Dane's 175 Gal in-Wall Tank Build

[Indymann99]

@Dane, hows the heat issue coming along?

[TulaneDane]

Originally Posted by Indymann99

@Dane, hows the heat issue coming along?

Unfortunately, I've headed in the wrong direction...my AC went out last week so the house has been @ ~85*+

Should have AC fixed tomorrow a.m. and then can refocus on cooling the tank. I'm hoping my fan idea to vent the sump area is enough...

[Indymann99]

yeah having the HOUSE at 85 deg isn't helping...
thats a bummer.

[TulaneDane]

Alright, so AC in the house is working again!

A couple additions to the tank last night.

First, added a silencer to the air intake of the Protein Skimmer. That sucker was making decent whistling sounds. Added a 1/2" ID tube with a 1" PVC cap contraption at the end. Then drilled some holes in the cap:


Then hung the intake up high to hopefully reduce salt creep within the skimmer and add a bit more high/low air circulation in the sump cabinet:



Second addition...HEAT, HEAT, HEAT!

Before I drilled holes facing outward to vent the sump, I thought I'd drill a hole sideways into the interior of the house. This faces to the left of the sump:


Drilled the drywall with a 5" hole saw:




And then screwed a CPU fan over the hole:


I'm hopeful this vents enough air out of the sump. The fan moves 103 cubic feet per minute and I estimate the sump space to be ~208 cubic feet. So it will turn the air around within the sump fully in about two minutes time.

...that's the theory anyway. Tank is still cooling from no AC. Will be a couple days before I'll know for sure.

[TulaneDane]

Second part to the heat issue was venting the canopy. I proceeded with a similar design to the sump: 5" hole with a CPU fan.

Made sure to cover up the top of the tank as best I could. Then drilled through the ceiling:

...as you can see my stud finder is absolutely fired. Scanned everything six times over...no studs it said...you're fine it said...first drill...BAM! Stud found. Then rescanned for studs...oh hey, watch out...there's a stud right where you already drilled says the stud finder.

Next step, drill through the top of the canopy:

Bought the little mini air duct from the same place I bought the CPU fan: www.frozencpu.com

The mini air duct dropped right in the hole nicely. Then screwed the CPU fan to the ceiling of the canopy, blowing out through the top:




Turned it on, and: There won't be any more heat up there.

...I partied too soon though, because while this is the same exact fan I have in my sump, this one is LOUD! It's like the mini air duct amplifies the sound. It sounds like a wind tunnel. A bit bummed, as this cannot be a long-term solution...it's just too loud. I think it's because this fan effectively vents into the room while the sump fan vents to the interior of the house. If y'all have ideas of how to dampen the sound of air flow, please let me know.

[Indymann99]

bump for update... curious minds want to know...

[TulaneDane]

As much as it pained me, I drilled another 5" hole, this time facing into the interior of the house. I left the mini duct work opening through the top of the canopy, just moved the fan over to the new hole:


MUCH BETTER! Not sure why I didn't just do this to start with since it worked for the sump.

Tank now ranges from 78.4* at night to 79.8* during the day while the lights are on.

Speaking of lights on, I'm getting my first diatom bloom. At least that's what my reading thus far tells me.

It looks like brown algae, and is definitely respiring as you'll notice small bubbles float to the surface every now and then.

[mighties_keeper]

Great thread Dane. Your setup is awesome, all of your hard work is paid off. It will be exciting to see fish in it. Job well done.

[TulaneDane]

Progress continues:



Installed an Apex controller and a couple modules to help me with monitoring salinity and leaks. Parameters look OK, I think:


Also tested the water again last night. I'm exactly 2 months into the cycle. Here's the progression:

4/3 Cycle start
4/21 Shrimp added
5/3 Nitrate 16 ppm
5/18 Nitrate 12 ppm
6/3 Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate all ~0

Skimmer continues to pull gunk. Brown diatom bloom is gone. Have to clean the glass each night to rid a thin layer of algae. A little bit of green algae can be seen on the tops of the Tonga shelves:


So given the above, dare I ask?! If I do a large water change...am I finally ready for fish and/or invertebrates??

[Cymonous]

I would say you are ready to start with a clean up crew. Are you going to QT fish?

