Koleswrath Posted December 12, 2023 Author Share Posted December 12, 2023 Cord management has always been a bit of an afterthought for me and I consistently regret not putting more effort into it at the beginning. So with that in mind, let's all say together "CORD MANAGEMENT WILL NOT BE THE BANE OF MY REEF TANK". I give you the start of proper planning: I'll put the panel on a hinge so I can open it and route each cable separately for easy removal/addition. I'd like to find some screw mountable zip ties that can be opened and closed but haven't been successful so far. Might have to go with the little plastic RO tubing clamps. Some detail for cords and dosing lines in the sump. If you have any tips/tricks to share feel free! Thanks! Greg 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 Made some good progress over the holidays. Lots of fun welding and painting with a short break for mandatory Christmas visiting. Had some 1-1/4" square tube that worked great for this heavy duty stand. Glued up a top and a shelf from some 1/2 plywood I had and voila...free sump stand that takes up 10" of my coat closet. Free is always good but I've come to appreciate the custom integration aspects of making your own stuff far more than the cost savings. There's just nothing you can buy that would fit like this. Leak testing for a few days. Stay tuned for the Prime light mounts. Happy Holidays! Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 The primer is drying on these guys so I should have the whole light mount painted and ready for some pictures tomorrow but this is how I made the mounts. Final design with important input from lead designer (girlfriend): Cut and drilled a couple small tabs for the M6 mounting screw. Cut some flat bar to length and ground the end to the arched profile of the Primes. Weld the two together. Next step is finishing. 2 Quote Link to comment
ml86743 Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 Ugh the DIY skills..do jealous This thing is gonna be awesome!!! 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted December 29, 2023 Author Share Posted December 29, 2023 Light mounts painted and ready! Getting close now!! I’ll start on the electronics board and cutting angle iron to reinforce the current “stand” tomorrow. This thing wobbles pretty good when I wipe the glass now. Couldn’t imagine it holding twice the weight. Once that’s done it’s tank transfer time!!! 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 Happy New Year!! Got some work done on the stand and plumbing this weekend. Here's the reinforced stand with some super thick 1-1/2" angle iron screwed to the top and legs of the cheap wobbly particle board console table. This helped a bit but to really get this rock solid I mortised out squares in the top skirt to allow 1-1/4" square tube to bolt the angle iron to the wall studs. Turned out pretty good! Coming up next....a peek at the tank on the stand and some plumbing started. G Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 I finally got to a point where I could start mounting things and get plumbing on the go. Here's the empty tank on the stand. I'm really liking the scale and proportion to the room and wall. I'll have to make sure I get a whole room picture posted once things are plumbed and filled. The little 8.8 is sitting on an Ikea side table waiting for it's new home. Here you can see where the plumbing goes through the wall into the coat closet sump room. It's lining up nicely but definitely taking a while to cut, glue, mask and paint the pipes. I didn't want to splurge for colored pipe. After plumbing two of four runs I would recommend just paying double for the colored pipe. I'll put up a pic of the "sump room" after it's cleaned up a bit today. Really liking it so far! Thanks for stopping by! Greg 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 3 Author Share Posted January 3 Here's a work in progress pic of the sump coat closet with 1/2 of the plumbing complete. I decided to finish the plumbing then break it all out for painting after. With unions on both sides of the wall it's easy to take apart for cleaning or maintenance. 2 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 16 Author Share Posted January 16 Plumbing is done and looking great and we've got a week of wet testing under our belts. I think it's safe to go ahead and get some saltwater in this baby. We're heading to Banff this weekend for the first skiing of the season so the tank transfer won't be done until the following weekend or the one after that. Going to start getting a plan together in the meantime. @brandon429 I could use your expertise here for getting the existing sand, rock and livestock along with some new sand and rock into the new system. My last sand rinse was a few months ago and I've been feeding pretty heavy so I was planning on another one during the transfer. My plan so far: To do during the week in prep for the weekend: - Drain new tank of fresh water and fill with new saltwater. - Rinse new sand until I can make a nice snow globe in a glass and add to new tank. (lights off) - Add some new dry rock to the new tank (has been dark curing for about a month and a half with Ocean direct live sand) (lights still