Captain Nemo's Escape

[cpeguero]

Hi everyone. This is my first build thread, so bear with me as I document a whole bunch of progress. I’ll break this up into several posts, as I get time to put it together and add pictures. First, a little bit about me: 

 

 I've been reefing since about 2005, so a lot of learning has gone into this build. Started with a 72 bowfront and once had a 150 reef (along with 5+ other tanks at the time). Many years later, I'm finally building my dream tank (within the limits of practicality and spousal approval). 

 

This process started when we bought our home in April of 2019. The planning solidified when we went to MACNA 2019 to pick out the tank, so it's been in the works for a while.

 

There were a few things that were particularly important to me with this tank. First, it had to look nice. This was going to be in our beautiful dining room, and would be a central focus of the house. To keep it looking nice, it needs good maintenance (something I’m not fantastic at). So, that means automation! Another factor in keeping it nice is no cords in the tank. To get proper water flow, that meant either Vortech pumps or closed loops. Since this tank would be viewable from 3 sides, I decided against Vortechs. Closed loops would be completely hidden and allow me to get the flow I needed throughout the tank. This tank is going to be a mixed reef, so everything from an island of zoas to a few SPS. 

 

Finally, I want this tank to be up for as long as I’m in this house (decades, at least that’s the plan…). So I’m doing my best to not cut corners on things. This is without question the most expensive build I’ve ever done, but I’ll spend the money up front to avoid dealing with issues and having to buy equipment twice… 

 

Now, on to the build! 

 

First, the tank: 

 

The planning for this started in 2019, when we bought our new house. We identified where the large tank would go, and I started narrowing down who would build my custom tank. I just happened to have won a ticket to MACNA 2019 in the WAMAS raffle (Thanks WAMAS!!!), so a family trip to Orlando would help me finalize some of the major pieces (including who would build the tank). By the time I arrived at MACNA, I had narrowed it down to Reef Savvy, Crystal Dynamics, or Planet Aquarium. All 3 were scheduled to have tables at MACNA, so I felt an in-person discussion should help seal the deal. Unfortunately, Reef Savvy did not come to MACNA (I believe because of the inbound hurricane). After talking to both Planet Aquarium and Crystal Dynamics, I ended up going with Crystal Dynamics for this build. I had a great talk with Zoya and Trent about how they build and the features available. Plus, my wife was able to talk stand style with Zoya. This was crucial, since the tank would be in our living/dining area, and needed to match. Plus, Crystal Dynamics was running a 15% off special through the end of MACNA. After much deliberation and discussion on final size, I ordered an 84"x30"x24" (~260 gallons) starphire glass eurobraced tank with reinforced seams, a Modular Marine overflow, 2 return line holes, and drilled for 2 closed loops. This would sit on a steel stand with a wood skin. By getting the steel stand, I got a 10 year warranty on the tank! With my deposit paid, I could get to working on other plans. It would take some back and forth to iron our all the details, but at this point, I was scheduled to get my new tank in January or February of 2020! 

 

Next, the tank location: 

This tank would be located on our main level, with a finished basement below it. All the filtration would be located in an unfinished space that was to be converted into my fish room. It would be located against an exterior wall, but the joists were running the "wrong way", along the long axis of the tank. This meant the floor would need to be reinforced (estimated total weight of tank, stand, water, etc was about 3700 pounds!). Fortunately, I got a recommendation for a fantastic contractor and structural engineer. With their guidance and work, we were able to have the floor reinforced by just doubling up the floor joists (I didn't really want another floor support in the middle of our media room in the basement). They also opened up a wall for us so we could enjoy the tank from the living room and open up the space more. 

  

Another challenge was that the fish room was on the opposite end of the house from the tank. Plumbing was going to be fun….. Fortunately, I was able to order flexible PVC for the plumbing runs, and our contractor was willing to run the PVC for me.  

Two other key factors for tank install were floor and basement protection from spills. There’s no way this tank would be in place for over a decade without spills, and we have hardwood floors…. Solution – a tile section for the tank with a floor drain! The tiled section has a lip to help contain any spills, and the emergency drain goes straight outside. I was able to find a sort of check valve to insert into the drain to keep any bugs from finding their way into the house, and I put a strainer on the outside to keep larger critters out. 

 

Now for some pictures of the renovation process: 

Tank location after some demo (partial wall has been removed and section of hardwood floor removed for tile).  

 

Tile Layout with some of the pipe run through the floor 

 

Pipe running through floor 

 

Basement view of flex pvc with framing around it running to fish room. Tank is above that far corner of the room. 

 

Reinforced floor joists. The white pvc is the emergency floor drain to the outside. 

 

Finished! Drain is underneath the black coil of flex pvc. 

Edited September 24, 2021 by cpeguero
added picture captions

[Pedro]

Nice!

