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ccurnick

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Posts posted by ccurnick

  1. 54 minutes ago, Steve G said:

    Love the cabinet project. Was thinking of getting something from Ikea for mine too. Is the material ok for being near water? Any concerns that moisture will seep into the particle board through any cracks or exposed parts from the drilled holes and make it expand?

     

    Also, I love that you're in DC. I lived in the U Street neighborhood for 18 years and it was tough to make a reef hobby fit in a row house. Also, it was hard to find fellow WAMAS members who lived inside the beltway. I spent way too much time driving out to the boonies just to get frags or a scoop of sand or whatever. When my son started wanting his bathroom back and my wife didn't like the flood damage to the floors, we moved :) Now I have a dedicated fish room and everyone is happy.

     

    I'm enjoying the frags you sold me and hope to do some more exchanging in the future!

     

    Was great meeting you briefly the other day as well, always nice to meet another reefer in the District! Glad to hear the frags are doing well! Pre-covid my job was outside the beltway so it made meeting people a bit easier, but honestly now I don't mind driving to meet someone because it gets me out of the house. Some of my colonies are getting huge and I have a new frag "tank" to fill so I have a lot of fragging on my future.

     

    I have flooded my place a few times (with fresh water only thankfully) but have since put in a bunch of extra sensors, alarms and safeguards as well as put in an auto water changer so I am not carrying buckets of water anymore. I can't wait until I buy a bigger house and can have a dedicated fish room, its become a requirement for me haha. 

     

    A lot of people use this cabinet for their controller/electronics cabinet and it's been fine above my tank for the past year that I have had the smaller one, but I do wipe it down whenever I remember (like once a month). I think adding the neoprene cable covers helps keep salt filled air from entering through the bottom as it fills the hole completely. I also glued in the grommets to help cover any exposed material inside of the cabinet. But for the price, if I have to replace it every 18-24 months I would be fine with it, but I don't expect any problems. But honestly salt spray was why I put the fan on the top, and it blows out. I might add another up top but so far it doesn't seem necessary from a heat management perspective. 

     

    They can be hard to get right now as Ikea is having a hard time stocking them (took me a few months). They didn't have the door for it that I was looking for, like the one I had on the first version of it so I frosted the glass on it myself for now until they are back in stock. But I do highly recommend it along with adding a fan if power supplies are kept inside. 

     

    Heres a link to the cabinet: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/besta-frame-black-brown-20245964/

  2. 34 minutes ago, YHSublime said:

     

    What about a manifold? 

     

    The groundwork for one is already there, you can see the ball valve on the right side of my sump and thats my plan for hard plumbing the reactors. I just need to figure out how I am going to actually fit it all & if I am going to move my reactors or get a new one. My reactors aren't in the pic, but they are BRS dual reactors on the left wall of my sump fed by an mj1200 from the skimmer chamber. 

     

    Since my current system works, I'm not in a huge rush to do it, and want to plan it out as well as I can. It might involve redoing part of my return line and changing the gate valve to the manifold to a smaller diameter and moving it to the back wall.... haven't figured that part out yet. But I am thinking of redoing the return a bit and making the gate valve a 1/2" and putting it on the back and have the return manifold go up from there, or just change the elbow just below the check valve to a T and putting the manifold to the left side of my sump. 

     

    I honestly might just redo all of the plumbing, including the bulkheads. I basically just cut what was already there and added to it for the new sump, and I am kind of regretting that decision because it forced me to make some sacrifices that I am not thrilled about. 

  3. 12 hours ago, YHSublime said:

    It certainly is cleaner looking. It takes loads of equipment to keep it going, eh? You've taken on more with this than I have with even setting up a new tank, and it's taken me 3 months just to turn it around, lol. 

     

    Looks great, giving me some good ideas as well! 


    Haha all in all it was about 5-6 days of work with everything. Just wrapped up re-plumbing my emergency drain and still have a bit more to do.
     

    I am waiting on a few more things to come in the mail but I will be redoing my frag “tank” area by re-plumbing from the sump bulkhead to my filter roller with flexible tubing as well as moving the filter roller to its own stand/see if I can manage to hang it on the sump. After that I will be relocating my heaters somewhere and then try to figure out a way to cut my frag rack and make it a dual height rack without losing any space. 

     

    When I bought a BAO photo tube for my camera a while back they accidentally sent me one of the Coleman locking racks they sell and let me keep it. So I be held onto it for a while and finally found a chance to use it. It fits well in the sump area, but presently it’s set up on 4” tall pvc and my filter roller sits on it. I ordered the official legs for the rack and plan on trying to cut it into 2 tiers somehow and make it a more efficient use of space. My backup plan (what I’ll probably end up doing) is just keep the rack as is with the new legs, and rotate my filter roller to be more in the corner of its section of the sump, and that should open up more rack space.

     

    I also want to hard plumb my reactor as well as redo my main drain & replace that bulkhead but that’s more of a dream at this point ?? 

  4. Next up in my saga of tank projects is redoing my electronics cabinet/controller board with a larger besta cabinet from ikea since they re back in stock.

    here’s how it currently looks sitting above my tank:
    image.thumb.png.0c1e59f7122cf828236351500b21ecea.png

    And since my tank move and removal of the extra cabinet next to my tank, it’s been a bit cramped:
    image.thumb.png.1b513823146a23821c5d7c1b162f8668.png

     

    New cabinet is twice as tall/deep:
    image.thumb.png.77f5ae5d62d18c5d6598c159d36823ba.png

    created a template of the false wall I will be putting in as well as cutout for all of the parts to decide how to fit everything:
    image.thumb.png.bf618486fb4a505cb8c58a4b2b7a1508.pngI
    image.thumb.png.61fdacc1c3a220d4a8eeaa6596d1a35d.png


    I will be getting the wood from Home Depot today and hopefully get working on it. I also got an exhaust fan to help with heat from the power supplies.

