pat8you

The top off has already failed. The toilet float valve would not work from just the gravity feed pressure. It was a bit of a gamble but i wanted to try it out. I am putting that on the back burner until i get the rest of the tank set up and i will start looking for an alternative solution.

They worked great. The pump is running and i don't hear a thing from it.

Ok well the tank is up and running. No leaks in the plumbing and after some minor adjustments is pretty quiet. I think i am going to get a piece of fabric to put across the back of the stand which is left open right now. I think this will still allow for air movement in the stand while cutting down on the running water sound through the plumbing a bit. It isn't bad but if I am watching a movie i can hear it and that drives me bonkers. (if you are a person who talks during a movie i hope you get run over by a truck) I was worried before about the auto top off tank leaking and it doesn't appear to have any problems so far. Unfortunately, the float valve did not work. I guess those valves need more pressure then just the gravity feed in order to work. I have removed it for now and i will have to head to the plumbing store some time to find an alternative way of handling the float valve/auto top off. I placed and order with marco rocks for some more base rock and got the shipping notification today. I am going on a vacation starting this weekend and won't be back for about 10 days so i think the aquascape is going to have to wait until after i get back. I found somewhere to buy the rest of my sand. I now have about 7 -8 inches of sand in the 18"x18" remote DSB in the sump. I have about another 110lbs to put in the main display which will give me about 2-3 inches. I also got the small bio-wheel hang on back filter running in the sump to get the biological filtration primed for when i need to set up my QT tank.

Well that is the biggest flaw in my plans so far. I decided to build in to ato tank into the stand half way through construction. So right now i would not be able to get to it. If i have problems with it i will have to get a decent sized hole saw so i can put an access hole and a way to seal it off. Going to cross that bridge when i come to it. Worst comes to worse i stop using the ato and do my top offs manually. The one set of baffles i have in there are to act as a bubble trap since that will be the chamber for the skimmer and i need a way to separate out all the micro bubbles those things put out. The ato valve (aka toilet valve haha) has an adjustment on it for you to change where the float is in order to change the water level. I am hoping to use this to raise the level of the water to around where the high of the last baffle is so that there isn't much of a waterfall effect. Ahhh ok thanks. I've heard of the mesh mods before. Never tried one myself but i have seen a few threads. Did you see a noticeable difference in the amount of skimmate it produces?

I have not filled the last secotions of the sump for that reason yet actually. After work today i will fill the sump with power off and then power up. I then make a sharpie line on the sump where ever the water is and i know that is my max water line. This helps me make sure i always have enough room if i lose power. That's a good idea. I've never had a kalk reactor before. It will probably be a while before i have enough SPS in this tank to need one but when i do i will keep this in mind. There is already a durso standpipe in the overflow. It is just not shown in any of the pictures. They are great. So much quieter. What is an enkamat? Skimmer mod of some kind?

Yeah i was a little concerned about the baffles especially since they aren't all that thick. I'm working on filling the tank as we speak. Hopefully if my RO/DI unit cooperates i will be finished filling by tonight.

First picture is the plumbing. Pretty simple for the most part. No bells and whistles here. I did put a ball valve on the pressure line so that if my overflow cannot keep up with the mag 9.5 i have in the sump i can reduce the flow. I also transferred the rock that i have had curing to the sump for right now until i can get around to moving it up in the display and aquascaping it. Will have to add more base rock to that since i was originally planning on only needing rock for a 33 gal but it has been curing for several months and will provide enough bacteria to keep up with a fish or two until the rest of the rock is cured. I am using a new 55 gallon trash can and the wheel/dolly you can pick up at a hardware store for my salt mixing container. Makes it easy to mix large batches of salt and then just roll it over to the tank. I have a small pump that serves two purposes. First, i leave it in the trash can and it does all the mixing for me when i add salt. Second, i put a little flexible hose on there and it keeps me from having to haul and lift 5 gallon buckets of water when i am doing my PWCs. Again pretty standard stuff here. This is how i am working the auto top off system. The tank is built into the sand and then i just used some PVC and the float valve from a toilet that will control my water level. Water will just gravity feed the system. Kind of a difficult picture but this is looking around the back right corner of the tank up against the wall. This line runs into the back wall of the auto top off tank and then i just put a flexible hose nipple on the end of the PVC. I can then hook the same pump i was using before up to this in order to fill the auto top off tank. Because the pump vibrates a decent amount and it is sitting right on the bottom glass of the sump i wanted a way to make sure it didn't make noise. I used some left over silicone to make little swirls on some wax paper. They are hollow on the inside and should work nicely for putting under the pump to isolate the vibration. Last but not least a couple of other things i picked up over the weekend that i will need. Some GAC which i will be running for a couple days before i put anything in the tank to make sure any chemicals or pollutants that may have got into the water from setting up the tank are out. A mag float for cleaning the glass. Some of the sand i will be using for my DSB (which will go where the live rock is right now). A 10gallon tank and small hang on back filter which will be my QT tank. I am just going to leave the HOB in my sump so it is ready for when ever i want to add new fish. That's as far as i have gotten for now. Might be a little busy over the next few days but when i get more done i will post it all up.