[cpeguero]

Now, we get to the fun part – my fish room! I had never had a fish room before, but I’ve spent a long time dreaming about one. I read through tons of threads to see what others had done. I had a perfect room for this – an unfinished utility room with a utility sink. The first step was preparing the room for it’s aquatic life…..  

 

First, waterproofing. Two walls were painted concrete, so I wasn’t too worried about moisture there. The other two walls, however, were drywall. Instead of ripping it all out and putting moisture resistant drywall, I opted for putting heavy plastic sheeting over the walls that would have aquariums against them, and installing a room vent fan that runs 24/7.  

The floor was a different challenge. The rest of the basement is finished. To avoid ruining the rest of the basement if a flood were to occur, I tiled the seam where the floor and walls meet (4” up the wall and 4” into the room), with a bead of silicone along the edges of the tile. This should protect the drywall and contain any major spills. I also put barriers at the doors to help contain any catastrophic spills. I have also installed a floor pump to pump any spilled water into the utility sink. 

 

The original ceiling was exposed floor joists. To protect that, I put up ¼” plywood and then FRP. That was a major pain, and proved, once again, that I have a very supportive wife (literally and figuratively), since she helped me put that up. 

I had to repaint some of the concrete floor, since it got scratched up, and I had to grind off the paint to get the tile down. The paint isn’t ideal, but it does enough to protect the floor. 

The room already had a single light fixture, but that wouldn’t be enough for me. I added two eight-foot LED shop lights. These have been fantastic and provide all the light I could want. 

The final piece was installing a door between the fish room and the adjoining storage room. This was important since the breaker boxes were right next to that doorway, and the building inspector for the structural work pointed out that he had seen significant corrosion from salt spray in other houses that had saltwater aquariums near electrical boxes. 

 

Sump: 

I got the best sump ever for this build – FREE! A buddy was getting rid of an old 135 gallon Marineland tank. Perfect size for a nice, big, roomy sump. I spent a lot of time playing with different layouts in CAD. Here’s what it needed to handle: 

• ~2000 gph flowrate. I know this is significantly higher than required, since “conventional wisdom” for tanks is more like 3x turnover for the sump. However, this is a major component of my tank’s flow, since I don’t want powerheads everywhere. 

• Refugium – need a place for pods and chaeto! 

• Protein skimmer (external), so just need an input for a pump and a return to the sump 

• Heaters 

• Return pump 

• Significant room for display drain-down 

• Between the sump and DT there’s about 40-50 feet of plumbing. That’s a lot of water to drain back into the sump, plus the water coming down the overflow. 

Ultimately, I’m thrilled with how it all came out. Took a lot of planning to get here. 

 

Now, how do you get 2000 gph of water from a basement, across the house, up to the DT, and back???? A lot of flex-PVC, plus a nice big pump (equipment later in this thread). I mentioned before that our contractor ran that for me. I’m running a bean animal overflow, so I need 4 total lines, minimum. I had them run a total of 6x 1.5” lines, plus 2x 1” lines. That leaves me with two extra 1.5” lines (in case I need them for some odd reason), and the two 1” lines, one of which will be conduit for any wires that need to be run. 

 

 

I spent a lot of time playing with the layout. A few things I really wanted to have: 

• Sump at comfortable working level 

• Utility sink (already there!) 

• Saltwater mixing/RO storage 

• Permanent QT setup 

• STORAGE 

• Wife said (and I completely agreed) that once this is all set up, no fish stuff anywhere in the house other than the fish room and under tank storage! 

• Work surfaces 

So let’s start with the layout I ended up going with (almost). Details changed, but the overall setup stayed the same.: 

 

As you can see, I’ve got the sump at a nice working height along the long wall (top left corner of the drawing). Next to it is support for external pumps and a work surface over them. I’ve got saltwater mixing station and RO storage, more shelving storage, and my QT tanks. Note, I do have a hot water heat in the room. I eventually plan to get a tankless hot water heater to gain some space. Also, the frag tank was planned, but never happened.... 

[cpeguero]

The original plan for sump support was to use some heavy duty steel storage shelves. They were perfect. 77” long overall, adjustable, hold 1000 lbs per shelf, etc. There was one TINY problem…. My 6’ 135 gallon sump was ACTUALLY 72.5” long!!!! I didn’t find this out until I had the shelves in place and had nearly hurt myself getting the sump onto the shelves……. 

Plan B – build the sump stand myself and use those shelves in the other corner of the room for saltwater storage and equipment storage. The advantage of this plan – I get to paint the stand a nice shade of teal! Don’t worry, I also put 3 coats of clearcoat on every wooden piece in this room. I also have plenty of room to install my return pump, protein skimmer pump, and eventual 2nd return pump. (WHAT 2nd return????? To be continued…) 

On top of the return pump area, I built myself a work table. This can be removed to allow access to the pumps for maintenance. I had leftover FRP, so I glued that to the worktop to give me a nice waterproof surface. I also have a rim on this to allow water to drain into the utility sink next to it. 

