Downsizing??? Really???

[GimpyFin]

Tank looks really good so far Ron!

[Oldcabin]

Wow Ron, looks great.

You've got your hands full with all this tank juggling! I'm jealous, and I'm not....I can barely manage one tank.

Like your use of the PVC cave entrance. I tried to build something similar under my sand for some gobies, shrimp, etc. but it turned out being to obvious in my very minimal scape. Your version will look great once you fill in the small gaps.

Keep up the good work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[10secv6]

Great tank man. I just started with the same artisan 125. I went with a metal stand though. Really like the aquascaping

[Ron Reefman]

Well, the tank juggling is coming to an end. I emptied the Rubbermaid tub first and lost a handful of good corals (mostly branchy sps). Yesterday I emptied the 20g tank and had a bit better success only losing a few small colonies and frags. I have been surprised every day that the shrimp, sea stars and crabs survive so well. Even the little pink filter feeding sea cucumber survived and is now in the new 125g tank.

All the tanks currently running have filtration, sumps and skimmers. The 65g shallow reef/25g frag tank has a 15g refugium. So less water changes in the near future except to keep parameters in line on the new tank as it cycles.

And last yesterday I saw that some of the rock was getting a coating of tan/brown algae (diatoms?). Normally this is fine when cycling a tank, but my tank has corals and others in it already. I know I can keep ammonia, nitrite and nitrate under control. But other cycling issues like algae blooms and bacteria blooms may be a bit more problematic. I intend to leave my leds off for today and then go blue and violet only for the next few days after that. I think the diatoms will struggle without white or red light. We'll see.

Any suggestions would be taken seriously and very appreciated. This is not how I wanted to set up a new tank!

Old Cabin, I had a big pvc pipe cave in my old 180 and it was easy to hide in a big rock wall style scape. This new one is basically just an entrance into the hollow inside of the island. The scopas tang has found a separate entrance, but it will eventually get blocked by a new coral.

We've already seen a ruby crab (a red mithrax) going in and out of the 'rock house' at the left end of the tank.

10secv6, thanks. If you run into any questions on your set up, feel free to ask me. I'll try to help. BTW, your screen name? Do you drag race? Share a little info... I'm a long term car guy. Drag raced in my teens and 20's, then raced sports cars at places like Mid-Ohio, Road America and Watkins Glen for 15+ years Now I auto-x a 300hp Miata. I'd love to see what it could do in a 1/4 mile.

[WiDataTech]

Road America is a great facility. I've been there many times. I think my favorite is when the sport bikes run.

But anyways, things look great, Ron, and good luck getting everyone else switched over

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by WiDataTech

Road America is a great facility. I've been there many times. I think my favorite is when the sport bikes run.

But anyways, things look great, Ron, and good luck getting everyone else switched over

Thanks. My next goal is to get past the diatom bloom that has started.

An one of my top 3 races of all time was at Road America. I started 5th and took the lead in Canada Corner of the last lap. We had to calculate the time gap between me 2nd place. If I remember correctly it was 0.05 seconds. If you've ever heard of P.D.Cunningham (races World Challenge and is from Wisconsin), we use to race together back when he started road racing and we became pretty good friends back in the day.

[10secv6]

Ron Reefman,

screen name def has to do with my other hobby car. I have a 1991 Gmc Syclone, truck makes a tick under 1000awhp, ran 10s last year changed a bunch of stuff these year bigger turbo and exhaust and redid all the suspension to coilover system upfront and a 4 link in the back. Total street car well truck I guess

I def love the tank and how quiet it is no complaints at all. What are u using for flow and return pump? I have a flowstar 1800gph pump and a maxspect gyre 150 running at about 70%.

How do u have the light mounts attached? Are they screwd to the back of the cabinet? Im waiting on my 3 kessils a360we to come and going to use the goosenecks.

[10secv6]

Also whats ur live stock looking like?

[10secv6]

[gone fishin]

Looks really good Ron. I really like how you pulled the rock work together.