Ok i built this stand myself because i wanted a stand that was wide enough to be able to fit a 48" tank underneath for the sump. I also wanted to be able to build in an auto top off tank. I built a small tank into the stand using acrylic that will be part of my auto top of system. If i remember right from when i calculated it the volume is in the ball park of 12 gallons. It is a little difficult to really see since it is recessed in the stand and there is a 2x4 frame around it. I made my own sump as well using a 65 gallon tank and pieces of cut glass from lowes. Caulked them in place and i have my self a sump. Not pretty but functional. Flow from left to right. The sections are set up to be: tank water input -> remote deep sand bed/ fuge -> skimmer and equipment section -> two dividers for a bubble trap -> return pump section and auto top off Skimmer is from my brothers old tank. He was down sizing and i was upgrading so we traded skimmers. Needs a good cleaning but it will do the job. ASM G3 if i remember right.

Ok so i am setting up a 90 gallon full reef. Hope to keep mostly SPS but i do like zoas, acans, and challice corals as well. I was originally going to put a 33 long in with the rest of this set up and eventually upgrade. The 33 was not drilled and i was not able to find the hole saw bits i needed to do the job. I was also a little worried about drilling it because the glass is still not all that thick on the 33. So long story short i found a 90 gallon on craigslist for 150$ and couldn't hold back the urge to have a bigger tank. (Shameless sale pitch insert) If anyone wants the 33 gallon let me know. I don't want to store it. 48x12x12 i think or at least real close to that. Long and shallow if anyone needs a frag tank Ok back to the thread at hand. First on the list of things to do was reseal the seams on the tank. The previous owners were not careful when scraping the glass and tore up the silicone pretty bad. They said it still held water and i believed it would have but i will sleep better at night knowing there was fresh nice looking silicone in the tank. It was actually easier then i thought it would be. A couple new razor blades, a tool to make the seams look nice, and a caulk gun from the hardware store and i was on my way. I used GE silicone 1 to do the resealing. I'm going to break this up into a couple of post because i don't know if there is a picture limit in each post or anything.

Particularly if you are going to frag any palys or zoas. palytoxins are nothing to mess around with. I know a guy who had a metal taste in his mouth for like a month when he accidentally touched his tongue after handling zoas. I was planning on joining wamas but had just not gotten to it yet. Will do that for sure though.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone. Updated my location as well. I am going to be starting a thread for my 90 gallon as i get things set up. I would rather just do one thread and i am pretty active on the forum aquariumadvice so i will probably post it there. I have not been around here to figure out this forums edict. Is it bad form if i just post a link to my other thread here? I know some forums are a bit more touchy then others about this. It will just be easier to keep one thread updated and then i will respond to any discussion here. Let me know.

Hello everyone. Been out in the DC area for just over a year now and I am finally able to set up a new tank so i figured it was time to join. I had a 12 gallon nano cube in the past while i was in college and am currently setting up a 90. I've been in the hobby a couple years now but have not had a tank up in a while since i graduated college and moved out here for a new job. I'm also on aquariumadvice.com quite a bit so i'm no rookie to forums either. For my new tank I think it is going to be a mostly SPS dominated tank but i'm a real fan of zoas as well. Fish stocking list is still up in the air right now but i would really like to try barnacle blennys. If anyone has any experience with them let me know. I'm looking forward to start touring all the local fish stores in the area and hopefully getting to a couple frag swaps. If anyone is interested here is a link to my old thread on my 12 gallon. My link Just thought i would put out a short introduction and say hello!