 

 

The beautiful color was one of the candidates for the display tank stand. We didn’t go with this, but still had a quart of paint to use up.... Then 3 coats of clear-coat because water doesn’t go well with wood and paint. 

Next SUMP details 

The sump is the best ever – FREE! A budy was getting rid of an olde Marineland 135 gallon tank that had been used for freshwater. So four of us got it into my car, then into the house and down into my basement. Overall, wasn’t too bad. Next came the fun parts. 

Now that the stand was ready, I needed to get the sump ready. First, I had to drill some holes. Never drilled glass before. Great time to start/learn. Fortunately, all went well, and I ended up with three holes – two in the end for the return pump (2nd hole is for the future) and one in the back for the skimmer feed pump. 

With the holes drilled, take 2 at getting the sump onto the stand: 

 

Now, I have mentioned that this tank was old. Because of that, I decided to reseal it. First time resealing a tank. Overall, went pretty well. The only problem is getting a lungful of fumes when re-sealing the bottom of the tank. Had to take some deep breaths outside the tank after that. 

With the sump re-sealed, it was time to install all the baffles and the in-sump refugium. I got all the glass cut at an online supplier. I’m really pleased with how it all turned out. 

 

Note, this pic is before one part of the refugium failed. I wanted to make sure it could support the weight of sand, water, rock on it, in case, somehow, the rest of the sump was drained. Well, 1/8 pvc can’t handle that. Had to rip it out and put in some ¼" glass, with a couple of supports along the sides. 

So now I have a sump with the overflow inputs at one end, a shelf for fleece rollers (x2 – needed to handle about 1800 gph), an in-sump refugium that I estimate to be around 30 gallons, a nice big equipment section, and my return section. 

My skimmer sits on a shelf above and to the right of the sump. The waste drains straight into my utility sink. No need to empty the skimmer cup myself! The return from the skimmer comes through a bulkhead fitting in the sump lid. I glued in a piece of pvc sheet that holds that and the emergency overflow from the display. 

I made lids for the entire sump to minimize evaporation using polycarbonate sheeting. 

Refugium 

The refugium has thin PVC sheets on the sides to ensure no light spills into the adjacent sections to prevent unwanted algae growth. Flow is split off of the main overflow line and is kept really slow. I added a tunze powerhead to provide flow within the refugium itself. Added a nice deep sand bed, some rubble rock, and a pair of tunze lights that are waterproof inside the sump! This way, I can keep my lid to minimize evaporation. 

[cpeguero]

Next, we have the saltwater mixing station. 

I spent a while looking for square storage tanks. I wanted to have about 100 gallons each of RO and saltwater storage. Unfortunately, all those storage tanks tended to be a bit pricey…… So instead, I found a WAMAS member who had some extra plastic cider barrels (~60 gallons each) for a much more reasonable price. I bought 4 of them, and cleaned them out. I cut a lid into them for easier access, and plumbed pairs of them together – one pair for RO, one for saltwater. I bought a used Reeflo Dart for a mixing pump (used from another WAMAS member), and used my excess FlexPVC to plumb it all together. I also added a media canister in case I want/need to filter the water with carbon to polish it up. 

I also built a work/drying surface over the RO unit and one barrel. It folds up against the wall to give me access to the RO unit and the barrel. The rest of the barrels are on the bottom of the storage shelves that were supposed to hold my sump. 

 

 

 

 

QT’s 

Now, I mentioned before that I wanted to have permanent quarantine tanks set up. These are on another set of shelves in the corner of the fish room. I scored a couple of free 40 gallon breeders at one of the WAMAS meetings and drilled the backs. This is for my Auto Water Changes for the QT. My AWC for my display dumps the “waste” water from the display into one or the other of the QT tanks (controlled by a couple of solenoids). The QT’s are drilled with drains that run to the ejector pump for the utility sink. This way, I get AWC’s for my display AND my QT’s. I also installed a UV sterilizer for my QT’s. I understand the limitations etc, but I already had it, and it is definitely not big enough for my display. I’ll use it if I need to treat a sick fish and need to knock back disease load in the water column to give other treatments a chance to work. 

Each QT has a power filter on the back, a heater on an Inkbird, and an MP10. One of them is intended to be a coral QT, eventually. That has a Chinese black box LED that used to light my 75. The other has a small fluorescent strip light. 

