AlanM

As we heard today from Dr Miller, one of the best ways to support the Living Coral Biobank run by the Great Barrier Reef Legacy organization is to adopt a coral frag. They keep a tremendous amount of data on their coral frags and say that they'll share that data with you for "your" coral frag. Reliable monthly automatic contributions is the bread and butter of funding any non-profit. It's even better than public funds which come and go with differing priorities of whoever is in charge. Monthly contributions let a non-profit make long term plans because they know they'll have money to carry them out. The frag adoption page is here: https://coralbiobank.org/adopt-a-coral if you're interested and able. They also have a page to register interest in hosting a coral frag in your home aquarium at some point in the future when they have scaled up to that point. To register interest go to https://coralbiobank.org/ and scroll all the way down to click on the "Register Your Interest" button.

Now live in Coral Magazine: https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2022/08/01/wamas-donates-20k-to-the-living-coral-biobank-project/

Rob! Nice to see you around, and nice to hear about Zack.

Nice. I keep kind of looking at the UNS tanks for a peninsula next to my desk. I'm an experienced tank driller at this point, but it will still be stressful. I don't think I have the patience for lily pipes, but yours look really great.

Did the CPVC pipe arrangement that gets included with the PAR meter these days work ok? It's my attempt to make it convenient for people to hold it steady where they need it.

Hah, actually it popped up on Zillow Gone Wild today, and it was so laser targeted at our kind of crazy that I felt like folks here would appreciate it. Is that a sand shark / ray touch tank in the basement or some kind of inside koi pond?

Anyone moving to Michigan in the near future? If you are, and you want a house full of huge and odd saltwater tanks this might be the house for you. The pics are pretty amazing. I'd like to meet the reefer that lived here. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11957-Canterbury-Dr-Sterling-Heights-MI-48312/83614660_zpid/ I can't even figure out some of these tanks. Could this really be a half-inside/half-outside cylinder tank? It must have cost a fortune. Amazing.

Facebook guy comes back to fix it. Job done!

I love that the line of 5 bulkheads next to the filter mat roller is not permanently attached. It's a great idea to keep things contained and clean while allowing for easy maintenance.

It's great that whatever was messing with the LPS is behind you. I'm also looking forward to more pics.

Those guys must find little chips everywhere when they go home.

Do you have the ability to measure the diameter of the power cords? If so, I can measure the channel in the larger size 80/20 we have at work to see if maybe the cord would fit. Then you could route them in the channel that wasn't being used for mounting and make a nice box of black anodized 80/20 that might fit it fine.

More likely that the BTA is hiding under a rock somewhere, I'd think. If you can look behind things maybe check that out? They can get surprisingly small when they're feeling stealthy.

Don't skimp on lighting in the fish room. Make it easy to see everything in there. Stuff on shelves, plumbing, all of the sump, all of the valves, drivers, controllers, wires, etc. Also, don't put things where you have to climb over other things to get to it if it breaks. It seems like a reasonable thing to hide all of the plumbing where you can't see it because you'll never need to touch it again, but I guarantee you'll regret it.

That will be awesome. The plastic ones are terrible. I think I still have nerve damage in my right thumb from trying to grab one hard enough to turn it, heh. I say pull the trigger on the sump. It looks awesome.

Ah is number 4 for structural rigidity? I just read Eric's post before mine. That makes sense that it isn't really a different chamber, just a way to support those 1.5" bulkheads and keep the whole thing from bowing out on the sides. Anyway, the point about adjustable number 5 still stands. It would only serve to adjust the water height in the center chamber a bit unless you're ok with the water height in the return section going way up as well if you increase it above 10.5 inches. I don't know if you need even need adjustable height for the center section given that your skimmer is external? It doesn't hurt anything, but you probably won't mess with it much if ever once set up. Those ABS screws in adjustable sump baffles seem to soak up water and are impossible to turn once installed anyway. It won't change the height in your return pump chamber either way since that's set by the total amount of water in the system and will be where your ATO sensor will go. It's nice to have a relatively small volume of water in the return pump section because it makes the ATO more sensitive.

Also, if number 5 is adjustable between 8 and 15 inches, then it's setting the water level in the rest of the sump once you exceed 10.5 inches. Number 3 is only doing anything if the height of number 5 is between 8 and 10.5 inches. The highest point before the return pump sets the water level.