  5.  

    Phase 1 of the sump reconstruction is done. Still have some things to figure out where I am going to put, like ATO tank and skim locker, as they don’t fit like I thought they would under the cabinet around the sump.

    Empty cabinet & I re-applied a water proof

    E84FB7C8-C331-4EF9-AFC2-A30455984511.jpeg



     

    Test fitting it all44E46B74-9F0D-4C5B-8096-18EEF4C7A44B.jpeg



    and it’s live! So much more space for my equipment and was able to set up a frag area so I no longer have to have racks in my display. The Kessil h160 has been replaces with an A360WE. 83F586A6-831F-4FE5-B9C7-1EEE60F632EC.jpeg

  6. Been far too long since I have updated this thread on here.... I will be updating with a bunch of photos and write ups of various projects

     

    I recently moved my tank to a new corner of my living room and it was quite a project, but everything survived with no casualties aside from creating a few new frags! I also changed my stand doors into removable panels which was a major improvement.


    Draining the tank down:

    image.thumb.png.38da48f57e69b1800d912c5e5b57cc1c.png

    Used a 100g stock tank, which since I live in a city I had to special order. The people at Ace Hardware were very concerned with what I was doing with it image.thumb.png.2d93027c662dc72934b7c14aa52f482c.png


    Tank in new spot:

    image.thumb.png.6a48adc53843d92ff97c01507b29f294.png


    Livestock back in the tank, and starting to remove the AWC container, dosing pumps, and other stuff from the cabinet next to the tank, and redoing all of the electrical stuff in the cabinet above the tank. The electrical cabinet is kind of overflowing with stuff at the moment, but trying to find a replacement has been tough as Ikea hasn't had them in stock for months now.

    image.thumb.png.81c99446c1f9628eb35fa95e1829cc48.png

     

    Holy rats nest batman! (Dont worry, the tank didnt run like this!)

    image.thumb.png.86d79b1d31e697dcbade2c4515b11d01.png

     

     

     



     

  7. Hey everyone, so this tank has been up for a while, and this thread will mostly be a mirror of my thread on R2R: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-in-the-capitol.463350/

     

    Its a 90g "cube" from SCA. 36x24x24 with the upgraded cabinent in american grey, it started in oct 2018

     

    Fish:

    Yellow Tang

    Tomini Tang

    2x Davinci Clowns

    McCroskers Flasher Wrasse

    Resplendent Anthia

     

     

    Coral List:

    Way too many acros to list

    A few torches and other things

     

    Lighting:

    2x ecotech radion xr30 G4 Pros set to WWC AB+

    Reefbrite ration attachments

    Fuge has a Kessil H160

     

    Flow:

    2x ecotech MP40's

    Return- Ecotech Vectra M1

     

    Controlled with an ApexEl with quiet a few modules

     

    Currently dos BRS 2 part + tropic Marin balling, and have a DOS setup for AWC.

     

    Here it currently is as of 3/10:

    47290352892_75da87544d_o.thumb.jpg.e2f9c27d2360387a306f27a4d7745e56.jpg

     

    A progression of FTS's:

    FFCB4173-C5F0-4841-ABBC-8B202A067EB4.thumb.jpeg.b5bf7e7efc100e87adc704a955071fea.jpeg

    image.thumb.jpg.0ec6dedce89d56f78955000842be4631.jpg1627314450_fulltanksmall.thumb.JPG.404f61a386f5c2caf403a9295ba5ff8d.JPG6E36448C-88CD-4EC8-ADB3-EFF95C26DBBE.thumb.jpeg.c821a501920c02ba088b32df2ee3796b.jpeg515207BE-3A7B-409C-89A8-27AE76931276.thumb.jpeg.fa0f0ceb52666d2170b86d61b4a06235.jpeg

     

    Current (October 2022):

    85A1B4E9-B358-4F67-B50E-90A76AFC69BE.thumb.jpeg.293f394ca19fc0f0a9d73d26bbdda58b.jpeg

  8. I have a 90g cube from SCA and it is very good for the price point. I ordered the upgraded stand and not the MDF one, and it is solid with a steel inner frame. I also got the sump which is more than fine, the 302 skimmer is also not bad. If you bundle gear it starts to save you a ton of money. I ordered mine with rations, Vectra, Vortechs, skimmer, and sump. The customer service is also top notch and Steve is very responsive and replaces/resends items with no questions asked.

     

    I essentially got an upgraded version of their PNP system.

  9. Hey guys! Im Conner, I just recently found out that this site exists, so I decided to join today. I had reefs for probably about 5-ish years, and then I took a break, and then several months back I decided to get back into it. Ive been in DC for about 3.5years or so, and currently, have a 90g mixed (mostly sps planned) reef that started back in late sept/early oct. Ive been to several of the stores around here, and just recently discovered a bunch more thanks to the LFS Map tab above. I plan on making some rounds over the next few weeks to the rest, and making a hike out to PEA to grab some clams! 

     

    Heres some photos, still haven't managed to not have every photo be extremely blue. 

     

    IMG_0221.thumb.jpg.74a98b34dfe96ff4f0968ea7a812a9a7.jpg

    1128370825_leptoandzoafrag2small.thumb.JPG.39f83defc824204799c32a7ea10c3ccd.JPG

    golden torch small.JPG

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