If any of you have been over the HumbleFish’s forum or read his posts/seen his videos, you know he recommends having your QT 10 feet away from your display to prevent Ich from travelling in the air to your tank. He admits that was an extreme case, and most likely 3 feet is enough. With all of that, there is no way I can get my QT’s 10 feet away from my sump. My solution has been to make sure there is no Ich on fish BEFORE they make it into the fish room. There are two ways I’m doing this. The first is buying my fish from an LFS that pre-quarantines and treats their fish (Reef Escape is awesome! I’ve loved all my dealings with them). The second method is using HumbleFish’s modified TTM on any other fish (those that are in my smaller 75 gallon DT, fish bought from other WAMAS members, or from other sources). I’ve never done this method before, but there are many on HumbleFish’s forum who have been successful, so I’m going to give it a try. I’m really trying to eradicate ich in my system. Here’s a link to the modified TTM: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/hybrid-ttm-to-treat-all-parasites.1765/ 

 

[cpeguero]

Now, let’s talk about the major equipment for the system: 

• Return pump – Reeflo Hammerhead Gold. One of the only pumps out there that would pump ~2000 gph with ~20 feet of head pressure. I managed to get one used from a WAMAS member for a good price!  

• Closed loop pumps – I wanted to go with DC pumps here. I wanted them to be quiet, since they’d be in the stand. I also wanted to eventually be able to control them with an aquarium controller to create some wave action. I spent a long time researching pumps and deciding. I had thought about using Vectra L1’s or L2’s, but saw more negative experiences than I would have preferred in the long term. Because of that, I decided to look for Abyzz or Royal Exclusiv pumps for the closed loop. Between the 2 brands, there wasn’t much difference on performance, that I could find in posts/reviews. Obviously, Abyzz is significantly more expensive. I was fortunate to find both an Abyzz A100 and an RD3 80 watt used for a good discount on some of the forums. 

• Lighting – Another thing I spent a lot of time researching. I’ve always wanted to have kessil lights. Never had the money/drive to splurge on them. After watching the various BRS videos and comparisons, I decided to go with A360x’s mounted on an aluminum rail. I know a lot of folks are successful with VHO’s, but I know I won’t change the bulbs on a reliable schedule. If I ever need to supplement, I’ll use some LED supplement strips 

• Lid – I know some of the fish I’ll be stocking are jumpers, so a mesh lid is a must. I went with a Clearview Lids Pisces EXO with 2 feed doors. 

• Plumbing 

• So I already mentioned the flex PVC from the display to the fish room. This stuff has been awesome. For long runs and areas where you need a little bit of wiggle/flexibility, it can’t be beat.  

• Valves 

• All the ball valves are spears true union ball valves from BRS.  

• Gate valves are also spears from BRS 

• Unions 

• So many unions….. for these, I at first bought a bunch of the schedule 80 unions from BRS. They’re a bit pricy, but they do work really nicely. After I used all of those up, I started to use cheaper unions. However, I decided to avoid the super cheap unions from Lowes/Home Depot. The specific manufacturer changes regularly on what they have in stock, so you can rarely buy extra to re-use sections after your initial buy. I found supplyhouse.com to have quality fittings at good prices. Plus, they have things you could never find at your local big box store.  

• Bulkheads 

• I actually have a mixture of schedule 80 and schedule 40 in my build. The sump returns in the display are sch40, as are the overflow entries into the sump. The closed loop fittings and the return pump fittings in the sump are all sch80 

• Display Tank fittings 

• Both my returns are 1” sch40 bulkheads. After much trial and error, I used Vivid Creative Aquatic’s modular hose and splitters to get a 1” RFG on each return as well as a ¾” locline wide nozzle with a valve as the siphon break.  

• I know that many folks just drill a hole in their return line to use as a siphon break. I’ve done that as well. However, when I have done this, they did not work. Algae grew over and plugged the hole. Not taking chances on this one J 

• Closed loops  

• The intakes are 1.5” bulkheads with a black 90 degree elbow and strainer intake to minimize sand getting sucked into the closed loops. 

• The outlets are 1” bulkheads with a “T” and two ¾” loc-line “Y”’s to get 4 outlets on each closed loop. 

• Heaters 

• I have a 300W Ehiem Jager and a 600W BRS heater on a BRS inkbird with wifi. Honestly, the wifi connection is garbage on this, but I don’t really care about that. The inkbird works and alarms when the temperature gets too high. It’s plugged into a power strip controlled by my profilux, so if the inkbird fails, the controller will shut off the outlet. 

• Protein Skimmer 

• I was able to score a Reef Concepts Aerofoamer 824 with Iwaki MD-55RLT from a WAMAS member who was getting out of the hobby at a steal of a price. This included the Iwaki pump to drive it too! 

• Refugium lighting 

• One of the challenges here was that I wanted to have a lid on the sump to minimize evaporation. That means, there will be condensation on the lid, which grows algae….. My solution was to use two Tunze waterproof full spectrum LEDs (8850.00). Since these are waterproof, I can mount them over the fuge INSIDE the sump. When the return pump is off, they’re underwater, but that doesn’t matter!  

• Filter roller 

• I was not originally planning to use filter rollers. However, As I was getting ready to build my sump, Coralvue had their insane 40% off (or something like that) on the Klir-7 rollers. Two of these would be enough to filter all my water, so I bought them. I was not happy with how much floss was getting wasted with their included controller. So, I figured out the pinout on their optical sensor and wired it to my controller. So now I have control over how much is rolled up. MUCH happier with this now. 

• Controller 

• I went with the GHL Profilux 4. I know a majority of folks use Apex, and I admit their software is more user-friendly. However, from what I had ready in forums, the GHL hardware tends to be more reliable, and that was more important to me. Plus, sometimes I like doing something different just because…. I am honestly quite happy with the hardware from GHL. The software connectivity is the one issue I’ve had. The wifi connection can be a little flaky, though it seems to be better lately.  

• The other major reason I went with GHL is the ION director. I intend to have this for regular water testing and tuning my dosing. The reduced need for reagents, plus the wide range of items tested made this more desirable for me vs the Trident. 

• My Profilux, dosers, other controller hardware live on a shelf/board over the sump. I’m trying really hard to keep this organized and neat. I do quite a bit of DIY on float switches, etc. I have tons of solenoid valves for running my RO and for controlling which QT gets water changed when. I also DIY’d the splitter for the GHL float sensors. I just can’t bring myself to spend $70 on a float switch….. Might do a post later on details of how I did this. 

• Dosing 

• I’m using a GHL MaxiDoser for my AWC (yes, I NOW know they’re releasing a new version. I’m hoping the new heads will be compatible with the old…) 

• I’m using a GHL doser 2.0 for Kalk, any other trace elements I choose to dose, and to eventually run my ION Director. My homemade Kalk reactor isn’t quite up and running. I’ll post more about that later. 

[cpeguero]

Ok, so, I haven’t talked that much about the display tank yet. Already established it’s a Crystal Dynamics, 84” x 30” x 24” (L x W x H) tank with starphire on 3 sides, painted black back. It was supposed to be delivered January/February 2020. Unfortunately, it turns out their silicone supplier had a bad batch of silicone. To be safe, CD tossed their entire supply. That set delivery back a while. Then the pandemic hit. When all was said and done, the tank wasn’t delivered until July 24th. Then.... this is all that showed up: 

 

Somehow, the freight company misplaced the actual aquarium...... Fortunately, they found it and delivered it a few days later. 

 

Now that everything is in my garage..... how do I get it into the house.... The tank is too long to get through the front door and down our hallway (weird dog-leg there). So.... it has to go around the back of the house. I tried to get some professional help for this, but moving companies weren’t interested, and LFS’s that I contacted weren’t willing to do the move (not much value to them, since I didn’t order through them, and it was kind of a tough path). So, it’s down to me, some friends, and the right tools: 

• Suction cups from WAMAS 

• Furniture dollies from home depot 

• And a bobcat with forklift attachment 

 

 

 

Now, since I’ve got this heavy equipment, might as well use it to do the heavy lifting: 

 

 

We had to lift the tank, while on the stand, up onto my patio, through a narrow doorway..... Thankfully, I have friends who have experience moving heavy things in tight quarters, while directing heavy equipment. We managed to get it into the patio without incident. Finally, the tank was in! 

 

Yes, we had to remove the sliding glass door to get it in.... 

 

Obligatory photo of me in the tank. 

[howaboutme]

Wow! Threads like this remind me just how entertaining it is to read build threads. Great job on the planning and looking forward to seeing this move along!

[cpeguero]

Thanks!  I'm lucky to have a wife who is willing to hear me ramble on about my ideas and help me work through them.  I need to take time to write up more of this. Tank was moved in place August of 2020, so just about a year behind current progress. I'll post more soon.

[DaJMasta]

Somehow it didn't look as big until you hopped in!  Quite a fish room already setup, too.  Looking forward to seeing it come to life.

[YHSublime]

Awesome stuff! Following along. 

[monkiboy]

hope to be able to read more about this one soon - thank you for sharing!

[schudini]

On 9/25/2021 at 2:05 PM, cpeguero said:

Thanks!  I'm lucky to have a wife who is willing to hear me ramble on about my ideas and help me work through them.  I need to take time to write up more of this. Tank was moved in place August of 2020, so just about a year behind current progress. I'll post more soon.

 

Yeah, you are a lucky man. My wife vetoed a through wall viewing window with a 90 gallon (plus sump) IN the fish room. Afraid it would hurt the house "resale value" 

 

Would love to see more pics.

[cpeguero]

Ok... so I'm bad about updating my build thread. Sorry all. Between kids, work, the tank, and a few other hobbies, when I do have energy, it's in working on the system. Anyway, will try to get us up to speed now.

 

So, I think I covered most of the equipment, etc. Now to cover plumbing and assembly! 

 

Here's a shot of the tank with all the upstairs plumbing fittings in it. (No idea why it rotates in 90 degrees like this....) I went with all black pvc for any of the plumbing on the DT to minimize visibility from the living room next to the tank. The two black bars sticking above the tank are kessil mounting arms. You'll see the mount details later.

