BlindSwordsman's 55 Gallon Thrifty Tank (1 Viewer)

[BlindSwordsman]

So, I found a used 55 gallon tank with an oak wood stand that matched with my current stand on Craigslist a few months ago. I got them home, gave away the old tank, kept the stand, bought a new tank and kept them in my garage since. I just hauled them into the house, set them up in the .. laundry room and .. still debating if I really want to do it. The thing is I was thinking about unloading some fish from my current 75 gallon tank but again, I was/am not feeling like letting them go either. I'm thinking maybe I'll do it as an experiment, set it up with whatever I already have on hand at the moment (old rocks, old wet/dry system, ...) and see how it'd go, as I also don't feel like I should be spending money more on this. .... So, first step was done, hauled them in, set them up. Next step, aquascaping. Unsure what at the moment (Do some actual aquascaping? Or just throw some rocks in and call it done? Or try a rockwall? .. Hmmm ... )

 

[BlindSwordsman]

I guess I'm still going with this . To recap:

Tank: 55 gallon standard Aqueon tank (undrilled. Don't know how! Never tried! Don't want to lose my 70 bucks trying! )

Main filtration system: wet/dry filtration system (might change to a 10 gallon sump with a chaeto compartment later, or might not.)

Aquascaping: I just brewsed up something with whatever I had sitting around. Most were broken up when I used them for the 10 gallon tank rock wall. That was pretty much all that I had left ... I just ordered 40 lbs of white, dry sand for $40 from Ebay as I like the natural sand look. It will be 1" at most as it's mainly for decorative purpose. I'll seed with some live sand from the 75 gallon tank.

Lights: I have some unused LED bar, half broken black boxes, a T5 ... Not sure what I'll put together for this yet.

Next step: Get some water running and I'll get that going for a few months as I'm a horse with a beaten path and I have been setting up my tanks that way!

Others: I'll have to figure out how to re-organize my laundry room so it looks a bit less of a big walk in closet!

....

Wet/dry filtration system:



The rock work:

 

[BlindSwordsman]

I thought: Some day I might regret this as I never come down to the laundry room much to see the tank. So, I've hauled it upstairs. That means I would want a canopy because I don't want to see all sorts of lights and stuff hanging around. So, I built a canopy out of oak to match with the oak stand. I'm not a professional and not a very good DIY guy either, so ... ... Anyway, I built a similar one for the 75 gallon tank before but I over built these and they weigh a ton. The one I used for the 75 has been in use for years and I don't see that it is causing any issue. Still, I feel like these are like the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas. I'm still afraid that the tanks can not handle the weight. I'm thinking maybe I should put in some sort of braces to the wall to lighten up the load to the 55 gallon tank a bit this time since the glass looks pretty thin (?) ...

Picture of the unstained canopy.

 

[BlindSwordsman]

The canopy is done. Rock and sand are in (dead rock and some live sand). Lights are on (I decide to go with the 2 extra black boxes I have in storage). Water is running. Tank setup is complete. I'm just waiting for the ugliness to show up. Not planning on adding in anything live at the moment. I still have some unused coral foods in the fridge and I plan on dumping some into the tank daily to dirty it up and hope something will start going. I usually don't use chemicals for the tanks and I won't start doing that for this tank either, so it will probably take a while. ... I still haven't decided if I want to add a compartment for chaeto or not, so that's it for now.

 

[BlindSwordsman]

Some red stuff has shown up in the last few days but it also looks like it's also going away, not as revolting as I expected . The tank still looks barren, not much algae growth and such, so I'm still hold off on adding some CUC. I just created a chaeto compartment out of an empty cat litter bucket, and transferred some chaeto over from the other tank, and hope that will increase the copepode population and such.

 

[Fishfoo]

The canopy may be heavy but it sure looks nice!

 

[BlindSwordsman]

The canopy may be heavy but it sure looks nice!

Thanks! It proves 'Measure Once, Cut Twice' (.. and if that fails, then apply 'Try, Try, And Try Again!') sometimes works!

