Progress on the 120 Reef

The next time you plan to switch to a larger aquarium, read this first. You might change your mind.

In a recent post, I wrote of plans to upgrade my 72-gallon bow front to a 120-gallon reef ready tank.

I am happy to report that the switch is complete. There were times during the day on Saturday when I was not so happy. I wouldn't go all the way to un-happy, but there were lots of furrowed brows and a few extra trips to Lowes for plumbing supplies.

If you are reading this, I'll assume that you are interested in the details. If you're at a party and speaking with a non-aquarium enthusiast, the story goes something like this:

"Yeah I installed a big new aquarium today. It took me and a couple of buddies all day, and it was a total pain in the neck. I was worried because I have a lot of money tied up in the fish."
Friend -- turning away to talk to someone (anyone) else: "Gee, that's um, nice."

If you actually care about aquariums, read on.

I never counted the corals living in the bow tank... but 40-50 wouldn't be stretching it.


Fish included a sailfin tang, a sunrise dottyback, a magenta dottyback, a flame angel, a pair of clownfish, a yellow watchman goby, (which I had not seen in more than 2 months) and a green banded goby,(which I had not seen in 12 months -- more later).

Inverts included a sea cucumber, pistol shrimp, random hermit crabs, and some snails.

The switchover was to happen in the den, which has hardwood floors, and a fairly pricey oriental rug. Luckily my wife was working outside the home that day. We never really spilled anything, but it looked and smelled pretty toxic for much of the afternoon.

Job one was pulling everything out of the bow. We (myself, business partner Sam Dates and son, Ben) arranged a number of buckets, and a huge flat bin that we use for this purpose when handling customer accounts at the store. Into this we siphoned 25 or so gallons -- enough to cover the corals. We added a powerhead for flow and carefully placed the corals where they would not sting each other. Since most were attached to rocks we also needed to be careful not to crush them and to place them where we would remember the coral when it was time to re-stack in the 120.

With the corals out, we then removed the rest of the live rock to the bin. We filled several 5 gallon buckets into which we placed the wildlife. Heaters were attached to the buckets, even though room temp was 72.

Once the remaining water was siphoned into the yard, we moved the bow aside and hoisted the 120 into place on it's new stand, which I had outfitted with extra power strips, and shelving to hold the ballasts for the metal halide lights. (One of the drawbacks from the 72 stand is that there was not room for the Blue Wave ballasts.

We moved some of the live sand from the bow into the 120, but most of it went to the basement with the old tank which will be reconditioned for sale at the store.

With the bow out of the way, it was time to take care of the plumbing. The tank has dual overflows, so we needed to construct drain systems to the sump. This was accomplished with ribbed hoses not unlike those for a swimming pool.

The water drains into a 20 gallon sump, where it is filtered by a filter sock, and an Octopus skimmer, and pumped back to the tank by a Mag-5 pump. (more later)

Just to make the plumbing interesting, we plumbed in a 15 watt UV filter to the right hand return, and installed a flow valve on the left. This sounds pretty matter of fact, but the 3/4" interior diameter hose likes to keep its coiled shape, and it gave Ben (my son the aquarium installer) fits. After about two hours of wrestling with it in tight spaces, he had it just right.

We added the ballasts to the nifty shelving and plugged them in. (Also a pain in tight spaces)

We then stacked the live rock on the bare glass bottom. It sounds scary but it's quite safe, and better than having the stack toppled later by burrowing critters.

The dicey part comes when replacing the rock with attached corals, and here's why:

The water from the bow was mostly in the bin with the corals. Take the water out and the corals are high and dry. Leave it in and we had to use our new water from the store -- which is great except it was 30 degrees outside and the van (with the water tank in it) had been in the driveway all day. I had visions of freezing my beloved 40-50 corals.

Alas, we put in about 45 gallons of the cold water and most of the rest of the warm water, cranked up three heaters and hoped for the best. (The fish stayed in temp controlled buckets.)

Ben waited a while for the house and the heaters to do their thing, and then started stacking the rest of the rock with the corals on it. (Next blog -- the effect we are seeking with the rock work)

Of course the water was getting cloudy by this time, but Ben is truly a master at this. Low light corals went low in the tank. High light on top, pretty corals in plain view lesser corals off in the distance.

Just as we were getting close to being finished, I had to leave to take Mary to a Valentine's Ball. Imagine all that work and not getting to see the tank take shape! Ben text-ed pictures to the ball so at least I could get a feel for it. (Whew.)

The cold water had little effect on the corals. Two days later and most are back to normal.

Ben floated the fish in bags, though the sailfin and the flame angel went to a 55 gallon in the basement.

When I got home, still in my tux, I released the fish and added the aragonite substrate.

It's still a work in progress, but the 120 is up and running.

Thanks for listening.