off). - Prep 8 gallons of new saltwater for emergency use. - Prep 8 gallons of RODI for final rinse, cleaning, etc. To do on the weekend (full Saturday): - Drain most of the existing tank water into a holding bin with heater and powerhead and move fish and live rock/corals over. Can add 50% new water if needed for depth. - Drain the last 10% of the water with the existing sand into water change bucket for rinsing. Rinse sand in small batches until fingers bleed! Final rinse with RODI. - Add existing rinsed sand over top of the brand new sand. Stir it together? Does it matter? Wouldn't think so. - Transfer fish to new tank. - Swish live rock/blow with a powerhead to clean some detritus out. - Move over live rock and corals to new tank with all new saltwater. This is basically a rip clean into a new tank (although my live rock is gloriously free of Bryopsis now that I've Fluc'd it so I won't be knifing the rock). The only thing I'm a little worried about is the new dry rock. I'm hoping it's had a chance to get a nice coat of bacteria over the last month and a half but I doubt it'll be enough. The upside is that each piece is small enough to just take out and scrub whenever required so maybe I'll just have to do that every few months until the succession of unwanted life transitions to the more appealing life. Whaddya figure? 3 1 Quote Link to comment
ryans.salty.crew Posted January 17 Share Posted January 17 16 hours ago, Koleswrath said: Plumbing is done and looking great and we've got a week of wet testing under our belts. I think it's safe to go ahead and get some saltwater in this baby. We're heading to Banff this weekend for the first skiing of the season so the tank transfer won't be done until the following weekend or the one after that. Going to start getting a plan together in the meantime. @brandon429 I could use your expertise here for getting the existing sand, rock and livestock along with some new sand and rock into the new system. My last sand rinse was a few months ago and I've been feeding pretty heavy so I was planning on another one during the transfer. My plan so far: To do during the week in prep for the weekend: - Drain new tank of fresh water and fill with new saltwater. - Rinse new sand until I can make a nice snow globe in a glass and add to new tank. (lights off) - Add some new dry rock to the new tank (has been dark curing for about a month and a half with Ocean direct live sand) (lights still off). - Prep 8 gallons of new saltwater for emergency use. - Prep 8 gallons of RODI for final rinse, cleaning, etc. To do on the weekend (full Saturday): - Drain most of the existing tank water into a holding bin with heater and powerhead and move fish and live rock/corals over. Can add 50% new water if needed for depth. - Drain the last 10% of the water with the existing sand into water change bucket for rinsing. Rinse sand in small batches until fingers bleed! Final rinse with RODI. - Add existing rinsed sand over top of the brand new sand. Stir it together? Does it matter? Wouldn't think so. - Transfer fish to new tank. - Swish live rock/blow with a powerhead to clean some detritus out. - Move over live rock and corals to new tank with all new saltwater. This is basically a rip clean into a new tank (although my live rock is gloriously free of Bryopsis now that I've Fluc'd it so I won't be knifing the rock). The only thing I'm a little worried about is the new dry rock. I'm hoping it's had a chance to get a nice coat of bacteria over the last month and a half but I doubt it'll be enough. The upside is that each piece is small enough to just take out and scrub whenever required so maybe I'll just have to do that every few months until the succession of unwanted life transitions to the more appealing life. Whaddya figure? This is exactly my plan for transferring tanks here shortly. Interested to see how yours goes! I'm wondering if rinsing the sand is worth it, I was just going to add new and mix together with old. Hope everything goes perfectly for you! Enjoy the Ski trip BABY! 😝🤙 1 Quote Link to comment
colormegone Posted January 17 Share Posted January 17 Great job so far and you still have room for your boots in the closet! Luv it 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 17 Author Share Posted January 17 1 hour ago, ryans.salty.crew said: This is exactly my plan for transferring tanks here shortly. Interested to see how yours goes! I'm wondering if rinsing the sand is worth it, I was just going to add new and mix together with old. Awesome, I'd really consider a thorough rinse! I've done a few sand rinses and each time I'm astonished at both the amount of brown waste that keeps coming from the sand and how great the tank looks afterwards with all that waste removed. I really think that rinsing a sand bed regularly is the equivalent of running bare bottom. If there's a good opportunity for me to do it I'll always choose yes. Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 17 Author Share Posted January 17 47 minutes ago, colormegone said: Great job so far and you still have room for your boots in the closet! Luv it Thanks! Glad you like it so far! Quote Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted January 17 Share Posted January 17 Wow the sump and piping is most impressive. Hats off. Well done. Looking forward to seeing how this comes together. 