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Here is the old DC-6000 with the plumbing assembled, with a shot of my sump. It attaches to the union behind it (the black / white plumbing) just to the left of the red plumbing. PVC Plumbing wise: Red = Emergency Bean Animal Drain that goes directly to the return. Yellow = backup Bean Animal Drain (not visible) Green = primary Bean Animal Drain / Full Siphon (to the left feeding into the filter sock section) Black = returns. There are alot of hoses and stuff in the picture. The coiled black hose on the left is coming from my saltwater mixing station. One of the clear white/grey hoses goes to my drain One of the clear white/grey hoses is about 30 feet and reaches my QT tank when unrolled. The small black hoses are ATO hoses, one to saltwater, other to RODI/freshwater. I have an electric switch setup so I can control if apex is reflling my tank with saltwater or freshwater depending on how active my skimmer is and salinity levels. The clear hoses goto DOS/dosing pump for the automatic water changes. Anyways like I was saying you can see the old return pump with the soft plumbing to a union. Rather then re-using the parts I decided to spend the small amount of money to rebuild that section so this pump would be ready for emergiences, just screw in, adjust drain flow and good to go. \ So i'm to lazy to pull out the pump for side by side comparision, but its in the drain in action, you can see a top view of it. Same exact soft plumbing to an union. Although I like alot of hard pumpling, I prefer soft plumbing when connecting to pumps and things that vibrate to try to reduce some vibration or noise they might make. The tunze ato is also in this picture. I discovered if you buy a "replacement pump" for the ato (which is really cheap) like $20 bucks in parts from radio shack you can get this little ato to let you run it off two different pumps that you can have sitting in separate reservoirs. My salinity is currently a little lower then I want, so I've got my tank topping off with saltwater. Once I get it back to exactly where I want i'll switch it back to rodi. My skimmer runs in beast mode.

I replaced my return pump. The DC-6000 is now my backup. I rebuilt all the necessary plumbing to a near by union. That way should I need to put it back it's very easy quick without any addition parts/fabrication. The new pump is Eco tech marine L3. I would have to say I understand the pump is tall and they want a low profile fitting but I'm not impressed with the fitting. Almost every pump on the market has threaded and nipple adapters included. I'm pretty decent with gluing pipes and fittings and the blue fitting was a pain. The problem in design is the ring to tighten it is larger then the inner part your trying to glue so you really have to plan out how you will apply pressure to set the glue. The pump itself is nice, I'll try to get some pics and updates posted thx Nathan

So last night i heard some dripping... one of the true union ball valves I have on my return system was dripping. Good thing I keep a tub liner behind the tank. All the water was caught. I took it apart easy enough two or three times and the o ring looked fine. i basically ended up using a wrench to tighten it a little bit. I don't think I could hand tighten it enough from the weird angle I was trying to re-install it. Leak fixed. In the process however somehow i poured some saltwater from a bucket i was collecting the drip in onto my fios router .... anyways so thats going to been upgraded lol. No apex fusion till i get back on the net, only old school "apex classic" till I get that fixed. This morning being paranoid i checked on things and my bio-pellet reactor was offline. (pellets weren't moving) I did the monthly cleaning of it (the nozzle gets clogged super easy, so I clean out the nozzle then re-assimble it). Anyways it looked like the pump i had running it died. Thats the second Sicce pump I've had die in like a year, all the rest of my pumps are knock on wood solid. (the other pump was on my quarantine system months ago). Anyways i've been running the reactor straight through, rather than recirculating mode so I connected it to my manifold to keep the little pellets moving.... Good thing I have a dc pump, bumped it from 8 to 10 and then spent the last half an hour tweaking the flow on the bean animal drain to get the drain working properly. Anyways its up and it works for now but today i need to make a decision. Do i replace the pump on the biopellet reactor, replace the biopellet reactor (don't like that idea, it took forever to get that thing working), or do I leave it hooked up to the manifold and then upgrade the return pump. I was sorta thinking of upgrading the return pump before i lost the biopellet reactor pump. Currently I have a waveline dc-6000 (~1500 gph) pump driving the 210g tank. I happen to have a mag 18 (1500gph) pump driving my life reef skimmer. I have 4 WAV pumps up in the display so plenty of surface/water movement. I'm pretty sure with the head pressure/turns and now manifolding the dc-6000 its probably effectively running at like ~500gph about 1/3 of the rate the skimmer is running out, and sort thinking maybe the system would be better if the return was running closer to flow rate of skimmer. thoughts? probably going to spend some cash today if anyone reads this and wants to feedback. -Nathan

