MarcoG's 100 gallon Starphire Build

M

MarcoG

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I just picked up my favorite size tank on Friday, a 48" x 30" x 18" with a Starphire front panel. The inside dimensions come out to about 100 gallons. Sounds small but it's much bigger than it seems. It came with a custom built stand that is VERY well made. I'm cleaning the tank tomorrow, and I'll post pics as soon as I can.

I am on a bit of a deadline since I need to get this up and running before the baby comes. The plan is to move it into place next to my current setup and get it up and running. Then seed it with sand, water and rock from my tank.
 
I think that I like the height for ease of working in the tank, but 30 inch deep seems like it would want to be a peninsula, or island tank, since it is a little bit of a stretch reaching to the back. Why is it your favorite size tank?

David
 
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Great footprint, that's for sure!
 
@DFW wrote:
I think that I like the height for ease of working in the tank said:
Yeah I love the 18" in height. I've always wanted a long and shallow tank. I think 48" is just long enough, but 60" would be better, but I wouldn't have room to have a frag tank, ATO, cabinets or whatever I wanted to do on the side of the tank. The 30" width came about from owning other tanks that just seems way too narrow to create a really open look that showed that really cool depth.
Click to expand...
 
@MarcoG wrote:
[I]@DFW wrote:[/I][quote="I think that I like the height for ease of working in the tank said:
Yeah I love the 18" in height. I've always wanted a long and shallow tank. I think 48" is just long enough, but 60" would be better, but I wouldn't have room to have a frag tank, ATO, cabinets or whatever I wanted to do on the side of the tank. The 30" width came about from owning other tanks that just seems way too narrow to create a really open look that showed that really cool depth."]

I like it, but just thinking about reaching into the back being a little bit of a pain!

David
Click to expand...
 
here it is partially cleaned..... still working on it today.
[attachment=0]newtank.jpg[/attachment]
 
It's been a LONG weekend. Yesterday we drained the 180 as much as we could to move it away from the wall. Then we put everything back in it. There was just enough room to shimmy the new tank between the wall and the 180. We did as much plumbing as we could in the garage when the tank was in there, but we had to get some done inside. We tested the drain bulkheads for leaks..... and of course they leaked. Tomorrow the plan is to re-do them, test, move the tank against the wall, and start filling with water from the 180. I can't wait until it's done... hahah [smilie=lol.gif]

[attachment=0]twotanks.jpg[/attachment]
 
It's been another long day, but we tightened the bulkhead nuts with an actual bulkhead doo-hicky [smilie=rofl.gif] and wiggled the smaller drains the gasket would actually be covering the hole.... and it worked! NO LEAKS!!!!

We put the new sand in the tank and seeded it with sand from the main tank. After that we started pumping water from the old tank's sump first and then moved some rock over along with corals. Last was the fish. I realized that I have WAY TOO MANY frags. There is barely any visible sand right now. That will be the next project.
[attachment=1]fillingtank.jpg[/attachment]

Then the sand was added to the refugium to get a 3" deep sand bed and that was seeded with sand, live rock and macro algae from the main tank's sump.

The tank should be cleared up by morning. All the equipment is in the sump and running. So far so good...... uh oh I hope I didn't jinx myself.

[attachment=0]cloudy.jpg[/attachment]
 
I tried getting a video before my battery ran out.... oh well.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIOyDNqwOxA[/youtube]
 
Since getting this tank running I've seen my nitrates as high as 80ppm, tested with an API test kit and test strips. As of today it's down to about 20ppm. The phosphates are .19 ,tested with a Milwaukee Low Range Meter. I'll be dosing some phosphate remover tonight.

I've been dosing Bactiv8 for 10 days now to seed my Biopellets. I'm assuming that is helping to get my Nitrates down. We'll see.

My birdsnests have lost a lot of tissue from the base up, but that seems to have stopped. Hopefully they'll make a good recovery. My montiporas lost some color but I've had 0 die-off.
 
After dosing 25ml of Phosphate-E

Phosphates: .12

This is getting frustrating........ Going to dose again tonight.
 
You dosing into your skimmer, also pay attention to your alk as it sucks it up also


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Maybe add some GFO to help get things down and then see if the current filtering will keep them down.

I also agree with Matt... awesome dimensions! :)
 
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