Lee Van Reef Posted March 2, 2021 Share Posted March 2, 2021 Current FTS: ———————————————————————— Original post: Hi y’all! About 6 years ago I said I’d never have a saltwater tank again, but this hobby is addicting and I’ve relapsed. Since I recently moved, I took the opportunity to breakdown my freshwater tank and reset it back to its roots; a reef tank. I’m planning a mixed reef with a minimalist rock structure, few fish and a whole mess load of inverts. Current equipment and plans: 40 breeder (Need to drill the tank and install an overflow box and return line) 2 Nicrew 100w Hyperreef led lights Vortech MP10 20 Long sump Reef Octopus 110 (Still need to test to see if it’s working) Reef octopus Varios 2 return pump 200w hydor heater Apex lite As of right now, there are still a few things to do before I fill it back up: The display tank needs to be drilled and an overflow box built. Im planning on 2 1” drains set up Herbie style with a 3/4” return. The drains will be drilled through the bottom and the return from the back. As for the overflow box, I plan on making a corner box out of glass, painting the inside with krylon fusion and then covering the inside with a thin layer of silicone to prevent the water from contacting the paint. Not sure if this is a dumb idea or not, but I really don’t trust acrylic overflows and didn’t want to build a cover for the glass one. Paint the back of the tank black My protein skimmer has been sitting for about 8 years and I need to double check that it is working properly. Today I gave it a good soak in vinegar and cleaned it up. This week I plan on drilling it and building the overflow box and hopefully I can fill it next week once I give everything a few days to cure. The lights are thrown on temporarily so I can get an idea of placement and so I can test them out with the apex. My budget for lighting was was low, but I wanted 0-10v control so all the black box fixtures I’ve seen wouldn’t work (at least not out of the box). These nicrew lights so far have a very pleasing spectrum and can be controlled with an apex using a 3.5mm to rj45 cable like a kessil. The mounts took a bit of modification to fit over the rim, but nothing crazy. Hopefully they perform well! That’s all I have for now, I’ll be updating throughout the week as I get things drilled and plumbed! In the meantime, here is how it sits currently. 4 Quote Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted March 2, 2021 Share Posted March 2, 2021 Just when you think you're out, it pulls you back in! Welcome back @Lee Van Reef 😄 Looking forward to seeing your new system build come together! Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 2, 2021 Author Share Posted March 2, 2021 10 hours ago, Christopher Marks said: Just when you think you're out, it pulls you back in! Welcome back @Lee Van Reef 😄 Looking forward to seeing your new system build come together! Thanks Chris! It’s great to be back at it and I’m glad that my favorite online reef forum is still going strong!! 😁 1 Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 2, 2021 Author Share Posted March 2, 2021 Just finished drilling my tank, decided to do all the holes on the bottom instead of the return on the back panel. Overflow box is next, if all goes according to plan I’ll have it siliconed in by tomorrow and then I wait! 1 Quote Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted March 2, 2021 Share Posted March 2, 2021 Glass hole saws always get my blood pressure up! Nicely done. Going to hide the return line inside the overflow box, or keep it freestanding in the tank? 1 Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 2, 2021 Author Share Posted March 2, 2021 12 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said: Glass hole saws always get my blood pressure up! Nicely done. Going to hide the return line inside the overflow box, or keep it freestanding in the tank? I feel the same way, especially since I freehanded these lol. No chips though so we are good to go! The return line is going to be inside the overflow and come over the top of it with a 3/4” loc line. It’s basically the exact way I drilled my last 40 breeder, I figured it worked last time so why change it. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 3, 2021 Author Share Posted March 3, 2021 Got the overflow box built and painted the back of the tank yesterday Going to silicone it in place today! I decided against my half baked paint idea for the inside of the overflow and will instead be siliconing some acrylic to the front of it. More updates soon! 1 Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 5, 2021 Author Share Posted March 5, 2021 Got the overflow box installed and the acrylic cover made and installed! With the light bracket and the return standpipe it was a really tight fit, but everything *just* cleared. The rest of the return and drain plumbing is glued up and ready to go in. Once I give the sump a nice deep clean tomorrow I will be finishing the plumbing and cable management and then it’s water time! Aside from that I’m pretty disappointed with the dry rock that I received, so I will be getting a few more pieces from the LFS to get a little bit more height. 2 Quote Link to comment
