Samantha's 100 Gallon Mixed Reef

Samantha's 100 Gallon Mixed Reef

The time has come! As many of you know, I've been dreaming of upgrading to a larger aquarium for quite awhile now. After 4 years of collecting corals and watching them grow, my 50 gallon just became too small. It was getting to the point that the corals were so overgrown that my calcium and alkalinity were getting sucked up super fast (despite dosing twice a day) and the swings were actually doing harm to the reef. And, so...I began my quest to find a new larger aquarium. With my budget, I was limited to a used aquarium, and so I spent months perusing forums and hunting on Craigslist. Finally, I found the perfect aquarium: a 100 gallon aquarium complete with sump, stand, etc. It was perfect for me because the dimensions are a little shorter than many standard size large tanks (60” x 18” x 20”), and it came with a DIY Beananimal Overflow which made my day! The tank cycled for a little over a month, and then I moved everything from the 50 gallon over to the new home a few weeks ago. Without further ado, onto specs... (and a teaser pic).


Me and My New Aquarium:




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Tank Specs:

- 100 Gallon Display w/ Beananimal Overflow
- 55 Gallon DIY Sump w/ Compartments for Skimmer, Refugium, and Return Pump
- DIY Canopy housing 3 Aqua Illumination (AI) Sol Blue LED fixtures
- Reef Octopus DNW-150 In-Sump Skimmer
- Mag-Drive 18 Return Pump
- Aqueon Pro 250W Heater
- Grounding Probe
- DIY Spray Bar Returns
- In-line Next Reef MR1 Reactor running Carbon
- JBJ Auto Top Off (ATO)
- DIY Mesh Tops



More info and pics coming soon.

Congratulations on A. being able to fit inside your tank and B. YOUR TANK!!!!!

Maestro wrote:

Congratulations on A. being able to fit inside your tank and B. YOUR TANK!!!!!

Thank you! Yes, I thought it to be quite the milestone to finally own an aquarium big enough that I could fit inside!

So not to turn this thread into an immediate bore, but I felt that I needed to give some background on the Beananimal overflow to explain the current set-up of my new aquarium. So, a little theory first about Beananimal overflows for those of you who have no idea what I was talking about in my first post...

Several months back I saw a post about how Beananimal overflows were the ‘best’ type of overflow, and I thought to myself, “What the heck is a ‘beananimal’?!” Well, if you search Reefcentral and elsewhere this question will be answered by very long threads (in fact, the current Reefcentral thread has been split into two threads because it had gotten so long that it was slowing server performance). Over a month or so, I read these threads and became convinced that I wanted my next tank to have a Beananimal overflow. I planned to do the DIY project myself, but ended up being very relieved to find a used tank for sale that already had one built in. Below I will attempt to concisely summarize what the Beananimal overflow is and its benefits...

Okay, so a Beananimal overflow utilizes a Calfo overflow box (after Anthony Calfo). Basically a Calfo overflow is an overflow box that runs the length of one side of the aquarium (either internally or externally). It is praised as the ‘best’ type of overflow because it maximizes surface skimming and greatly increases tank turnover. This Calfo overflow is combined with three drains (the Beananimal part - named after the inventor ‘Beananimal’ a member of Reefcentral). The three drains function as follows:

1. Main Drain (aka Full Siphon) - handles most of water volume
2. Secondary Drain (aka Open Channel) - handles spillover from main drain and can act as full siphon if Main Drain fails
3. Emergency Drain - handles overflow if Main Drain and Secondary Drain fail




Benefits:

- The system is failsafe. If the first drain fails, the second one takes over. If that isn’t enough, the second drain converts to a full siphon (via attached airline that becomes submerged). If that fails, then you still have the emergency drain. This makes the Beananimal more valuable than the popular Herbie overflow.

- Quiet. First, the Calfo overflow box is quieter than other overflow boxes. This is due to the vast length of the overflow which allows the water to gently cascade over it in comparison to the waterfall effect that is so common of standard overflow boxes. Second, since the Main Drain is at full capacity, it is silent (no air bubbles, so no gurgling). This is enabled by allowing a slight excess to trickle into the Secondary Drain (this trickle is basically ‘silent’).

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So, there you have it. I have tried to be concise, and I hope I was successful in being at least somewhat efficient in my explanations. However, there is a lot more on this subject than I care to fit here, as this is my Showcase Thread and not a Beananimal soapbox. For more info, I am providing links below. Summary of this post: Beananimal’s are ‘COOL’, and I am thrilled to be trying one out!


Link to Beananimal’s Website

Link to RC Beananimal Thread Part 1

Link to RC Beananimal Thread Part 2

This is going to be AWESOME!!! I can't wait!!!!

What site did you use to make the mockup of the setup?! It's kind of hard for me to read that background text

Nicholas41 wrote:

Dgolden wrote:

This is going to be AWESOME!!! I can't wait!!!!

What site did you use to make the mockup of the setup?! It's kind of hard for me to read that background text

It's actually Beananimal's from his website. Can't take credit for it...

back to graph paper for me then

Okay, so back to this being a Showcase Thread...

