75 Gallon Mixed Reef Build
20
This post has been a long time coming; my tank has been running for nearly a year, but hadn't gotten around to actually making a post. I moved into my current house in the summer of 2015 and immediately started thinking about restarting a reef tank. I moved a few months prior from Ohio and shut down my small tank down before the move. I have a pretty ok sized basement with a weird cubby area
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, and decided that was the perfect place to build an in the wall tank. I bought a 90 gallon acrylic tank in March of 2016, but it was used and I wasn't a huge fan of the shape so I sold that. I then bought a 75 gallon tank from someone who shut their reef down.
I didn't actually finish the build until about March of 2017, which I ultimately tear it all down because I hated the way it looked, it wasn't level, and it had a leak from the overflow. Even though it took a long time, I managed to rush most of it, and regretted even starting. I built the frame on top of carpet, which caused the tank to be uneven, the walls looks like trash.
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I finally got the motivation to try again that August, and managed to take my time and do it correct. For starters, I ripped the carpet out and leveled the concrete to have a solid base so it would actually be level. I was able to get everything done and running at the beginning of October.
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I shrunk the size of the fish room a little bit, but I still have plenty of space to maneuver, have a frag tank, and a mix station.
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I was lucky enough to get a lot of the coral from local reefers and people tearing down their tanks, which is nice because I'm not a huge fan of the closest store so I usually go to Lansing. TBH, I don't even know the names of pretty much all of the corals in my tank. A local reefer decided to get rid of most of his coral to go towards a FOWLR (Thanks James!), which is where a lot of the coral came from. As for fish, I have a pair of Wisconsin clowns, watchman goby and pistol, one spot foxface, royal gramma, firefish, and most recently, a flame angel.
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For the most part, I have had a ton of luck with my tank. I got a really bad aptasia infestation back towards the beginning of the year, but a pair of cherry shrimp helped bring that to an end.
However, my basement did flood pretty bad back in February when we got all that rain and snow melt. It took about a week for us to get the water to stop coming in.
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Fortunately, the tank was ok, but I ended up having to put a sump system in my basement and more or less decided to completely renovate the basement.
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That took about 4 months to get everything back to the way it was. During that time, I hardly looked at the tank, and basically all I did was water changes and feeding. When I started paying attention again, I was really floored with how much everything has been growing.
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December
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January
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February
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April
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June
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August
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September
The system is a 75 gallon with a 40 gallon sump, and another 20 gallon fuge/grow out tank. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes, but do 10 gallons every 3 weeks or so. I was testing parameters weekly for about 4 months, but at this point the tank runs itself so I only do it every few weeks. I have 3 MP-10's, and a 6 fixture T-5 light. Everything is run on a Reefkeeper Lite.
I didn't actually finish the build until about March of 2017, which I ultimately tear it all down because I hated the way it looked, it wasn't level, and it had a leak from the overflow. Even though it took a long time, I managed to rush most of it, and regretted even starting. I built the frame on top of carpet, which caused the tank to be uneven, the walls looks like trash.
I finally got the motivation to try again that August, and managed to take my time and do it correct. For starters, I ripped the carpet out and leveled the concrete to have a solid base so it would actually be level. I was able to get everything done and running at the beginning of October.
I shrunk the size of the fish room a little bit, but I still have plenty of space to maneuver, have a frag tank, and a mix station.
I was lucky enough to get a lot of the coral from local reefers and people tearing down their tanks, which is nice because I'm not a huge fan of the closest store so I usually go to Lansing. TBH, I don't even know the names of pretty much all of the corals in my tank. A local reefer decided to get rid of most of his coral to go towards a FOWLR (Thanks James!), which is where a lot of the coral came from. As for fish, I have a pair of Wisconsin clowns, watchman goby and pistol, one spot foxface, royal gramma, firefish, and most recently, a flame angel.
For the most part, I have had a ton of luck with my tank. I got a really bad aptasia infestation back towards the beginning of the year, but a pair of cherry shrimp helped bring that to an end.
However, my basement did flood pretty bad back in February when we got all that rain and snow melt. It took about a week for us to get the water to stop coming in.
Fortunately, the tank was ok, but I ended up having to put a sump system in my basement and more or less decided to completely renovate the basement.
That took about 4 months to get everything back to the way it was. During that time, I hardly looked at the tank, and basically all I did was water changes and feeding. When I started paying attention again, I was really floored with how much everything has been growing.
The system is a 75 gallon with a 40 gallon sump, and another 20 gallon fuge/grow out tank. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes, but do 10 gallons every 3 weeks or so. I was testing parameters weekly for about 4 months, but at this point the tank runs itself so I only do it every few weeks. I have 3 MP-10's, and a 6 fixture T-5 light. Everything is run on a Reefkeeper Lite.
