The Complete Build Of My Vision 180 Start To Finish

[iwantmarinefish]

So id had my 60l nano marine tank for a year now. But you get bored of things and i did with this tank. So i thought what the heck i got a bita money might as well upgrade. So her goes the completes build of my tank start to finish.

So heres the old tank, nice and set up. (really old picture)


The old tank had 2 damsels, 2 clowns and 2 firefish. The clowns are my beauties had them since day 1. I have a daisy polyp and an elephant ear (toadstool) coral. Also had elephant ear since early days. But this tank only has 1x 14000k bulb so never really got into corals with it.

But now after this



Its half empty and the clowns and damsels are still in it, i left about 2" of water in the bottom and then me and my dad carried it through to the conservatory. So the firefish went in the storage container with the heater, powerhead, rock and most of the critters.




And this is why my mum doesnt like me much at the moment !!>>




I turned her lovely conservatory into a dump site for my old tank
So now i needed a new surface for my new tank. Obv weights a bit more being three times the size and all, and the old desk wouldn't cut it. Mainly because my old tank had dug in and water had got into the chipboard and made the wood puff-up so the Juwel rocked. So dad got hold of a nice piece of solid work-top and we got to getting that fixed down!



Next step was buying !!!!!

(Will Continue With Post Tomorrow Night Any Feedback Or Advice Is Welcomed (Criticism Too!))

[iwantmarinefish]

wow i dont know what this forum is doing to the pictures ??!! Look fine in my pictures !! Sorry

[GregP]

Look forward to seeing the rest of it! Really well documented so far

[silverside]

be cool to see where this one goes looks interesting keep it updated

[iwantmarinefish]

will do thanks for the enthusiasm guy

[jennybugs]

I like the tank in the conservatory

I have the vision 180 too. Will be interesting to see how yours takes shape

[iwantmarinefish]

Hi guys forgot to mention that im 15 so thats why mum and dad keep coming up !!!!

So where did i leave off?? Ah buying thats it
So most of it was online buying:
The equipment:

1x Fluval E200 heater
2x SunSun Dual Powerhead (6000l/h each)(so with the two of them 12000l/h)
1x Eheim installation pack 1 (already had the Eheim 2213 from my old tank)
1x TMC V2 Compact Skimmer 300
1x 4xT5 light pendant:
>3x reef white 10000k bulbs
>1x blue actinic bulb
2x Reef white 15000k bulbs
1x Fluval U4 internal filter
2x Egg crate 27" x 16"
1x Seio M620 (2400l/h)(This is for the output of the filter)




The skimmer is a TMC V2 Skim 300, from the new compact range, it is a hang on and i have no room at the back of the tank so it will have to go at the side, later a problem with the light unit.


Thats Most of it for now
So how much did all this cost? well i made a excel sheet to keep track !


As For Live rock, im taking a slightly different approach. I plan to keep to the rule of thumb that 1-kg of LR per 10liters but instead of having 18-kg of LR i am only having 8-kg and the other 10-kg in reef rock/bones. Because when you mix reef rock with LR it reactivates and turns into LR (reef rock has been broken off during storms and washed up on the beach where it is collected!). Ordered some plate bones

To use a little over hang. And a bit of rock

I did buy my first 1.389-kg at 'Andys Aquatics' in rock ferry. Cost me £12.75 a kg !! Rip off !! So i looked online and found 'Coventry Aquatics' (really recommended) which charges a nice £10.00 per kg. So far i have bought 4.501-kg of LR off them and 7.966-kg reef rock. So heres the boxes


As you can see i liked the rock so i ordered more a lot more!! Look at the difference in the sizes of the boxs!!



So at the weekend me and a fishie friend took a trip down to Blakemere (Cheshire water-life) And we spotted a great deal. Kent marine 'Rock Prep'
The one of the left has a bristle dead and the one on the left is a refill bottle. The left one was £9.99 reduced to £2.50 and the one on teh right was £20.00 reduced to £5.00 !! Bargain. You use the stuff to clean live rock of dead stuff and replace a bit of bacteria. So i used it on all my rock and this is what i got of it (after it had been in my tank!!)
And the bucket of 'gin' clear saltwater

This is helens tank:::::

Im getting a frag of the leather coral when my tanks established )

So whats next?? WATER !!!!!!!!!!
Back to my fishie friend helen. Shes soo nice and has helped me so much. As of yet, as i am 15 i dont have loads of money so an RO Unit is a no no for now. But guess what helen has one. So all my water came from her. Saved me spending stupid money at my LFS 'Andys Aquatics'.



