Tank Build! 100 gallon Fiji Cube rimless

Here's an update for anyone who was interested in how it went going with a bare bottom tank that uses a ton of Marine Pure instead of rock.

Summary: Marine Pure is way too unstable and not a good replacement for old-fashioned sand and liverock. Low-lead glass is easier to clean but I miss the brighter colors of the acrylic. Rimless tank has a lot of fish suicides, maybe in part due to the lack of rock in aquascaping.

VERY unstable system. I thought if I could make it for one more year it would level out and be rockin' awesome. Nope. It was unstable the whole time and never got any better. A ton of Marine Pure is NOT a good substitute for sand and rock.

I bought a 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank and set it up in the basement and drilled some holes in the floor and hooked it up. My little Vortech pump is probably underpowered for pushing water up from the basement, but it seems to be working OK. I rinsed off my marine pure blocks and dumped them in the new sump. The overflow runs through a sock, and then into a 3' tall x 12" diameter tower of crushed coral (100 pounds) for the water to drip through before it enters the sump. The crushed coral tower is pretty much just to add more bio filtration since my system has been so unstable relying on the Marine Pure.

Since adding the new sump and 100 pounds of crushed coral ("crushed oyster shells" from Bomgaars, used to feed chickens for calcium, but you can see its mostly crushed coral) my SPS and LPS instantly is looking happier and after just 3 weeks I can see new growth.

So far as making the switch from a big acrylic tank with lids over to a much smaller 99 gallon rimless low-lead glass tank... I do miss the bright colors of the acrylic, especially blue. Also, with my rimless tank I have a lot of fish that commit suicide by jumping out of the tank. I also think that part of the reason I've lost so many fish due to jumping is due to the lack of good old fashioned live rock in my looked-like-a-cool-idea-at-the-time aquascaping. So, now I am starting to add more live rock back into my system too, and trying to build more hiding places for my fish.

Overall, the instability of the system has really burned me out. So now I am trying to go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and am slowly thinning out my SPS and LPS as I switch gradually over to an all softy tank. This week I just bought some yellow-tip stereonepthea, a hot pink aussie stereonepthea, and a purple one with yellow polyps. I guess leathers are not very exciting to a lot of people, but I enjoy them the most. Oddly, I think they are my favorites. I found a guy with a photosynthetic super-orange stereo with pink polyps. Can't wait to get me a frag of that when its ready!

At any rate I hope my mistakes were an educational benefit to someone.

 

Well as of today... I officially sold off and gave away the last of my stony colonies.

It was tough!!! I've had some of those for almost 4 years now and some were up to 8" across. Its funny how corals don't bark or beg for food but you still miss them after caring for them and seeing them grow.

At any rate, hopefully next year I will have a lot of new stuff growing out really well-- some of these more colorful softies are tough to find! I have attached a few images below of my wish list, for your viewing enjoyment.

I guess now at least I know my limits, and won't have to feel sick if I have to miss a water change due to work/travel.