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 17 Author Share Posted January 17 13 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said: Wow the sump and piping is most impressive. Hats off. Well done. Looking forward to seeing how this comes together. Thanks so much! Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 Man what a great weekend! Solid 14 hour days of nothing but reefing! Got a serious amount of work done and hurdled a huge milestone in the life of this 16 gallon beauty. It's alive......It's ALIVE!!! I didn't think I'd actually get the livestock transferred this weekend - just too much to do. During the week I drained the test water and filled with salt water so I could at least be prepared if by some miracle I got everything done and ready. After getting a head start on Friday and getting a coat of paint on the controller board I was running cords and mounting electronics on Saturday morning. I had it mounted and wired up in a couple hours. After confirming everything was working I started rinsing the new sand. Here's a pic the board installed. I'm really digging the black and white. I put the board on a hinge so I could easily access the back to manage the cords or easily remove/add something down the line. This feature really helped speed up the clean install of all this stuff. Rinsing sand is extremely satisfying. I put a few handfuls in a large salad bowl, just cover with tap water, swirl and scrub with my fingers for about 20 seconds, drain and then repeat 4-5 times. Final rinse in a mesh strainer under the tap for 5-10 seconds then dump in another bowl. Once I've got that 2nd bowl filled I'll do 2 gentle rinses with RODI water and then it's into the tank. Every few water changes I'll suck out a good section of sand and go through this procedure. Keeps it MUCH cleaner than just siphoning the normal way. Took a little video of the rinsed sand being added. sand rinse.mov After rinsing and adding the new sand to the tank I took the plunge and siphoned about 1/2 the sand out of the old tank. I left 3/4 of the water in the tank with the powerheads running so I didn't have to rush. I rinsed the old tank sand the same way and added it to the new tank. I love being able to just dump in the rinsed sand and not have to worry about any tank clouding. Next I just moved the rocks over in one fell swoop. I held them in front of the power heads in the old tank for a few seconds but there wasn't much detritus to blow off. I also added a piece of rock that I had "curing" in a rubbermaid for the last month or so with some Ocean direct sand and created a nice arch with it. After the hard part was over I siphoned the rest of the sand out of the old tank, moved the fish over, rinsed the last bit of sand and dumped it in to fill the bare spots. It went incredibly smooth. The corals barely closed at all and the fish were out and exploring their new digs in a matter of minutes. I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the day and started cleaning up after the apparent bomb that exploded in my living room and kitchen. 1st FTS of the new tank "Day 1" I'm so excited to get some new fish and corals and start hooking up the PH probe, dosing pumps, and all the other goodies I can now fit. 6 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 11 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said: Looks amazing Thanks! Looks like yours is ready for some additions as well! Quote Link to comment
InAtTheDeepEnd Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 aha yep literally waiting for confirmation of a delivery date for first corals 🥳 exciting times....I can't get over how sleek and neat this all is though. It's like hardcore cable control porn. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 Well done. Tank transfers are tough. The closet sump is amazing too. Thats one innovative use of space. Aquarium is looking good! Cant wait to see what happens next. 1 Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 6 minutes ago, Staticmoves said: love those Nano Arches Me too! Hopefully the new dry rock half won't explode with algae.....but it probably will for a while. Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 4 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said: Well done. Tank transfers are tough. The closet sump is amazing too. Thats one innovative use of space. Aquarium is looking good! Cant wait to see what happens next. Thanks! I was so focused on the closet sump design and build. It almost overshadowed the actual tank....lol. Now that it's done I'm quite proud of it and happy that I can start to appreciate the system as a whole! Quote Link to comment
ml86743 Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 Congrats on the successful transfer! Quote Link to comment
Koleswrath Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 10 minutes ago, ml86743 said: Congrats on the successful transfer! Thanks! I'm in the same heavy in/heavy out frame of mind as you and I'm hoping this setup let's me accomplish that. Quote Link to comment
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