My Expensive Hobby - 4x2x2 Tank

[shetland]

It has been 10 over years since I have last kept marine fishes. Finally got my own house last year. Now i have decided to return to this hobby and this time round to start slowly and do it correctly.

The below picture are the setup I did 12-13 years ago. I was first introduced to this marine hobby by an army friend. The LFS I went told me that I can use a under gravel system with two external canister to sustain the system. Yes it can be done, but if anyone really want to go deeper into this hobby, it is not very practical in the long run. However the under gravel system did manage to pull through and I was able to get good results (0 ammonia / 0 nitrites / 0 nitrates and some other perimeters good enough to keep hard corals and fishes

[shetland]

This time I am set to start up properly with the correct equipment and conduct weekly test to make sure every living creature/animals in the marine tank are in good health and conditions.

Initially was thinking to use live rocks to cycle the tank for 1 to 2 month, but after must consideration and reading online, decided to go for dry rock instead. Will be doing weekly water perimeter check such as ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, pH, Salinity, Water temperature, TDS (top up / water change)

Below is the Tank Setup

Tank - 4 x 2 x 2 (12mm thickness with braces below instead of top braces), the height will be slightly lower than 2ft at 55cm due to the fact that it’s consider braceless, need to compromise on the height for it.

Sump – 3.5 x 2 x 1.5 (3 compartment – 1^st compartment, overflow water through a filter bag and protein skimmer, 2^nd compartment will be use as a refugium, 3^rd compartment will be return pump and future add on equipment such as calcium reactor, etc…….

2 x Ocean Life Overflow system (one side capable of 3500 litres per hour total of 7000 l/h) – left and right

2 x AI 26 HD with D-D Mount

1x BM A8 Protein Skimmer

1x Ecotech Vectra M1 Return Pump

1x Jebao DCS7000 DC Pump for the chiller

1x Hailea 66A ¼ Chiller

1x Maxspect Gyre XF250 Wavemaker bundle (Comes with 2 pump and 1 advance controller) – maybe a bit overall kill for a 4ft system LOL, one pump is capable of 5000GPH) – but there is a mode to do alternating flow, so as to effect the TIDE ( Flooding and Ebbing) on a 6 Hour Rotation basics J

1x 5 Stage RO/DI Systems – to achieve 0 TDS for the water use to top up or doing water change

1x Media Block – to cultivate good bacteria

1x Refractometer – to measure the salinity of the salt water

Quarantine Tank – Using the 63l Oceanfree Nano Marine Tank as a quarantine tank. A cosy place for the fishes to stay stress free and healthy J

I will be adding new items to the system when the needs arise later. Currently the above is the bare bone of the system

[reefbuilder]

Erm 10 - 15 years ago undergavel was already passe.

[shetland]

Below is a simple Marine Log sheet for me to keep track of the water perimeters for the entire system, But will most probably be using the one of the apps (Aquarimate) recommended by one of the reefer.

 

[reefbuilder]

In this expensive hobby it is indeed a good practice to start right otherwise it will become even more expensive to correct the wrongs. Will be looking forward to updates.

[shetland]

Today the Tank and equipment’s arrived. I will be going to do a fresh water test on the tank for 1 days to check for leakages or any possible damage during the transportation process.

After an hour of Cable Management, finally settled the whole bunch of Cable and plug..

Will need to wait a while for the pipe works to bond together before adding in water to do the water test for possible leakage (Hope not).

[shetland]

4 minutes ago, reefbuilder said:

In this expensive hobby it is indeed a good practice to start right otherwise it will become even more expensive to correct the wrongs. Will be looking forward to updates.

Yes, Thanks. Must start right and must be very patient

[Kumar Katya Karthi]

Looking forward for ur updates shet bro!

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[Soleh Joe]

Looking forward for this interesting tank set up.

[shy88devil]

Camping here for your update bro Shet 

[shy88devil]

Very nice tank btw 

[yukok.lim08]

Finally ur tank arrive. Yes aquarimate app is nice for task and perimeter monitoring .


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[shetland]

Using the Oceanlife Nano Marine 63l tank as my QT. another picture of the main tank with lights.

[Shri]

Hey,

Awesome tank bro.. the back piping looks super neat..

start the cycling and enjoy..

cheers

[Admiraltian]

De aquatic ur tank maker? Nice sleek design. U might need another hydra26 to cover ur entire length of 4ft evenly.

[Darren Sim]

Looking forward to your tank!


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[shetland]

The Tank and piping works passed the leakages test.

Put in Live sand and dry rocks. Filling up the tank with RO/DI water. Man its super slow. LOL

Once the RO/DI water filled up in the black container, I will turn on the pump to pump the water to the Main tank

For the black container (52 liters) to fill up, it will take roughly about 40-50 minutes. So i have been doing it for like 6-7hours to fill up to this level as shown in the picture below. Tiring... but I am enjoying the process and passion of this hobby.

[leong_rei]

Using rodi water very ex but is a very good start using rodi waiting to see more from u if can try get what fish u want and 1 time add all in but try wash your fish before all get in


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[shetland]

1 hour ago, leong_rei said:

Using rodi water very ex but is a very good start using rodi waiting to see more from u if can try get what fish u want and 1 time add all in but try wash your fish before all get in


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 My fishes will be in my QT beside my DT for at least 4 to 8 weeks b4 placing into the DT.

[leong_rei]

Your qt tank don't think can put that much of fish that u going to put in main tank


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[shetland]

5 minutes ago, leong_rei said:

Your qt tank don't think can put that much of fish that u going to put in main tank


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haha, I wont add all my fishes in one go, will do so mostly in their own breed. I am going to limit like 8 fishes or so in my system

[shetland]

Installed the isocket plug that i ordered from Finland few days ago. For extra piece of mind, when the house circuit breaker trips or power failure, the plug will sent an SMS to my phone to inform me of such incident. It also has a Temperature sensor (comes with the probe) as well.  although had install the battery bank for the Vectra M1 pump, having additional redundancy checks are also better.

[shetland]

finally all setup done and also change the lighting holder (wrong position installed).

Salinity reading 1.026 (35%)

Add in one dead prawn to kickstart the cycling process.

 

[dr evil]

4 hours ago, leong_rei said:

ee more from u if can try get what fish u want and 1 time add all in but try wash y

your left tower scape like MBS......

[yukok.lim08]

Nice start with all equip in place. Yeah MBS rockscape from far


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