OP
OP
Several months after installing the original display refugium, I decided I wanted a bigger one and got a great deal on a 60 gallon 24"x24x24" cube.
This tank was a clear back so I first painted the back outside of the tank with black Plastidip. With this tank, I decided to stick with a stand pipe drain and return line as opposed to an overflow. I didn't want to sacrafice bottom space for the overflow and figured I could build my rock work around the standpipes. The stand pipes were painted black with Krylon Fusion.
Fortunately this swap didn't require shutting down anything on the main tank except for the skimmer. I had to add 50 or so gallons to the main tank/sump in order to fill the display fuge so I had to temporarily shut the skimmer off to prevent it from overflowing.. I opted not to reuse any of the water I siphoned out of the original display fuge so adding new water to the system and allowing it to mix with the tank water was the best and easiest course of action. Once the new water was transferred to the main tank, we started the tear down. First close off the return valve to stop the flow then siphon some water into to buckets and remove the mangroves soft coral and some rock, drain some more water, remove more rocks, drain more water find any remaining corals on the bottom then scoop out the live sand. Tear down and removal of the original tank took about 40 minutes.
The whole swap took just few hours. Once the new tank was in, I put the original live sand in the new tank and added two more bags of live sand. The we filled it. It took another hour or so for the water to clean enough to put the original live rock back in. Since this tank is twice as tall, I snagged a piece of live rock from my main display as well as a couple pieces from my sump to create the cave and live rock structure off one of the corners of the display fuge.
All of the corals in here are from the original display fuge and were originally offspring from larger colonies in my main display.
I also came up with a nifty clip solution for suspending my mangroves. My goal was for the mangroves to have the roots grown down the sand creating little mangrove caves and structures for fish to hide in. I do like the look that the roots provide suspended off the bottom. It creates a fairly unique feel to the display.
Here are a few pictures.
First the before.
Now the after shots. Lights are still ramping up so it could be brighter. More pictures will follow later today.
Really hard to see the cave.
This display fuge got a pair of Tunze 6095's in it which are controlled by my Apex. With that came the need for more Apex modules including a VDM and I opted for a lunar sim on this tank as well.
I mounted some modules below the tank and ran a long Aquabus cable to an EB8 in closet next to the big display.
As I mentioned, this particular tank uses a Maxspect Razor for the lighting. I mounted the two Lunar Sim LED's in to the vacant recess for the extra fans. It worked out pretty good. I angled the Lunar LED's inward slightly to maximize the coverage where I needed it.
This was taken at 92% full moon.
This tank was a clear back so I first painted the back outside of the tank with black Plastidip. With this tank, I decided to stick with a stand pipe drain and return line as opposed to an overflow. I didn't want to sacrafice bottom space for the overflow and figured I could build my rock work around the standpipes. The stand pipes were painted black with Krylon Fusion.
Fortunately this swap didn't require shutting down anything on the main tank except for the skimmer. I had to add 50 or so gallons to the main tank/sump in order to fill the display fuge so I had to temporarily shut the skimmer off to prevent it from overflowing.. I opted not to reuse any of the water I siphoned out of the original display fuge so adding new water to the system and allowing it to mix with the tank water was the best and easiest course of action. Once the new water was transferred to the main tank, we started the tear down. First close off the return valve to stop the flow then siphon some water into to buckets and remove the mangroves soft coral and some rock, drain some more water, remove more rocks, drain more water find any remaining corals on the bottom then scoop out the live sand. Tear down and removal of the original tank took about 40 minutes.
The whole swap took just few hours. Once the new tank was in, I put the original live sand in the new tank and added two more bags of live sand. The we filled it. It took another hour or so for the water to clean enough to put the original live rock back in. Since this tank is twice as tall, I snagged a piece of live rock from my main display as well as a couple pieces from my sump to create the cave and live rock structure off one of the corners of the display fuge.
All of the corals in here are from the original display fuge and were originally offspring from larger colonies in my main display.
I also came up with a nifty clip solution for suspending my mangroves. My goal was for the mangroves to have the roots grown down the sand creating little mangrove caves and structures for fish to hide in. I do like the look that the roots provide suspended off the bottom. It creates a fairly unique feel to the display.
Here are a few pictures.
First the before.
Now the after shots. Lights are still ramping up so it could be brighter. More pictures will follow later today.
Really hard to see the cave.
This display fuge got a pair of Tunze 6095's in it which are controlled by my Apex. With that came the need for more Apex modules including a VDM and I opted for a lunar sim on this tank as well.
I mounted some modules below the tank and ran a long Aquabus cable to an EB8 in closet next to the big display.
As I mentioned, this particular tank uses a Maxspect Razor for the lighting. I mounted the two Lunar Sim LED's in to the vacant recess for the extra fans. It worked out pretty good. I angled the Lunar LED's inward slightly to maximize the coverage where I needed it.
This was taken at 92% full moon.
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