Oh i know people asked about the lifereef skimmer many times. About once a week (sometimes every 2 weeks if im really lazy) i clean the collection cup thing on the skimmer. Its hooked to a 5 gallon avast collection bucket. Its been running in BEAST MODE since i got it. I have had to do ZERO maintenance to the venturi or anything. The output of the 2 liter avast biopellet reactor goes straight to the input of the skimmer (on a T) so it can suck in water too. The skimmer/reactor turn off twice a day when I feed, rest of the time they are on. No problems, or any kind of major maintenance required been in service maybe 8 months? As for the biopellet reactor.... Uh yeh I dont have a pre-filter on it, so it clogs up about once a month and I have to take it apart to clean the nossel at the bottom that makes it tumble the pellets. The reactor seems like its working well but the nozzle likes to clog up over about a month. I know they recommend a pre-filter but i hate the idea of adding something I have to clean really frequently. The reactor is working great other then it clogging up slowly. I know 6 months ago people asked about the Bean Animal Setup. My bean animal is working perfectly system starts/stops twice a day to feed. If anyone has questions just ask and i'll try to explain anything anyone wants to know. Thanks! Nathan

I actually was thinking of doing an update to this thread earlier today speak of the devil. My GMU finals start next week, and then i'll have all summer to start the next phases of my tank. The last 6 months, basically since GMU has been in session i've been just doing regular tank maintenance with little addition/change but I expect changes to start occurring on a regular basis. The apex has been automatically feed my tank pellets every morning like clockwork, and I feed frozen to the tank every evening. The apex also does automatic water changes every night. If i'm out of town (and i've gone out of town a couple times with the system on autopilot) it does 2g water changes by itself, if i'm around it does 3g water changes every night, ~90gal per month. Every time i take measurements on the system everything is about the same, everything is right in target range expect maybe nitrates, which stay locked at 5. I'm pretty sure the biopellet reactor is pretty much processing everything based on phosphates available to it, and with the amount I feed thats just sorta the outcome. I just purchased a new glass scraper, the "great white" off BRS, its actually way way way better then the flipper i had. The magnet on it is crazy strong, and its way harder to push around to clean the glass, but it gets stuff the other scraper could never even get. My livestock has changed a littlebit, I had two sets of clowns taking care of different nims, but the large nim decided to move and stand ontop of the other nim and we had a huge clown war..... the two midnights actually took out my large maroon clown somehow, the marron was like 3x as big as them. Anyways i'm now down to two clowns. I donated all three of the clowns to a store, and got a pair maroons again. The new maroons are way larger. They actually belonged to the owner of Reef eScape in fairfax. If anyone knows their store they were the huge maroons that were always "not for sale" but when they heard I hard a 210g full of nyms for them they finally decided they could part with them, and they are super happy in my tank. The one change however, is the new clowns will bite me anytime i get my hand in the tank, my old maroons never cared about if i put my hand in the tank. I also added a sailfin tang to the tank around the same time. The old "tank boss/bully" (yellow tang) learned quickly the sailfin and maroon is larger then yet (yes the clown is HUGE!) and the maroon clown will not tolerate my yellow trying to bullying it, so the bullying pretty much ended. The sailfin would just pop out its fins and show it was bigger. I'll try to get some pictures of my tank maybe post them next week after finals. Ritter is still there in my tank maroons are actually hosting it even though i dont think they are supposed to. I had a big scare a week or so ago, when I was in Arizona out of town. Apex and webcams went offline, and I wasnt sure if power was out at house or what. super scary. I ended up going to verizon online and had them test my fios and they "tested everything was ok", and when they did the online test, magically everything came back online .... LOL. (its amazing how fios can be out for like half a day then when they "test" it, it magically instantly starts working). I went into apex logs and tank was running by itself like programmed no problems at all even without internet for like over half a day with me out of town. With that said,... anyone in sterling looking for a tank buddy?!?! My apatasia problem from about 9months ago is starting to return. Last time i resolved it with a copper banded butterfly (that promptly was eaten by the ritter once the aptasia was gone ;/ ) Anyways I now have a new copper banded butterfly and a chevron tang, and melanurus wrasse in QT to add in a month or so. (i dont have flat worms but I wanted to add that bad boy just in case). I like to pick fish that are 1) utility and 2) look pretty. and hes cool looking and provides some insurance. Anyways i'll try to post some pics, i have a laundry list of things to do/add tank wise, the tank build kinda got interrupted with school, but summer is almost here so time for tank build 2.0

