My 90 Gallon Rebuild

Well my 72 Bow Front sprung a leak the other day, after having been rebuilt for only two months. I was frustrated and thought about downsizing... BUT, I had just purchased new lights, new skimmer, built a new sump, and a couple of fish. Not wanting to sell it all at a loss, I figured the next logical step was to upsize instead! :thumbup:

Got an Aqueon 90 with a MegaFlow. I'm currently still using the the 20 gallon sump from my 72, but plan on replacing it with something larger. After discovering the leak (only lost about 15 gallons) I quickly drained and transferred into some tubs, and all the livestock has been doing great. Sand was kept wet in a bucket, hoping for no/minimal die-off. The hardest part of the whole ordeal was catching my 3 Sexy Shrimp in the dark :freak: I wanted to minimize tub time, so I worked as fast as possible to get the sand and rock transferred, and re-use all of my water. A couple trips to get more water, and I was all set. Aquascaping has been a challenge to say the least. I was actually happy with my rockwork, and did my best to replicate it while managing to gain a few inches of extra height.

Tubs and new 90



Original 72 Gallon rockwork


New 90 Rockwork (so far). I have two Rock-Mags that I need to find a place for. I may stick the small one to the overflow box. Not sure about the bigger one.


So far everybody seems happy in their new home. Or maybe they're just happy that the water isn't slowly disappearing!:lol:
My concern now is figuring out how to place my powerheads. I had a 600 gph Koralia behind the rocks, and two 1050 Koralias for flow. But now the overflow is in the way, and I don't know how to get flow behind the rockwork. I'm not used to having an internal overflow, so I suppose I could use the added flow from the returns. But I'm not sure I want it too fast. Shouldn't I limit my flow through the sump so the skimmer can do a more efficient job? I have a Mag 7, which I had valved about 1/2 way in the 72, due to my noisy HOB overflow box. The new overflow will easily handle it now. Any advice on flow/powerhead placement would be greatly appreciated. I have two Koralia Evo 1050s, and a Koralia 2 600, plus the two Loc-Line return nozzles. This is a mixed reef with a little of everything, so I'm hoping to achieve some high flow, with some lower flow areas for the LPS and softies that need it.

Water Parameters:
Temp - 79-80
SG - 1.026
Calcium - 420-450
PH - 8.0-8.1
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - <5

Equipment:
Nova Extreme Pro 6x54W T5
Super Reef Octopus SRO-1000INT
2 x Koralia Evo 1050, 1 x Koralia 2 600
Aqueon Pro 250W Heater

Fish/Inverts:
2 False Percs
Randall's Goby
Tail Spot Blenny
Royal Gramma
Bartlett's Anthias
Carpenter's Wrasse
Kole Tang
Cleaner Shrimp
Peppermint Shrimp
3 Sexy Shrimp
Tuxedo Urchin
Large Brittle Star
Serpent Star
Small Fighting Conch
3 Scarlet Hermits
1 Halloween Hermit
1 Hawaiian Elegant (Electric Orange) Hermit
Maxima Clam
Deresa Clam
~15 assorted snails
~2-3 little hermits

Corals:
Orange Monti
Green w/Gr Polyp Monti
Purple Rimmed Monti
Purple Haze Monti
Sunset Monti
Blue Bottlebrush Acro
Purple Nana
Purple-Tipped Acro (Valida?)
Orange Digitata
Blue Ridge Coral
Orange Setosa
Yellow Turbinaria
Small Yellow Pocillapora
Small Yellow Birdsnest
Orange Ric
Closed Brain
Frogspawn
Small Green Sinularia
Buncha small Z&P colonies/Some single polyps
(Mostly small/med frags to see how well they grow)