90g FOWLR journal... my first SW tank
Well, here goes... my first foray into saltwater aquariums.
A little background... I don't have a whole lot of fishkeeping experience. I had a 20 gallon FW about 12 years ago, and just this past summer set up a 16 gallon bowfront FW tank. When I mentioned to my wife my desire to get that little aquarium, she wasn't exactly thrilled, having had a small aquarium when she was a kid that seemed to be a deathtrap for whatever fish she put in there. In the negotiation process (which began with me suggesting we get one of those 6 gallon Eclipse tanks, then grew into a 12 gallon Eclipse, finally ending up with this 16 gallon, the biggest tank I could fit in the small space that was available), I casually mentioned my dream to someday have a saltwater tank. "Why not just get one now," she asked, clearly more excited about having SW than FW.
That set me off a flurry of research on this topic that I knew virtually nothing about, culminating in a disappointing discovery that my favorite SW fish, the Yellow Tang, would need a much bigger tank than we had space for. Even if we could somehow shoehorn a 30-ish gallon, it still wouldn't be nearly big enough. Standing in our living room, I gazed at the large amount of space occupied by a wet bar in the corner... what a great spot for an aquarium, too bad the wet bar was there!
Mother nature intervened... with Hurricane Katrina sending 6 inches of water in our house, the flood repair was a perfect opportunity to get rid of the wet bar, freeing up the necessary space for a larger aquarium. My wife was set on a 55g, though I successfully lobbied for a 75, and was able to up that to a 90 since it didn't take up any additional space.
My wife is smart, as this provided substantial motivation for me to complete the house repairs as quickly as possible!
So, with the repairs now almost done (just need to do the garage and utility room), I ordered the aquarium and stand last week, and also began the unexpectedly arduous process of finalizing all the details (sand bed, powerheads, sump, skimmer, filtration, etc.). I decided on the following:
• All-Glass 90 gallon w/overflow
• "Modern Series" oak stand and canopy
• All-Glass 20H to be used as a sump
• Pentair Quiet One 3000 return pump (might be a little undersized... we'll see)
• ASM G2 Skimmer
• 2 Visi-Therm 150w heaters
• 3 Maxi-Jet 1200 powerheads
• Aragamax sand... 1.5 - 2 inches
I'll also be adding an RO/DI unit, an auto-topoff, and (hopefully) a small refugium if I can fit it.
The skimmer, live rock, and critters will be the tank's primary filtration, though I might run a HOB power filter sometimes if needed.
Friday 12/23/05: The big stuff arrived at the LFS. Well, it's not exactly "local" to me. I have two local shops here in my town (Slidell, LA) that each have a modest SW selection, but they definitely do not specialize in it. We did have one very nice shop that had a lot of SW stuff, but it was badly flooded during the hurricane and looks to be gone for good now.
Aquatic Specialties in Kenner, LA (about an hour drive) has a great SW selection. Sadly, they lost pretty much their entire SW stock during the extended power outage following the hurricane. The people are extremely knowledgeable and helpful. They've got tons of tangs, some really nice looking tank-raised clowns, a lot of neat inverts, even seahorses (not for me though!)... I'll definitely be getting most of my livestock from them!
Loaded up and ready to roll! I ended up getting there before the freight driver made the delivery, so my stuff went straight from the supply warehouse's truck to mine (though we did pull the pieces out of the boxes for inspection first).
Saturday 12/24/05: "No, we can't put fish in it yet," I have to keep telling my 2 girls and my wife (and to a lesser degree, myself)! Skimmer, powerheads, and some other stuff arrived today.
(Need to move that painting). The back of the tank will be painted black or dark blue. The outlet visible behind the tank, oddly high on the wall, is a remnant of the wet bar, but will work out fine for the aquarium. I think the outlet is GFCI-protected from a GFCI installed in the bathroom on the other side of the wall, but I'll confirm this.
