Mich

[Mich]

Hi Everyone,

 

As I'm a new WAMAS member this will be my first post in the Dedicated Tank Forum.

 

Probably since highschool I've had atleast one reef tank running amongst my other aquarium & terrarium projects. In the past I usually set them up in the same 55g undrilled tank. Historically, at some point my reefs have all died off completely, usually do to moving or running out of money or attention. Then at some point when cash or attention return to me I usually redesign the system in the same 55 and give it another go. Recently, my best run was from June 2006 until September 2008, when a micro-ecological catastrophe rendered the interior of the tank unsuitable for invertebrate life other than aiptasia and pods. It was at this point I decided I was either going to get rid of the tank completely or restart with a whole new system.

 

As it conveniently turned out, a friend of mine was selling his Oceanic 156g Ultimate, with Headers, overflows, a pump, and the cherry wood stand, for one heck of a bargain price. So, unwilling to throw away the live rock in my 55 gallon, I decided to buy my friends setup and start fresh.

 

For a sump I decided to use a 45g. The pump that came with everything was an Eheim 1262 (p1 in my diagram below), which I connected to the return headers as it was originally. For redundancy and additional flow I bought a Mag Drive MD9.5 and ran it to a DIY PVC assembly which I built and installed in the bottom of the tank floor. The assembly contains four 1/2" riser extenders that will blow water between and around my rock in an upward forward direction. Then in the top in the front I installed to Koralia Hydor 4s to direct flow back and down to work counteractively against the flow from my floor assembly and headers;

 

 

These next two images are of the floor assembly I made

 

No sand and not connected.

 

 

 

Sand bed in place and generating flow.

 

 

 

 

 

In the sump I connected both overflows together to a central 1 1/2" pvc line which opens via a couple tees on the right side. This will ensure flow in the sump goes from right to left. I've divided the sump into two halves with a turf basket filled with aggregate from my old 55 in the middle. On the right side I have a large illuminated area for growing macro algae. The left side contains both pumps and a coralife 220 super skimmer.

 

 

 

This is how the tank looked two weekends ago I de-aiptasiad and de-slimed the rock from my 55 and transferred it over. Look at all that space!

 

 

 

 

The tanks occupants for the past week enjoying their new home (snails and crabs);

 

 

 

 

So anyway, that's all I've got done so far. Hopefully I'll have more to post within the next couple week or months. Any thoughts or feelings?

[gsedlack]

Very nice! Nothing beats the thrill of a new tank. Good luck

[Brian Ward]

Your "bottom return" manifold has the potential to create a massive flood when you unplug that pump. You need siphon breaks in that PVC. Drill them just above the water line and give it a test. See what happens when you have no power to the system. Also, that manifold is creating a ton of head pressure. A mag 9.5 and a 1262 will do OK on that tank, but if you ever get into SPS, you'll definitely need more flow. Biggest concern right now is that you don't create a flood by siphoning from those bottom outputs back into the tank when your mag 9.5 dies (or when you turn it off to feed).

[Mich]

Thanks gsdelack,

 

I'm totally thrilled.

 

 

 

Thanks Brian,

 

It's got a siphon break drilled about 1 3/4" past the top ninety down the main tube. It's placement was determined by my calculations for the differential between the sumps NOWL and it's full volume. I've done the "unplug both pumps" test a couple times, and my calculations have proven sound. However, I would like to also add a half inch check valve on the main line as well, just to add some redundant safety.

 

I don't think I'll ever get big into SPS, but I would like to put in a couple hardier Acros in some of the higher flow areas of the tank eventually, but I think upgrading my lighting is a higher concern for me at the moment (sorry, I completely forgot to mention lighting in this post). Right now I'm still working with the same fixture that was on my 55g; four 48", 54watt, t5s (2,10k and 2 20k act.) with lunar leds. It's hard to find good, affordable 60" fixtures for this oddly dimensioned tank. I've grown small frags into nice little trees under this fixture in the past, but that was in a 55 where the specimen was closer to the source. Any thoughts?

