Jeffy's BC29 BIG SUMP Adventure! Tons-O-Pics

[JeF4y]

Where to begin...

Well, let's see. All she really wanted was a few goldfish. That quickly ended up changing into a full-on reef aquarium. Now, not knowing ANYTHING about reefing, we bought a bit of hardware and dove in. We originally thought we should go very small scale, something modest. The Biocube 29 would be perfect for us. Small enough for the bedroom, yet not just a bowl of water. (again, we had no idea what we were doing).

We didn't buy any livestock yet, but instead, spent some time reading and researching a LOT.

Our intent was a small reef with a few LPS corals, 2 clowns and a mandarin. So that's what we set out after.

We started with 50# of crushed coral, and 30# of fully cured, straight out of a functioning reef tank - liverock. After letting that sit for a while, we added the CUC and a few corals. Then the fish.

Here's what we started with:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/21.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/22.jpg

Everything was going along just fine, everyone was quite happy. But we wanted something more. What originally started out as a place to grow pods, ended up as a full-blown experiment in how much money can be spent and how crazy can you get for a simple biocube. Now, I'm sure there are people who have gone MUCH crazier, but, well, this is our story at it. Before I begin, I have to say that JohnnyBravo was a big inspiration for what I did here, and he gets credit for some of the plumbing work.

Goal:
Add fuge/sump to grow pods, and expand water capacity.
Replace crushed coral substrate with deep-sand bed.

Step 1:
Find the biggest sump that can possibly fit in the space we have in the bedroom.

I found an ebay seller "Filter-Tech" who had a Refugium "for 150 gal tanks" which looked like it would fit the bill. The dimensions are 31x12x16 which gives 25.7 gal to the top, or 19 usable gallons (minus 3-4 gal for rock & sand).

(sidenote: if anyone is looking for a sump/fuge, I HIGHLY recommend this ebay seller. They are very quick to ship, respond, and they do custom work. Very good quality at a good price.. and no, I don't know who they are other than my transactions with them.)

Step 2:
Build a stand! Not just any stand... No... A stand that the wife thinks looks good and is functional. So it needs to be bi-level so one level is bed-height and the tank is 12" higher so we don't have to stoop to see the fish.

Frame:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/stand_1.jpg

Stand front without doors - I should note, the top of the lower level (nightstand) actually lifts off. Very useful in what will be a PACKED bottom:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/stand_2.jpg

Stand Rear - This part will remain open & has overhangs so that it can get closer to the wall yet hide some of the plumbing.
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/stand_3.jpg

Step 3:
Buy some Marco Rocks, and 60# of Marco Sand, and pick up some lace rock and a few rocks from my boss who used to reef years ago:

Marco Rock:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/1.jpg

Bosses old Rock:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/3.jpg

Lace Rock:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/4.jpg

Step 4:
Soak/Season/Cook/Kill/Acclimate it. Whatever you want to call it, I took the rock, threw it in the biggest cooler I had with a fat piece of liverock from the tank and then cycled it with both fresh saltwater and drain water from my weekly water changes on the tank. It sat in my garage and maintained a temp in the low 80's for just over a month.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/10.jpg

[JeF4y]

Day of the actual move start... 8:00 AM on a Saturday.

Step 5:
Toss all your plumbing on the table and re-write your plans a few times over..

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/8.jpg

Step 6:
Leak test that sump

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/7.jpg

Step 7:
Rinse 60# worth of the finest sand you can get. Now THIS was a task. It took much longer than I ever imagined and we ended up doing probably 10-15 fills/rinses in order to get it relatively clear, but we did get it clean.

Step 8:
Figure out an aquascape. This actually went pretty well because I had the original packing material from the BC29, so I laid it on the garage floor and had good dimensions to work with. I measured the front-to-back on the tank so that the existing sump chamber would be accounted for, and made a calculation that 12" was as high as I could go and still keep things under water with a 5" sandbed.

Pull out the rock
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/13.jpg

Start scaping - used a few pegs & putty (putty turned out to be useless) - The Red rock represents where our Flower Anemone will go.

You can't quite see it, but the green-ish rock in the center is actually a bit of a shelf. Shows up better in later pics.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/15.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/16.jpg

[JeF4y]

SHOW TIME!

Step 9:
Pulled the rock & tossed it in a bucket with tank water. Then went fishing.
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/24.jpg

Pulled out the corals & put them, the 'nem and the fish in a rubbermaid crate.
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/25.jpg

Pop them in the shower with heat, airstone & a powerhead
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/29.jpg

Here's why crushed coral is apparently a bad idea. This is only about 4 months of life in the tank.
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/26.jpg

Bedroom mess:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/27.jpg

Stocking up in the bathroom. 32 gallons of fresh seawater ready to go.
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/28.jpg

Step 10:
Drill the tank. I've NEVER drilled glass before, but was willing to give it a chance. At first I was thinking I would do 2 holes, but on further reflection, decided that 1 would suffice. For the hole location, I went 5" down from the top plastic rim of the tank, and dead center side-to-side for the TOP of my cut.

