Tofu's 4ft Reef tank

[jackiee]

Dream come true! Parking here for all your updates! !

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[tofubox]

Thanks guys for following along the thread. Appreciate the support.

Some of u guys may have known, I recently got into a motorbike accident, good news is I'm fine, but suffered a lot of surface abrasion. So my hands will not be able to touch salt water for a good week at least.

My dad been very helpful and doing most of the maintenance on the 2ft as well as replacing the rodi for the curing rocks.

Heres an update of the process.

Added the remaining dead rocks for soaking. The bleached rocks are still turning the rodi water brown.

Tested the po4 of the water, good news is the po4 is definitely within an acceptable range, this will shorten the rodi soaking phase. I'm using seachem prime, according to the manufacturer, prime does not remove po4, so the test is relatively accurate.

Lastly, I calibrated my ph meter and tested the water. Ideally I want it to be as close to ph7 as possible, which would be an excellent indication that there is no more bleached within the rocks. Realistically, I don't think i will be able to achieve 7, even if all the bleach has been effectively removed, due to the nature of rocks. Will continue to monitor over the next week, if the PH will continue dropping. Eventually, I might consider actually getting a chlorine test kit, but we'll see.

[tofubox]

Equipment list!

Most of my equipment were bought from the previous owner. All these equipment were carefully selected and indeed very good choices. Did my fair bit of research on them, and were very impressed by the reviews and performance. Few of these are not available locally and were brought in by the previous owner, main issues faced when buying such items will be the support if anything goes wrong. Other items listed are mostly brand new.

Size: 48" x30" x20"

Volume: 125 gallons

1. Skimmer : JNS C0-3 Skimmer, rated for 550 gallons.

2. Cacium Reactor: Geo 618 with Eheim 1048 Circulation Pump + Nature aquarium 5l co2 bottle with digital bubble counter, Aqualifter feeder pump

3. Return pump: Reef Octopus Hy 10000w, Water Blaster

4. Zeovit Reactor: Reeftech zeolite reactor Z100B with eheim compact 1000 Feeder pump

5. Chiller: Hailea Hs90a ( Still looking for one)

6. Ato: Triple Sensor electronic auto top up from Gemsurf

7. Wavemakers: 2 x Jebao Rw15 (Ordering)

8. Lightings: 2x 48” DE T5 2 tube retrofit with ATI bulbs + 1M DIY CREE LED (40 LEDs on three drivers)

9. Addictives: Zeovit system

10. Salt: H20cean Pro

11. RODI: DD RODI setup

12: Sand: Caribsea Special Grade (out of stock atm)

13. Might include: Filter socks, 1 x DD reactor for carbon, 1 x Ehiem 1262 Secondary pump, 1 x Hailea 1/4 Hp secondary chiller, 1 x Jebao Dosing pump (to meet additional dosing requirements at later stage)

For those curious on the cleaning phase. The method i use was fairly straightforward. Break down the parts u can. I.e remove the skimmer body, hose, cr pump, return pump parts, etc etc, and vinegar soak them for 24hrs or more as required. Simply remove from the vinegar bath, rinse thoroughly with tap water, use a brush to remove whatever organics remaining. Let it air dry, or wipe down. Assemble, and your equipment is as good as new. Vinegar soak ratio is 1:1 (vinegar:water). I bought my vinegar from tongsan at bedok north, artificial white vinegar, its good and value for money with their 5 liter bottles.The main reason i like using vinegar is because its safe, and even if theres minor residue left from the washing, its not harmful for the tank.

Skimmer being ready for a vinegar bath

24hrs of vinegar soak

As good as new

The interesting bubble plate

Zeolite Reactor

Reef octopus Water Blaster after a good vinegar soak and clean

Geo 618 CR body only after cleaning

Lightset after wiping down and housing the cables

Complete sump system

Stay tuned! Rock Aquascaping next! As soon as I've recovered better from my injuries!

[surreal1228]

Oh no man. Getting well soon.

Great choices of all equipments. esp the cr.and zeovit system.

Which zeovit u want to use ? KZ or FM ?

Btw Can share ur digital bubble counter pic ?

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[tofubox]

Thanks for the well wishes bro.... Recovering from the injuries slowly but surely. Haha. I'll be using the kz system. Will take a close up of the digital counter tomorrow

[whq]

Bro very nice setup... hope you recover quickly and set up... can get some pointers from you too...

