Swimboy123

Piper27 getting in close and personal with my build

Drain piping is done, time for the return plumbing.

Drain piping done!

Drilling the new hole for the drain bulkhead

Pic of the lights and hood

Gotta give me at least more than three minutes. C'mon now

Pics of a longs days work with Piper27 to be up shortly

Just picked up a ton of plumbing from the store and will be working on getting the rest of the tank plumbed up. Piper27 will be onsite to help. Pics up tomorrow!

I would but I already have 200 lbs of CC. Sweet deal though from Petco. About $10 a bag (10 bags) and free shipping. 25% cost reduction from buying it in the store!

I figured that I would 2" of CC and then about an 1" of coarser sand on top for the gobies

I was figuring about two inches or so

I can understand the article but there a couple of things that I will do to help mitigate any possible problems. Every water change I plan on "cleaning the substrate with the little water suction cleaners which should get a good bit of the detritus out. I also will be incorporating a bio-denitrator to help keep down nitrates. The last thing is to keep a pretty aggressive refugium full of chaeto to help maintain the water quality. And if worse comes to worse, i'll take it out and put in sand.

I don't like having sand as it tends to blow around too much. I haven't heard anything negative about crushed coral so I figured that I would give it a shot. Anyone else have an opinion or history with crushed coral?

Just found out that I will be in town this weekend unexpectedly. Looking forward to working on the tank!

Loading up the tank with the crushed coral gravel I've chosen

Yay!

Just got a couple goodies in the mail. Will post pics shortly!

More plumbing to follow!

Found a bulkhead and will commence with the drilling later on this evening!

All the stores seem to be closed. Anyone have a two inch bulkhead lying around?

+1 vote for the Reefkeeper. It has an awesome online interface that makes tracking your system very easy.

I figured that if I was to use the dart, I would have 1.5" inch line running beneath the tank to a "T" section with reducer bushings to get it down to one inch. I've played with the ReefCentral head loss calculator but I'm still wary of back pressure on the pump itself. One of the major things that I have going for me is I already have the dart pump and wouldn't need to worry about getting a new one. I'll do some more investigations and see where it takes me. Thanks DaveS for your input!

Piper27 and I worked on the plumbing a bit this afternoon. Went through the drywall with the drain piping and now just need to pick up a 2" bulkhead to complete. As Piper27 and I were talking it came to light that the reeflo dart that I was planning to use might be a bit too much "oomph" for what the one inch returns with 3/4" loclines can handle. Any body have any thoughts about flow rates? In the meantime, enjoy some more pics...

That's where i touched the positive to the negative. Not a fun time... Just joking! I think it's spray paint or something.