Ashton's 75 Gallon Build thread

[ashton]

So i have finally outgrown my 55 and decided it was time to go to a bigger tank. Plus i got tired of my aqualifter and hang on the back overflow so it was time to get a tank that was drilled with an overflow built in. I ended up catching a screaming deal on a new 75g tank that came drilled from aqueon.

I am still in the process of setting the tank up and just finished building the durso standpipe and putting my return together. I made a spray bar out of PVC which i spray pained black, and because of the positioning of the overflow box I only built the spray bar to cover about half the tank. I also spray painted the back of the tank black to help hid cords and plumbing plus a black background just looks better to me. I will be bringing the tank home on Wednesday and will hopefully do the fresh water run Friday or Saturday so that I can start getting my rock together. I will update this as I make some more progress but here are a couple pictures to show the tank. I will include a list of equipment I am using.

Equipment-
75 gallon tank
20 g tall sump
2 x 250 watt MH Ice Cap Ballasts
1 reef brite 48" actinic LED strip for actinics
SWC bmk150 or SWC 160 cone skimmer
jbj ATO
maxi jet running spray bar
3 koralia evolutions on a wave maker
eheim 1260 as return pump
Stand was purchased from Marlinmero

 

[ashton]

Well brought the tank home last night and got the drain and returns glued and plumbed. Now i just need to get my sump in the stand which I will do tonight after another home depot run. Then this weekend I will be doing my fresh water test and hopefully getting rock sunday and doing the initial fill up. Im getting excited that this thing is finally starting to come together.

 

[Rothany]

nice! cant wait to see it up and running.

 

[Krish]

Nice custom stand you have that on! Good luck with the build!! The 75 gal dimensions has always been my favorite.

 

[jrgilles]

grats on the upgrade ashton

 

[rainydave]

Tagging along to watch the progress

 

[ashton]

So last night I got the skimmer placed in the sump and also the return pump. Finished up plumbing the return so today I just need to get some chain to finish hanging the lights. Here are some updated pics

Swc skimmer borrowed from a friend until I can order mine.

 

[Chichas01]

looking great man! btw, that Potters angel you sold me is still doing great. He's a fat little pig!:lol:

 

[ashton]

looking great man! btw, that Potters angel you sold me is still doing great. He's a fat little pig!:lol:

Thats awesome, you have any recent pics? That was one of the nicest potters i've seen.

Im still trying to decide for sure what I want to do for fish in this system. I've got my pair of black clowns but I may go with some platinums or snowcassos. mY Mandarin that i've had for a year and a half, sunburst anthias, tailspot blenny. Helfrichi firefish, and a kole tang.

I was thinking it would be cool to do a group of threadfin cardinals or something similar to give the tank lots of life.

 

[ashton]

UPDATE****

Fresh water test went good, no major leaks or anything but it did take some tweaking to get the overflow to be silent. I still need to shorten the drain a bit and i am doing some re arranging of my sump layout. I need to finish siliconing the baffles in the sump and get everything else in place but i should be adding live rock and salt water by the end of the week.

 

[ashton]

Tonight is the night...... I will be adding about 70 lbs of new live rock and the tank will be filled with salt water. Im hoping since im using live rock the cycle should go pretty quick. I will post some pics later tonight or tomorrow once everything settles a bit.

 

[Xtremedave67]

Im going to watch this build

 

[Krish]

Tonight is the night...... I will be adding about 70 lbs of new live rock and the tank will be filled with salt water. Im hoping since im using live rock the cycle should go pretty quick. I will post some pics later tonight or tomorrow once everything settles a bit.

Good luck!! Your cycle will all depend on the condition of your rock and how much die-off you experience. Hopefully it is not too much so you can begin adding livestock sooner than later. I'll keep an eye out for the pics!

 

[ashton]

Good luck!! Your cycle will all depend on the condition of your rock and how much die-off you experience. Hopefully it is not too much so you can begin adding livestock sooner than later. I'll keep an eye out for the pics!

Yea luckily all the rock has been cycled and I will wrap it in wet news paper before transporting it to my house which is only a few miles away from where I am getting it. So hopefully it wont have much die off. Then once all the levels have stabilized in the new tank I will start the process of moving all the corals over from the 55.

Im thinking it will probably be a couple week process of moving everything over because I am going to be taking corals off of frag plugs and attaching them to live rock cause im tired of my tank looking like a frag tank. I am just happy to finally be filling this tank up. This process started almost 2 months ago but the key with salt water is patience and setting things up right the first time will save you headaches down the road.

 

[Krish]

Yea luckily all the rock has been cycled and I will wrap it in wet news paper before transporting it to my house which is only a few miles away from where I am getting it. So hopefully it wont have much die off. Then once all the levels have stabilized in the new tank I will start the process of moving all the corals over from the 55.

Im thinking it will probably be a couple week process of moving everything over because I am going to be taking corals off of frag plugs and attaching them to live rock cause im tired of my tank looking like a frag tank. I am just happy to finally be filling this tank up. This process started almost 2 months ago but the key with salt water is patience and setting things up right the first time will save you headaches down the road.

Definately! Well good luck!! Like I mentioned before, I love the dimensions of the 75 gal tank!! Should be nice!

 

[ashton]

Thanks Krish, I will get some pics up in the next day or so and update the thread.

 

[tamarindthai]

after tank settle down ,,need some hiend sps?,,, i got some for you,,

BTW you project is looking good,,i 'm tacking along here

 

[ashton]

after tank settle down ,,need some hiend sps?,,, i got some for you,,

BTW you project is looking good,,i 'm tacking along here

Thanks Dang, I am definitely planning on doing more sps in this set up. I actually did some of my aquascaping with sps in mind and left plenty of growing room. I will pm you in a few weeks once things have settled.

 

[ashton]

Update time-
So Thursday night i went and picked up 50 lbs of pukani live rock. Got some beautiful pieces and I am very happy the way things came out. I am planning on adding another 20 lbs to fill in some space but you can see the basic structure is done. The tank is full of water and running. Im still trying to tune in the durso, im getting a little slurping at times so I need to play with a bit still. Here are the pics

Buckets galore and this isnt even all of them. THey were filled with premade saltwater.

And its FULL. This was 12:30 am friday morning.

Right side of Tank-

Another full tank shot.

 

[Krish]

Looks good!!! Bare bottom is the way to go!! Are you keeping it that way? Once I went bare bottom I never went back. Most I do is put down white pvc board to give the illusion of sand there.