I see that you have a computer fan mounted on your cabinet. Can i check how do you power it? Is it by red and black cable of fan connected to a 12v adapter?

[tofubox]

Hi bro whq. Yes it's exactly as u thought. Red black cable connected to 12v adaptor! In total I have 5 pic fans. 2 at the cabinet. 3 on led fixture. The two fans do an amazing job at keeping the cabinet cool. Cheers

[whq]

Hi bro whq. Yes it's exactly as u thought. Red black cable connected to 12v adaptor! In total I have 5 pic fans. 2 at the cabinet. 3 on led fixture. The two fans do an amazing job at keeping the cabinet cool. Cheers

Thanks bro for sharing, thats what exactly i am planning for my cabinet...

One more queries, are all 5 fans connected in parrallel to 1 adapter? I am planning to connect 2 fan to the cabinet in parrallel but afraid 1 adapter might not be sufficient to power it.. thanks so much for your help

[tofubox]

Heres a pic of the digital co2 bubble counter

Bro whq, I'm using 5 fans connected in parallel to 1 adaptor. Not very good with electronics myself. But i've attached these pictures, hope it helps. The adaptor i am using is controllable, so i can control the speed of the fans.

[ASHWIN]

Amazing tank in the making!

[whq]

Thanks bro... looks good. Your photos definitely helped!

[sherman]

Every fan you see a voltage and current. Add all the current and if less then the adaptor current then no problem.

[youdontnowm]

Cant wait to see your tank progress! Gogogo!

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[tofubox]

Cant wait to see your tank progress! Gogogo!

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Haha I'm waiting for ur tank to come. Than we can buddy and start together

[tofubox]

Took some top down shots of my 2ft, everythings in a mess, plenty of war zones going on. So glad I'll be finally transferring them to a bigger tank, but that will still take at least another month.

[whq]

Wao bro, you have many gems... lol you new tank will be quickly stocked... haha mine will look super botak and probably takes months to stock

[hanafi_weeseng]

Once the corals transfer to the new tank it will be solid. Must arrange for open house for us!

[ASHWIN]

Haha superb! Ya like bro WA said open house haha

[sherman]

When open house?

[tofubox]

When open house?

Thanks guys, haha still long time before the tank is fit for an open house! Learning Alot of new things by the day.

[tofubox]

Picked this up by the store today. $12 bucks for a little piece of mind. Rocks are soaking in pure distilled water, will test for cl Tmr.

Bought my hs90a chiller, ordered my wavemakers, waiting for my zeovit to arrive, and it's time to fire up the tank. Oh Crap, I forgot the sand...

[tofubox]

Finally got down to doing the rockscape! This is my favourite part of the hobby! After a gruelling 2 weeks+ of cleaning the rocks, finally able to sit down and start scaping. Hope you guys enjoy, do share your views, would love to hear them.

The idea i had for this tank was fairly simple....initially, i wanted to create 2 island with a huge arc joining, including couple of overhangs. Of cause, the rocks I had cleaned were rather restrictive to what i had in mind. I eventually ended up with 2 islands, with a single overhang by the left side. The main idea was also to have plenty of flat pieces where i could easily sit bigger colonies of sps and also sufficient room around for tabling corals. Front is relatively empty to accommodate for an illusion of depth.

Making sure the rocks were clear of chlorine from the bleaching. A few more porous rocks were chosen and soaked in distilled water for 24hrs, than tested. Safe to say, its free of any cl.

Next step was to get a table of almost equal dimensions to start of the scaping

A rough idea of the rocks to use were than chosen

Drilling of the rock and placing of the acrylic rod to hold 2 rocks firmly together. Drilling wasnt easy at all. My dad and i decided to only do it once, and epoxy the rest.

Making the first overhang with epoxy

Adding on the 2nd overhang rock, I used cable ties with epoxy and glue.

Final product!

Finally the rocks are done, tank equipments are ready. Problem is....I might not have enough sand. LFS ran out of stock for special grade reef sand, managed to get about 8kg worth from fellow kind reefers. Will have to settle with it for now, and will add more when stocks are available.

Thanks for viewing, next update will be adding the rodi water, mixing the salt in, firing up the equipments and starting the 14day zeovit cycle. Exciting days ahead.

[youdontnowm]

Nice overhang and scape!! Hopefully lfs stock up caribsea special grade reef sand too as im also waiting for it ):

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[james72]

Looking good tofu.....love the island and depth

Cheers,

James

[hanafi_weeseng]

Nice scape tofu,exciting journey coming.