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46 Gallon Bowfront

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eric65

Hi, besides the 7 gallon mini bow we also have our main tank- a 46 gallon bowfront. I'll go more into detail about how I got back into this hobby in the general discussion forum. Teaser: it involved many trips to a physical therapists office for back pain.

Back to the tank. It is a 46 gallon bowfront that we set up late May. It has a Lifereef overflow. One day I'll wise up and get a reefready tank. It is lit with a 36" dual 150w 14k Sunpod. For circulation there is a 1/2" Seaswirl fed by a mag 5, 2 Koralia 1's located in both back corners and a Maxijet 900 with a Hydor flo attachment for additional water movement.

The sump is a 20 gallon long (talk about tight squeeze) which houses the Euroreef CS6-2(?) with Sedra 5000 pump. I can never remember which Euroreef I have.


The inhabitants in order that they were added:

2 False Perculas- with a 4 year old running around it's kinda mandatory
1 Six Line Wrasse- for pest control
1 Purple firefish- Used to be 2, but one is MIA
1 Royal Gramma- inherited from a tank we bought
1 Sandsifting Goby
2 Bartlett's Anthias- because they are "pretty". The word pretty gets used around my house a lot to justify purchases.

Yeah, it's a bit of a bioload but I'm not home enough to prevent the girlfriend from fish shopping ;D I wasn't crazy about the anthias being added but since she was the one who convinced me to buy a larger tank (I initially only wanted the minibow) I gave in. I just told her to do her homework for a pair of anthias that would be acceptable for a tank our size AND she had to wait for a protein skimmer to be purchased. Water changes alone weren't going to be enough keep up with the waste produced with this crew.

I do a weekly 5 gallon water change and dose B-ionic for now. The purple coralline is FINALLY making a comeback. This tank has definitely been a challenge. Last time around I had none of the common problems most new tanks experience. My luck has run out I guess. Thus far I have battled hair algae/bryopsis, red flatworms and aiptasia. It wasn't as much fun this time starting a tank and at times I was second guessing my decision to do so. But now that most of my problems are behind me I'm glad that I did.

Here's what it looked like sometime early June:

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and this month:

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B

Brian

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Nice looking tank Eric, I think we all have gone through those sorts of problems at startup...It's what makes the payoff that much sweeter! :)
 
E

eric65

Sigh, not soon enough :'( Let me tell everyone here, I was happy with the status of my tank after battling everything the reef gods could throw at me, then I stopped at Mott768's house to buy a frag. After seeing his 120 I went home and looked at my tank and just stared thinking "Why can't you look like Tom's!!!"" ;D Then I took a deep breath and saw his thread and realised it didn't get that way overnight.
I definitely think you are right with you logic when deciding what size tank one should buy. Take the size tank you want then buy the one 2 sizes larger 'cuz you will be there one day anyway.
 
M

mott768

Thanks Eric :) believe me I have had my share of ups and downs, I was at a point of almost throwing in the towel (a couple of times) but luckily a couple of members of NJRC talked me out of it :) (which I'm glad now they did) Patience is definitely the key which I don't have but learned to be. All good things come in time ;D my tanks aren't yet where I want them to be but I'm slowly working towards it. Now I want bigger...lol it never ends I should have gone with a 180 when I upgraded ::)
 
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eric65

I don't want the 46 to feel neglected so here's an update of some shots I took this weekend. Great, now the 16 gallon is tugging on my pant leg for attention :p

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E

eric65

Thanks- see how fast your frogspawn frag grew ;D That actually came from the 15 gallon set up that I bought last month. It's hard to believe it was in a tank that size. I think having more flow on it has really allowed it to expand. I wish I had my camera when I was loking at the tank and the 6-line swam under it's canopy. He looked like a surfer inside the tube of a wave.
 
N

needreefunds

Very nice Eric!
I have a 46 also and I'm planning adding a sump. Do you have any shots of your sump setup?
You were able to squeeze a 20L in the stand?? :eek:

Best of luck with your tank.


Richie
 
E

eric65

Richie, I'll post pics of my sump tomorrow. I have yet to take a picture of it. The key to getting it to fit is to put it in through the top before you place the tank in its final resting place. Luckily my girlfriend had the foresight to think this through otherwise if we did it my way I'd probably have a 10 in its place.

Eric
 
E

eric65

Boy is my face red :p She just read my response and she said that's how we got the sump to fit in the stand under the 16 gallon bow. Yes we are a bowfront household ;D We just slid the tank in through the back and put down 2x4's with styrofoam to give it a level base to sit on. It's not a perfect fit but it works.

You know you have a problem when you can't remember how you set one tank up from another :)
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
Eric,

your setup are nice, good pictures, corals color is excellent...
oh, sexy fish too...
;D
 
N

needreefunds

eric65 said:
Boy is my face red :p She just read my response and she said that's how we got the sump to fit in the stand under the 16 gallon bow. Yes we are a bowfront household ;D We just slid the tank in through the back and put down 2x4's with styrofoam to give it a level base to sit on. It's not a perfect fit but it works.

You know you have a problem when you can't remember how you set one tank up from another :)
Click to expand...
LOL! Its OK, I suffer from the same problem!

Well, I guess I'm out of luck either way. My tank is established and Too dang close to the wall to sneak in the back door. Thanks for the info Eric!

Perhaps I'll start a tank thread of my own for folks to see and get more feedback.

(I'd still like to see some pics though. ;D) When you have time that is. ;)
 
E

eric65

Whoo Hoo!! I have sexy fish :D I'll take some pictures Saturday-I promise. Maybe the fish will even vogue for me. Got called into work early and that kinda messed up my plans.

Needreefunds: I saw a thread on Reefcentral where someone placed a sump under their established tank by sawing out the side panel. I think Melev was involved with the project. There are step by step photos to follow along if you are up to the challenge.

First time around on my 72 bow (just can't keep my hands off of bows) I sawed the vertical brace :-X in the stand that was preventing me from putting a sump in as you opened the door. Hopefully you know what I mean. I was determined- smart no- determined yes to fit a sump under my tank. What initially did not look like a weight bearing support suddenly became quite vital in keeping the tank level. :eek:

In the end I was able to put a brace back, in record time, and all was well. It looked like crap but I do have this story to tell ;D
 
E

eric65

As promised here are some photos of my sump. What I did right this time from my previous tank (besides not cutting any support beams) was to have the water from the display drain into the compartment where the protein skimmer is located.

As is always the case, things didn't go entirely as planned. I had to figure out a way to get the water from the middle compartment to the last compartment. The water was originally planned to drain into that compartment but I had to turn the sump around which meant the water now had to flow "uphill". Everyone confused ?? :p

Alrighty, hopefully this part makes more sense. I was trying to decide what to do when my girlfriend said she had an idea. She suggested putting a powerhead in the middle compartment to pump the water into the last compartment. I thought about it and had to admit she had solved the problem. This allowed me to control the amount of flow going into the refugium. Luckily she didn't gloat for too long.

Luckily pictures are worth a thousand words so I'm gonna stop typing for now.

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