AlanM

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.

Wow nice.

If you'd like to try artemia nauplii on easy mode I have one of those Hobby brand black plastic hatchers and some dry eggs. It's super duper easy to hatch them and harvest them separate from the eggs within about 24 hours, and I'm fairly local to you. https://smile.amazon.com/Brine-Shrimp-Direct-Hatchery-Dish/dp/B079C6BN2B

Neat to see him kind of chewing on it a bit after getting it in the mouth.

It's encrusting over everything, I think. Floor, walls, dogs, etc.

Wonder if Matt Pederson would be interested in talking to you about any of these spawning events and your work to raise them and print parts to harvest the eggs and such. He's the editor of Coral, a former WAMAS speaker, and all around nice guy.

Wow, what all do you have spawning? I think you have banggai cardinals, porcelain crabs, and mandarin all spawning? You're definitely the happiest tank in WAMAS at this point, I'd say.

Use the trachy skeleton as an interesting substrate for zoas.

You can use fiberglass reinforced panel on the wall if you'd like. It's a bit institutional looking, but it is waterproof and easy to install if you aren't looking at it. I used it on my walls in the sump area in the basement.

Pectinia can extend some shockingly long feeding tentacles. The one I had in my tank could reach out 8 inches when it wanted.

It's great that the nem is healing up. I bet your alk shootup was because the nem bits got all of the coral mad. Not mad enough to lose tissue, but mad enough to stop growing and using carbonate ions for a bit. They might also be mad because you're messing with their light.

Nice! No build thread, just springs into existence fully formed!

This is now fixed. People can now reply to this to sign up to tour this amazing tank and fish room.

Fixed it! People can now post on that thread. The "Tank Tours" forum was inheriting the permissions of the "Announcements" category above it. The "Reply to Topics" permission was not set because we normally don't look for replies from members in the "Club News" forum which is also under Announcements. Anyway, I gave Tank Tours its own permissions and now people can reply.