Moving on up... IM 30L AIO to Planet Aquarium Crystalline 85g SPS Bare Bottom Reef Build Thread

[jd-woodlands]

Most people drain the emergency into the same compartment as the full siphon/gate valved drain, or to the next compartment (skimmer or refugium compartment) so that the water will still be filtered. You could just plumb the emergency into the bulkhead next to your full siphon gate valve drain in the first compartment. Draining into the return compartment just returns dirty water back to the tank and probably massive amounts of air bubbles since the emergency drain does not flow smoothly and tends to splash water.

Thanks! I’ll reroute this weekend, makes sense.

 

[jd-woodlands]

Wow that IM looks amazing! What was the filtration you ran on it?

Filter floss, carbon in a reactor, small skimmer, small UV. 7-10 gal water change a week.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Can't wait to see what happens in this one! Following!

 

[jd-woodlands]

Started some aquascaping on the left side.

 

[jd-woodlands]

Aquascaping done for now on new tank, might change a bit once I start mounting corals.

 

[jd-woodlands]

One last FTS of the IM 30L AIO...

Starting breaking down the right side....

Removing colonies as I go and placing in to holding bins...

So many frags!!

And more...

 

[jd-woodlands]

This took forever to get to this point, over 25 hours of work... cephestra came off almost 100% intact from the back wall.

Starting to mount all large SPS pieces...

Most are mounted now... have a lot of leftovers.

Haven’t even touched the zoas and palys, on the fence if I’m going to bring them over. Had a lot of crowding out of small sps frags in the 30.

So many!

 

[jd-woodlands]

I’ll have some better quality photos and more updates coming in the next few days. Need to start migrating equipment over like the doser, Apex, ATO, etc.

 

[samnaz]

Wow, your 30L is absolutely gorgeous, how have I never seen it before! Really can't wait to see what you do with this upgrade build, I have a feeling it'll be amazing... following

 

[jd-woodlands]

Finally moved over almost all of the equipment from the 30l, fixed the emergency drain plumbing ( thanks @mcwhng ), and now working on reducing tank temps. New MH / T5 fixture is generating a bit more heat than my last one and my old fans aren’t cutting it in the sump.

Some new tank shots.

 

[samnaz]

Amazing. Is that cyphastrea on the back panel? How’d you manage to get it off in one piece!

 

[jd-woodlands]

Yes, it’s a meteor shower cyphestrea. It surprisingly came off as I was chiseling away at another sps colony on the back wall and kind of just shook loose. I had to break off some as it was too wide for the overflow in the new tank!

It has grown thick enough to support its own weight when it came off. Pretty lucky!

Installed a giant fan tonight to keep temps down, hopefully it works. Trying to stay away from mounting fans at the top of the tank for aesthetics.

 

[jd-woodlands]

Zoas, palys, and misc sps fragments left over. Thinking about glueing a bunch of the rubble that the zoas and palys are on together to put in the new tank. Really don’t want them growing up on to the rock work where the SPS are again.

 

[mcwhng]

Zoas, palys, and misc sps fragments left over. Thinking about glueing a bunch of the rubble that the zoas and palys are on together to put in the new tank. Really don’t want them growing up on to the rock work where the SPS are again.

Looks like you need to frag your frag tank already! How did you fit all the other coral and this in a IM30?!

 

[jd-woodlands]

Looks like you need to frag your frag tank already! How did you fit all the other coral and this in a IM30?!

Starting to wonder myself... some of the live rock was from the tank i bought, but all corals were in the 30... pretty much every inch of rock work and back wall had something on it.

 

[jd-woodlands]

Update:

GHL Propeller Breeze 3 fans installed, look great, and more importantly are keeping my temperature swing in control. Was able to remove the sump fan and minimize temperature swing to 2 degrees or less. Tank is now 79 - 81 no problem.

Made an Apex change today to turn off T5 lights during MH period, will see if that has any measurable impact. Thoughts are the T5's are not needing during mid-day with the amount of PAR the MH are putting out.

Speaking of PAR, borrowed an Apogee PAR meter and I am getting ~950 PAR 6-8" under water with flow on, ~500 PAR on sand bed during peak output hours. T5 only is 180 top and 120 bottom.

Hopefully I can get some good update pictures posted by the weekend. Still working on selling frags and breaking down the IM 30L.

 

[jd-woodlands]

Added another IceCap 3k and running +100% and -100% on both with varying durations and they are creating very turbulent and random flow. SPS are very happy.

Some update shots, haven’t quite figured out how to get good shots with T5s.. might try MH only shots next time.

Already getting good encrusting growth on Frags and new growth on tips on most of the colonies and Frags.

 

[MuffinMonster]

Wow, beautiful tank. What paint did you use on the stand? I’m looking at a possible planet aquarium build in the next couple months (the 36x20x21) but would also prefer my stand to be white. Probably wouldn’t be able to spray it though as you stated you did. Looking for something to just roll by hand.

 

[Jon Fishman]

“Sexy” is the only way to describe that plumbing. I am full-on jealous

 

[jd-woodlands]

You can order in white from Planet Aquariums, i just got mine used and had to paint... used sherwin williams oil based paints for everything. Was a pain and a lot of work to get a decent finish, recommend buying white if you can.