For this, I took video because I figured if I was going down, it was going to make the internet! But, as fate would have it, the drilling was totally uneventful. I took a *LOT* of time drilling the tank. My time start to finish was 19 minutes (on the video) and actual drilling time was around 15 minutes. I probably could have gotten through in 1/3 of that amount of time, but fearing shattering the tank, I went as slow as I possibly could. This worked out VERY well because I had absolutely NO chip-out on the inside. It was pretty difficult to restrain myself from my urges to push the drill through, but I managed. So if you're a first-time-driller, I say GO FOR IT! Just TAKE YOUR TIME!! As a back-out plan, I had enough cash to buy another tank and knew it was in stock at my LFS. Will post this video once I get it edited.

Pic:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/31.jpg

[JeF4y]

Step 12:
Start plumbing. (All of my plumbing is 3/4" except for the weird dimensions of the eheim which are a touch smaller) Plumb the overflow/durso:

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/34.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/35.jpg

Plumb the sump return:
To explain a bit about this, reading on Melev's site, I opted to plump in a run-off for flow-control instead of simply throttling it back with a ball-valve. So how this works is that if I want less flow going up to the tank, I OPEN the ball-valve on the T which allows water to return back to the sump as well as go UP into the tank. Open it more = less water going up. Close it down = more water up. Doing it this way prevents extra strain on the Mag-drive pump while providing the same result.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/36.jpg

I THEN found out that my plumbing would be too tall to fit IN the sump cabinet, so I hung it on the back. I can still get to everything with varying degrees of difficulty. In retrospect, I could have put another ball-valve/union down near the pump to disconnect it without draining back the water in the plumbing going up to the tank, but it'll work fine like this.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/37.jpg

Plumb the tank & sump together. Hoses from LEFT to RIGHT:
Durso/Overflow - Sump return - Eheim filter OUT (back into tank) - Eheim filter IN (tank to filter)

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/39.jpg

Top-down shot on the plumbing in the cabinet:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/40.jpg

Add 40# of livesand, water, the 30# liverock that was previously in the tank, and a few wads of Macro to the sump/fuge & plumb up the ATO:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/43.jpg

Add 60# of Marco sand & aquascape the display tank:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/46.jpg

Top-down:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/47.jpg

[JeF4y]

Water time! - for this as you can see, we took a plate and set it in the tank upside down, and set a small bowl on top of it. The trickling effect worked EXCELLENT in controlling the cloudiness of the water.
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/48.jpg

We spent some time getting the overflow adjusted right and the flow back up from the sump correct. I'm also concerned about the noise on the Mag 5 pump. It is RIDICULOUSLY loud. I thought it might be noise from mounting on the wood, but I can't dampen it by grabbing it or anything. I would think by grabbing it, the noise would subside if it was rattling. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about this.

Aquascape in water:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/51.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/52.jpg

At this point, believe it or not, it was just after 5:00AM on Sunday. Yeah, that's 21 hours... Sure, there was a trip to the LFS and the hardware store in there, but it was a LONG day.

We picked it back up about 6 hrs later (after absolutely TERRIBLE sleep).

From here, we acclimated the corals, CUC, 'Nem and fish for a few hours using various methods, depending on the critter

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/57.jpg

FTS at last:
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/58.jpg

Not the best pic of the final result, but here she is. This is actually before we put any of the fish in.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/53.jpg

By the time we were done cleaning up, it was 8:00pm on Sunday. So roughly 30 hours work in a 36 hour window. Granted, a LOT of this could have been done before-hand in prep time, but we've been extremely busy lately, so it just kinda had to be done at once. Thankfully everything worked out well.

We did put the CPR SR3 Skimmer down in the sump, on top of 3 layers of eggcrate. And for flow, we are now down to 1 Koralia-1, plus the Eheim Pro3E and the sump return. Everything so far looks good but as always it may need some tweaking.

Our next step will be the Neptune Apex controller which should be here in the next week. (and yes, I realize I stopped counting steps, but I'm just kinda ADD like that)

Until then!!!

[Reefing'n'Rio]

Great Work!

