Duncan's 55 gallon FOWLR (soon to be reef)

Solarfall

Totally Gnar
I've just recently moved everything around with my tank.

I changed the stand to a taller one because the old one was tiny and I could barely fit a 10g sump down there. I kind of rushed everything initially and ended up with nylon tubing for overflow and return. Needless to say, it looked like ass. I also wanted to paint the back of the tank black because my plastic background thing looked terrible and ended up falling off because of salt creep. My first rushed setup also ended up with me having an uneven tank. I'm talking uneven by like 5/8", yeah...ugh. The town I live in is just a giant mountain, so I really should've known better.

So I just put everything in 2 different 32 gallon totes and did a bunch of work to fix said problems. I gave up on DIY sumps because I couldn't fit anything wider than 10" below a 55 stand, so I just broke down and bought a 16g CPR sump with baffles and everything already in place. I hard plumbed everything with PVC, which was much less intimidating than I initially thought and this is what I came up with:

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Full frontal :shock:
It's hard to get a decent front view because the tank is in my 10x6 computer room. I actually had to sit on my computer desk just to get one that good.

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Cinna-buddy, the Cinnamon clown. I might actually ditch him because he's becoming rather aggressive. It's tough though, he was my first fish :(

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Mah sump. First part is just the overflow input with a filter sock thing, second part's my fuge, last part is return. Since I (reluctantly) got a HOB skimmer, I just made the skimmer part a fuge. I've got some kind of macroalgae in there with about 12 lbs of rubble rock and a 9 watt PC suction cup lamp thing.

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My scooter blenny, Charles. He lives in the fuge.

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Top view. Bottom to top: Homemade overflow box, AquaC Remora Pro skimmer with Rio pump and preskimmer, return powered by my modded cheapo Petco powerhead, which works suprsingly well actually..

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I liked this view better than the front.



I also have a Royal Gramma named Betty in there, but he's very camera shy.

CUC: 8 monster Turbo snails, 15 or so Nassarius snails, 5ish Astrea snails, a few Ceriths, and a chocolate chip starfish. Also have 3 man-eating hermits in the fuge.

70 or so lbs of Live Rock in there by now, I'll probably get like 30 more by the time I'm done.

Two Hydor K4s for XTREME FLOW!!!

Anyway, I'll post updates as they come. Most importantly my upcoming light purchase which will finally let me keep corals.

Let me know what you guys think. Good start?
 
Very cool, I like the look of the Koralia in the rock work :scratchch

By the way, is that a chocolate chip star I see in the back in the last photo?
 
Very cool, I like the look of the Koralia in the rock work :scratchch

By the way, is that a chocolate chip star I see in the back in the last photo?

Thanks, and yeah that's star-buddy (my girlfriend isn't very original with names)
He's going in the fuge when I go reef.
 
That's why I brought it up...I got one for my tank to give my hermit a little competition (so far so good), but I have read that they can be rather "voracious" eaters :shock:

Of the two main spiked stars, the Chocolate Chip is the more docile, but are still in no way "reef safe"
 
Well I didn't get pictures of the unboxing because I was just way too excited to hook them up, but here's my new 48" Sunpod Halides with x2 250 watt bulbs:

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They aren't actually that blue, but they are freaking BRIGHT!
 
I got my first coral last night too. It's a leather (I believe umbrella) that we had at my Petco that was in terrible shape because of our :pooh: systems and lighting. They gave him to me for $15 beccause I told them it was really bad and nobody would buy a leather that looked like that.....which is true, but I may have exaggerated a little :wink:

It's been turning green/yellow over the past few weeks and I havn't seen it extend it's polyps in awhile. But after just a few hours under my lights and in my water, it's already looking 10 times better:

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His name is Fonzeralli, ya know, cause Fonzy wears leather.
 
cool, now if you can get your store to just order a few more things that you can rescue. :D
 
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