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by 10secv6

Ron Reefman,

screen name def has to do with my other hobby car. I have a 1991 Gmc Syclone, truck makes a tick under 1000awhp, ran 10s last year changed a bunch of stuff these year bigger turbo and exhaust and redid all the suspension to coilover system upfront and a 4 link in the back. Total street car well truck I guess

I def love the tank and how quiet it is no complaints at all. What are u using for flow and return pump? I have a flowstar 1800gph pump and a maxspect gyre 150 running at about 70%.

How do u have the light mounts attached? Are they screwd to the back of the cabinet? Im waiting on my 3 kessils a360we to come and going to use the goosenecks.

Currently the light is standing on the legs that came with it. At some point I'll make a system I can attach to the wall to hold the fixture, but I don't want them to 'hang'. I want a solid mount, probably 2 arms straight out of the wall and adjustable.

Originally Posted by 10secv6

Also whats ur live stock looking like?

Fish are doing OK. I had 1 yellow chromis jumper, but that's the only loss. I lost a flame scallop (the red one survived) and a few oysters (small clams survived). But in the coral side of things I lost about 25% to 33% of it and it seems sps sticks (acros mostly) were the big losers. But it was a 180g and 75g tanks that went away and only a 125g replacing it, so I still have enough corals to fill the tank, just too many of my pretty sps branchy corals died.

Originally Posted by gone fishin

Looks really good Ron. I really like how you pulled the rock work together.

Thanks. I still have a lot to do. I want the left end of the tank to be more open with just some macro algae and anemones. But I'll wait until I get past this first diatom bloom before I do anything else.

[Ron Reefman]

Yesterday (9/7/16) I got the old 1hp AquaEuro chiller that is out behind the house in a plastic storage cabinet hook up to the new system. I have not pressurized it yet as I'd like to give the pvc cement time to cure and I want to be fully awake (this morning) when I start flowing water. It's not like I really need the chiller since I switched from MH & t5 to leds, but I already have the chiller housed outside and there are already holes through the block wall for pipes fron the aquarium to the chiller and back, so I might as well use it. Besides, we keep our house at 80F in the summer so it doesn't take much extra heat in the tank to push it higher than I'd like. Currently, without the chiller the tank is running at 81.1F, so 1 degree above room temp. I'd consider selling the chiller, but it's already 6 years old and even though I've had no issues with it, I think it would be hard to sell at a reasonable price.

OK, so lets do some new pics:

Here is the plumbing that runs between the sump and the wall. Most of it will be behind the 36" cabinet for the display refugium. And I intend to take some white pvc boards and box in the pipes at the far right end. The gap between the new cabinet and the outside wall will only be a couple of feet or less, so I may utilize the space by building a set of shelves on top of the boxed in pipes an between the cabinet and the wall.




The pipes go out through the wall here. I made the holes oversized and then put 1 1/2" pvc pipe 'liners' in the hole so the real pipes carrying water don't rub on the rough concrete inside the holes. The pvc box I'll build will come up the wall and hide all of this plumbing.




This is the plumbing from the outside of the house running through the lanai screen and over to the chiller in the cabinet. I still have some sealing to do around the holes in the wall and there are white escutcheon plates to finish it off. BTW, Elaine made a cover for the cabinet from sunbrella material to protect the chiller even better from the rain and the plastic cabinet from the sun (even though it sits on the north wall and is in the shade 100% of the time). Both ends of the cabinet are open and the intake side of the chiller is ducted so it takes in air from outside the cabinet for improved cooling rather than using the hotter air from inside.




The new 36" 2 door kitchen cabinet arrived yesterday along with the new cabinets for bot bathrooms. I'll have enough work to keep me busy till Thanksgiving! The cabinet will house the 10 gallon auto top-off reservoir, the dosing pumps and their reservoirs. The 2'x2'x20" display refugium I'm going to build will sit on top of it. I have a brushed stainless steel kick plate for under the cabinet which will match the kitchen. But I think I'm going to make a new one out of a white pvc board to make it look more compatible with the CadLight aquarium stand.

