Will's 180 Gallon Re-Build
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Topic: Will's 180 Gallon Re-Build
Posted By: Will Spencer
Subject: Will's 180 Gallon Re-Build
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 5:07pm
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Recently my cousin had me help her tear down her 180 gallon tank. She asked me to help her sell the tank and it's contents. When I saw how sweet the rock was I bought it from her with the idea of re-doing my tank. After 4 weeks I finally found the time to do this. Here are some pics of my tank before the re-do.     |
Replies:
Posted By: Will Spencer
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 5:18pm
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Friday evening I got everything ready. (Well, at least I though I
had.) I set up a spare tank to house the corals in while I re-did the
rockwork. It turned out that I needed two spare tanks. I gathered lost
of buckets to hold water, sand and rock, and made up a 32 gallon tub of
new water. The new rock had been housed in a large garbage can with a
powerhead keeping some flow around it for the last 4 weeks. I also
purchased a 40 lb bag of new substrate to add to the tank, Seafloor
Special Grade Reef Sand. I started the tear down by pumping out as much good clean water as I could to my two holding tanks. One tank was 75 gallons the other was 20 gallons. As the larger tank was filling I pulled out the corals that were high up in the tank which were rapidly rising above the water level. After about and hour all of the coral was out of the tank and the two holding tanks were completely filled. I continued pumping clean water out of the tank filling the sump completely as well as 5 or 6 holding tubs for corals and rock. I wanted to keep as much clean water as I possibly could to help fill the tank up again as I only had 32 gallons of new water ready.   I removed all of the rock as carefully as I could in order to not make the water too dirty. As I came to the last few pieces of rock I had to pull them out of the sand and that of course made a total mess out of the remaining water.  At that point I was able to catch all of the fish, shrimp, crabs and snails and my lobster. They all went into a holding bucket together. I added 1 rock to that bucket to make them feel like they had a safe place to hide and put in a power head. I also put my digital thermometer in there so I could keep an eye on the water temperature. Since this bucket was a cooler I was able to mostly close the lid and it kept the temp quite well. The temp actually went up rather than down.  |
Posted By: Will Spencer
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 5:37pm
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Now that the rock and fish were out I siphoned out the remaining few inches of water getting as much as I possibly could. I then scooped out the substrate using of all things a bread pan and put it in buckets. I ended up with 4 extremely full 5 gallon buckets. My thought was to keep 1 bucket as it was, (This bucket I filled with substrate scraped off the top of the sandbed,) to use to seed the cleaned substrate and the new substrate. As I began cleaning the substrate a few pounds at a time I found that there was a LOT of quartz rock in it. Then I remembered that when I originally moved the tank to my home from it's previous owners home I noticed the same thing. Since at the time I had neither the money nor the time to do anything about it I simply put it back in the tank. This time though I wanted to get that quartz out and replace it with all good stuff. Since everything seemed to be doing well in the tanks there were in I headed out to the LFS to find some more new substrate. After stopping at 3 stores I had found enough to do the job. 4 more 40 lb bags of Seafloor Special Grade Reef Sand. As I got this home I read on the bag that it is suggested that you rinse this new substrate until it runs cloudy rather than milky. I did so a few lbs at a time and found that it was a very good idea to do so. The water came out looking like strawberry milk, it was so thick with dust. After about 2 hours of rinsing sand I was ready to rebuild the tank. I started by cleaning all of the glass, some of which has not been cleaned since I set it up 8 years ago. Then I pulled all of the new rock out of the holding bucket and spread it out on a tarp in the garage so I could get a good look at it and see what I had to work with. I then took it piece by piece to the tank and started working on the rockwork. I wanted the rock to sit on the bottom of the tank so there would be no issue of it shifting as things burrowed under the sand. Here is what I ended up with.     I then added most of the new substrate and followed that with about half a gallon of the old, uncleaned substrate to seed it and covered over the top with additional new substrate. As I added the substrate I made sure it was worked around the back of the rock and filled under it as well as possible. As soon as that was done I started refilling the tank with water so the rock didn't have to sit out too long and dry out. (I also kept it wet during the building process by splashing it with water throughout. That is why you see some water in the bottom of the tank in the pics.) I turns out I did not have as much water as I thought I had and I had to use water from just about every source I had. Luckily I had kept quite a bit and was able to completely fill the tank and still have enough left over to continue housing the corals, fish and rock. The old rock from my tank went into the bucket the new rock had been kept in so I was able to use that in between holding water as well. Needless to say, by this time the tank looked like it was filled with milk.  |
Posted By: Will Spencer
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 5:41pm
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Finally I was able to let the tank alone for a while to let the haze settle and go get something to eat. Around 10:30 I decided that I didn't want the fish to sit in a bucket overnight. I was worried that I might loose some if the water got too cool or to hot and decided that they would be better off in the tank. I caught them all out of the bucket and put them back in the tank. After doing this I started to wonder what the Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite levels might be in there. I searched all of my aquarium stuff but the only test kit I found was a Nitrate test kit. Since I wasn't really worried about nitrates I decided to leave well enough alone. There was nothing I could do about it now anyway. Off to bed I went hoping for the best come morning. |
Posted By: Will Spencer
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 5:49pm
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This morning I found that every fish, shrimp, snail, crab and even my Lobster were doing just fine. I did have a slight scare with my Eyelash Blenny since I did not see him for the first half hour of so, but as soon as the halides came on up he popped on a rock. The tank was getting fairly clear now so I decided to move the corals back into the tank. OF course that took several hours and the placement gave me some fits. Some will probably be moved again and again until I find just the right spot for them, but for the most part I am happy with the end result. One thing I found as I moved the corals back to the tank is that Gold Stripped Maroon Clown Fish do not take long to set up territories and determine that this new reef belongs to them. I spent a large amount of time fighting with that fish while I tried to place coral. She does not believe that my hand should be anywhere in the tank. There are only 7 rocks in the tank that were part of the original reef and this is because corals are attached to them. Here are the results of my effort. (The pics are hazy because the water is still a little hazy. When that clears up I will post new pics.)     |
Posted By: Luckedout
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 6:41pm
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Wow, what a project! The tank looks awesome. Very clean, nice rockwork! The best thing about this is that your corals look like they have much better placement and room for growth, plus you added some space for new frags without too much worry. Before it looked like you were running out of real estate. It's almost hard to believe it's the same size tank. Very good job!
------------- -Ben 90g Mixed reef www.body-balancechiropractic.com |
Posted By: jwoo
Date Posted: September 26 2010 at 9:57pm
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Wow that looks great! I really like that rock - I think you made a good decision! ------------- None at the moment Soon: 72 Gallon Bowfront |
Posted By: Dion Richins
Date Posted: September 27 2010 at 8:47am
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Very Nice Will!!!!!! ------------- http://www.customaquariumfurniture.com" rel="nofollow - Bad "censored" Cabinets Best quality in the valley! He is one sexy bald guy, even with out a finger!(MAC) |
Posted By: skimace7
Date Posted: September 27 2010 at 9:48am
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Maybe your on to something... Remodeling tanks!!! Extreme Tank Makeover... ------------- 120 gallon mix Reef mainly SPS and LPS... |
Posted By: ljbs
Date Posted: September 27 2010 at 9:01pm
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Looks great Will, Can't wait to come see it.
------------- Linda Spencer West Jordan From My little corner of the sea |
Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: September 27 2010 at 9:03pm
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Will -
Your tank looks great!
The Gorgonian I got from you is doing great!
Now I need some of your Euphyllia!
 ------------- - My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) - * Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 * |