So i should probably mention the egg create me and my granddad cut it to shape and sanded the edges to fit the vision.


In goes the rock !!!!!!!!!!!
after the cleaning process the rock goes in>


You can see the reef plates at the back

New lights ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
The light unit is a 4x T5 light pendant off 'iQuatics' (highly recommended) with the unit you get a choice of 4x T5 tubes worth £40 alone !! So i went for 3x reef white 10000k and 1x blue actinic.


Its here

The unwrapping (done in the typical teenage boy way

The maid (mum) will clean that up
So now i have to put it on the tank and i only comes with tank braces, no hanging wires. But the skimmer has to fit on the side aswell so here the problem, it has to go at the back of the tank, and the filter intake has to be moved (breaking the siphon(giving me another headace)) so now it goes through the light unit brace.

As i earlier said i ordered 3x reef white 10000k tubes, but i felt the need to upgrade so i went to ebay and got 2x aqua medic reef white 15000k, bit more power and better colour temp for the corals (when i get them). So now it has (bottom to top) 1x aqua medic reef white 15000k tube, 1x iquatics reef white 10000k, 1x blue actinic and another aqua medic reef white 15000k tube.

There extremely bright>>>

Thats only with two tubes on!!!!!

So im pushing to get the tank cycling (im very impatient) so when i moved the 'Eheim 2213' filter over to this tank i didnt wash the bio media and i added a bit of the water. So 2 weeks after water and a bit of LR i added two of my clowns from the old one. Just to get the nitro cycle going. ?
Forgot to take pics of the transfer sorry, but i acclimatized them for about an hour.

So there it is for now i will be updating some time in the next week or two when something happens! Remember any advice is very welcomed! Thanks Guys And Gals

[jennybugs]

Let me get this right...you added a couple of clownfish to 'get the cycle going'?
Not a wise move imho. The fish won't thank you. It's not a fish friendly way of doing things imho and the best way to cycle a marine tank is set it up, get the LR in and then let it cycle without fish in. I'd remove the fish and let nature take it's course. Slowly slowly happy tanky is my motto and it works

Good lighting choice! I have the 6 bulb unit from iquatics and I use the Blue plus bulbs from them and then Korallen Zucht bulbs - fiji purple and marine whites.

[iwantmarinefish]

Originally Posted by jennybugs

Let me get this right...you added a couple of clownfish to 'get the cycle going'?
Not a wise move imho. The fish won't thank you. It's not a fish friendly way of doing things imho and the best way to cycle a marine tank is set it up, get the LR in and then let it cycle without fish in. I'd remove the fish and let nature take it's course. Slowly slowly happy tanky is my motto and it works

Good lighting choice! I have the 6 bulb unit from iquatics and I use the Blue plus bulbs from them and then Korallen Zucht bulbs - fiji purple and marine whites.

hi. nah its what i did on the first tank the fish have gone though it before, they'll be fine.
And why use purple what benefit does this have. And what is the difference between blue actinic and blue plus? which one benefits corals more?

[jennybugs]

Originally Posted by iwantmarinefish

hi. nah its what i did on the first tank the fish have gone though it before, they'll be fine.
And why use purple what benefit does this have. And what is the difference between blue actinic and blue plus? which one benefits corals more?

Well it's your tank and your fish so I won't say any more on that apart from I wouldn't put fish through a cycle, personally.

The purple is great for coral growth - ask the guys at Cambridge Coral Tech...if it's good enough for their tanks then it's good enough for me.
No idea what the difference is between actinics and blue plus bulbs tbh but none of my corals are complaining. I am also using KZ blues on another tank and they're having equally good results on my corals as well as making them glow like mad at main lights out.