[Ron Reefman]

I'm starting the Display refugium tank build. I just fit the pieces together and they are cut just the way I wanted them. It's a 2'x2'x20" tank. Here are a few pics:








The next step for me is to cut 4 perfectly square blocks and caulk them onto the bottom glass pressed into the corners as firmly as I dare. That will establish the alignment for the bottom of the side glass panels. Frame squares (seen in the photos) will establish the upper alignment. I'm going to use black silicone for the first time because it will match the look of the CadLight display tank. Wish me luck!

[Szepi]

Great tank Ron!! A big thumbs up!

[jraker]

Cool. What do you plan on putting in the display fuge?

[Szepi]

Oh and by the way I wanted to reply back to you but I can't do it till I have 10 posts in this forum so I a big Thank you all the information what you provided me!!

[Ron Reefman]

Szepi, get to 10 posts and send me a PM. Then we can chat. And you are very welcome. Glad my advice was helpful.

jraker, excellent question. I think a lot of fancier macro algae and and a few critters that I wouldn't have in the main tank. Maybe some filter feeders like feather dusters. I'm open to suggestions.

[Ron Reefman]

I did some tests on the water today. The ammonia is still at zero, so I'm guessing I have enough live bacteria in there to deal with the current level of ammonia production. The nitrate level is up very slightly from very close to zero and is now below 5 but closer to 5 than to zero. There is no refugium yet, but I do have a clump of purple gracilaria macroalgae in the tank and it is probably helping a small amount with the nitrates. SG is 1.026 and now that the chiller is running the temp stay between 79F and 80F. I won't even bother testing for temp again unless it feels wrong when my hand goes in the water.

I think I might add another fish to the tank. I'll be working in the 65g shallow reef tank where all the fish are currently and it's rather over crowded. If I happen to catch one I'll probably move it. I hope I can find a yellow sea cucumber to move as well. The flame scallop and the pink, filter feeding sea cucumber are the 2 critters I think are most likely to not deal with bad water parameters. So far they are both doing just fine. I've been running only blue leds for the past few days and the diatom growth has stopped in it's tracks. It even appears to have died back some. So today I'm going back onto my regular custom program with sunrise/sunset and all spectrums included (except the red and green leds).

[brett559]

Looking great. I've had my 42g CadLights tank for over a year now. Love it.

[Ron Reefman]

brett, so far I'm very happy with the quality of the CadLight Artisan set up. I think it's every bit as good as a Red Sea and there are a couple of features I like way better.

So yesterday I took the next step in my refugium tank build. I have the glass all set up and clamped in place the way I want it. So I cut 4 very square cornered blocks of pvc and used a dab of caulk (not silicone) to stick them down in the bottom glass only and tightly into the corners of the tank. I use caulk because it's way easier to remove the blocks later than if I had used silicone. The blocks set the alignment of the glass sides to the edge of the bottom glass.




I also ran the drain line from my in stand drip/splash/leak tray to an outside wall and out of the house. Should my sump ever overflow (and it shouldn't) or any of the inside the stand plumbing leak, the tray will collect it and protect the wood stand. If it gets more than 2" deep in the tray, it will exit by bulkhead and run out onto our patio. This is the back side of the stand where the bulkhead exits the stand.




The two pvc pipes in this photo are the chiller pipes going out to and in from the 1hp chiller in the backyard. The black hose is the drip tray drain that is just gravity fed so it needs to stay low.




Once the new cabinet with an ATO and the display refugium are set, I'll use white pvc panels to box in the pipes on the floor and up the wall. I'll probably even make a small pvc shelf unit to sit on the boxed in pipes just to utilize all the space.

[Ron Reefman]

I drilled the bottom glass of the new display refugium tank over the weekend and just got the entire tank siliconed together and clamped on Tuesday. Doing the entire assembly by myself took a bit of ingenuity as getting the first side set and then getting silicone on the 2nd side, setting it in place and then getting the corner clamp on so the 2 sides could stand up on their own was a bit tricky.

I used black silicone so it will better match the reef tank it will sit next to. I was a bit surprised that the black silicone was a bit thinner in consistency than any clear or white silicone I’ve used in the past. But I can attest to the adhesive characteristics of this silicone. I set the wrong panel as the first side and then had to pull it off. Just the bead of silicone between the bottom glass and the side glass took some force to lift back off after only a minute or two of sitting while I prepped the next side and realized I had screwed up.