 

 

Here's the exterior overflow box with plumbing glued it. Needed to jog over to meet where the lines come up from the basement.

 

Here's the plumbing from the overflow box all finished up:

 

Here's one closed loop, with the red dragon 80W:

 

intake on the back of the tank. You can also see one of the two return lines from the sump:

 

 

and the Abyzz a100:

 

[cpeguero]

Here's a shot of both the left hand closed loop and the return pump plumbing. The return is the black pvc on the right, coming up to a T.

 

Here's the sump where my lines enter. This is before I installed all the bulkheads. Was just trying to get enough done so I could get water up into the display and start cycling. The line with the gate valves is the main siphon. The line with two black 45-degree elbows is the trickle. The free-hanging line is the emergency overflow.

 

Display is ready to leak test!!!!

 

All in all, only had a couple of small leaks. One of them was in the threaded bulkhead for one of the closed loop intakes. So... I had to drain the tank outside:

 

 

Leaks all fixed!

 

 

Time to put in the aquascape!!!

 

And now salt and sand! I got the sand about a year before this from a WAMAS member who had a tank failure and was taking down his system. Kept it alive in some bins with some powerheads. 

 

 

Guess it was a bit dirty..... all cleared up now

 

 

 

 

[cpeguero]

Now that the tank was cycling, it was time to shut off the return and install the walls/baffles/etc in my sump. I got all the glass custom cut from www.onedayglass.com. Their online system is pretty easy to navigate. May not have been the cheapest route, but it wasn't bad, especially since they do all the cutting and polishing of edges for you. Here are assembly pics:

 

Here's where water enters from the main siphon and the trickle overflow:

 

now the upstream wall of the refugium. Most of the flow into the sump will go beneath it, hence it being blocked up higher in the sump.

 

Next is the first iteration of the refugium. As mentioned previously, it did fail. This was just 1/8" glass with 1/8" pvc on the bottom. The end was also just 1/8 glass with pvc. And I really have absolutely no idea why it keeps rotating. Now it's upside down :P 

 

Here I'm attaching the two side supports for the fleece roller tray:

 

And here's the finished product. You can see the filter floss tray on the left (white PVC). If the rollers clog, water overflows into the refugium. The feed to the refugium is teed off of the main siphon with a gate valve. The skimmer is fed from an intake in the back of the main chamber. The skimmer return is through the U in that same chamber. The second line that comes in next to the skimmer return is the emergency overflow from the DT. The return pump chamber on the far right has two outlets. Eventually I'd like to feed a second tank off of this sump.

 

 

Here's the sump on the first fill with clean water:

 

 

As I've mentioned before, this setup failed. I did a stress test for the refugium chamber to see if it could support the weight of water (and eventually sand and some rock) when all water was at its operating level. The bottom glass cracked. So, I ordered new glass, 1/4" thick, tempered, for the bottom, end, and to support the bottom (see pic for pieces attached to front and rear glass of sump).

 

This time, it did survive the stress test. So now, time to run saltwater through the whole thing!

 

The mangled kitty litter container is an attempt to deal with bubbles from the skimmer. I think I eventually narrowed down the source of bubbles to be from my not properly tuned beananimal overflow. 

 

 

 

 

[cpeguero]

Now that the tank was cycling, I turned my attention to lighting. I certainly didn't want a ton of separate kessil mounting arms. I also played around with spacing and number of lights (using BRS's investigative series to guide). I also borrowed the club PAR meter to confirm readings. 

 

I had started with 5x a360x's... because that was already expensive... ultimately, I decided I needed a total of 7. That would give me about 200 PAR on the flat rock to the left, and around 220+ on top of the right rock structure. This will be a mixed reef, but who knows.... starting to get drawn in by the SPS bug.... The lights are mounted to an aluminum "c" channel. I painted it a flat black and attached the channel to the kessil mounting arms. All the wires get hidden in the c-channel, then fed down the mounting arms. With the wifi dongle, this means just the power cords go down the arms. Good thing, because those power cords are a tight fit...

 

Around this time (end of 2020), my second daughter was born, so not as many photos/much progress. This was fine, since the tank was cycling. Saltwater was in around September 2020. In March of 2021, I added the first fish - 3x helfrichi firefish. These are one of my favorite fish, so I wanted them in first to make sure they were comfortable. Got them from Reef Escape, pre-quarantined, etc. They went straight into the tank, and promptly disappeared. After at least a week of only seeing maybe one of them, I finally turned on the lights, and voila! All three came out. Soon after, I added a yellow coris wrasse, a melanurus wrasse, a tailspot blenny, and a carpenter's flasher wrasse. Here's a shot of the tank from August of 2021.

