Back to the hobby, but not a new build :)

[Wesley]

I sold almost all of my stuff few years ago. Totally burnt out from doing fish breeding. Things I have left is the 125g main tank, 75g sump, and some pumps and accessories. My wife would kill me if I buy another tank, so I have to work with what I have.

I used to use my entire garage for fish breeding. Sumps, tanks, equipment everywhere. Now that my garage is actually a garage, I have to rework the area a little bit. I also need to have everywhere covered to avoid any moisture and salt water splashes getting onto the car.

First I'm going to build a chaeto tank along with an internal skimmer. I used to run algae scrubbers. They worked really well. But after awhile, I found cleaning the algae scrubbing sheet a hassle. Removing chaeto is much easier.

So, I bought a drilled 40g breeder from craigslist for $20 as my chaeto tank. I then found out he is actually a member here.

Here is my chaeto tank design:

I actually have enough PVC piping leftover to make all these without buying move PVC stuff:

After reading about the Kessil H380, I have to get one to try out:

And created a cover for it. I ordered a new skimmer but it was in transit. So the cover doesn't have holes for the skimmer yet:

And I made sure the air vent on the Kessil is not covered:

TO BE CONTINUE...

 

[editour2]

Nice work so far.............

 

[Wesley]

Thank you. I'm pretty sure this thread is unlike most other build threads that people like to start with their display tank first. For me, I want to get everything that support the display tank to be ready first. First the water filtration from the last post. Then, the ecosystem next.

Let's finish up the filtration tank here. Here is the Reef Octopus ELITE 200INT Protein Skimmer with VarioS DC Pump. The new Elite line is similar to the Regal line with the DC pump, but with the newer smooth body.

Have them installed and connected to Apex. Modified the cover to fit them all in. Nice and neat.

Next step, the eco system. I got some free Chaeto and a few live rock rubbles from chalan from this forum. In order to jumpstart the system, I culture them. Having the water intake shut off, the chaeto partition is like a small tank by itself. I put a small scratch of the algae dish from FAF along with some micro algae grow, also from FAF in there. Having the Kessel K380 blasting it at a few inch above the water.

Starting chaeto and pods culture:

At the same time, the actual phyto culture also started in a more proper and clean setting:

4 Days later, we got:

And these:

Want to see the culture with the live rocks?

More to be continue...

 

[Reef Reaper]

interesting build, but very nice!

 

[Wesley]

Hehe. You remember how my "garage" look like? Now, it's nice and clean.

 

[n3hihz]

Looks good. Following along to see how it turns out.

 

[Wesley]

Just a quick update. Things are going well. The chaeto is getting so big. I had to give half of it back to "Reef Reaper" who also gave me some chaeto to start my setup. This video was recorded a couple of weeks ago before I trimed it down:

The pods culture tank is also doing well. I'm struggling with the phyto demand from the increasing population of the pods. Kind of regret that I threw away the 2 full buckets of experimental phyto away. That's 10 gallon! Enough to feed a small country... of pods. lol

Here is a video of the Amphipod having a block party while the Copepods just chilling out on the wall:

 

[Wesley]

The following video contains sexual content. Parental Guidance is advised.

Here is another one with eggs. There are a couple of Copepod nauplius in the video as well. See if you can identify them.

 

[Rookie2reef]

This got to be the best tank build so far lol nice start

 

[Wesley]

This got to be the best tank build so far lol nice start

Thank you! And I'm having fun doing it.

It's meal time! They comes out of hiding when they smell the food. Lots of baby amiphipods here:

Close up on adult amiphipods devouring their food.

 

[Reef Reaper]

Nice!!