South Side Outdoor - Finally!!

DeanT

DeanT

Dean
Joined
16 Jun 2009
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Location
Claremont, Cape Town
okay , well i decided to start a thread on my tank .
not sure if i will be able to keep it up to date , juggling work , and life in general being so demanding .
any way here goes.
i started the love for marine way before i earned a Rand and after arriving from the land of Robert, now 11 years after keeping bath water ( i still have one, but not sure for how much longer).

since i have no space in the house , and a lovely outside area , i thought why not.

so decided to pick up a tank in November , set it up and let it cycle while i travelled back to bob , to see fam for 10 days. this was 1.8 x 700 x 700

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after returning home , was looking for a decent light unit , and managed to fall apon this

tank which i never planned on taking

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amazing light unit


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so decided that the small tank didnt cut it , and got rid of it , with all the equipment , and started fresh.
in the meantime , during december , i managed to pick up a reef octopus XP 5000INt , thanks to @JsREEFn. the waterboy for the RO unit and profilux 3ex, LED light barand 6 plug bar and 4 x Tunze 6105 from a friend

so on the equipment side i was pretty sorted.
 
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so picked up the Tank and stand from Quinton , and managed to get it delivered to my house thanks to the LFS by builders, placed it in position , and ready for cleaning on the week end


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tank in place and ready for cleaning.

on the friday after work , decided to go and have a look , and think about the various options on what to do , where to place everything and something caught my eye.


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its not too clear , but here is a better picture , i felt sick , and never experienced this ever before , thank goodness i had nothing in the tank.

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Thankfully before and not after filling it, pity about your loss tho, sorry :(
 
so we embarked on a panel replacement as i wasnt too keen on the patching senario and broke out the base , and replaced it with a new panel.
to this day ,we are not sure what caused the crack , but maybe the stress of moving the tank.
so after giving up week ends and many hours , base was replaced and tank was in position.

then i decided that i would like to cover the back section of the tank , to close off the area , and also cause of the rain .

got the builders in to start the work , put the panel up and they left for the week end

was home after work , and discussing a few things with LFS , we both heard a thud , and couldnt understand what it was .
the LFS left , i carried on working around the tank , and to my amazement , found the issue.

the back panel of the tank had cracked in the corner , and run acrosss the back.
we could see it in the beginning , because i had put black vinyl across the back of the tank

here is the tank , before the crack was found




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so again we embarked on a panel replacement .
we pealed off the black vinyl , to find the cause


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OK, who bumped the tank? Is he tortured yet?
 
so told the builder to P(&^ off , and dont come back .
here are some pics of the panel replacement , for the second time.

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at this stage i was so down , and didnt know what to do, the tank , had broken my bank , and my heart , and i was on the verge of selling everything off , and forgetting the whole idea completely.

we fixed the tank , placed it bak into position , re fitted the bank panel of the outside area , and this was the final result



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so now , all plumbing is in place , landscaping is done , water is in , and finally got wet about 1 month ago .
here is a pic of it at night with the lights on once it was full



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so after a while , and getting the algae build up , visited the LFS and picked up some Chaetomorpha to draw as much nutrie

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nts out of the water to avoid any un pleasant algae from growing .
this is held in the basket at the top of the tank , to avoid it getting caught
 
at the same time , picked up 2 pencil urchins to see how the water was doing , and they were as happy as can be . they have also been great in cleaing up algae on the rocks

since then i have added livestock after testing the water and all aspects were great.
the LFS has been guiding me on this journey , and has been a real pleasure dealing with them .
i started with 2 ocerllaris small clowns and a few others.
 
just some details on the tank and setup:
DT - 2.5 m x 1.0 m (D)x 0.75m (H)
sump - 1.5 m x 0.5 x 0.5
Pumps - 4 x Tunze 6105
Return pump - Reef Octopus HY 12500
Skimmer - Reef Octopus XP5000int
lighting - Sunrise and Moonrise - Profilux LED bar
Main Lights Reef inmates 400w Extreme , consists of 3 x MH and 8 x 39w 1.2 m T5s.
heating 4 x 300w Ehiem Heaters .
Chiller Hailea HC 1000A
all controlled using Profilux 3ex , 2 x 6 plug Bars.
 
where u put the sump?
 
Ah! Another ex-zimbo on MASA :D Nice to not be the only one :p Shame about your bad series of bumps on the tank, not an easy thing to forgive or forget. Looks like you are having a good start with all the right equipment. Hope manage to get that GHA under control :thumbup:
 
Nice build. Well done for hanging in there with all the glass panel replacements.

Remember to go slow with the livestock additions even though you have a large tank.
 
Nice size system u got there, glad it worked out in the end for you.
So who broke the tank?
 
@JsREEFn , maybe will look like your tank one day , but i am sure will get there (hopefully), glad to see you back . @Keanan - not sure about the 1st time , was a mistery ,but we put it down to stress on the tank during the move , second time , it was the builders , will never use them again , and trust them to do it , especially since you tell them to be careful. then you ask them and denial is the best answer - typical
 
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algae is much better now , that i have introduced a CUC , consisting of 2 turbo snail , 1 lawnmover blennie , 1 midas blennie and 1 cleaner shrimp - will post updated pics later
 
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