 

[BlindSwordsman]

The tank is doing OK. It's not completely clean but not too dirty. I'll add in some snails next week. I added the first coral to the tank, a small green star polyp colony, to 'test the water' last week . It seems to be doing fine.

 

[RSnodgrass]

You can't trust that GSP, it'll grow in a toilet

Glad to see it's coming along.

 

[BlindSwordsman]

You can't trust that GSP, it'll grow in a toilet

Glad to see it's coming along.

Heeheehee ... Yeah, I know. I still have a long, long, long, long way to go .

 

[BlindSwordsman]

I'm just logging this in so I have a tracking record for myself to look back later of the mess I make:

I'm probably pushing my luck. I already added some zoas onto the middle rock to make that a 'zoa island' and limit the zoas to that rock this time. Also added some LPS. ... Oh, yeah, I added some snails and a couple small urchins. They do a good job keeping the rock clean. There's a bit of 'stuff' accumulated on the sand (not enough critters in it to do the cleaning job, I assume). I have some time this week and probably will add some easy SPS I have from the other tank (psammocora, stylo, birdsnest, monti). So far, things look .. ok!?! ... Oh well, only time can tell. Que Sera, Sera!

 

[BlindSwordsman]

Done!!! Will just need to sit back, continue the watering, and wait for them to grow now (unless it decides to take an ugly turn) . I might add some minor touches here and there (who knows?) but this is basically it for the main parts (same stuff, different tank kinda) ... Full tank shot as of 9/23/2021:

 

[Reefer Oz]

Your displays are gorgeous!
I love the floating Zoa rock. That’s gonna look dope when it fills out.

 

[BlindSwordsman]

Your displays are gorgeous!
I love the floating Zoa rock. That’s gonna look dope when it fills out.

Thanks! ... I used the zoas as filler in the other tank and I like the look of that. But, I don't like to keep on rescuing others from their encroachment much anymore . So, I plan on keeping them on that rock only in this tank and make that a 'zoa island', kind of. I probably will just leave some other spaces blank.

 

[BlindSwordsman]

Revised full tank shot . All of the corals so far were from the 75 gallon tank. With a small number of baby fish, there is not much cleaning to do. Compared to the 75, which I have to wipe the glass every 2 - 3 days, this one hasn't been cleaned for a while. I think I wiped the glass only once in the past 2 months.

 

[BlindSwordsman]

Nearly 2 month update: No major improvement. Moved a few more things from the 75 gallon tank over. The zoa island is getting fuller.

 

[Reefer Oz]

Duuuuuuude! I knew that zoa island was gonna be crazy cool!
I’m not a zoanthid guy myself. But displays like yours really showcase the potential.

 

[mrbill]

Ken do you know what your PAR levels are?

 

[Luke S.]

Tank looks awesome. What did you use to attach the rock to the rear glass?

 

[BlindSwordsman]

Ken do you know what your PAR levels are?

I honestly do not know the PAR levels of the tank. I basically tune the lights on about 60-70W max per light. They are about 6" from the surface. I have 2 black boxes on the 55 gallon tank. The 75 gallon tank has 2 black boxes and 2 Radions because the rock work casts too much shadow so I need more lights for the coverage . I use only the blue spectrum for my tanks so I only use about half the maximum wattage of the black boxes. I also use the blue spectrum of the Radions only, and that is set to be about 30% of the max capacity, and it is also about 60W or so. Turning the Radions higher or with more spectrums, I start to bleach out my lobos and other stuff, and grow algae (which I normally don't) .

Tank looks awesome. What did you use to attach the rock to the rear glass?

Thanks! That is kind of a 'magnet rock' that I made myself a while ago. I didn't like to price and the shapes of the magnet rocks that I found at the store so I made one myself with the extra base rock and an used magnet float. (I think I also read some people were complaining that the magnet rock they bought fell apart after a while too?) I just drilled a hole that fit the shape the magnet float, then I used super glue gel and epoxy to secure the magnet float into place. I personally do not like to permanently attach anything onto the tank wall because it will be impossible to clean.