Surprise Attack! Trying Something New!

[Marc.The.Shark]

Lordy, that's some setup! Great DIY skills

Thanks a bunch. Always in awe of your setup....simplicity at its best! I remember my 1st reef back in 2003, internal filter with carbon, powerhead, heater & Reef Crystals every orher week WC. That was it! None of this testing & tweaking & it ran fine for 5+ years like that! But I'm a techie, gotta have the toys, lol, prob b my downfall!!

 

Awesome build, following along. Very nice job on the stand as well.

Thanks! Stand was a craigslist steal @ $15! Lol. Some peoples trash...... Ha!

[Slowtwitch]

Build me a stand and rigging like this already. Nice!

[Marc.The.Shark]

Build me a stand and rigging like this already. Nice!

We can work out something, i can prob use an implant or crown! Lol

[Nano sapiens]

Thanks a bunch. Always in awe of your setup....simplicity at its best! I remember my 1st reef back in 2003, internal filter with carbon, powerhead, heater & Reef Crystals every orher week WC. That was it! None of this testing & tweaking & it ran fine for 5+ years like that! But I'm a techie, gotta have the toys, lol, prob b my downfall!!

 

Fingers crossed that it all works to perfection!

[Marc.The.Shark]

Worked on the plumbing some. Had a bunch of noise in the sump, not super excessive, but i want as close to silent as i can get. Prob won't be as quiet as my current setup cause that has a hood & I'm going topless here, but want to get it as close as i can get. Anyway, i finally tried a reverse Durso drain & BINGO, silent as can be in the sump. I still hear a little water running thru the piping in the back, but i inserted some airline & that's pretty close to being gone. I think once the pipes sime over I should be golden! Here's a couple pics of the drains to the sump. I went from 1" to 1 1/4" Tee for the reverse Durso (1 1/2" was recommended, but I didn't have the room.) with my stand doors closed, i hear nothing where it empties now! I can move on to other things....

 

 

 

 

 

[TotesMaGoat]

looking at a mr aqua 22, interested to see how you end up scaping it given the similar dimensions

[Marc.The.Shark]

looking at a mr aqua 22, interested to see how you end up scaping it given the similar dimensions

Yeah, i almost bought that tank & had Marine Depot had them in stock & not a 6 week wait, I would have. Got this tank made locally for roughly the same price with thicker glass (starphire) & had it drilled. The plan is to use my existing rock formation in my 8 gallon cylinder as the centerpiece. It will break the surface of the water 3"-4", hence the reason I went 2" shorter on the height than the Mr. Aqua. Its been a slow process, but I've been making changes as i go. Trying to take care of all the little things that have bugged me about my setups over the years & make it as automated as possible as I'm out of town a lot. I have some dry rock still laying around & plan on making a couple smaller formations on either side of the main center focal point. Those are still in the planning stages, but want one side to have a branching Monti garden maybe using some Tonga Branch as pedestals, hopefully it'll look pretty cool.

[thomas8man]

love the build going to upgrade my 40 gallon to have a sump instead of a canister filter just i have to build a new stand

[Muraki]

Things are looking great! Everything looks so clean.

What brand power strip is that? Link?

[Marc.The.Shark]

love the build going to upgrade my 40 gallon to have a sump instead of a canister filter just i have to build a new stand

Good choice on the sump. I used a Ehiem Ecco cannister years ago & just couldn't deal with the maintenance factor involved. Was a huge PITA for me to disconnect hoses & open it up all the time. I know people do it successfully, just wasn't for me, I'm lazy! Lol

 

 

On another note, i brought the elbows for the reverse durso drains in the sump up to water level & did a final water test, still quiet as a lark. Had to go down to 2 returns as I wasn't getting enuf flow out of the 4, even with the Jebao DC6000 at full bore. I have too many flow restrictions & am using 1/2" CPVC after the SCWD. That's fine, this gives me pretty good flow across the tank & switches every 9-10 seconds. Still minor micro bubbles out of the bottom of the drains, but that should go away once its running, if not I can take care of that, not a big issue. Turns out i don't need airline in the drains up top, they pretty much run close to syphon with the screens on & if i close one off fully with the gate valve, the other will handle all the flow, so that's a win. Have a few more things to fab up, but getting close to gettin wet.

 

I'm gonna need a full weekend to do the transfer & have a bunch of stuff going on in the next month, month & a half, so don't see it getting done before then as i work every other weekend.

 

Edit: here you go Muraki:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002GL50Q?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01

 

It's pretty solidly built, best deal I found. I'll prob only use about half the plugs as I have the apex, but wanted only one cord out the back.

[thomas8man]

Yeah I notice that I am getting more lazy as time goes on the canister filter and needing to change over. Did you change anything structurally to make the stand better?

[Marc.The.Shark]

I bought a buffet from Craigslist & refinished it to my liking, look at the beginning of this thread. Way more solid than the crap you buy for aquariums as it was solid oak! Didn't hurt that i picked it up for $15! Lol. Didn't have to touch it structurally. My only issue so far has been quieting my sump down (drains). I added a bunch of 90's which didn't do me any favors, but i wanted the plumbing out of the way, mostly along the back wall, so i had to deal with that after the fact. Had to try 3 or 4 diff drain designs to get it totally quiet, but i had most of the PVC laying around, so it was just trial & error until i got it.

[Langer6]

This tank is looking great especially considering you have a little guy diverting your attention. I have a 2 year old girl so finding time to work on the tank isn't always easy. Very impressed with your DIY skills. The reverse Durso was genius. Well done I'm following along!