Here it is sitting on its cabinet.





I’m going to let it cure for 24 hours before I take a sharp blade to cut away excess silicone and scrape off a couple of ‘smeary’ fingerprints. Then I’ll do a fine bead of black silicone around the base just for my own piece of mind. I'll silicone in the overflow at the same time. I’ll let all that cure for a couple of days and then do a water test just to prove to myself that I did it right!

While I wait for the tank to be ready for use, I’ll cut out areas in the top and back of the cabinet for the plumbing and start the plumbing layout to tie the refugium to the manifold off the sump return pump and the return back to the sump. I won’t glue it up until the tank is ready and I set the cabinet in it’s final position so I can confirm the length of the pipes.

[Ron Reefman]

Hooray! Finally success I can report. I've water tested the new tank 3 times now. The first two had subtle failures. The tank itself held water just fine, but the overflow box is a full 5 sided box with only the top open. There is an acrylic bottom to the box. So when I siliconed it in I tried to seal the sides and bottom from water intrusion because water that gets between the bottom of the box and the bottom glass will get to the holes in the glass and leak. Well... leak it did. I tried a quick/stupid fix of using a gasket on the outside of the bottom at the bulkheads. Still leaked.

So I brought it back inside, did a new thicker bead of silicone around the box. This is my 1st level of protection.

Then I mixed up some JB Weld and laid it on the inside of the holes where the bulkheads go. I tried to pack it between the glass and the acrylic as best I could and to build up the rim the tiny amount I needed so the bulkheads wouldn't fit anymore. When the JB Weld was fairly well set up, i screwed both of the bulkheads in place, waited an hour and screwed them back out. I inspected with a bright light and a magnifying glass to see if the seam was still filled and it was. That is my 2nd level of protection.

Then I put silicone on the last few threads of the bulkhead and screwed them in again and snugged up the bottom nuts. After a few hours I undid the bottom nuts, laid a bead of silicone around the bottom glass where the nut snugs up. I added a gasket washer and the snugged the bottom nuts back on. That is the 3rd level of protection.

After a few hours I snugged the nuts down one last time and only got about a 1/6th of a turn.

I let that all set up yesterday afternoon and last night. At 11am I took the tank out for the last test. If it failed, and there is no way it could, I would have smacked it with a hammer, and started over! Just kidding. I would have pulled the bulkheads and removed the overflow box. Then cleaned the glass and cut the bottom off the overflow box... which is what I should have done in the first place, and started over!

It's been close to 2 hours now and here is what it looks like:







So now I'm read to prep the cabinet countertop (cut bulkhead holes and add a brace), set the tank and do the plumbing! It's about time!

And just to keep everybody up to speed, the tank is still running zero ammonia and is now near 10 nitrate, so I'm getting close to doing a water change. But my diatom bloom came back (I knew it would) so I went lights out yesterday and will go all blue for the next couple of days. The corals open up when I run the blues and the algae seems to still die off. The corals are all looking just fine and so far the only loss has been a serpent star that looked very iffy when I pulled it from the temporary holding tank. I almost didn't put it in, but I figured if it was going to have any chance at survival, it would be in the new tank. So far I consider myself very lucky that the new tank is doing so well.

[Ron Reefman]

OK, it's been 5 days and here is what I've accomplished.

I used FRP sheet material (Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic), the same as I added to the wall behind the tanks, to protect the plywood. I also siliconed on PVC corner trim to give it a finished look. I added a new top to the overflow box in the refugium to raise it up and I've installed the line-lok nozzle and drain pipes. I've connected them to the main system sump and return pump under the DT. At the back right corner of the cabinet/stand you can see I've installed a bulkhead.




The pipe from the bulkhead goes down to the 10g auto top off reservoir so I can simply put a funnel in the bulkhead and fill the reservoir without removing it from the stand.



The reservoir has a new cover and the hole is where the fill pipe will go into it.




Here you can see the set up inside the stand.




