and connected them with bulk heads. Luckily, one of my brother's friends is in the aquarium industry and donated TONS of stuff to me - lights for the refugium, tons of plumbing parts, pumps - EXPENSIVE pumps! - bags of salt, and most importantly, his advice and assessments of my system.

We started filling my 50-gallon trash can with RO/DI water and adding salt to start up the 180-gallon aquarium. On March 5, 2009, my brother had the whole thing filled up, plumbed, and going. With just the dead aragonite sand and salt water.


That's pretty much where we were at - so the water was circulating for one week now, and my next steps were going to be to buy live rock and live sand. Luckily for me my brother decided to start working on the aquarium project, because only 8 days after the water was added, my 80-gallon aquarium broke and started flooding the room. The 180-Gallon wasn't ready for life yet, but it was a good thing we had it, because I don't know what ELSE I would've done...

And lucky for me, my brother was at my house today while I was at work to notice the flood starting when the aquarium was only 1-inch drained. When it was 10-inches down, he texted me and I left work to come help. Note that the reason he was even AT my house was because he was cleaning up after a flood from just the previous day when we accidentally left the trash can filling with RO/DI water overnight! THAT was a mess - water went through the kitchen walls to the back yard and under the cabinets to flood the dining room, reaching carpet. He was actually just putting the house back together from that flood when he saw the new one starting.

By the way, do I have the best brother EVAR or what?

This was pretty bad timing for this flood, because my brother's aquarium friend is getting married tomorrow, and my brother is in the wedding. He had to leave to go get his hair cut and go to the rehearsal dinner after I got home, so I was on my own for the rest of the night - scary.

He had put my livestock (such a short list at this point anyhow) in the trash can with about a foot of water from their old tank and was slowly adding water from the new tank to acclimate them to it. He put all the live rocks from the 80-gallon into the 180-gallon and even took the time to put them all on pvc stands per Dick's advice.

I ran to the fish store, which isn't even usually open on Fridays, it turns out (the guy had just come in to do paperwork), and I bought 60 pounds of live rock (including live rubble for the fuge), 40 pounds of Aragalife sand (all they had in stock), 6 pounds of real live sand with critters (all they had in stock), 10 pounds of Miracle Mud and 12 pounds of Fiji Mud for the refugium, 5 Mangroves, and some macroalgae (I was in too much of a hurry to figure out what kind).

I came home and added the sand to the aquarium - tried to be careful, but it still clouded up. Then, it was too cloudy to see where to put the live rocks I bought, so I just set them down on the sand near the front of the aquarium, which was all I could see.

I put the mud, rubble, mangroves, and macroalgae in the refugium.


(I was still slowly acclimating the fish to the new water during this.)

I took the contents of my canister filter from the 80-gallon and threw them in the sump for their bacterial benefits.

I took my Sebae clown to the fish store, because I never intended to put him in the 180-gallon... I would never be able to get that little bastard out. He's a pain and a waste of valuable aquarium real estate.


I took the rest of the critters from the trash can and put them in the aquarium, but it's too cloudy to see how they're doing. I did see my firefish poke its head out a few times, though... and I can see hermit crabs moving about.

My list of livestock is small right now, since I haven't been replacing them as they died off, and that 80-gallon was hard to keep at good nitrate levels because of its lack of a sump and maybe other unknown reasons...

Livestock I transferred over:

• Cleaner Shrimp
• Fire Shrimp
• Firefish Goby
• Purple Firefish Goby
• False Percula Clown
• Green Chromis
• Hermit crabs
• Snails

My murky mess:

[Phurst]

Oh boy! Gotta subscribe to this one too

[ryandlf]

OMG...not only do you have the best bro in the world, but you have perdy darn deep pockets too. That bill at the LFS that one day musta been hefty.

And...you can subscribe to posts?

[Sheol]

I would like it if they were a bit deeper! This little adventure left me with $50 left in my checking account until Wednesday! Oh, and "that one day" was today - I JUST finished with this crap, if you don't count cleaning up as part of this crap - I still have to do that.