 

As far as additional flow in the future goes I'm thinking I might eventually set up a closed loop with discharge on the bottom left and suction on the top right (something easy I can drop in over the sides). This is a lower priority for me at the moment, and I've got a couple ideas still on the drawing board.

[Mich]

Update; It's been about Eleven weeks now and my only major change has been the ligth fixture. I got rid of the Nova extreme with the T-5s and got a Coralife Aqualight Elite with two 250 watt 10k Halides and two 96 watt actinic CFLs. I really wanted to go with a t-5/halide combo like the outer orbit, but most of those were a little more money than I'm willing to spend right now. But, so far I'm happy with the Coralife (which cost less than $500 on clearance from Drs. F&S). Here are some pics;

 

 

I've also been adding livestock gradually over the past couple months. Inhabitants include, but are not limited to;

 

2- Paired Maroon Clowns

1- Royal Gramma

1- Sixline wrasse

1- E. quad (hosted in by the Maroons)

1- Mystery Open Brain (sold as "Wellso")

1- Brown Staghorn Acro (looks lik A. intermedia)

a few- zoanthids

a few- mushrooms

1- T. maxima

lots- snails

lots- red leg hermits

lots- Emerald Crabs

2- peppermint shrimp

2- Serpent stars

 

This is a link to a little video I made, breifly going over some of the stuff inside;

 

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=57641402

Edited May 20, 2009 by Mich

[Nate]

Looking Good. It looks kinda empty in there...are you planning on getting anymore live rock?

[zoozilla]

Nice Set up.

 

If your into DIY, you could probably replace those existing CFL's with T5's. Maybe a more cost effective approach than buying another MH/T5 combo.

 

Btw, Lol on your signature

[El Camaron]

nice build, keep us posted as it gets filled with eye candy.

[Mich]

Looking Good. It looks kinda empty in there...are you planning on getting anymore live rock?

 

Thanks. When I initially moved all the rock over from my 55, I was shocked at how little space it took up. I went from a tank that had entirely too much rock, to one that looked like an underwater dessert. However, over time the more I thought about it, the more I sort of like the extra space. I have lots of open surface area on the sand bed for gas exchange, and I have almost no difficulty at all in accessing the glass for cleaning. Ultimately I think see the system continuing to be a mixed reef with the same minimal amount of rock in the main display, I'll have a few colonies of hardy fast growing staghorn that over the subsequent years shouldl utlize the abundant vacancy for verticle growth. If over time this presents biological / nitrification issues then I likely will add more, but ideally to the sump and not the main display.

 

 

Nice Set up.

 

If your into DIY, you could probably replace those existing CFL's with T5's. Maybe a more cost effective approach than buying another MH/T5 combo.

 

Btw, Lol on your signature

 

 

I thought a lot about gutting my Nova Extreme and swapping both ballasts and all eight tombstones into the aqualight, instead of the two CFLS. Assuming maximum luminous efficacy, the difference between 192 W putting out 14,400 lumens (current CFLs) versus 208 watts putting out 20,800 lumens(T-5s) is about 38 %. While that definitely seems worth it I have to remember that originally I had only two lights being applied for actinics which was only producing a maximun 10,400 lm. So, effectively I've still already increased my actinic luminosity by 38% with the new fixture. And considering that my metal halides are are putting out a likely 57,500 lm on the 10k side, I'd say that the fixture is adequate as is, if not a little spectrally imbalanced. It might make better sense to switch to 15Ks and leave the compacts the way they are, but I've already hurt my brain with this enough for time being, and my Nova Extreme has already been commited to lighting the bluegill tank in my office. I guess I could buy icecaps or comparable retro parts instead of tearing apart a perfectly good fixture though, but then that would involve spending more money.

 

Thanks, I think I like snails almost more than coral and fish. They're both delicious and fascinating.

[Mich]

nice build, keep us posted as it gets filled with eye candy.

 

Will do.

 

 

 

Also, I just realized the link for my video isn't working anymore so I'm going to try posting it again;

 

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...ideoid=57641402