KnH Posted March 5, 2021 Share Posted March 5, 2021 On 3/2/2021 at 10:00 AM, Lee Van Reef said: Just finished drilling my tank, decided to do all the holes on the bottom instead of the return on the back panel. Overflow box is next, if all goes according to plan I’ll have it siliconed in by tomorrow and then I wait! What size bulk heads did you use? Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 5, 2021 Author Share Posted March 5, 2021 1 hour ago, KnH said: What size bulk heads did you use? I used 1” bulkheads for the drains and 3/4” for the return. Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 7, 2021 Author Share Posted March 7, 2021 Alright the tank is full and running! I ran my RO line to the tank and it took all day yesterday to get a good water level to get it pumping. The reef octopus varios pump is dead silent even with my short run of rigid piping and it moves more water than I had anticipated. Currently have it set on about 50% and it’s perfect! I had a small leak from one of the drain bulkheads, but luckily it seems like it was coming from where the piping threads and not from the outer nut; I’ll be keeping an eye on it for the next couple days and see if it continues now that I’ve tightened it a bit more. Since I used dry rock and sand, I let the system run with RO water overnight until it got up to temp and this morning I slowly mixed in a bag of instant ocean straight into the sump. a few hours later there was no salt in the sump and salinity seems pretty spot on, but I’ll keep an eye on it the new few days and adjust with RO and salt. Once I get it nice and stable I’m going to grab a few pieces of live rock from the LFS to help the cycle along. The only hiccup I ran into was I broke the inlet pipe between the skimmer body and the pump. I have big clumsy feet and somehow managed to kick my skimmer across the room when I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe I was delirious from watching the RO drip all day lol. Either way, I’ve had this happen before and fixed it before with some Weld on. I’m hoping that makes a solid bond(again) and we can get the skimmer in there. Not much to skim now, so no big deal. Aside from all that, I plan on taking it real slow this time(maybe). Once I come up with a stocking plan I’ll update here! 2 Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted March 9, 2021 Author Share Posted March 9, 2021 Salinity is stable and in range so last night I took a trip to my LFS and bought a pound of live rock rubble and a bottle of fritz zyme 9. With both added to the tank I hope to speed up the cycle a little bit, but I don’t plan on adding any livestock this week. I glued up the skimmer yesterday and dropped it in this morning. It’s running but I need to make some adjustments and I probably won’t get a good set point on it until I have some more organics in the tank. It’s a bit louder than I remember, but you can’t really hear it outside of the stand. I may upgrade the pump to a dc one in the future while keeping the skimmer body, but we will see how it performs first. Here is a sump pic: I need to figure out a way to support the return line as it sags a little bit and I don’t really like that. Cable management also need some work, but it’s mostly shortening my 0-10v cables and mounting power bricks to the side panel....I’ll get to it eventually (probably never lol) the last piece of equipment that I will be installing is a dual BRS reactor for carbon and gfo. Haven’t decided on a spot for it and I’m still mulling over if I’m going to redo the return plumbing with a manifold or if I’m going to run it on it’s own pump. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lee Van Reef Posted May 1, 2021 Author Share Posted May 1, 2021 Almost two month update! Tank has been running pretty smoothly and I have added livestock since the last post. My current and final fish list: Ruby longfin fairy wrasse Black and white clownfish fire fish yellow watchman goby Inverts: tiger pistol shrimp Some blue leg hermits a few astrea snails a few nassarius snails Coral: a few assorted zoas Ricordea rhodactis mushrooms rock flower anemone pulsing Xenia pocilopora Astreopora Acan echinata Frogspawn red monti cap turquoise stag blue stylo Everything has been responding well except the frogspawn that got a little bleached when I mounted it higher up. I also decided to ditch the leds and resurrect my old 6 bulb tek light. While I did like the pop from the leds, I had a hard time finding a color combination I liked and I wasn’t a fan of the intense shimmer. In the t5 fixture I’m running 4 blue +, 1 coral + and one purple +. I got a good deal on a bucket of reef crystals and so far my alkalinity has been in an acceptable range, but I anticipate needing to dose soon! Will update soon with some closeups! 1 Quote Link to comment
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