Yup - subscribing to posts (well, threads, actually) makes them show up on your "User CP", and you can choose to get e-mail notifications.

Oh and an issue I'm having with my 180-gallon aquarium is that it draws too much power for the circuit it's on, and it sets off the gfi immediately. Right now I have the pump and the chiller plugged into an extension cord coming from an outlet on a different circuit.

[rayme07]

wow two floods right after another that's crazy. You must be really tired. Well at least your tank looks great.

[Sheol]

Yeah - I am really tired now that you mention it - and hungry, too! Two floods right after another - makes me wonder if my work is going to start thinking I'm making this stuff up! Good thing I take photographic evidence, LOL.

[Sheol]

Just a quick update - Day 2 and all of my livestock has survived so far - even look active and happy. The sandstorm has cleared up, and I can see everything now, but I realized that the output from my skimmer is too close to my main pump, and the water is all full of small air bubbles.

I apologize for the poor picture quality, but I'm just way too lazy to take pictures with anything other than my cell phone anymore.











The aquarium looks like a barren wasteland to me:

[Sheol]

The sump (you can see the skimmer output going right onto the main pump & how it is joined to the refugium):


The refugium (you can see misc media from my old canister filter hanging out in there):

[lReef lKeeper]

jen, those look like about 1/2" outlets on the skimmer. find some PVC that slides over it and put a 90 degree elbow on each outlet, then add a piece of straight PVC to the 90. take it JUST below the water line or leave it just above. either way it should cut down on the micro bubbles.

[Sheol]

Thanks! I'll relay that information to my handy brother, LOL.

[ryandlf]

I've been having the same problem with microbubbles. I agree with Bobby. My return from the skimmer isn't quite long enough so it sits about half way out of the surface. I don't know if this is an option, but one thing that did help me a bit was to turn the return pipe and point it strait at the side of the tank so the water shoots out and hits the wall rather than distributing right into the tank. I did this mainly because it cut down on salt creep, but it helped with bubbles a bit.

[Amphibious]

Not even sure where to begin congratulating you on this, Jen.

Maybe first, your brother. Yes, he's the best!

And then, out of the soggy swamp mess rises a beautiful 180 gallon system. It will be more beautiful when you get to rearranging things.

This will be a fun thread to watch. If there's anything I can do to help, just ask. Of course, that's easy for me to offer being you're in CA and I'm in FL.

Dick

[Allowin]

How does your fire fish and purple fire fish get along being in the same tank?

I was thinking about having one or more of those but they are notorious for fighting among their kind when placed together.

[Sheol]

And then, out of the soggy swamp mess rises a beautiful 180 gallon system. It will be more beautiful when you get to rearranging things.

This will be a fun thread to watch. If there's anything I can do to help, just ask. Of course, that's easy for me to offer being you're in CA and I'm in FL.

Dick

Thanks That's encouraging. Hopefully I don't mess it up too badly - I'm a little concerned about what to do next... I'm assuming I should be testing every day to watch for a cycle... besides that - no clue, LOL... aside from having my brother rearrange my rocks, LOL.

And of COURSE I'll just ask - one of my favorite things about this place is that you are here, and I can ask!

How does your fire fish and purple fire fish get along being in the same tank?

They used to get along great when I added them at the same time... I added 2 firefish and a few days later added 2 purple firefish - one of the purple firefish died the day after adding to the aquarium (they were starving and skinny when I got them).

For a long time, those three hung around each other all the time. They were always found in that group of 3.

Then, one of the regular firefish died, and the remaining one got along OK with the purple one, and I had heard that the firefish gobies were not supposed to get along well with its own genus, but based on how well mine got along, I thought I'd try replacing the firefish that died with a new one. That didn't work out so well - soon after I added the new one, the other original firefish died, and then the purple firefish was left with the new firefish. The purple firefish picked on the new guy a LOT, and the new little guy had to sneak out from the rocks to eat. His whole top fin was nipped down, and it wasn't going so well.