[Marc.The.Shark]

Thanks a lot. Yeah, the little one takes a lot of time, try to steal an hour or two here & there to work on things. Can't take credit for the reverse Durso, found a thread detailing it, but it definately works like a charm! Thanks for following

[Muraki]

Can you post up more details on the reverse Durso, also, what kind of flow can it handle? I have over 600ghp going through each drain....

[Marc.The.Shark]

I pretty much followed this diagram. I have 1" drains. The Tee was recommended to be 1" x 1.5" x 1.5", but I didn't have enuf room for that so I went with 1" x 1.25" x 1.25". Shouldn't be an issue handling the flow as it converts to bigger piping. Then just add a small length of straight pipe to the top of Tee and cap & drill a hole for the air to escape. Then add a short piece of piping to expel the water at bottom, however low you need it. Like I said earlier, it's dead silent. I have a few micro bubbles out the bottom, but that's with just running it for 10 mins or so, not a big issue & that's the least of my worries. I could prob run the piping lower & help, but I think it'll clear up, plus they're not traveling.

 

I had the elbow below the water line at first, but changed it to match the pic below. Didn't change anything tho. Have seen them both ways in pics so figured I'd try it before I glued everything up.

 

Does that clear it up for you?

 

Edit: not my pic, so disregard the "1 1/2 from overflow" tag, my drains are 1" like yours.

 

[Muraki]

Thanks! I use 1.5" plumbing, but I think I can fit it all inside that chamber of my sump. It will be tight though. Luckily for me, I have all the required pieces already too.

[Marc.The.Shark]

Then I'd go a 2" Tee from the 1 1/2" elbow at the bottom if you have the room. You can try it with all 1 1/2", i just went a little bigger as advised. Yeah, mine is pretty tight too, but should be pretty low maintenance. I ordered a couple of Spears unions from Prime, as they're a lot smaller than the Home Depot/Lowes ones. Need to add those above so I can remove the drains, then I'll glue everything up.

[Marc.The.Shark]

Still working on the tank/logistics, got pushed back a little, but would like to have this thing up & running by Xmas! I keep making minor changes along the way but am 80-85% complete with the build. Just pulled some old rock out & cleaned up from my 1st tank & thought I'd share a pic. This was started ~2003 and was an 8gal Picture Frame Tank that ran for roughly 6 years. Caught a whole lot of crap back then from the Big Boys saying Nano's wouldn't work/not sustainable long term. This thing ran pretty natural filtration with just internal filter/power head/heater & PC lighting. Did 2-3 gal WC's every 3 weeks with Reef Crystals. I kinda miss this tank & just recently gave it to a buddy of mine to set up as a freshwater tank in his living room. Enjoy

 

[nosser]

wow looks great so far! I'll be following along

[jack1978]

Damn, great build!

[lostsol95]

Well, got some more work done on the stand. Got the dosing pump shelf installed, as well as dosing containers with their own acrylic shelf. I added a 3 led strip to the top of each container because the black acrylic was a little dark; shows good now, should be no problem seeing level and turns on with the rest of the cabinet lighting when i open the left door. I also went ahead & drilled out a hole for the other 120mm cabinet fan, so now i have one blowing in top right (where all the plugs are) and one exhausting out (bottom left). Debated putting the the top right one in, but i had it & figured couldn't hurt to have the fresh air blowing at the power strips. I also added some wire management raceways around the outside (the gray strips), to hold the multitude of crap i have going on! Lol

Pics....

 

 

 

 

Next up, get water back in & test for drain noise & tune. Need it pretty quiet, hopefully. Also need to finish lid for sump & attach fans and work on ATO container. I have a clear acrylic container(just to the right of sump) that holds about 2 gal. Gonna try that first, but may need something bigger with an open top ~ 4-5 gal. I only go thru about a gallon a week on my current setup, but its all enclosed. Getting closer to tank transfer, i can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

 

WOW, just wow!

[Marc.The.Shark]

wow looks great so far! I'll be following along

Thanks Nosser

 

Damn, great build!

Getting there Jack, been on a little hiatus lately with the holidays & all!

 

WOW, just wow!

Thanks for taking a look. I tend to keep my tanks for a long time, so making sure this is exactly how I want it.

 

 

Update.....

Been a little slow going cause of the holidays & a 1 yr old! But I did manage to get my ATO container on order from Oceanbox & I'm sure Phuong will do an amazing job. Had a couple issues with my current tank, some RTN & slight die off of some zoas, couldn't pin it down. All Param's looked good. Also had some white fuzzy stuff on my rocks with occasional bubbles. I think maybe the culprit was the carpet cleaners we had the end of Nov, they sprayed some shit on the carpet b4 cleaning says my wife!!! Cleaned the sump out good & running carbon & blasting everything down good, seems to be getting better.

 

A couple of things I'm still up in the air about is transferring my current rock structure to the new setup. I thought I wanted the rock to stick out of the water, but am having second thoughts as I would like to keep some fish that are known jumpers(flasher wrasse for one). May just go with new rock scape & mesh cover...IDK.

 

Also my plan was always to have a refugium, but it's kind of a mess & now I'm thinking I may just run a skimmer, plus carbon/ chemipure blue as needed. Been looking around at skimmers & the Coral Box s150 seems interesting, knockoff of the Cad. $60 shipped isn't too bad. Anyone have any experience with these? Or maybe I just buy a used Cad PLS elite.

 

Decisions....decisions.....

[Sk8n Reefer]

Let's get another FTS ?

[Marc.The.Shark]

Let's get another FTS

Of what, the new tank or the current 8 gal?