sachabballi reef April 6, 2013 April 6, 2013 wow Ron!!!! this looks awesome....so neat and clean ....I can't wait to see this build progress......
DaveS April 6, 2013 April 6, 2013 Looks nice. I suggest putting some silicone calk around those holes in the drywall where the pipes come through. That will reduce the amount of water or moisture that the drywall will absorb which will cause it to swell and disintegrate.
sachabballi reef April 6, 2013 April 6, 2013 Looks nice. I suggest putting some silicone calk around those holes in the drywall where the pipes come through. That will reduce the amount of water or moisture that the drywall will absorb which will cause it to swell and disintegrate. that's a great idea....I used grommets....do you think I should do the silicone instead?
CaptainRon April 6, 2013 Author April 6, 2013 Thanks everyone. Good idea Dave - thanks a lot for that. I'm also planning on putting some escutcheon plates (link) around the pipes there just to have a little cleaner look to it. Marco - will shoot you a pm in a bit.
CaptainRon April 8, 2013 Author April 8, 2013 Great news! I had water flowing last night. Bad news! I had two leaks I got one of them fixed last night (I think/hope). The other will be fixed tonight after (another) trip to Home Depot.
monkiboy April 8, 2013 April 8, 2013 where were the leaks? how bad? just curious to make sure i triple everything on my setup. awesome to hear you get her wet!
CaptainRon April 8, 2013 Author April 8, 2013 The leaks were with the bulkhead return connection beneath the tank. They're threaded there (slip on the top side) and we just didn't put enough teflon tape on them. I had thought about switching them over to slip x slip bulkheads to avoid such a problem but convinced myself these would be ok, and I didn't have any extra bulkheads on hand either. Just need to buy one more fitting and another can of glue - should be up and running tonight!
monkiboy April 8, 2013 April 8, 2013 you might have better luck in the immediate and long term with a pipe joint compound over teflon tape. that has been my experience with threaded connections at least. something like "pro dope" is conveniently available at HD but there's a few brands.
steveoutlaw April 8, 2013 April 8, 2013 make sure you get the pink teflon tape.......it's really thick.
CaptainRon April 8, 2013 Author April 8, 2013 Joint compound is a good idea too Marco. Steve - the tape I have is the "thick" stuff, but not pink. Or maybe it's "medium" because I know for sure it's thicker than that paper thin stuff that I have a million years ago. These two joints that leaked were the first two we did. I know I wrapped them a lot thicker after this that. I knew I should have just ditched the threaded connections - I SO didn't want yet another trip to the store at the time. Little did I know... lol
monkiboy April 8, 2013 April 8, 2013 pipe-joint compound is also helpful because it doesn't create the kind of stress on the fittings that teflon tape does. because sometimes it will still leak with the latter, folks tend to use more and more or they try to over-tighten and either in the process or afterwards develop a stress fracture/break, especially with the more commonly used sch40. it's not too late (i don't think) to switch to slip fit - perhaps it gives you more piece of mind and will be easier ultimately. don't feel rushed with all the excitement. even if it takes longer, if it makes sense to you and will bring you sanity, take the time to do it that way now. now is the easiest time to make any changes there will be. keep us posted!
CaptainRon April 9, 2013 Author April 9, 2013 Well I went ahead and fixed up my joints with teflon tape. I would have only done one joint with the joint compound so I figured I'd make them all the same. If it leaks again, I'll end up ripping it all apart and doing a mini-redsesign. But as it is now, I HAVE WATERFLOW! (finally ) I have two thoughts about my build and sump so far, besides going with slip joints and/or using joint compound - 1) I wish I went with a thicker piece of acrylic for the refugium divider. It might not be a problem, but there's a noticable flex in that panel. 2) I built the manifold upside down - I did that because I wanted to have the valves pointing downward to make them a little easier to access because I plan to one day put a shallow frag tank directly above the sump and manifold. However, the problem with the way I have it oriented is that the manifold doesn't drain completely. So when I disconnect the two true-union-ball-valves, there's going to be some amount of water that gets dumped on the floor and wall. Hopefully I won't have to take it off again for a long long time And now, the moment I was waiting for.... a wet sump!
steveoutlaw April 9, 2013 April 9, 2013 Ron - I had the flex problem on one of my sumps. I just cut a piece of acrylic and glued one end to the middle of the flexing piece and siliconed the other to the glass. It doesn't have to be very large and it will help to support. Another option would be to have a piece of glass cut as the refugium baffle.
CaptainRon April 22, 2013 Author April 22, 2013 And now, thanks again to LOTS of help from my Dad.... Lights! The light frame is 3/4" aluminum angle. The corners are mitered and are held together with picture frame corners - I'm very happy with how it came out. I finally transferred everything out of the 50 gallon rubbermaid container my reef has been sitting in for what seems like years now. I just plunked the corals in the tank - I'll be placing them in proper location over the comming weeks. The LEDS make everything look very very blue, and adjusting the color ends up making things look washed out or gray. The back of the tank is actually blue! Here's a couple more shots.
YHSublime April 22, 2013 April 22, 2013 Been waiting for this! Nice! Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
CaptainRon April 24, 2013 Author April 24, 2013 Thanks for the comments everyone, it's much appreciated I got my Apex hooked up last night, partially. The only thing it's really doing right now is controlling my topoff pump and the heaters. This past weekend I also made a repair to the refugium divider panel. In the last photo I posted of it showed quite a bow in it. Well that bow turned into one of the edges giving way (the silicone was a little light on that joint). So I cut out all the silicone on the vertical edges of the divider, cleaned it good with rubbing alcohol, reapplied a much thicker bead of silicone and also inserted a 17" wide by 12" tall piece of glass at the top of the divider to support it. I just laminated the glass to the acrylic on the refugium side. It's been curing for a couple days now so I'm going to fill it up with water and see if it holds
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