55g build

my journal will start here for my 55g build.

I had the stand, and canopy. got a 55g plus from neptunes cove for $60.00, a over flow box,tubing,sump, and return pump off of craigslist for $80.00 water from neptunes cove, and extra sand from neptunes cove.

just need to get the rock, from banito(jimmy) to night and I will be rocking and a rolling.)

very cool to hear. got pics?

Wow great adventure! Love to set up new tanks.

will get photos, soon. will tufa be okay for live rock, or should I get fiji.. do I need all the live rock now, or can I slowly add a little rock at a time?

I will go find the camera now.

here is the nice stand,and canopy with nice tank... I think the tank is ocean view or oceanic it's got the same this glass as a 75 gallon, and it turns out to be 55g+ 23 tall and not the normal 20 tall like most 55g are.. the stand is 36, and the canopy is 4-5 inches tall I'm going to need a step ladder.



here is the over flow



and here is the sump what do I put in the 3 trays carbon, and anti phorus stuff?



will work on getting the sand and water in later to night after dinner.... will be this weekend when I get the a start of rock in there, waiting for my birthday gifts/money from friends and family... I ask my sister to get me a good start to the live rock....

I've never used a sump for saltwater but I don't think you want carbon. Live rock is suppose to be good for sumps.

Thanks, it's a weird design to a sump too. it looks it has a bio wheel, below the 3 trays, like a canister, a bio wheel, and sump all built in to one. I can remove the trays and the bio wheel... I'll wait for juice,cindy, and the other salt people to see this....

sounds like you have a 60 gallon those are usually 23" tall I believe....looking good I have seen those sumps on fresh tanks before almost all the petcos have the same basic syster on their salt racks and plant tanks. Is the bio wheel one where you can actually put substrate or something inside the wheel??? If so that is one heck of a deal saw a few a while back for about $250 "used"...really used

nice pick up... good luck on your project...

it looks like a normal bio wheel to me, I don't think I can put anything in it.. I need to get the rock, and a back ground. I could use laytex paint right, or cardboard and spray paint it black and take it to the outside. then last thing will to be deciding on lighting should I get 2 bulb or 4 bulb t5 ho lighting

That looks like my old sump Joey. Where did you get it from?

I got it from a guy off of craigslist who lives in east plano... and not sure where he got it it has a mag 7 as the return pump...

well i got a 55, and i added my LR in pieces.. fortunately you can get away with getting fairly mid sized pieces due to tank dimensions lol but, i couldnt afford to buy it all at once so i bought a few larger pieces of reg. base rock..itll turn into LR..and its gonna be covered up..so that freed up $ on that aspect. on the sump, i dont run one but it does look like a bio wheel... reminds me of a giant emperor.. like if there was a floor model emperor..1000...it would look like that lol. but i do believe you are right once again plantedtankdude.. it looks kinda like an all in one filtration system...overflow leads to canister filters, that drains water over a very large bio wheel(i like bio wheels over the little balls) and thats seems to flow into what looks like the sump.. and then the return pump back into the tank..can you take any pics of the inside of it? it doesnt look very deep between the bio wheel and sump chamber, maybe its the angle of the shot...and correct me if im wrong but, on a sump, isnt there a wall basically between the actual sump chamber and the return chamber with filter media as well? Ive seen a couple all in one systems and they all have filter media of some sort in both the overflow chamber and the return chamber...this looks more like..well like a giant emperor 400 or better yet, if you combined an emperor with a canister filter.

it's ALL ONE PIECE, AND 10 WIDE IT GOES TO THE 3 CHAMBERS, THEN FALLS DOWN TO THE BIO WHEEL, THEN GOES TO THE SUMP, WHERE THE RETURN PUMP BRINGS THE WATER BACK. THE GUY HAD IT ON HIS 55G SALTWATER TANK SO I KNOW IT WORKS FOR SALTWATER...

hey, as long as it does the job right who cares if its a sump or filter or all in one.. it works lol