It is clear you've been bitten by the reefing virus... I could almost place a bet on how long until the lamp and radio are replaced by a second display tank... ;)

[JeF4y]

Can't do much more than this for now. Planning a move South in about a year and have my heart set on a Marineland Deep-Dimension starfire 200. This was really just a tank to get our arms wet (god knows the last thing I want is to get my FEET wet. Lol)

[jonnybravo22]

hey jef4y!

i think that's so cool that you drilled - i'm glad it worked out so well for you! sweet stand -- you made that yourself?

anything i can help with? how's your durso? mine was loud for the first few days, and i didnt even realize it was louder than it needed to be. it would constantly burp and splash into the sump (sounded like a toilet flushing every 10 minutes... talk about terrible sleep)... then i moved a tube and it's virtually silent. the only thing i hear not is the (sort of calming) trickle of water into the overflow opening.

also is that green line in the display the return or the drain for the Eheim filter?

[njdevilsfan]

nice work thanks for sharing

[JeF4y]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15387925#post15387925 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jonnybravo22
hey jef4y!

i think that's so cool that you drilled - i'm glad it worked out so well for you! sweet stand -- you made that yourself?

I'm really happy we drilled as well and how it all worked out. In retrospect, I could have drilled a bit lower, but it's functional and won't cause any issues at all. The stand, yes, I made that myself because I just couldn't find anything that would work and was strong enough. I built it a LOT heavier than necessary, but it's incredibly sturdy and doesn't shake or wobble a BIT when cleaning the glass like the old BC29 stand did.


anything i can help with? how's your durso? mine was loud for the first few days, and i didnt even realize it was louder than it needed to be. it would constantly burp and splash into the sump (sounded like a toilet flushing every 10 minutes... talk about terrible sleep)... then i moved a tube and it's virtually silent. the only thing i hear not is the (sort of calming) trickle of water into the overflow opening.


I have to play with it. By tilting the durso it gets VERY quiet, but then allows the water level to drop too much in the display tank if we had a power outage. So I have it straight up & down which makes the constant flushing sound but would keep the water level higher if we lost power. I think the ideal thing will be to cut a small piece of PVC and insert it into the 90 in the back chamber and then tilt it a bit to keep it quiet.

It doesn't drop enough to overflow the sump, but leaves too much rock & my birds nest coral out.

I also have an issue with the noise from the return pump (mag 5), but need to play with the mounting to quiet it down. The big issue right now is time. Have 2 trips out of town in the next 3 weeks, and very little time in between, so for now we live with what works.


also is that green line in the display the return or the drain for the Eheim filter?

Yes, it's a spray-bar from the Eheim. I wasn't keen on the look of it, but the function of it is awesome, so it stays. Right now we tilted it upwards a little which creates our surface agitation for oxygen exchange.

Another thing which I'll have to video is how we intend to do water changes. In THEORY it should work by exchanging drop-for-drop the exact amount of water which we pull out/put in, using the overflow to drain old and the return pump to supply new.

[jonnybravo22]

you know you could just get a small length of PVC pipe and put it into the street 90 inside your overflow and consequently raise the water level of the overflow... would that solve your problem re: power outage?

[JeF4y]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15393715#post15393715 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jonnybravo22
you know you could just get a small length of PVC pipe and put it into the street 90 inside your overflow and consequently raise the water level of the overflow... would that solve your problem re: power outage?

Yep, that will do it. That's exactly what I was thinking I'd do.

[JeF4y]

A couple of pics of the kids from yesterday..

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/601.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/602.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/603.jpg

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/604.jpg

[JeF4y]

Well, it only took 3 water changes before we realized that the external Mag-5 had to go. The Mag5 was a bit too large to fit into the end chamber of the sump, so we had to use it externally, and in doing so, we ended up needing to prime it occasionally when we would do water changes and that became a HUGE PITA.

We just replaced it with a Marineland MaxiJet 1800. I was previously running the Mag5, bleeding off some of the flow to cut it down, but the MaxiJet 1800, I'm running full-blast. It seems to provide a bit more flow than I had before and fits inside the sump while running quieter and MUCH cooler. Very pleased...

Next up = Neptune Apex installation!

[JeF4y]

The next step in the evolution of the BioCube from hell was to pick up a reef controller.

Knowing nothing about them, I set out to see what we could find. One thing I REALLY wanted to make sure we had was the ability to manage the controller remotely (from, say Mexico or Rome) while we are out. This was very important, and I found some controllers that had the ability to display data online but you couldn't control anything. That was a definite "NO" for me because the last thing I want is to watch our reef melt-down without being able to do anything about it from 5500 miles away. No thanks.

Talking to several manufacturers, we ultimately settled with the new Apex controller from http://www.neptunesys.com Curt was VERY quick to answer all of our questions and help us make appropriate decisions.