That guide looks pretty solid. I have a 40 breeder with 40g sump so maybe 60 gallons on my qt. I got the 40 at a petco sale and drilled it. It has a drain near lower part of tank. Turn Knob and I can drain into sump down to easily 90% of the water if I really wanted. I have a manifold on both my display and qt tanks that allows me to pump water out through a hose. Pretty much every weekend I have something in qt I do 20g quick drain (33%) on qt and then quick fill of 20g from display. The display is 210g and is hard plumbed to mixing station so fresh saltwater goes into display and then display to qt. if I'm having to run copper in qt I test the copper level at water change and add more. I skim my qt and also have marine pure blocks in the sumps. Only 1 in qt. that way if I ever have to bleach down qt and start over I can just toss the marine pure block from qt and replace it with one from display and put a new one in display and basically have instant bio filter. Each marine pure block is supposed to be good for 100g Nathan

Mine is on apex I watch it feed once or twice a week auto pilot. Most of the time it just does its thing without me watching.

That's a lot of water wow! Is the water coming in the system clean ?

I did a little mini project on the tank. Upgraded the skimmate container to the life reef with braided 1/2 hose. The little tank in the sump is a hospital ready to be instantly setup if needed. The fish say hi!

Good Afternoon, i've had my tank(s) up for about a year, on my second tank (the second one has been up a few months). Anyways I noticed my tank always has some junk kinda floating around in it, (its not bubbles) its more like maybe small specs of sand/dust. When I goto TLF their tanks always look more "crystal clear" than mine. So... what how do I get my water clarity upto the next level? Now I know TLF usually does not have substrate, and I have a diamond goby, and a "dragon" gobie constantly sifting around my sandbed. Most of the sand is the "Special" grade 1.25 to 1.95. The sand bed is different heights at different areas (depending on how the gobie decides to pile it up for a given day). one side of the tank might be 4" deep, while a few spots I can see the glass on the bottom because of a maroon clown hosting a long tenticle has pushed it all away. Anyways I have a 210g tank 5 feet wide about 30" deep and 27"ish tall. I run active carbon in a canister I change it out every two weeks. I also run filter socks all the time. I have a Lifereef skimmer. Flow wise, I have 4 "wav" / neptune power heads. all the powerheads are in the top 1/4 of the tank, none of them should be actively disturbing the sandbed. They are rated for 4000gph, two of them ramp up and down and peak at 50% (2000gph), other two are set at much lower settings, I think one around 10% (200gph?) and the other 20% (400gph)? All the fish/nyms etc really seem to like the way the flow is setup but I still have the "junk" in the water. The return pump on the 210g is a DC-6000 (around 1500gph) on the 2nd highest setting which seems like it works but I keep thinking maybe I need more return pump to get the water going through the filter sock more. The drains are bean animal 1". so i'm pretty sure the drains can handle way more flow but I don't know if they would really help with getting tank more crystal clear. The skimmer is lifereef 30" with mezzei venturi with a mag-18 (~1500 gph). It kinda looks like sand particles just swirling around, any tips would be awesome. I also run GFO & Biopellet, but biopellet output is connected directly to the skimmer input. Thank You -Nathan

I've gone through and tallied the par settings, and decided to up light to 75% and re-organized tank. The rational i'm using is based on a slide i found on reef central. Zone 1 : 50-100 par (mushrooms, zooanthids, soft corals) Zone 2 : 100-200 par (lps, clams, some spa) Zone 3 : 200-500 par (acropora, montipora, sps) Zone 4 : 500-1000 par (few sps) Anyways almost exactly the same schedule that i've ran for the last year except the lighting is going from 50% to 75% and the corals are being moved around. Most of my corals were surviving before but I didn't really see huge amounts of growth.

