Setting up Free 35 Gallon Reef

FeatherDuster

FeatherDuster

AC Members
Mar 24, 2007
1,028
0
0
I guess my luck finally turned around after the earthquake. I spotted this great setup on craigslist while I was looking at possible future QT tanks. The owner was moving and giving it away for free. A very nice family.

I got it home last night and it came with:
Tank/Stand/Hood
Complete VHO Lighting (not sure the wattage, but I assume it was high if he was able to grow out some SPS)
Approx 32# of Live rock
4" Sandbed
2x Aquaclear PowerHeads
HOB Skimmer
Electronic Thermometer
2 Heaters
Xenia
Yellow Tang and Perc Clown
And some other goodies like marine salt.

I don't have any pictures of the actual tank yet since I want to clean it up a bit first, but here are some other pictures:

1) There was lots of Xenia in the tank, but since most of the rock had some unwanted algae, I picked up the best piece (without algae) and placed it in my nano. It will be moved once I finish "cleaning" the other rocks. The other Xenia pieces probably won't survive this process and I wanted to keep some xD
Xenia.png

2) Here is the skimmer, anyone familiar with this one? I couldn't find a brand/model#.
Skimmer.PNG

3) I have never owned a lighting fixture that required an external blast before. Its interesting.
Blast.PNG

Xenia.png Skimmer.PNG Blast.PNG
 
Free is always a great price!

an Icecap balast is awesome, that alone is a great deal, the fact that there were rocks and fish and an obviously healthy colony of Xenia, icing on the cake, nice acquisition in deed.

Once you get it all setup and clean post some pics!
 
gomrjoe said:
Free is always a great price!

an Icecap balast is awesome, that alone is a great deal, the fact that there were rocks and fish and an obviously healthy colony of Xenia, icing on the cake, nice acquisition in deed.

Once you get it all setup and clean post some pics!
Click to expand...

lol You can tell I have never owned a ballast since I spelled it wrong XD
Its good to know that Icecap is a trust worthy brand. All the electric stuff scares me as it is.

Thanks for comments, and your Tang is adorable in your avatar. I will have to post a pic or two of mine later. Poor thing is a bit shy though.

Ah, and here is the tank itself. I just added the sand so you can't see much. I also haven't put on the hood yet. I really love the hood.

FullViewMix.PNG

FullViewMix.PNG
 
Reefkid 07 said:
Those Xenia are great looking! They grow like weeds. Looks like you have a nice, quality setup. One question, how many gph do you aquaclear power heads distpute?

Jake
Click to expand...

They are aquaclear#301 so I believe about 150GHP each. For water movement I also added a large filter. I always like to place a filter in my saltwater tanks because I might want to run carbon later on.
 
wow, very nice for free, i also got my 33g flat back hexagon for free, it came with just the tank and the stand, but i cant complain, if i dident have the tank i wouldent be doing SW right now. Also some nice equipment you got there, deffinatly going to make you a great looking tank!!! Good luck and i will be reading this as it progresses,
Shane
 
Thanks for the comments everyone.

Sorry. I still don't have any pictures of the fish because I can't seem to get shots that aren't blobs. Both the Clown and the Tang are enjoying their stay in the large tank. The Tang will stay there but the clown might be moved to the 35G later.

I made a little progress this week. I was running both my powerheads, but it seemed to be waste of power for only rock. I will place them in again once I add real livestock. Some of the rock pests survived my "cleaning" so I have been zapping them daily. I went from 60 to 12 Aiptasia so I think I am doing good. Also, the remaining ones don't look so happy. I predict they will all be gone next week.

I finally got the hood on. Here is a full tank shot to show it. Ignore the water level. I did a water change and got lazy
View attachment FishTankFull.bmp


This is my aquascaping so far. Excuse the dusty rock. I bought extremely fine grained sand at the fish store and had a dust storm when I first placed it in (as you could tell in the previous picture post).
View attachment Rock.bmp
 
Sorry, no pictures. My sister has the camera for the weekend.

But I do have lots of updates. I found out that my other powerhead isn't an aquaclear, its a penguin 660. Which is great because it puts out 170GPH. I found out my mistake while I was placing them in the tank. They looked similar to me at first.

So my equipment for water movement so far is:

*Unknown Skimmer that appears to work nicely.
*Marineland Penguin 330 or 350 Power Filter (forgot number)
*Penguin 660 Power Head
*Aquaclear #301 Power Head

Should I add anything? Or is that enough water movement?

As for the the tank itself. I went through a mini cycle due to some rock die off. Dead Xenia smells nasty! :crazy:

The lights look awesome! Very intense. I might do a test coral later this week. I can't wait to try to take a picture of the lights.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom