110 Gallon reef tank PICS!!/DIARY!!

[Mooch28]

Hey guys,

finally got my live rock, sand, etc in, and tank is well on it's way!!

Well first off, specs.......

110 gallon high tank painted black(48 x 18 x 29- drilled 3 times. One for overflow box, two for return to tank)
30 gallon sump with baffles and built in refuge (filled with 12 lbs rubble and Cheato)
Quite one return pump capable of 1200 GPH
ASM G2 Skimmer (beautiful!!)
2 Zoo med rotatin pumps (270 GPH each)
20 gallon salt mixing tank
220 lbs of Haiti live rock
80 lbs of Arognite
100% RO water
240 watts of PC lighting (two 55 watt GE 9325K, and two 65 watt Actinic)
- Ran copper piping up to sump with tap for easy top offs and access to RO water.


Amazingly, my readings after just 4 days of cycling.......

.25 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrates
0 phosphates
TDS below 7ppm
PH at 8.1

The rock when i bought it was pretty much cured, and had been cleaned very well, so im assuming thats why my tank has cycled so fast. However, despite low readings, im fighting brown algae. I get the feeling i didnt wash the sand throughly enough to get all silicates out.

Any ideas as to any snails/inverts that could help get rid of the brown algae??

As for next upgrade. I have two 250 watt DE pendants lined up with ice cap ballasts and 14K Hamilton bulbs. Will be selling my PC light to upgrade. Infact, it's allready sold.

The tank is also incomple in terms of furniture in the pictures. Cabinet doors are missing, and canopy is not on yet. Will post more pics once, canopy is up tonight!!

Well, that's all for now guys.........

 

[Mooch28]

Heres anther shot of tank from below.

 

[TAZ3503]

Nice! Great rock work!

 

[mrsdorothy]

Wow, I like your aquascaping. Your fish will love swimming through all of those holes.

 

[Mooch28]

Thanks guys!! This is my first saltwater tank ever, but rock was very easy to work with as it came in large show pieces. Avg weight of 15-30 lbs per rock.

 

[Mooch28]

Any suggestion for combating brown algae??

Snails, water changes, what to do??

 

[Blinky]

- Ran copper piping up to sump with tap for easy top offs and access to RO water.

Mooch... everything sounds great, but this is a bit scary - copper piping? Copper is a baaad idea, maybe I'm missing something here about the piping but if Cu makes it into the tank you're going to have a horrid time trying to keep inverts and corals, it's poisonous.

ADD --> diatoms will go away on their own as the tank ages. Most snails eat them, and a MagFloat will take care of what's on the glass, but generally you can just wait them out. Then you may get a bloom of hair algae or cyano, it's all annoying but normal - IME if you keep NO3 and PO4 as low as possible they'll burn themselves out fairly quickly.

 

[Mooch28]

Mooch... everything sounds great, but this is a bit scary - copper piping? Copper is a baaad idea, maybe I'm missing something here about the piping but if Cu makes it into the tank you're going to have a horrid time trying to keep inverts and corals, it's poisonous.

ADD --> diatoms will go away on their own as the tank ages. Most snails eat them, and a MagFloat will take care of what's on the glass, but generally you can just wait them out. Then you may get a bloom of hair algae or cyano, it's all annoying but normal - IME if you keep NO3 and PO4 as low as possible they'll burn themselves out fairly quickly.

Well the copper piping is in the basement. Nothing on the tank. I just drain pure RO water from copper piping into tank. No salt or any other chemicals come in contact with copper piping.

hope all is still fine??

 

[vaderbanger]

dude copper kills
unless your doing fish only without any inverts id say ok
but if you add a hermit etc or corals yer looking at dead inverts

 

[colesy]

If the copper piping is just the feed to the RO unit its that big of a deal.. You can't really get around it.. But to run copper on the output of your RO unit to the tank, I would look at changing it.. One thing I would look at though is your flow.. Your return is decent, but I would defeinitely look at something more then your 2 270 GPH pumps.. Especially if you are looking at stocking corals.