Today I mapped my tank with par meter. Four different like frequencies, AI Hydra 52 (dual), at 4 different intensities and below are results. I plan to make adjustments to my lighting and get the corals moved to optimal zones.

So I'm loving the new setup. Did my first water change on new qt tank. 50% ( 20 gallons). Hose from sump to sink unrolled, flip valves and watch 50% of the tank empty. Coil back up, unroll from display sump to qt. pump about 10g in then turn on pump from mixing station to display. Whole thing done in 10 minutes no buckets. Display got a fresh 20g or 10% ( ish ) and quarantine got its 50%. Also loving the brs reactor. With the rox high capacity just fill extra cartridge swap ok I had to use bucket to run a gallon through reactor but other then that done in just a few minutes. Anyways really pleased with setup. Hoisting 5g buckets over the old tank or even using a utility pump 5g at a time was crazy. Nathan

looks amazing.

Your rocks look like my rocks! I like flat pieces. I get frags on plugs, break off the pointy thing and they sit perfectly on the flat rock.

This weekend I didn't get a lot done on the tank. Most of it was working on masters homework... So the last hose was setup on Qt. I can now do large bucket free water changes on both quarantine and display. The measuring cups that kept getting in the way now have a shelf in the canopy. I also figured out I can mount turkey basters by using one of the hooks upside down in canopy, Nothing to mind blowing this weekend, but still a lot to do to finish build.

Tonight I ran a bunch of hoses and got automatic water changes going. This is the manifold I built on my return when I setup 210g display. The two 1/2" braided hoses are new. One reaches my quarantine tank with a two little fishies valve on it so I can easily refill quarantine with water from display. The other hose goes through the wall to the waste water barrel in the garage. I don't have direct access to a large drain. This is the end that goes to the quarantine drilled for no reverse siphone with a valve for easy on / off. Less then exciting waste water barrel. The automatic water changes are how they were on old tank but now I have it online again. 3 gallons a night with Neptune DOS.

So my setup is long from done, I have a running list of things still to do.. 40g quarantine: Hoses to make water changes simple. (plumbing already done) Skimmate Locker (from Avast) - probably steal from my display Apex breakout (so I can hook up to skimmate locker & any other float switch) child proof/lock doors. (think TIGER proof.... I have cats, no kids) make the drop cam mount more permanent. you can bump it and it moves. ato (thinking Avast or Tunze) stain cabinet/doors add reactor (gfo atleast, maybe carbon when I want it super clean) leak detectors ( I have them just haven't re-hooked them up yet) 210g display: mount second fan in stand. (one is blowing in, I want another on other side blowing out) - have to cut hole in back of stand mount fan in canopy. Probably on top blowing down through mesh top. leak detectors (have just haven't re-hooked up) label everything .. yeh I have label maker but still need to label security magnetic door monitor thing. wired to breakout box so I know when doors are opened maybe even auto turn on lights when a door is opened I'd like a float switch in my sump (like when way to high) I'd also like a float in overflow box at very very top to shut stuff off if somehow all three drains get plugged (I think near impossible) Once I get the second fan installed, I want to build small screens to put over them to keep the tigers away from fan blades. There is a 2x4 in my sump under the reactors.. yeh it needs paint. I'm working on a 1/2" drain from my 210g so I can do quick water changes. I want to add an EB8 on my s/w mixing station so I can remotely control when water is going in the big tank instead of having to goto garage plug in and come back around .. I want to add teeth to my overflow, I have a small net there, before net, it was almost daily a fish would get in my overflow and not beable to get out. thinking of doing kalk in my ato reserve.. need to plan that out. If I stick with dc6000 as return pump I want to get the apex integration battery backup or generator.. seriously going to do it just need to make a final decision. I wish there was something perfectly sized for wave pumps. I've got the code to detect power outages and stuff, just need to find the right ups. the turkey basters and measuring cups are annoying the crap out of me in the canopy. need to figure out how to get them mounted or build a little shelf. every time I feed the fish they ge tin the way and I have to move smething aroun I need to add a 30-40 foot hose that will reach my quartantine tank. and get it hooked to manifold with quick disconnect. I had two 20' hoses and a bucket with apump in it i was using but i want it a little more clean. need to work on fuge, I'm thinking the round marine pure balls in bottom of fuge would be perfect to make home for pods. new skimmate locker (5gallon) for display). I'm skimming qt a day, and will be out of town 10 days .. so obviously i need something larger. .. yeh far from done, just working through my list and posting updates as i do them. original goal was have it "done" by new years, may not be done by then but hopefully almost. Thanks! -Nathan

