Tank Journal Archive

[Synodontis]

Morning all,

This was the first tank we set up. Like this place so much we have decided to move all our TJ's into one spot. As usual with my camera operating skills I have buggered up the dates on some pics lol. Man's gotta have goal's in life, one of mine is to learn how to set the proper date and time on the camera!

This was first posted -
17/05/2011 9:56 PM

Morning all,

No big blurb this time, just a few notes of interest here and there. Another diary of sorts for us to look back on and others who are interested. Some dates on some pics are wrong, setup was done in the 3rd month. I think from buying the tank to how it sits tonight took us 2 months, a few dollars, alot of luck, alot of kilometers and alot of phone calls. Alot of the photos where taken with my mobile so forgive the quality of some pics lol.

The 3 pics above are from Ebay of the tank as we picked it up.

Egg crate fills the bottom, skimmer setup as we got them, had to replace one return pump.

The ever trusty Beaurepaires ute!, can carry anything, at the moment it has 520Ltr's of salt water on its back. It knew it was there belive me, lowered and put that on, lol!

75Kg of marble chips, size= 00, filling the tank. (No need to tell the story about what happened while filling MickeyG!) :)

Live rock added the same night.

Live rock the next night after everything had settled.

cont....

 

[Synodontis]

...............

If you have any questions, just ask away, comments welcome also, even the bad ones saying we did it to quick, should take months and months to setup.
There is 120Kg of live rock in the tank. Thanks to 5 people closing down their tanks and two retail purchases of about 30Kg. Skimmers have been updated to a reef octopus HOB and a Dymax HOB. Had to use HOB's as not enough room to put anything into the built in "Coburg" rear of tank setup.

The last 5 pics where taken about a hour ago. So that's the end of this tank. BUT WAIT! there's more, we bought another tank last weekend. Defiantly need hands to pick this one up! (was that you volunteering MickeyG?)

Thanks for looking.
Ken & Jen

 

[Synodontis]

First posted -
23/05/2011 9:52 PM

Jen and myself are getting alot of enjoyment from watching the tank develop and grow everyday.

Robert- Not being a smart ass, lol, but we where so lucky with this. Haven't really added it up and it could get scary, so lets give it a go huh.

$600 - 6'6" Jebo tank, cabinet, 6ft UFO light, calcium reactor, CO2 regulator & bubble counter, 3x120Ltr drums, 4xreturn pumps, 2xprotien skimmers with pumps, auto top up with pump, 6xspare halogen bulbs, test kits, phosorb, purigen, filter mats, and other various chemicals. (Ebay) (Geelong)
$120 - 100Kg white marble chips. Only used 75Kg (retail in Williamstown)
$256 - 16Kg live rock (retail in Williamstown)
$208 - 13Kg live rock (retail in Williamstown - one piece had a bubble tip anemone on it!)
$80 - 32Kg live rock (online for sale forum)
$81.10 - 21Kg live rock, 5Kg dead coral, 18x12x12 tank (Ebay)
$50 - 15Kg live rock, 20Kg live sand, fake live rock (online for sale forum)
$120 - 2x 50L bins of Live rock and 1x 50L bin of dead live rock. (aznfish)
$80 - 20Kg live rock, 8" tall Leather coral, 2x Pajama Cardinals, 1x Chromis (online for sale forum)
$140 - 30Kg live rock, 11 soft corals, 14 purple morphs, 16 red morphs, 1X Sumatran clown (online for sale forum) BLOODY BARGAIN!!! Basically got his tank and sump contents!
$50 - Dymax HOB skimmer (online for sale forum)
$100 - Reef Octopus HOB skimmer (online for sale forum)
$360 - 12 various corals (retail from Deer park, Williamstown, Oakleigh, Mentone, Geelong)
$315 - 1 of each Coral beauty, Bi-color angel, Mandarin, Fairy wrasse,Coral banded shrimp, 2x Chromis, 2x Tomato Clowns (retail from Oakleigh, Deer Park, Williamstown, Coburg)

So that's about $2600 rounded. I don't think that's to bad. Expensive? yeah maybe, it is a few bucks, but much better then what you would pay if it was all retail. That i would hate to work out. It doesn't hurt to much when you buy bits here and there each week, very different if you had to fork that amount out in one hit. At least we have a shot at getting our money back if we ever had to sell. Remember, this is a 6ft tank, people have payed more for a 2ft cube tank and sump. Since this has been up and running, there are also feather dusters, zoo's and sponges coming up from the rock that we never knew were even there.
The main thing we learned from this? don't buy to much at retail price! only what you need in a hurry. We needed the first lot of live rock to start the cycle. The marble chips had to go in first tho. Other then that, we just searched online forums, auction sites and Facebook belive it or not.

Must also thank Rockerpeller! for putting us onto some of the live rock.

We are not sure yet, but this tank, cabinet, light original skimmers and pumps maybe up for sale in the near future. No contents tho. To many tanks with water changes and no time to play Xbox on the weekends! Might cut back to two or three.
Will leave you with a tease to what our next project is, a pic of half of myself and the two skimmers for the new project......

P.S- No! The black explorer socks are not for sale.
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17/09/11 -

This tank is no longer running, all the content's are now safe and sound in the 10ft.

But thanks for looking!!!!

Ken & Jen

 

[DavidS]

Nice work! Where did you get the blue water drums? I've been looking for food safe containers around town, and can't find anything bigger than 25l. I can find recycled containers for the garden, but I've heard some type of somethinghydroflurosomethingcarbons leech out of them, so I'm back to looking for food safe drums.

 

[MTG]

Looking good mate !!

 

[firebird]

Nice tank. Like the socks!:D