Ultimately we ordered the following:

Apex Controller
Energy-Bar 8 (8 controlled outlets)
Temp Probe
Lab Grade pH probe
I/O Breakout Box (for adding ATO & other level switches)
Lunar Sim 3 (3 LED lunar lights which use the built in moon-cycle of the Apex)
and some 7.0 & 10.0 pH calibration fluids

Grand total $681.12

We were on the pre-order list so we waited a while to get the controller. Then it sat around for another 6 weeks while we bounced around the country on a couple of pleasure trips.

Then finally came the day...

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex6.jpg

The documentation for the controller is not miserable, but does leave a bit to be desired from my perspective. However, much of it seemed pretty intuitive with programming and setting up the network, etc.

Our reef is upstairs in our bedroom (2nd floor) while our home router is actually 2 floors below in the basement. The Apex requires a wired connection, so I had to extend our home network upstairs. I tried to do this with another router (had one netgear and one linksys), but quickly found out that "WDS" (wireless distribution system) isn't something easily done on low-end hardware. After messing around with 3rd party firmware on the routers, etc for a day, I seized the opportunity to throw more money at the project in the form of a new Apple AirPort Extreme and an AirPort Express. The Extreme went in the basement and the Express went upstairs near the reef.

I have to say that if you're going to do this, you CANNOT GO WRONG with Apple hardware. Literally 5 minutes out of the box, I had WDS running and the network completely configured. It was the easiest networking I've done in my life! How it works is simply that the Apex is wired via CAT5 LAN cable to the AirPort Express (plugged into the wall 10' away) and the Express wirelessly connects to the Extreme in the basement.
(Read more on how much I enjoy Apple stuff here http://www.kufalk.com/?p=33 )

So now that the networking was setup, I needed to configure the controller itself.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex5.jpg

I had the following 8 items which I wanted to plug into the first EB8 (another one is on order) and how I wanted them configured.

1 - Actinics - On daily 9am - 9pm
2 - Daylights - On daily 11am - 7pm
3 - Refugium lights - On daily 9pm - 9am
4 - Main sump return pump - On 24x7
5 - Koralia 1 (left) - on daily 8am - 8pm
6 - Koralia 1 (right) - on daily 8pm - 8am
7 - Heater - On if temp <77.7, Off if temp >= 78.0
8 - Filter - On 24x7

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex7.jpg

So, a couple of things. I actually ended up moving the 2 Koralia pumps to outlets 4 & 8 because they are relay switched outlets which guarantee cut-off when the time switches off. Because the K1's have such a low power draw, they don't always shut off from the normally switched outlets.

The other question is "why would you want to control outlets that are ALWAYS on? Well, that's simple. They're NOT "always on". When I feed, or change the tank, the filter & main return need to be cut off. This is done MUCH easier via a controller than through pulling plugs.

During setup, I did have one small issue with a bad display which NeptuneSys quickly replaced, and another issue with old Firmware that Neptune again helped me upgrade quickly. In all, setup was pretty simple, but then again, I do not have an overly complex system.

For installation, I mounted the EB8 and Apex itself on the top inside cabinet of my stand. When I add the second EB8 it will be mounted on the opposite side of this cabinet.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex2.jpg
http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex3.jpg

While this is kind of hard to see, I mounted the temp and pH probe using a piece of acrylic which I drilled holes into, and notched out so that it holds in place to a chamber separation tab in the back of my tank. The probes are below the LockLine here.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex4.jpg

The display, I mounted on the left hand side of the stand and it's easily seen in the room.

http://www.cbr600rr.com/reef/bc29/apex1.jpg

In all, I still have some work to do with configuring feed cycles and sorting out a temperature accuracy issue I have, but I'm pretty satisfied in being able to manage things much easier. I also still need to sort out remote access to the controller, but based on Apple hardware, I don't think this will take me more than a few minutes.

[MrsJeF4y]

As much fun and learning as this has been, we have spent enough $$$ on these projects to have bought a huge tank, stock it, AND certainly hire someone to maintain it for us. However, where would be the fun in that? :rollface:

Also, we are (ok, me mostly) completely neurotic :eek: on reading, learning, and fully understanding (as much as possible) each and every decision/change we've made regarding the tank. Some are good and some are bad. We're dealing with them all.

We're still planning on making a few fine tuning efforts and have a couple more parts coming for the controller. Considering vodka dosing (but must read everything we can find on the subject first). After that, I'd say a larger skimmer is on the list of things we need but again, carefully need to consider any and all ramifications including where the hell do we put it? :confused:

Mrs J

[Snakebyt]

very nice, looks great

[JeF4y]

Tank split on 8/13.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1707329