DaveS

I think this would be great! Obviously different parts of the process entail different amounts of work/costs but I think this idea could really work if executed properly.

For my previous in wall, it was acrylic and horrible once I started getting into SPS. Cleaning was very difficult, tiresome and destructive to the corals. It was so bad that I was faced with a choice- quit the hobby or redo everything. Guess which one I chose... It is still in progress but you can check out my build thread. All glass, rebuilt wall and room. I left the front wall intact but I built it in such a way that if it's still annoying, I can cut an access panel in the front and install some fancy trim work.

Great thread Almon! Hopefully it will grow into some of the stuff we talked about in the other thread.

I like where this thread is headed. My previous post wasn't really about trying to find a way for hobbyist to make a living breeding clowns. It was more about changing the market dynamics some so that the fish we breed would have place to go (for money would be nice) and that the bigger breeders would start moving on to other, more difficult species. Drawing from my freshwater days of eons ago, I remember that the big breeders were focusing on fish like Discus instead of swordtails and mollies because they knew that tons of ppl were breeding the latter but there was still "big money" in the former. It seems like a similar thing has happened with corals- I don't see that many farmers pushing their captive grown Xenia... I was just trying to think of how we could apply a similar dynamic to the marine fish. Again, I think this is a little bigger of an endeavor than any one person could/should handle but maybe as a group, we at WAMAS could form such a coop and make something happen. Any ideas on how to formalize this more than just this thread? A new thread? New forum? Weekly happy hours?

I think Almon is really on to something here. For WAMAS, conservation is one of our founding principles and promoting captive bred fish vs. wild caught is one aspect of this. We clearly promote this philsophy but maybe an effort to ENABLE this too would be worthwhile for WAMAS to undertake. I understand there may be some industry based resistance to this. ORA and others make lots of money breeding clowns and a few other species. But nonetheless, the economic ramifications of having alternate (possibly local) sources of captive bred specimens could be interesting. Not only with the "easy to breed" clowns become cheaper due to competition among breeders but that may encourage ORA to move on to other, more difficult to breed species which would in turn reduce the demand on wild caught versions of them. Calfo mentioned last year that now days 90% of fresh water fish in the hobby are captive bred. It didn't used to be that way. For salt, only a small percentage are captive bred. It doesn't need to stay that way. Competition among the breeders is probably the best way to get them to start focusing on the other species in the hobby.

2x

I have but not with a result you'd want . I'm sure there are others here who could help out for that.

Yes the volume is determined by the overflow box. More specifically the teeth to the box. I'm sure there is a technical term that escapes me now but with higher flow, I've noticed that the level of water in the tank gets higher. The teeth create a little bit of restriction which is compensated by the higher level. Hopefully this makes, I'm in work mode right now so can't research the proper term/description. When the water goes out, that higher level equates to more back siphon. Unfortunately I'm not sure about the pump specs so I can't predict if the 9.5 will do. My suggestion is to use that instead of the 12 and then if it turns out not to be enough, add a power head.

This is just my gut feel so please take it with a grain of salt. It is however why I generally add a power head in my frag tank and/or other support tanks that need more flow. The main concern I would have with relying on the return flow for a frag tank with SPS is that by jacking up the flow, you create other potential problems. I don't know what the rest of your system is like by if you have a UV or chiller, their effectiveness could be reduced by the increased flow rate. Also, with the increased flow rate, you have a higher head in your tank which means more water in the sump during a power outage- possibly causing an overflow. Other things to be cautious of include restrictions in the drains (algae growth/snail) and more things that you can probably identify once you get into it. Again, just my thoughts. I'm open to hearing counter arguments.

Flow is more important that turnover (through the sump). While I would suggest having a drain bulkhead that is bigger than the feed bulkhead, I'm not sure you need to push that kind of volume from the sump. Doing so could be difficult and require an upgrade to the main pump. What I've done in the past is just had a power head in the frag tank to create the flow.

I've used like 6000 grit sandpaper to get rid of coralline from acrylic. It works...for a while.

Wow, I just learned something from this pic. It never occurred to me to rotate the volute on the pump so you can get the output facing another direction. Just one more 90 elbow I can eliminate from my system!

Looks great Justin! Man, when you said greenhouse, I wasn't thinking about the HOUSE part of things. It's freaking huge!!