I've also rearranged and labeled all the controllers and power supplies and will soon label the plugs as well. In the next week or two these will all get hooked up to an Apex. I just received an Apex breakout box, temp probe, pH probe and salinity probe along with calibration fluid and a wifi hook up. The large pipe running vertically through the stand is additional support under the tank so the plywood countertop won't sag even if it gets wet. It runs through the middle shelf and the bottom of the stand to the tile floor. I still need to make the back of the refugium black to match the DT and add the foam mat under the fuge.



I've contacted Gulf Coast Ecosystems about decorative macro algae and plants as well as Tampa Bay Saltwater about some of their very live rock to all go in the new fuge. I can't wait to get it full of water and move forward, but at the same time I'm rebuilding the bathroom that is behind the wall that the flood from my old 180g tank destroyed (it was a 25+ year old fiberboard cabinet). BTW, I've already had a fellow club member stop over and buy the old 180g tank. He is going to do what I was going to do, tear it completely apart, clean it like it was medical equipment and silicone it back together. So not only is it no longer sitting in my side yard, but I even got a few bucks for it!

[Pandagobyguy]

Originally Posted by Ron Reefman

OK, it's been 5 days and here is what I've accomplished.

I used FRP sheet material (Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic), the same as I added to the wall behind the tanks, to protect the plywood. I also siliconed on PVC corner trim to give it a finished look. I added a new top to the overflow box in the refugium to raise it up and I've installed the line-lok nozzle and drain pipes. I've connected them to the main system sump and return pump under the DT. At the back right corner of the cabinet/stand you can see I've installed a bulkhead.




The pipe from the bulkhead goes down to the 10g auto top off reservoir so I can simply put a funnel in the bulkhead and fill the reservoir without removing it from the stand.



The reservoir has a new cover and the hole is where the fill pipe will go into it.




Here you can see the set up inside the stand.




I've also rearranged and labeled all the controllers and power supplies and will soon label the plugs as well. In the next week or two these will all get hooked up to an Apex. I just received an Apex breakout box, temp probe, pH probe and salinity probe along with calibration fluid and a wifi hook up. The large pipe running vertically through the stand is additional support under the tank so the plywood countertop won't sag even if it gets wet. It runs through the middle shelf and the bottom of the stand to the tile floor. I still need to make the back of the refugium black to match the DT and add the foam mat under the fuge.



I've contacted Gulf Coast Ecosystems about decorative macro algae and plants as well as Tampa Bay Saltwater about some of their very live rock to all go in the new fuge. I can't wait to get it full of water and move forward, but at the same time I'm rebuilding the bathroom that is behind the wall that the flood from my old 180g tank destroyed (it was a 25+ year old fiberboard cabinet). BTW, I've already had a fellow club member stop over and buy the old 180g tank. He is going to do what I was going to do, tear it completely apart, clean it like it was medical equipment and silicone it back together. So not only is it no longer sitting in my side yard, but I even got a few bucks for it!

Very interesting plumbing! Excited to see your macro choices!

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[Ron Reefman]

Well, I thought I was getting close to having a working refugium. And for one night I did. This is a pic of it with water in it and hooked up to the sump and actually running.




But if you look at the top front of the cabinet, you can see a small gap between the top of the doors and the top of the cabinet out at the ends... but not in the middle! Rats!

So I have decided to do it over and seriously over kill the solution. I switched from a 1/2" plywood top to a 3/4" plywood top. I had 2 lengths beams made of two 2x6's glued and screwed together from my old stand. So I cut two 3' lengths and set them inside the cabinet at the top. I also added a 3/4" thick 'finish' panel on both sides of the cabinet (it came with it, but I didn't intend to use them). But now the sides of the cabinet are 1 1/2" thick and I used 4" long #14 screws through both side panels and into the double 2x6 beams! I ran out of the FRP I used on the old top so I used the 3/8" thick pvc sheet (left over from making the drip tray in the stand under the sump) for a top cover. It's all glued and screwed together and if I have to take it apart again I'll quit!

I hope to trim it out and have it ready to put the tank back on top when my wife gets home from work. I probably won't hook it up and fill it until Wednesday morning. On a brighter note (pun intended) I ordered a new Reef Breeders Photon 16 V2 for the refugium today.

Stay tuned.