Lighting is provided by a double-strip standard fluorescent, with one white bulb and one blue actinic. Hopefully this will be bright enough.
A Maxi-Jet 1200 is installed at each corner, and I plan to add another one (maybe centered on the back pointing towards the front, or on the right hand side with the flow down directed along the back of the rocks).
We really liked the look of the All-Glass "Modern Series" furniture, but my favorite feature is the lack of a center post between the doors. I think I can fit a refugium on the right (drilled on the side to overflow into the sump), with an auto topoff reservoir behind it.
I was all ready to start plumbing the sump, even willing to venture out into Christmas Eve traffic to get to Home Depot, but I was a little disappointed to find that the All-Glass overflow accessory kit came with barbed fitting bulkheads. From the product photos I'd seen, I was expecting MPT, and I had planned to do at least the drain stuff with hard PVC. But, the barbed fittings kind of threw a wrench in those plans. Further complicating the situation is the drain bulkhead, which is referred to as a 1 inch bulkhead, but actually has a barbed fitting for 1.25 inch hose. I'm struggling to find the fittings I'll need to plumb the sump now, since 1.25 inch doesn't appear to be a commonly used size. Rather than try to transition from vinyl tubing to PVC, I'll probably just plumb the whole thing (drain and return) with vinyl tubing.
On a brighter note, All-Glass now appears to include a split outflow instead of just the single.
The ASM G2 fits nicely in the sump... even with baffles installed, there should be plenty of space for a reasonably sized return section. The G2 reportedly likes a water level of about 10 inches, and the sump is 16 inches tall. So to be able to utilize as much of the sump space as possible, I'll elevate the skimmer around 4 inches (though it's not readily apparent in the photos, there's ample vertical clearance). I've since filled the sump about halfway with freshwater to let the skimmer run for a while, as per ASM's recommendation. It makes a low-pitched hum that seems to resonate through the stand... not an offensive sound, but still noticeable. I'll try adding some sort of cushioning material under the sump to dampen the vibrations.
--Mike
Well, here goes... my first foray into saltwater aquariums.
A little background... I don't have a whole lot of fishkeeping experience. I had a 20 gallon FW about 12 years ago, and just this past summer set up a 16 gallon bowfront FW tank. When I mentioned to my wife my desire to get that little aquarium, she wasn't exactly thrilled, having had a small aquarium when she was a kid that seemed to be a deathtrap for whatever fish she put in there. In the negotiation process (which began with me suggesting we get one of those 6 gallon Eclipse tanks, then grew into a 12 gallon Eclipse, finally ending up with this 16 gallon, the biggest tank I could fit in the small space that was available), I casually mentioned my dream to someday have a saltwater tank. "Why not just get one now," she asked, clearly more excited about having SW than FW.
That set me off a flurry of research on this topic that I knew virtually nothing about, culminating in a disappointing discovery that my favorite SW fish, the Yellow Tang, would need a much bigger tank than we had space for. Even if we could somehow shoehorn a 30-ish gallon, it still wouldn't be nearly big enough. Standing in our living room, I gazed at the large amount of space occupied by a wet bar in the corner... what a great spot for an aquarium, too bad the wet bar was there!
Mother nature intervened... with Hurricane Katrina sending 6 inches of water in our house, the flood repair was a perfect opportunity to get rid of the wet bar, freeing up the necessary space for a larger aquarium. My wife was set on a 55g, though I successfully lobbied for a 75, and was able to up that to a 90 since it didn't take up any additional space.
My wife is smart, as this provided substantial motivation for me to complete the house repairs as quickly as possible!