 

Overall, things were pretty stable. Clearly going through the ugly phase. In the meantime, this was my 75:

 

around this time (August 2021) I moved my two-barred rabbitfish and pair of ocellaris clowns from the 75 to the 260. They went through TTM prior, just in case. I really don't want any disease in this system. Too hard to catch everyone and/or treat disease.

 

Then, in November, I added my "tang gang" - purple tang, convict tang, and hippo tang. The hippo tang was a tiny guy I got off someone in WAMAS.

 

Unfortunately, my clowns did NOT like the hippo tang or the convict tang. Within a week, the hippo tang was dead. The clowns were also chasing the convict tang across the tank. This also seemed to upset the peace with my firefish. They had always sort of bullied the third firefish, but one morning, I came down to the third firefish being harassed by the dominant firefish. The poor guy had a clearly broken back! I moved him to QT, but he was dead later that day. 

 

As a result of all of this, and the continued aggression towards the convict tang, the clowns were permanently banned to my coral QT. My plan was to put them in a second system eventually. Around this time, my carpenter's wrasse disappeared.

 

In late December, I tore down my 75 gallon to meet my own deadline for taking it down before Christmas. I moved the coral I wanted to keep to the 260.

 

The 75 gallon had been fish-free for over 76 days. I as sure this meant no ich could possibly be there. However, a little bit after this, I saw my convict tang scratching! I assumed it was ich, and after some quick research, started dosing hydrogen peroxide to the tank. Long story short, it may be he's just a weirdo. After 3 months of dosing, I stopped. Nobody ever got ich, that I could tell.

 

Around new year's, I was able to get a hippo tang and carpenter's wrasse from TSM aquatics. I used an acclimation box for the hippo tang, and when he was released, the tangs got along fine (for tangs). Some chasing of one another, but no sustained bullying.

 

However, a few weeks later, my carpenter's wrasse disappeared. The tank was NOT looking great. Lots of algae, etc

 

 

Clearly I had a nutrient issue. I learned at this point that flasher wrasses are particularly sensitive to water quality. Though my nitrates would read 0 on my test kit, they were apparently being taken up by the algae.... Around this time (February 2022-ish), I started dosing Microbacter7 (thanks to a WAMAS group buy organized by @Blue Tang Clan). That seemed to be helping. At this point, I also had 5 or 6 turbo snails, a tuxedo urchin, and the tangs all munching away at the algae. It seems to be getting better. Will post some more recent pics from my phone later on. 

 

I'll also discuss some other iterations I had with equipment in a later post. I'll also discuss dosing, AWC, testing, etc.

 

This is now pretty much up to date. I recently added some tiger conchs to help stir up sand, and have a cleaner shrimp, pair of biota captive bred mandarins, and a biota captive bred court jester goby in quarantine.

 

My other current issue is that my melanurus wrasse appears to have some disease. Last week I found him sucked against my closed loop intake a couple of times. I put him in QT and continued to observe him. He'd just lay on the bottom of the tank, breathing, looking around, but not acting normal. No other signs of disease on any other tank inhabitants. This makes it weird to me, since I figured the hippo tang would be the first of all of them to get sick. After a freshwater dip, nothing came off of him, so I don't believe it's flukes. No signs of other parasites. My best guess is that he either got stung by the rabbitfish or is old.... I started dosing copper power today. Planning to get him up to full dose in about a week or so.

 

 

 

[lynn.reef.nerd]

Following a long. 

[monkiboy]

thank you for all the updates! congrats on the second kid and hope you have a good sleeper so you can put some more time into getting through some of these hurdles. thank you for sharing them and how you work through them!

[cpeguero]

Ok. As I said before, I’ll give a bit more detail on dosing, AWC, and equipment. We’ll start with dosing.

Dosing: I was originally going to do BRS 2-part plus balling, so I partitioned a 10 gallon aquarium into 2 sections for the 2 part. I may still do that in the future, but, for now, I’ve mad myself a DIY kalk reactor. I love how cheap it is, and I only have to mess with dosing one thing. I made this using a 5 gallon bucket, a magnetic mixer, a bulkhead or 3, some float switches, etc.

The float switch maintains a constant water level in the reactor. It’s hooked up to a solenoid that controls a pair of aqualifter pumps (needed since it’s a long run from my RO reservoir). I have a siphon break set up to make sure I don’t flood my fish room. There’s also a solenoid valve on the inlet as a failsafe (controlled by the same float switch).

There is a second float switch that will shut off the pumps if the bucket gets too full.

The magnetic stirrer is controlled by my profilux. I’ve set up a Maintenance button that will stir for an hour, for when I add new kalk. For the rest of the time, it’s controlled by a conductivity probe. I think that “theoretically” the conductivity of saturated kalk is close to 10 uS. In practice, my probe reads 9.1 uS max. So I have the stirrer kick on whenever it drops below that. I also have controls to make sure it doesn’t run right before I dose.

