Jestersix

Tonggao's 120G tank

Dang Tong...your tank looks really sweet and clean, squeeky clean! How much time did you spent each day to keep it that good looking, man? Growth is unbelievable too.
 
Thanks Jimmy and Robert.

Jimmy, your new Elos setup is super sweet too. I recently bought a used 30"x30"x18" cube with a stand, and I have been thinking about what to do with the lighting. I am inspired by your tank thread, and I will build a lighting box with MH and T5 in it like yours. Any suggestion/tricks for me on it? How do you make it looks so professional and smooth, and how do you put different pieces together (glue/nail/somthing else)? I will paint the new cube setup black also to match the existing one, as I love the black since it contracts the coral colors well.

Robert, the trick is to clean the tank right before taking pictures :). I want to say it is the mighty magnet that I got from you, but so far I have a little difficulty using it since it is pretty thick, and my remaining SPS have grown quite a bit recently, and I do not have enough clearance between the SPS and glass. Oh well, I will save the Mighty Magnet for the cube setup. I do automatic water change and run a pretty good sized skimmer, so even with lazy me and 17 fish in the120G (and some fish like tangs and anthias are pigs), my tank keeps itself pretty clean :).
 
Tonggao....the canopy is pretty simple to build. I used wood glue and finishing nails to hold it together. Once the glue dries, the thing is rock solid. It's basically a simple box made of 3/4" plywood. I wrapped the entire canopy in oak veneer to make it completely seamless. That was a real pain in the a@$. I stained mine and used a spray on satin poly for the finish which came out very nice. If you decide to use the spray poly make sure you do multiple light coats. I think I applied 8 coats total.
 
Thanks a lot Jimmy for the info, I will be visiting Home Depot for the material during the long weekend.

Thanks Mark. The tank was setup about 2.5 years ago. One mistake I made to start with was I put in too many rocks/SPS at the beginning, and could not stop adding more along the way (talking about this addiction). As a result, I have to keep on pruning the SPS to keep them from touching/killing. I eventually get tired of doing it and stopped prunning, and many corals grow into each other with some small amount of dying off at the touch points. A little more than a year ago, many SPS grow to the water surface and filled the top portion of the tank. Due to the large quantity of SPS, my jetstream1 calcium reactor and PM kalk reactor could not keep up the calcium (calcium had been around 360 for more than half a year), this together with blocked lighting/flow due to SPS, bad reef crystal salt, and possibly stale topoff water, the SPS went on a long dying off period where I lost many of the large colonies (honestly, I am not sure the exact reasons). Earlier this year, I tore off most of remaining large colonies and started from small frags again (all corals in my tank started from 1" frag except the hammerhead), and it finally swing everything back to balance. But now my tank is overfilled with frags again. I do not want to replace the setup, but am worried that it might repeat what happened in the past. Recently, I bought a used cube setup, and I will set it up next to the current tank. This way, I can have both top down view on the cube and the side view on the current tank, and hopefully this will take care of my overcrowding problem, at least for a short while :).
 
You should try to get the wood from a lumber yard instead. The plywood at HD and Lowes is terrible. If you have no choice, make sure you pick a sheet that is straight and flat.
 
Tong, Southern Lumber on Alma is great. Mucchhh better than HD or Lowes. Just pay them to cut the pieces for you. They make pretty cut and cost very little.
 
Thanks Jimmy and Phong for the advice. I always think the plywood at HD is really bad quality, but never know lumber yards have better quality. Learning everyday, especially on this forum. Btw, what kind of wood glue would you guys suggest to make the lighting box, and what nails?
 
I used Titebond III wood glue and a small nail gun with finishing nails. Since the light hood will not bear a lot of weight the finishing nails will suffice.
 
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