:( lets still hope I get to build this tank.. after what happen(medical) I won't be having much money for a long long time.. I might have go back to my 2 25g's and sell everything else...

how much would having this sump on a 25g with a 250-300gph over flow and mag 7 help with keeping the water stable, will I need it on the 25g

okay the only way I could possible be able to keep this tank, would be to turn it in to a planted tank....

poll to keep and turn it in to a planted tank, or sell it.

why is that? if you can keep the tank.. y does it have to be planted...

juice28 wrote:

why is that? if you can keep the tank.. y does it have to be planted...

some thinking happened friday going in to saturday morning.(medical) that I perfer not to talk about, I'm not going to have the money for live rock for a very long time.... unless I buy it piece by piece... do I need all 80 pounds now or could I start with 25 to 35 pounds, then add little by little? I will have to use live rock to get it started right? or can I just put the sand, water, and rock in there and let it go like that for a while till I can afford to get 40-60 more pounds of live rock...

wwell def take care of ya self but no you dont need to do it all at once.. that convient lol but thats ...well thatexpensive .. i start my tanks with samd.. 15 lbs of base rock and 10lbs of LR and added LR as i could afford it.. i only had 3 damsels so my emperor 400 was more then enough lol. but no base rock will turn into LR. so if you want to fill more space add a bit more base rock as the foundation for the rocks. theyre cheap and really effective.i got base rock in my tank and you cant tell..i got about 20 lbs base rock and 35 lbs LR over about a 6-9 mth period. id just go in on pay day and buy a cpl small-med rocks lol. and my biggest rock is smaller than a football.. well no i have one that is about basketball...roughly.. but the rest are all fairly small.. here is the left side, this all LR except the big one the goby is in. the rest i s made of about 5 4-7 inch rock stacked up [img][/img]

the center[img][/img]

right side the rocks in the back right corner and (cant see it) but its the platform that the rest of the smaller rocks are stacked around to make the cave) and the bottom right is all base rock. the rocks in the front that basically create the cave r LR pieces[img][/img]



i didnt buy my rock by weight either lol i got it by volume. you need surface area not weight. so you may get a small dense heave rock. or a flat wide lightrock. the flat rock will be beter b/c it has a larger surface area so dont worry about the weight of rock you have.. i have a bout 1/3 of my tank is rock and sand if you were to just evenly pile it up..[img][/img]

matter of fact. this is what it started out as lol [img][/img]

then a few more rocks
[img][/img]

then it was time to add livestock lol
[img][/img]

then i had a small crash and switched out my cc for LS and moved to a 55 long instead of a colum tank
[img][/img] then i had THE CRASH, lost 98% the tank and im restocked with the recent pics ive posted up here... its been a 2 yr journey for me so far lol but its the same rock in both tanks. i have aquired about 25lbs more from a friend(rocks not in these pics but in new tank pics)

cool, well that gives me hope that I can keep this tank, and get it built I have everything but a skimmer for the sump, and lighting for the tank.... would my red dart fish be okay to move from the 29g over to the 55g as I'm adding rock? and use the water from the 29 gallon and also add 20 gallons of saltwater to that and put it all in the 55g?

i wouldnt, especially if you dont wanna lose him. i would start with new water and if you can, take 20 g approximately and add that and let it mix, check it n afew days and then if its ok add him at your own risk. its like putting him a bigger tank even though its not fully set up. i am assuming that you already have the sand and some LR or r going to use him to kinda cycle the tank..lol that could work too. bening that you r lucky enough to have roughly 29g of water he is alread used to..

i kinda liked adding my rock slowly.. i dint have like a drastic extensive cycle period and as id add rock at times id ..mini cycle as my tank adjusted but it didnt take long but that really only happened when i add a fair amount at one.. like 4-6 rocks.( this is just how it happened for me lol i might have just gotten lucky lol i dont know im still a rookie lol) just remember to feed extremely light

I have added my LR over time. Still add some now & then. I have one piece that I loved at the store but dont' really like in my tank and if I can't rescape it in, I may take it in to exchange too. There is no set in stone way to setup a tank.