Dosing is with my doser 2.1. Im pulling the solution through the doser. I realize this could be a problem in the future with messing up the tube. Unfortunately, I have to have the reactor below my sump, so can’t do a gravity feed. I tried pushing through, but the rigid lid I had wouldn’t seal properly, and the standard bucket lid just bows out when I put it under pressure. In the future, I may try a different container and find a place that allows a gravity feed.

I also have a check valve on the line between the doser and the sump to make sure there’s no back siphoning in case the return is off. I know the doser head itself should prevent this, but I also know everything fails at some point.

I have a large bulkhead in the bucket lid to allow for easy kalk addition when it needs to be replenished.

Im currently dosing 120 mL 24 times per day. So about 2.8 liters per day. According to my KH Director, that’s keeping up pretty well. I don’t have much demand at all, so we’ll see how that goes. Once I max out with kalk, I’ll likely supplement or go completely to 2-part.


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[YHSublime]

What's going on, Capn'? Hope you didn't get stuck in your tank!

[cpeguero]

What's going on, Capn'? Hope you didn't get stuck in your tank!

Hehe, not stuck in there yet! Been busy with life and kids. Quick update:

Got a new melanurus wrasse from WAMAS. QT went smooth and he’s in, along with the lawnmower, rainsford (who I rarely see), and one mandarin. I lost one of the mandarins (male, I think). Had them in an acclimation box and was putting in food, but didn’t watch them eat. Looks like he starved :(. I had seen them eat the pellets before, so wasn’t super concerned. Female sense to be doing ok now that she’s free. Though I think she might be a he. Label when she arrived said female, but I thought the males had the long dorsaa a l spine…

On the nutrient front, finally got new reagents for my phosphorous checker. Confirmed sky high. GFO in a reactor in the sump have that fixed. Down to 63 ppb (upper range of ok is 60). Will check again soon to confirm it’s still going down.

Picked up a couple of nice frags this week. They’re in coral qt along with some more snails.

Also grabbed a Royal gramma from another WAMAS member. Was almost through TTM when I missed a transfer by about a half hour . Time to start over.

Also cleaned out my fish qt after the sick melanurus wrasse. Don’t want to take chances. Once I get that set back up, and after he clears TTM, Royal gramma will go there for observation for a couple of weeks.

Assuming I’ve finally got my nutrients under control, I’ll get back to adding some flasher wrasses

Also, since the maintenance never ends , had to order some replacement relays. The one I have to control my RO reservoir auto refill failed. Fortunately, it failed in the off position, so none of the backups had to engage. Also, it’s a socket relay, so just need to pop a new one in, no rewiring.


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[cpeguero]

Also, question for you all on DI.

I run 2 DI canisters. One anion, one cation. I’ve switched their order, and found that whichever one is first gets depleted Super fast. Anyone else have this issue or any idea why?


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[cpeguero]

Quick update today (going to try to be better.... we'll see how that goes.......)

 

Sorted out my DI consumption. Needed to replace RO membranes. Not sure when I previously replaced them, so going to try to keep track.

 

Recent ICP test (thanks WAMAS for the freebie at fragfest!) showed things all going in the right direction. Major items all in line. A few trace elements a bit low.

 

Grabbed the Royal Exclusiv GHL interface for one of my closed loops. Now I can play some with flow on that side!

 

Still been struggling with some algae and keeping SPS alive in both QT and main display. Sorted out part of the coral QT issue (had enough load that needed kalk dosing, alk went down to 5 dKH!) and set up a chiller to keep the temp at 77. The other piece (I think) is my low nutrients. Nitrate has been undetectable since I set up the system, but phosphates have been somewhat on the high side. Used GFO to knock them down some, but I hate having to change it, deal with clogged reactor, etc.

 

Recently saw discussion in another thread about dosing nitrate, so I just started doing that over the weekend. I'm dosing a nearly saturated potassium nitrate solution. Still have to dial it in, but my nitrates this morning were 2.9 ppm and phosphorous dropped from 64 ppb to 13 ppb over 2 days! Thanks to @ReefdUp for info on this! 

 

Now I need to either further modify my Jebao doser to run another channel controlled by the Profilux or spend a lot more money on another 4-head GHL doser...... choices. Plus, now that it looks like I care about nitrate, the ion director is looking even better (except for the mixed reviews I've seen and the supply chain issues that mean they won't be accepting more orders for a while)........

[ReefdUp]

On 12/12/2022 at 6:25 AM, cpeguero said:

Recently saw discussion in another thread about dosing nitrate, so I just started doing that over the weekend. I'm dosing a nearly saturated potassium nitrate solution. Still have to dial it in, but my nitrates this morning were 2.9 ppm and phosphorous dropped from 64 ppb to 13 ppb over 2 days! Thanks to @ReefdUp for info on this!

 

Yaaay!! That's great!