Yup we will hookup. The blocks are rated for 100g per 8x8x4 block. On the display I have one at output of skimmer so water is pouring through it, the second is at overflow in sump from skimmer box to return. Once again water flowing through it. If you goto quantum reefs in Springfield look at sump for their live stock. All the live stock tanks are supported by marine pure block in that single sump. I personally like to have extra so I want at least 2 in my sump of my display. That way if I need to reset the quarantine tank or setup a quick hospital I can just move a block and then put a brand new one in the sump of the display. There is so much live rock in my tank I'm pretty sure I could probably go even without the blocks in my sump. As for starting from scratch I used dr tims and the ammonia you can get from dr Tim last year to cycle the first time. I then started adding fish after about a month starting with two maroon clownfish if I remember. ( most would tell you to avoid maroons specifically due to aggression and should be last fish or near last fish added). Personally once my maroons found their host they pretty much ignore 90% of the tank and only care about their anemone.

The water is from my display. There is a 8x8x4 marine pure block in the sump from my old quarantine tank which was from my display months ago. It's fully populated are rated to handle 100g. I've got two of the same marine pure blocks in my display sump. Hopefully that clarifies things. Ammonia / nitrite usually zero or near zero. The nitrates and phosphates slowly rise and I do large 50% water changes on quarantine and dose nopox on quarantine. On the display I have a Biopellet reactor with a liter of bio pellets recirculating with sicce 4.0 with output around 90gph. I also have ammonia alert badges but when I test ammonia is almost always zero. Marine pure is way awesome, I plumbed a drain near bottom of quarantine so I can open gate and flood my sump. The return has a manifold that will have a hose that can reach a drain. I'm also have a manifold on display but need to get longer hose to pump directly from display to quarantine no buckets. ( outlet is above tank so qt water doesn't make it to display ). I have my saltwater mixing station on other side of wall with direct hose to display so no buckets there either. 140g gallon at mixing station (70g s/w, 35g rodi top off and another 35g reserve rodi ). ---> 210g display ---> 40g qt --> drain When I do larger changes. I also have dosing pump line that can do small (3 gallon ) nightly water changes on display only in about 3 hours fully automated.

Tonight I got the doors cut and hinges installed on quarantine tank. The sail fin is starting to show signs of ick. That's why we don't put fish directly in display... Going to start some light cupramine and hopefully it'll clear up. Between the two tangs they are eating about 1/2 a sheet of nori a day. I'm not sure the dragon gobie is eating. He seems kinda angry with the small Tupperware container of sand. The display looked just as bland on the stand until I stained it and installed the crown trim. Nearly identical design door/trim wise.

I get shocked @ petco all the time. I see all kinds of stuff in their tanks locally that really don't belong there and its pretty random. Its almost like they order stuff kinda random and then when it shows up they are surprised how much bigger it is then they expected. Prices are really low. Leopard Wrasse as good pickup!

I got the electronics moved to upper cabinet to protect it and cut top for cabinet. Also tuned skimmer on quarantine tank. Hopefully run by Home Depot and get wood for doors cut and mounted tonight. Naso, sail fin and dragon doing well. I put in about 1/3 sheet nori in evening, they kinda ignore it. Wake up sorta ignored. Goto work and check and it's totally eaten. It looks like they get hungry between 6am and noon. Tangs ignore the mysis and rods.

Here is my new quarantine tank. Everything is operation I did all the woodwork you see today. Didn't turn out as nice as display but is functional for quarantine. Will hopefully get doors and finish this week and get electronics properly mounted. Sail fin and blond Naso still in there with dragon gobie.

I got the drilling, drains plumbed, returns plumbed and overflow glued on my new 40g qt tank. 59 dollar blond Naso, 25 dollar sail fin, 15 dollar dragon gobie ... Anyways I did a 65 gallon "water change" on the display and now have my new quarintine tank online... Still a lot to do to fix the rush setup, like building a trimmed facaut / cabinet around it. Getting apex mounted etc.