In the 180-gallon, the new one is more brave (swimming out in the open) than the purple one, and I'm hoping that with the new rocks to get accustomed to, the bigger space, and being added to it at the same time that they leave each other alone.

[Sheol]

Well, everybody is still alive, but my tank is in a cycle. Hopefully it finishes quickly!

pH: 8.4
Ammonia: 0.50
Nitrite: 0.25
Nitrate: 40

I poured in some Stability bacteria solution tonight - hope that helps.

Once my cycle is completed and I water-change my nitrates down, I can go ahead and add a couple peppermint shrimp and a few green chromis, you think?

Oh yeah - and I just realized I'm a dork, and the skimmer output isn't pouring onto the main pump - it's pouring onto its own pump, but the skimmer is still the culprit for the microbubbles.

[Allowin]

So pretty much what your saying is the skimmer pump is dumping bubbles right back onto itself and in turn is sucking up the same bubbles and adding them to the bubbles it produces to make even more bubbles? lol

It probably is not doing very much that way. Pipe the output into another section of the sump, like away from any pumps. You can also use a filter bag on the output to help control the bubbles.

[Sheol]

Yeah - the skimmer wasn't being very effective that way - my brother put a piece of plastic in front of it to use as a baffle, which helps to keep its output away from its own pump, but there are still a lot of micro bubbles, so I need to talk to him about the PVC pipe w/ elbow on the outputs thing.

My ammonia and nitrite went down to zero, and my nitrates went down to 40.

I added 3 chromis and 2 peppermint shrimp today. My 1 chromis was lonely, and I'm sick of hunting down aptasia anemone with Joe's Juice (though it works great... but mine got clumpy and I couldn't use it easily anymore anyway).

Am I the only weirdo that names every fish?

My chromis are: Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Rafael
False Percula: Joker
Firefish: Lucy (the two before her were Bob and Charlie)
Purple Firefish: Paris (her counterpart, Vienna, didn't make it)
Peppermint Shrimp: Gaston and Genevieve
Cleaner Shrimp: Jean Luc (the two before him were Pierre and Francois)
Fire Shrimp: Amelie

Also, I just assign arbitrary sexes to my fish in order to name them...

Also, my rocks still just look like a big jumbled mess. I'm waiting for my brother and/or his aquarium friend to volunteer their services, because I just suck at rock placement.

[CarmieJo]

My skimmer returns into a 2L pop bottle with a cheato ball.



Here is how I design the bottle.

[Sheol]

Wow - that looks like a great idea. Thanks CarmieJo

[PhotoJohn]

I dont use a 2 liter bottle, I just have a wall of cheto that my skimmer runs into...it works pretty well

[Sheol]

Hmm, now that actually confuses me, because in my system, that would mean a ball of chaeto held strangely stationary in the sump.

[PhotoJohn]

it is a giant ball of cheto

[Sheol]

I haven't put up my lights on the 180-gallon yet, because I don't have enough electricity to run the chiller, and probably not even the lights. I have been using some makeshift bulbs laid on top from the previous 80-gallon and an old 30-gallon. The new lights for the aquarium are metal halide, and I'm concerned about the heat actually cracking/making the top of my acrylic tank brittle (that and I only have 2 bulbs, and I'm sure I'm supposed to have 3 for this size tank). I'm thinking of saving up for a T5 fixture instead. I need a set that will mount into the top of my hood - not one that is just designed to sit on top.

This set looks like it would do: Buildyouraquarium - 72'' Aquarium Light T5 HO 12 x 80 Moon Lunar

Don't know when I will buy lights, though. I still have to worry about getting my house re-wired so that I have enough electricity to power everything, AND buy a new chiller, since I broke the compressor in mine by letting it run with insufficient power (after I had already paid to have it repaired).

[CarmieJo]

Oh that really stinks about the chiller.

[Sheol]

I know. Fighting the California heat has been the bane of my existence ever since I inherited that first 80-gallon aquarium. I THOUGHT I had it all cured with a chiller I got before this year's summer, but it broke about 2 weeks in. >.<