Jon and Maureen’s 350g Tank: The Reef Awakens

[Jon Lazar]

There's been several small projects this last month, designed to add some order to the tank room and the area under the stand.

 

First, I gave myself some much-needed workspace in the tank room. This is how the room looked before:

 

 

And this is how it looks now:

 

 

The old tank stands over the sump are large enough for four 40g breeder tanks, all plumbed into the sump.  The new addition provides an extra 8' of workspace. There's room for 3-1/2 feet of countertop for fragging, and 4-1/2 feet of quarantine / hospital tanks. I'm planning on adding a 4-1/2' "second story" for more QTs or just plain storage. A standalone 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank fits underneath with skimmer and lights.

 

I attached a ledger board to the two walls, and used doubled 2x4s for the joists and the load-bearing posts. The non-load-bearing posts and blocking are single 2x4s. The top is 1/2" hardwood plywood.

[Jon Lazar]

Next was a power brick organizer for under the display tank stand. I have four ReefBreeder Photon V2 power supplies, two Ecotech Vectra power supplies, and two Gyre 280 power supplies. I've seen other setups where the power supplies are all surface mounted to the wall, and it takes up a lot of space. I also want the power supplies to be secure so they're not falling down, but easy to reposition without unscrewing things or cutting zip ties. I have plenty of depth to my stand so I built an organizer that minimizes the amount of wall space required.

 

I also wanted a design that would help protect the power supplies from splashes, and allow me to use drip loops on the cords.

 

 

I built this out of 0.5" PVC from Home Depot. There's a selection of PVC materials there for house exterior trimwork. A 2' x 4' sheet was about $20. There was enough stock for this organizer and a separate control board to mount pump controllers and whatnot. I like that the PVC machines easily and is waterproof without me having to paint.

 

The inside dimensions of the shelves are about 9" long x 4.5" deep x 2" tall. I made the cord cutouts in the side panels by drilling 1" holes and cutting tangents to the circle on a band saw. Then a little bit of edge sanding to smooth out the cut lines, and a quick pass on the router to round over the hard edges. There's no salt spray in the stand because the sump is in the basement, so I used inexpensive galvanized wood screws instead of stainless steel ones. I drilled two holes in the back of the organizer and attached it high on the rear wall of the stand. 

 

Here's a shot with two of the ReefBreeder Photon v2 power bricks in place.

 

 

Once I figure out the cord reach and location for the other four power bricks, I'll build a second organizer for them.

 

 

[Jon Lazar]

Something that's been on my to-do list for a while has been a way to secure the probes and ATO/AWC/dosing tubing in the sump. This may sound like a "nice-to", but I think it's actually pretty important. I can imagine the topoff line getting bumped so it dribbles onto the floor instead of into the sump. The ATO would just run and run, flooding the tank room.

 

So I made myself a probe holder for the main chamber where the skimmer sits, and a tubing holder for the return pump section.

 

 

I laminated two pieces of 0.25" black acrylic and cut them to size. I drilled all the holes, then tapped threads for 1/4"-20 thumbscrews. The last step was to round over the edges. 

 

For the probe holder I drilled a 5/8" hole for the temperature probe, and 1/2" holes for the salinity and pH probes. I don't plan on using any other probes in the sump. I glued the probe holder to a spare magnet from a Tunze ATO. I needed to use a magnet so I could remove the holder when changing the long salinity probe. Otherwise the sump's eurobrace gets in the way. 

 

For the tubing holder I drilled six 17/64" holes. I tried 1/4" holes, but that was a little too tight for RO tubing. I glued the tubing holder in place. I also made a doubler and drilled it before gluing it to the eurobrace. It would have been too hard to lean over the sump and drill six evenly spaced holes in the right location.

 

Here's the finished product:

 

[roni]

Something that's been on my to-do list for a while has been a way to secure the probes and ATO/AWC/dosing tubing in the sump. This may sound like a "nice-to", but I think it's actually pretty important. I can imagine the topoff line getting bumped so it dribbles onto the floor instead of into the sump. The ATO would just run and run, flooding the tank room.

 

So I made myself a probe holder for the main chamber where the skimmer sits, and a tubing holder for the return pump section.

 

 

I laminated two pieces of 0.25" black acrylic and cut them to size. I drilled all the holes, then tapped threads for 1/4"-20 thumbscrews. The last step was to round over the edges.

