Back from Iraq, Now lets setup my 120g!

Welcome back! Glad to have you home!

Man this Tank shape is EXACTLY what I want for my next tank! It definitely has a great deal of potential for awesome aquascaping. :)

-Paul
 
Welcome back!!!! I noticed your 1st Cav. sticker on ther truck. I was in 3/8 for about 2 years.

I have the same tank and love it.
 
welcome back and thank you very much for your service!

Awesome tank too! :D
 
Glad you are back home safe and thank you for your service.

Looks like you have a great project ahead of you I look forward to seeing the progress.

Welcome Home!!!

Thanks,
 
I got the pvc from savko.com. They had almost everything I needed, and they sell black and clear pvc. I needed a black threaded cap for the top of the closed loop which they didn't have. For that I will be using Krylon Fusion paint as I have always been told on RC that it is reef safe.
 
Thanks for the info. I'll be adding a sump/refug with an ext. overflow to my 38 gal (hopefully) soon.
I'm enjoying following your thread.
 
Well not a lot of work happened today that is picture worthy. I did a few final pieces of gluing pvc, leveled the stand out a little better, placed some shims under the stand, and removed the styrofoam. The shims were put under the center of the stand where I had the gap, and at this time the gap went away. The tank is on a carpet floor, so I can see things possibly changing when water hits, so Im just hoping for the best.

I did get a shipment Ive been waiting for in today! This is dry Marco rock, 50 pounds of Figi. I think it looks pretty nice!

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Here is another 25 pounds of dry Marco Tonga that I got a while back. It has been sitting in freshwater just rotting all the nasty stuff off of it for a few days. When I took it out it made the whole house smell like rotten eggs.

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Trust me, the pictures don't do either of these justice, they look great up close.
 
Today should be a big day! I plan on adding water after I get back from a workout. Here are a few steps I've taken yesterday and this morning.

I brought the skimmer out for a good cleaning. You see it running next to the tubs I'm soaking my base rock in. It was producing very large bubbles in just freshwater, but when I added a few cups of vinegar it turned into fine microbubbles.

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As you see the styrofoam is gone. To help support the weight of the rock I added a layer of eggcrate. I know it's not necessary, but it provides me with a little piece of mind.

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I also installed the bulkhead, and the plumbing that immediately followed them. This morning I filled the overflows with about 6 inches of water to test for leaks. I haven't seen any yet!

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you didn't use eggcrarte with the metal reflector type coating , did you ? Might just be a reflection I'm seeing.
 
Well I'm very excited! The aquarium is completely full right now with just tap water. I'm going to let it sit for a few hours as a test before I drain it and fill with ro/di and salt.

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Mentioning ro/di, I just got a new set of filters in for my Typhoon 3 in the mail! I don't know if the owners want me to post specifics, but Buckeye Field Supply gave me an awesome deal as a welcome home gift! Thanks again!

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Im expecting a big shipment in today! Ill wait till it gets here to post the details. Some work from last night.

I finished up all the plumbing underneath the tank. The sump is temporary until I figure out what I want to do. The skimmer is still outside skimming vinegar, but will be in there soon. Also I obviously need to organize and suspend some of the spaflex.

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I have the closed loop returns finished up as well. The intake is currently in my saltwater holding tank so I can use it to quickly fill the tank up at least 2/3 of the way. Sorry about the flash.

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where in the tank are you putting the intake for the closed loop? i have the double overflow and am still at odds with myself on how to do it. i almost want to use one of the overflow drains
 
I had the same thought at first, but after asking many opinions I was told it would probably suck air regardless of how low the standpipe is. I decided to use an idea exactly the same as the closed loop Marc designed for is 29g tank. You can see the black U shaped fixture I have in my plumbing post, with a tee towards the top with a threaded end. I will post a little better detail later tonight. The intake will go in the corner, opposite side of the sump return.
 
My shipment arrived, and inside was about 50 lbs of Figi live rock!

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The rock was ordered off of ebay from a seller named lifeoceanic. I am 100% satisfied, the rock looks great and has a lot of color. It was shipped ups ground which took 3 days, but it had almost no bad smell to it at all.

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So onto building the aquascape. My goal was to have open rockwork with large areas of open sand, a central arch, and 2 nice mountains.

I wanted a deep sand bed, but I didn't want to risk an avalanche. Also I didn't want to bury a bunch of expensive rock, so I laid down a layer of paver stones where the rocks would go.

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I already had a good idea of what I wanted my rock to look like, so building it didn't take very long.

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Next I added the sand. This is actually Pavestone pulverized limestone. I had done a lot of research, and everyone who used this seems very happy. It is made of limestone so it has the same properties of an aragonite sand.

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I used my closed loop to transfer water from my spare tank to this one. You can see it doing damage to my nicely laid out sand. This is throttled way back.

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After i finished draining, I moved the closed loop inlet into this tank. I ran it full force for a while, and it took the sand all the way down to the eggcrate. I'm going to have to figure out how to prevent this. The tank is going to run at this level for awhile till I can make some more ro/di.

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Ok I took the penductors off for now because the flow was just to high in one concentrated place. I have the pump at full again now and I dont think I'll have a sand problem. I should be able to supplement flow with powerheads.
 
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