Coral Hind is right- siliconing another piece of glass and having a laminate will be fine for this. The complicating factor is that the crack is in the middle hole and the other holes are pretty close. You said the overflow is about 20" long so get a piece of 1/8"-1/4" glass from the glass shop or HD/Lowes that's just under 20" long and maybe 4" tall. You want it to fit INSIDE the overflow. Drill 3 holes that line up perfectly with the current 3. Then get a bunch of silicone and glue the 20x4 piece to the inside of the tank, lining up the holes. You can even install/tighten the 3 bulkheads while the silicone is wet and use them as "clamps" to help squeeze the new piece of glass to the tank. Once it dries, that part of the tank will be stronger than anywhere else. BTW, you may want to consider getting a larger piece, drilling the 3 holes and then cutting the glass afterwards. Otherwise you may end up breaking the new piece since you still have the same problem of drilling too close to an edge.

Sorry it's been so long since the last update. Work has gotten pretty busy lately and with other demands on my time, I decided to take a break from the tank build for a little bit. As much as I'd love to have everything finished right now, I also realized that pushing myself to finish took some of the fun away from things. The last couple of weeks I have been able to sneak in some progress. Here are some shots. Started drilling the holes for the closed loop. PVC bottom is nice but also very thick. Definitely a job for a corded drill! Wood, foam and PVC can make a big mess of things. Bulkheads in place. Leak test! One more use for RO waste water. BTW, it turns out I can completely fill the 210 using the waste water from the 30 gallons of RO/DI I make for a water change... One weekend's worth of plumbing supplies (3 trips between two different Lowes). This was just the initial stuff, I got a bunch more big stuff afterwards. So far I think I'm up to about $400 in PVC fittings. Some of the drain plumbing getting test fitted I also got my sump, water mixing tanks and a frag tank. I'll get some pictures of that and do another update soon.

Honolulu sounds like the Oahu to me. Somethings to hit from my memory- there's the north shore- big surfing there. A really nice beach is Waimea Bay- even has a litttle cliff you can jump off of. The snorkeling there is tame yet rewarding. Also along the way you can get to the shrimp truck- ~$12 for a huge platter of tasty garlic shrimp and rice. Very well known, also often imitated so ask around and you should be able to find the original one. They also used it in Lost as the truck where Sawyer found the man who conned his mom (shot on the big island). Other food includes Malasadas (http://www.leonardshawaii.com/ is the best)- basically take a jelly filled doughnut but instead of jelly put in creme, chocolate or other bad stuff and then deep fry it once more for some extra bad-tastyness. Shaved ice is really good too. There's some really well known place you can get it in a non-descript neighborhood grocery store (http://www.matsumotoshaveice.com). Be adventurous and get things like the red bean and other non-standard stuff. Of course visiting Pearl and the Arizona are must-dos. The Dole plantation is kind of fun if you have kids. Hope this helps!

One argument I've heard against this is that coraline consumes a significant amount of Ca from a system... Any one have thoughts on that?

heh, I saw it somewhere else but I haven't put my version together yet. I'm pretty sure that a 4" pvc cap will work and that you don't need to do anything fancy for supporting the pipe. You can even construct a stand from PVC pipes, just make sure you drill a bunch of holes to substitute for an open bottom. Also, keep in mind that depending on the size of the float switch and check valves, it doesn't need to be 4" PVC but could be a smaller pipe.

An alternative to the solenoid is a configuration like this: No electricity, fancy wiring or need for an AC3. When the water level reaches the bottom of the 4" pvc pipe, the water inside the pipe spills out tripping float valve.

United Rental has them- about $10 each daily Theros Equipment also has them- about $20/pair daily (nice guys) Since the tank is pretty heavy, make sure they are rated properly. I rented 2 pairs for my tank move but they were underrated for the tank. They had the flip thing to engage the suction. That wasn't strong enough and the tank slid on the cups. The handles where however useful in helping to properly position the tank on the stand and in the wall so it wasn't a total loss. Hope this helps.

I agree with many of the comments that the foot print you are currently planning could/should be larger. Whether it's ATO, bags of media, fuge, extra live rock, there's always something else you can/want to put in the sump. I'd also say that at 25" it's a pretty tall sump. Not sure how high your stand is but will you be able to get your skimmer out of the sump when it's under the tank? A larger foot print would allow you to retain the same amount of overflow volume but with a shorter tank.

Credit card or another piece of acrylic with a nice square cut are other options. The best one is probably to go glass....

Yup, happy snail!

Ask the pharmacist for the plastic syringe (not needle) that they use to feed medicine to toddlers. You know, same category of medicinal gear like grape flavoring and stuff needed to help coax kids to actually take their meds. You can get 1-2 for free than they're reusable. Needles don't work as well because they are too small and the kalk gets clogged.