 

For the probe holder I drilled a 5/8" hole for the temperature probe, and 1/2" holes for the salinity and pH probes. I don't plan on using any other probes in the sump. I glued the probe holder to a spare magnet from a Tunze ATO. I needed to use a magnet so I could remove the holder when changing the long salinity probe. Otherwise the sump's eurobrace gets in the way.

 

For the tubing holder I drilled six 17/64" holes. I tried 1/4" holes, but that was a little too tight for RO tubing. I glued the tubing holder in place. I also made a doubler and drilled it before gluing it to the eurobrace. It would have been too hard to lean over the sump and drill six evenly spaced holes in the right location.

 

Here's the finished product:

 

As usual, your workmanship is immaculate. How about some pics of the new rock and mushrooms

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[monkiboy]

I like the increased work space and new projects are executed nicely.

 

pay mind to aerosol contamination from the hospital tanks and all the buckets, hoses, nets, etc used on them as it seems there is a lot of surface area of display water available in the room within close proximity to be infected. if determined to use the space maybe try solid covers over the hospital/quarantine tanks.

 

all too often folks contaminate or nuke their display when doing their due diligence and treating and/or quarantining new fish because the tanks are within 10 feet or so of display water.

 

I really like how clean the probe holder came out and might have to use it as inspiration to tackle something similar - thanks for sharing!

[Origami]

Awesome, clean setup, Jon & Maureen. 

[Jon Lazar]

As usual, your workmanship is immaculate. How about some pics of the new rock and mushrooms

 

Thanks, and pics are in works...

 

I like the increased work space and new projects are executed nicely.

 

I really like how clean the probe holder came out and might have to use it as inspiration to tackle something similar - thanks for sharing!

 

Go for it!

 

Awesome, clean setup, Jon & Maureen. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

pay mind to aerosol contamination from the hospital tanks and all the buckets, hoses, nets, etc used on them as it seems there is a lot of surface area of display water available in the room within close proximity to be infected. if determined to use the space maybe try solid covers over the hospital/quarantine tanks.

 

all too often folks contaminate or nuke their display when doing their due diligence and treating and/or quarantining new fish because the tanks are within 10 feet or so of display water.

 

That's a great point. Part of the reason for building the additional counter now (rather than someday later) is to increase the separation between the display tank water (via the sump) and standalone hospital tanks. The hospital tanks are covered with eggcrate, and I've recently "upgraded" to laying towels over the top of the tank. Mostly to prevent jumpers, but also to minimize pathogen transfer. I'm on board with separate tools and whatnot too.

[scott711]

 

 

That is a really cool idea!  do you have a link for the material you used?  I have access to a cnc machine that could make some nicely shaped pieces.

[Jon Lazar]

That is a really cool idea!  do you have a link for the material you used?  I have access to a cnc machine that could make some nicely shaped pieces.

 

 

Home Depot carries it as SKU #1001598423. Half inch thickness was the right dimension for the shelves, but there are other sizes and thicknesses available for other projects.

 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/24-in-x-1-2-in-x-4-ft-White-PVC-Trim-1506280/207036628

[Jon Lazar]

How about some pics of the new rock and mushrooms

 

 

Here's the first corals to go into our tank. They spent the first three weeks of quarantine in the basement, and now they're doing the rest of their quarantine in the display tank. There are no fish in the DT, so that's legal! And it will give more time for the different microfauna to spread without fish to prey on them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plan to import biodiversity and microfauna is starting to work. The corals went in on 21 Jan, and two weeks later there's thousands of copepods on the glass. Granted this is just one species and it's one of the most common types of pods, but it's still nice to see signs of life.

 

 

[YHSublime]

I always like to see the pods without the fish added yet. Super cool, glad to see everybody has a handful of rics around. 

[gastone]

Jon, glad to see that you and Maureen are doing well.  The tank looks terrific!

 

Garrett.

[Reefoholic]

Such a sweet setup! Also everything looks so well planned out and orderly!

Is there a pic of the entire tank with the corals in?

Tagging along for sure!


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[GraffitiSpotCorals]

So how’s the tank looking now?

[roni]

We need updates!  

 

[YHSublime]

34 minutes ago, roni said:

We need updates!  

 

+1

[YHSublime]

I guess we will have to beg?

[Jon Lazar]

You're right; we're way behind on updates!  The tank is making good progress, with the usual ups and downs over time.  I'll work on getting some pics for a proper update.