The sump layout looks really well thought out. Panel number 6 seems redundant, but doesn't hurt anything and prevents food from the feeder from going back into the large chamber where you would put a fuge or reactors or whatever. What is the space between 3 and 4 doing and what is the purpose of number 4 since it's pretty wide open? Will you feed the external skimmer from a manifold coming off the return pump since you aren't drilling any holes in the sides? I assume that's the plan. Where will the return from the skimmer go? Into one of the 1.5" bulkheads or into the 9" space between 3 and 4? I like the bulkhead openings on the tops of the sump for the really clean install possibility, but I'd spend some time thinking about how you'd use them in practice. I assume they'll all be facing down so the "inner" surface of the bulkhead faces up. They don't need to be watertight connections since that top surface isn't holding water. They're really just install points for piping to go through. For the Abyzz return pumps, will the bulkhead be facing down so you'll glue PVC into the bottom of the bulkhead and then the rest of the return plumbing will insert into the bulkhead? I assume the Abyzz has a union on it's output? If it has a union that will work great. The plumbing lines will be nice and stable inside the sump because of the pipe coming down from the bulkhead and you'll swap it right out if you ever need to replace it. If you swap it for something else in the future you'll have to cut off the bulkhead after unscrewing it, but you'd do that without bulkheads anyway. So the bulkheads add a nice look and stability and also some extra rotational freedom when you're doing the install to get things lined up right. You can do all of the in-sump plumbing in the sump independent of the rest of the plumbing job and have it ready to go to insert lines into the inner parts of the bulkheads which is a big benefit. I talked myself into them I guess. 8)

This is so great that you're setting up a big one and not sparing any effort. I look forward to seeing it full of fish and corals! I like Ubiquiti stuff too, but I've never seen someone install their door hardware. It will be cool to see how it goes. I had no idea that the BRS gel or the instaset worked that well. It looks like a big improvement over mortar or epoxy. With the window in the fish room maybe you could put in a heat-exchange ventilator or something in place of the window to keep (some of) the heat in but bring in fresh air and exhaust humidity?

If you cut a hole in the floor for reef plumbing just make it the right size for an HVAC floor vent, then when you move you can put a vent register in there and it will look fine. They'll just eventually discover that nothing comes out of the mystery vent in that room.

You'll need to find a new spot for the LED toolbox if you do it that way, lol.

Oh, and don't put it in the basement. Please put it where you'll see it all the time. You already know it's no fun (and harder to succeed at it) if you have one in a spot you don't regularly inhabit.

Jump and down on the floor in front of that dog on the couch and see how much your current 20 water level bounces. It will be worse once you have a larger water volume, I'd think. It's hard for me to picture the basement load from the photos you posted. Probably it won't plummet through the floor, but I bet it will bounce. You can stiffen those floor joists by gluing and screwing a sheet of 3/4" plywood to the bottoms of them to make a box joint. In my 75g build thread I show doing that to mine which were right in the center of the span between the central steel beam and the foundation wall. I also sistered some extra joists onto them to strengthen them up with glue and screws. Then the joists are nice and strong and you only lose 3/4" of headspace and it doesn't bounce as much. It may still sway forward a bit, but you can work on that by attaching the stand to the wall behind it.

I'm a vote that is a bit concerned about the weight, but the concern is not that much different between 80 and 120. I was concerned at 80 already. If you are confident that you're close to load bearing members underneath the floor where it will sit it seems like either will probably work out OK in that spot. So it's just width and depth that are different, both are 4 foot tanks? In that case if you can spare the extra width in that spot I'd say go bigger. You'll need the same water making infrastructure to service a 120 that you will an 80. Whatever skimmer that works on an 80 will work on a 120. Return pumps will be similar. You might need more light for the 120. Maybe that would be the biggest difference in expense?

For artemia I highly recommend that Hobby brand breeder I linked earlier. Here's a picture of just nauplii, no eggs. The eggs stay floating outside the central sieve, and it's very easy to pull up the sieve, see the pink goodness of nauplii on the bottom, and swish it into the water to introduce them. I have unfrozen eggs (6mo old) and an unused hatcher if you'd like to try it out.