So, with the repairs now almost done (just need to do the garage and utility room), I ordered the aquarium and stand last week, and also began the unexpectedly arduous process of finalizing all the details (sand bed, powerheads, sump, skimmer, filtration, etc.). I decided on the following:
• All-Glass 90 gallon w/overflow
• "Modern Series" oak stand and canopy
• All-Glass 20H to be used as a sump
• Pentair Quiet One 3000 return pump (might be a little undersized... we'll see)
• ASM G2 Skimmer
• 2 Visi-Therm 150w heaters
• 3 Maxi-Jet 1200 powerheads
• Aragamax sand... 1.5 - 2 inches
I'll also be adding an RO/DI unit, an auto-topoff, and (hopefully) a small refugium if I can fit it.
The skimmer, live rock, and critters will be the tank's primary filtration, though I might run a HOB power filter sometimes if needed.
Friday 12/23/05: The big stuff arrived at the LFS. Well, it's not exactly "local" to me. I have two local shops here in my town (Slidell, LA) that each have a modest SW selection, but they definitely do not specialize in it. We did have one very nice shop that had a lot of SW stuff, but it was badly flooded during the hurricane and looks to be gone for good now.
Aquatic Specialties in Kenner, LA (about an hour drive) has a great SW selection. Sadly, they lost pretty much their entire SW stock during the extended power outage following the hurricane. The people are extremely knowledgeable and helpful. They've got tons of tangs, some really nice looking tank-raised clowns, a lot of neat inverts, even seahorses (not for me though!)... I'll definitely be getting most of my livestock from them!
Loaded up and ready to roll! I ended up getting there before the freight driver made the delivery, so my stuff went straight from the supply warehouse's truck to mine (though we did pull the pieces out of the boxes for inspection first).
Saturday 12/24/05: "No, we can't put fish in it yet," I have to keep telling my 2 girls and my wife (and to a lesser degree, myself)! Skimmer, powerheads, and some other stuff arrived today.
(Need to move that painting). The back of the tank will be painted black or dark blue. The outlet visible behind the tank, oddly high on the wall, is a remnant of the wet bar, but will work out fine for the aquarium. I think the outlet is GFCI-protected from a GFCI installed in the bathroom on the other side of the wall, but I'll confirm this.
Lighting is provided by a double-strip standard fluorescent, with one white bulb and one blue actinic. Hopefully this will be bright enough.
A Maxi-Jet 1200 is installed at each corner, and I plan to add another one (maybe centered on the back pointing towards the front, or on the right hand side with the flow down directed along the back of the rocks).
We really liked the look of the All-Glass "Modern Series" furniture, but my favorite feature is the lack of a center post between the doors. I think I can fit a refugium on the right (drilled on the side to overflow into the sump), with an auto topoff reservoir behind it.
I was all ready to start plumbing the sump, even willing to venture out into Christmas Eve traffic to get to Home Depot, but I was a little disappointed to find that the All-Glass overflow accessory kit came with barbed fitting bulkheads. From the product photos I'd seen, I was expecting MPT, and I had planned to do at least the drain stuff with hard PVC. But, the barbed fittings kind of threw a wrench in those plans. Further complicating the situation is the drain bulkhead, which is referred to as a 1 inch bulkhead, but actually has a barbed fitting for 1.25 inch hose. I'm struggling to find the fittings I'll need to plumb the sump now, since 1.25 inch doesn't appear to be a commonly used size. Rather than try to transition from vinyl tubing to PVC, I'll probably just plumb the whole thing (drain and return) with vinyl tubing.
On a brighter note, All-Glass now appears to include a split outflow instead of just the single.
The ASM G2 fits nicely in the sump... even with baffles installed, there should be plenty of space for a reasonably sized return section. The G2 reportedly likes a water level of about 10 inches, and the sump is 16 inches tall. So to be able to utilize as much of the sump space as possible, I'll elevate the skimmer around 4 inches (though it's not readily apparent in the photos, there's ample vertical clearance). I've since filled the sump about halfway with freshwater to let the skimmer run for a while, as per ASM's recommendation. It makes a low-pitched hum that seems to resonate through the stand... not an offensive sound, but still noticeable. I'll try adding some sort of cushioning material under the sump to dampen the vibrations.
--Mike
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