57 Zeroedge

[andylee]

Well, I finally have things pretty much set up here. The only planned upgrade is to switch the halide/t5 for an LED setup.

I'd been out of the hobby since 2007 or so, when a bad flood got me banned for life by my wife. I can't blame her. This is what our basement looked like after all the walls and ceilings had to be taken down and and redone!

Fast forward four years. My buddy asked me to help pick up a tank for him. I got re-addicted right away. A few months later, I picked up this system from Craigslist. 30+ gallons, LED light, sump, etc. The footprint was perfect to take the place of a cabinet that had to be moved.

Of course, I ran out of room very quickly. When I went to Ocean Gallery with my friend to pick up his tank, we saw a Zeroedge tank. Cool, but too expensive; plus, I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing anymore. Anyway, now that I was out of room, it was time to upgrade. I had been showing my wife pictures of the Zeroedge and she finally agreed! This turned up on this site and I went for it. Had to hire a truck and mover to get it from the city.

Will post upgrade process another day and futher updates later.

Here is a video of the tank now:

http://youtu.be/F2FxdjQfpME?hd=1

Sorry about the music. There was a lot of chatter on the original video, so I just picked some random song from Youtube to put over it.

I welcome any suggestions.

 

[skene]

wow... WTG! That tank is amazing GL!

 

[Og Drogon]

That is a nice tank, I've never seen one of those set up.
Will be following this setup.


I'm Nemo's mother.

 

[JeremyXXX]

wow! I love this tank design! more pictures/info please!

 

[fishman1069]

I always loved those tanks but never had the chance to own one. Great job!

 

[STHILL]

I love these tanks

 

[stooops718]

That tank is awesome. Where did you get it from? Can't wait to see more pics. None of your fish tried carpet surfing yet?

 

[jr973]

Nice lookin tank I see this style tank everytime I head over to ocean gallery. Heck I almost bought one f/s here awhile back. Lookin forward to following this thread

 

[irvp13]

nice tank man!! Keep posting with the updates

 

[ReefWerks]

LOVE that tank....

 

[Zuska]

Great LPS tank to have!

 

[andylee]

So I did have one fish jump out. Somehow, he wound up in a bucket I had next to the tank. The tank is very shallow, so I am careful to keep smaller fish only. So far just the ocellaris pair from the old tank and a school of green chromis.

 

[jetthril]

awesome looking tank...I thought about getting one a few years back, but heard the evaporation rate on this tank is a lot. How much top off water do you use on a daily basis?

 

[andylee]

Total tank volume is 75 gallons or so. I add 3 or 4 gallons of water a day. That doesn't sound like too much, does it? I'm not sure why evaporation should be high, other than a relatively large surface area.

 

[jetthril]

3-4 gallons of top off is not much as long as you don't mind it. I think you hit the nail on the head here with the surface area. The zero edge design introduced 5 surfaces (top and all the sides) water could evaporate, compared to the single surface of a traditional tank. But this tank is a beauty for sure! I thought about getting one, but the topping off would be an issue if I leave for vacation.
Can't wait to see when you put more corals in that tank! Looking really great!

 

[andylee]

Vacation? Gulp! Vacation is what resulted in that first picture.

My reservoir only holds about 2 days worth of water. I worry about a stuck float switch and a large reservoir causing an overflow. Come vacation, I will either need a friend to come over every other day or risk a larger topography reservoir.

 

[andylee]

Before the upgrade (this is the boring part)

My transfer from the smaller tank to the Zeroedge was complicated by the fact that the new tank had to go in the same spot as the old one. That meant that I could not cycle the Zeroedge.

Instead, I would have to empty the old tank, position the new tank, level it, and then fill it with sand and rock from the original tank quickly so that I did not start a cycle.

First, I filled the new tank with plain water (actually waste water from RO/DI) to make sure there were no leaks and ran the pump and sump for a day to make sure the plumbing was sound.

Then I dug out an old 55 gallon tank from the garage, leak-tested it, and started making salt water. In addition, I filled a bunch of buckets with saltwater.

 

[andylee]

Finally, a weekend off! Everything was arranged. Someone coming in the morning to pick up the old tank. After confirming that he was on the way, I started draining water from the old tank into the 55 gallon. Once I reached coral and rock level, the corals and live rock were moved to the 55 gallon as well.

I deciced to use the sand from the old tank (a little chancy, I know, but I did not want to worry about a cycle starting). So, I just dumped the old sand into the new tank and added several bags of fine white sand (including one of the bagged live sand, just in case).

Once the old tank was taken away, the new tank was moved to the proper spot on a heavy duty rubber-backed carpet and leveled with composite shims and a carpenter's level (I tried to use an app on my tablet, but it was too inaccurate).

The tank was then filled from the 55 gallon.

I put that bag there to try to minimize cloudiness, but it didn't seem to be too useful.

It was probably all done in about 4 hours. Water was very cloudy. The only casualty was a monti plate frag that got half buried under sand and that part got bleached. I broke it off and we'll see.

 

[James404]

Very nice setup, I always have admired the zero edge tanks.

 

[andylee]

This is how things looked after livestock transferred and the dust had settled. I was planning to use LEDs, but they were taking longer than I expected and I decided to go ahead with the t5/MH setup. I only ran the halides for 2 hours a day to keep the corals happy, because I did not want to acclimate them and then have to acclimate them again when the LEDs were ready.

Need better rockscaping. Suggestions welcome.