Phil’s Aquarium

My EBAY Aquarium

The Specs:

The Tank and Sump…..

Oceanic 100 Gallon Tank drilled with single, side mounted overflow.

J-Random 30 Gallon Sump Tank with divider for filtration. This was a Wal-Mart DIY special sump project that the previous owner built himself. Works fine, so far.

Housed in a custom built pine stand and hood unit, stained Mahogany. This took some cleaning, but was in fine shape.

The Lighting…..

Coralife Power Compact 48” 4x65 Watt light. I am currently running 2 actinic bulbs and 2 10,000k bulbs. Great for fish and many soft corals, I am afraid it may not be good for hard corals though….. So far I have had to replace every bulb in the unit. When I got them, they were well used.

The Pumps and Power Heads…..

1 Penguin 320gph power head, located very low, behind the live rock to give some circulation

1 Penguin 420gph power head mounted in the middle of the tank, on the rear, very high to produce a cross current

2 Rio 645gph power heads located opposite each other, high up left and right to create a good current all around. The installation of these two really taught me the lesson in the need to NOT move them when the power is on…. They move a TON of water and even more sand. My fish did not like the sandstorm that occurred.

1 Rio 940gph sump return power head. This brings the sump-filtered water back up to the tank from below. The outlet is pumping out onto the surface of the water to help keep the slimy film away as well as aerate the water.

The Protein Skimmer…..

An Oceanpro 150 Venturi type protein skimmer. Bwahahahaha! This thing sucks. My next major upgrade to the tank will be this item. I have just been too busy stocking and stabilizing the tank to upgrade.

The Overflow…..

I had to install a DIY overflow standpipe for my tank to kill the horrible gurgling and splashing noise that you could hear easily on the second floor to our house. The only thing that really held me back on this item was the bulkhead that was used on this particular tank. All of the stand pipe designs were for a bottom mounted overflows. Since mine was on the side I had less space to work with and a nasty bend to deal with. But two runs to Lowes and $12 later, I had this tank running quiet. The previous owner was running this tank with Bio-Balls in the overflow, to break up the noise of the water falling 20 inches, then splashing, and then gurgling out as air and water rushed to the sump. The Bio-Balls did quiet it up a bit, but after some research (and some help from the folks at Atlantis Aquarium in Richmond VA) I concluded that Bio-Balls were going to hinder me more than help me.

The Rock…..

98.7 (ish) pounds of pre-cured Tonga branch and Figi (also known as Picante) live rock. This rock was amazing. It still had a small amount of die-off to complete, due to some particularly hardy stink sponges and such, but it was loaded with coralline algae and nitrifying bacteria. Together with the live sand I purchased, it was able to completely cycle my tank in a period of just 4 days!

The Sand…..

60 pounds of Arag-alive live sand. Putting this in my tank was one of the toughest things I had to wrestle with. I knew I needed a sand bed, but I was never able to nail down how much, what kind, or where from. Many schools of thought advise you to buy sand with actual critters in it. Some suggest just using playground sand, some even suggest using gravel like you see in a fresh water tank. I won’t even go into the arguments over depth….. I will just say that the pre-bagged Arag-alive was probably the best decision. I will use it again on my next tank……

And finally, the stats…..

My aquarium, after its first water change is sporting the following numbers:

Ammonia 0

Nitrite 0

Nitrate 0

Temp 79-80 degrees (I can’t make this one stable!)

Specific Gravity 1.024

Oh, and plenty of algae to go around.

Currently I am stocking

1 Yellow Tang Peaceful

1 Yellow and Blue Damsel Peaceful

1 Purple Chromis Aggressive