After adding some live and dry sand to the display and refugium and adding a mix of about 90 lbs of Tukani, Totoka, and Haitian live rock, I threw 3 raw shrimp into my tank to get the cycle going.

After roughly four weeks, the shrimp were completely dissolved and my water parameters said it was time to get going!


Water Parameters: Good to Go!


FTS:


Adding the CUC:

Absolutely love the rock layout

is it glued/puttied together?

Will you painting/shadowboxing/putting one of those sticky things on the back?

Does the tank have a canopy?

What's in your cleanup crew?

sorry for all the questions

You're making me want to jump into a big salt tank

looking awesome , love the rock work

Thanks for all of the compliments guys!

mangoman wrote:

is it glued/puttied together?

Will you painting/shadowboxing/putting one of those sticky things on the back?

Does the tank have a canopy?

What's in your cleanup crew?

1. Some of the rocks are expoxied together, but most are just placed firmly together.

2. Considering painting the back black, but for right now I'm happy.

3. Complicated, but yes. The aquarium came with a canopy, but it's dimensions couldn't fit my lights. This led to a 4-week DIY canopy project that I will post when I find some more time.

4. CUC consists of: Blue-leg hermits, zebra turbos, nassarius snails, emerald crabs, 3 peppermint shrimp, and then the stuff from my 50 gallon (random snails, hermits, and Junior my skunk cleaner shrimp).

Dgolden wrote:

back to graph paper for me then

Sketchup.com is an excellent, easy to operate, 3D program that you can use for FREE!!!!

Save a tree, go 3D

With the nitrogen cycle being done, it was time to move the livestock from my old 50 gallon to the new aquarium. However, I ran into a glitch...

The 100 gallon had come with a stand and canopy. Everything seemed perfect until I realized that the canopy was a few inches too short to house my AI Sol Blues. This little discrepancy ended up creating a rather big problem. You see, as I mentioned earlier, 100 gallon aquariums aren’t a standard size, which meant buying a canopy would be a bit tricky. Also, my wallet is rather tight (having just purchased the new tank), so buying a ‘new’ canopy was going to be difficult. This meant that I would have to find a cheap, used, canopy with the right dimensions. Well, I looked, but couldn’t find one. This meant that I was left with the option of building my own canopy from scratch. Those of you that know me know that I often take on ambitious projects that are a little out of my reach. Well, building my DIY Canopy was one of these projects. Four or so weeks later, I can now say that I am very pleased with the results, but, a few weeks ago, I was ready to take my hammer and smash everything in sight. The canopy build is too long, IMHO, to post here, but here’s a link to a thread outlining the build that I posted in the DIY Sub-Forum: https://aquarists-at-usf.forumotion.com/t669-diy-aquarium-canopy#5823

A few pics of the end product:

WOW

Looking GREAT!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to see some close ups

Dgolden wrote:

WOW

Looking GREAT!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Drew!

Dgolden wrote:

I can't wait to see some close ups

Getting there

So, now, with the canopy done and everything ready to go, it was time for the hard part: Moving all of my fish, corals, and other inverts to the new aquarium...

I was really excited for this part, but also rather terrified. I am very attached to my fish and corals (probably a little too attached) and was worried that they might not survive the move. One of the most challenging parts was going to be to get the corals off of the rocks since I used new LR for the 100 gallon and, therefore, needed to get the corals off of the old rocks.

Now that the process is over, I can happily say that all of the fish made it safely, as well as the majority of the corals. The move went better than I could have imagined. At times things looked rough (like when I couldn’t find Goby or when I broke off some acro chunks), but all in all it went really well.


Pic of me trying to chisel off some corals from the LR (Dan is providing moral support):


Pic of the ORA Miami Orchid out of water. I couldn’t believe how BIG it is!!


Pics of the corals placed on the sandbed, frag racks, and anywhere I could find space in the 100 gallon (looks like a hurricane ripped through my tank ):

looking gooood(: i cant wait to see some lights on this beauty!

Wow really going great!@!!

Thanks

Pics of my happy fish and Junior. They like the extra space

Harry:


Sean & Sydney (still hosting the monti even after the move)


Goby:


Junior:

Some shots of my corals content with polyps extended in their new home...

Duncans:


Light Blue Zoas:


Zoas from Eric:


Superman Zoas:


Frogspawn and Hammer cluster:

Some more pics...


ORA Hawkins:


Armor of God Paly:


Rainbow Monti (coming back from the dead! :SMILEY:)


Montipora Lantana:


Green Toadstool:

Some more happy corals...

ORA Tri-Color Valida:


Season’s Greeting:


Teal Hammer:


Setosa:


Neon Green Monti:


Pink Turbinaria:


ORA Tri-Color Valida:


ORA Borealis (look at the polyp extension! ):


Cotton Candy Chalice (making a recovery! ):



All of the corals seem much happier in the new aquarium. I think it was just too overcrowded in the 50 gallon which contributed to huge alkalinity and calcium swings. Now with more water volume, things are stable and everything seems to be doing better. Corals are finally coloring up. It seems like every week they look a little bit better. Even a few of the remaining chalices are starting to come back.