[joeyg09]

After reading all 5 pages I must say I'm extremely impressed with this build. Everything looks great so far. Keep up the good work and I'll being following your build closely.

[Indymann99]

I would get a Clean up crew in the tank (you may have to feed them) and you can start your first fish in QT (I think you are planning a QT in the laundry room??)

You should read up on QT as there are a couple of methods..

Really like how clean you mounted your APEX.

[TulaneDane]

Thank you for the kind comments and support.

Also, a good point on the QT. It is the 15 gallon setup below and also cycled:



So I'll re-research clean-up crews (it's taken so long getting this setup, I need a refresher). Suggestions welcome though!

Do I need to quarantine my clean-up crew first?

[mrpergo]

no, cuc can go right in
I think everyone would like a room like yours to hide and organize their stuff.
Very nice, good job

[TulaneDane]

Good news and bad news (I think).

Good News First!

Put a small clean-up crew in the Display Tank a few days ago:

• One Mexican Turbo Snail
• Five Trochus Snails
• One Blue Knuckle Hermit Crab
• One Red Knuckle Hermit Crab
• One Emerald Crab

Also now have two Black Ocellaris Clowns in the Quarantine Tank. They are eating and seem healthy:


Now the bad news.

Based on my limited research, pretty sure this is Dinoflagellates... And pretty sure this is pretty bad?


How the hell that got in there, I have no idea.

[TulaneDane]

I stand corrected on one member of my small clean-up crew: it is a Scarlet Leg Hermit Crab, not a Red Knuckle Hermit.

I've reduced my lighting to about 3 hours a day to help with the Dino. Though it appears my Mexican Turbo is sucking that stuff up. He's completely polished one island mountain free of it. The left one in the picture below:


At any one time only two or three of the five Trochus snails are visible. On rare occasions you'll spot a full house.

The Blue Knuckle Hermit stays pretty hidden as does the Emerald Crab, though they make various appearances. The Scarlet Leg Hermit does as he pleases wherever he pleases.

Two clowns continue to do well in the QT. Feeding them Prime Reef Flakes 1-2 times a day.

[malawi]

Good, nice set up, Im learning from you,, good build, nice job

[TulaneDane]

One item of frustration I've been dealing with that I could use some help. Getting my Herbie drain to restart after stopping the return pump.

I'm working on getting the feeding routine down, and as I understand it, shutting down the pumps/powerheads for 5-10 minutes is best. However for whatever reason, my Herbie does not restart as needed.

It's running perfect before shutting down the return pump. The water level being about halfway between the drain pipe and the top of the overflow.

Upon restart, the water level within the primary overflow either runs too high (even with the top of the tank) or worse runs too low, setting off the dreaded 'slurping' sound.

Having it restart too low is doubly worse, as it means more water is in the return section of my sump, which sets my skimmer in overdrive, and if I'm not watching, will overflow my collection bucket. My Advanced Leak Detection (ALD) module from Neptune has caught this once already, shutting down all pumps and prevented a minor flood.

Can anyone share any tricks of the trade for restarting a Herbie drain on a consistent basis?

[Indymann99]

@Dane,

My herbie starts up just fine (it does slurp for 5-10min before the full siphon is able to start), however:

1. I don't turn off my return to feed. I have a feeding port (aka feeding ring) that lets the food saturate and sink vs just floating on top to the overflow.

2. Also you may want to setup your APEX to shut OFF your skimmer if the sump level gets high enough to cause the skimmer to overflow.

The highest float in the picture will shut off the skimmer so no skimmer overflows when I shut down the return for WC. Also sends alarm/email indicating high sump level.

Skimmer5
Fallback ON
If Outlet ReturnHi_A2 = ON Then OFF
If Outlet ReturnHi_A2 = OFF Then ON

[TulaneDane]

@Indyman

That is a fantastic idea. I would prefer not turning my pumps on and off every time I feed. A couple questions:

1. Am I correct that you purchased the Apex I/O Breakout box in order to hook-up a float valve?
2. Did you build your own feeding port, or buy one? If the latter, what kind did you get?

On another note...the Dino is just...gone. My Mexican Turbo had its way with it. Here's a shot of him doing work (white = been there):

[Indymann99]

@Dane, I ordered the feeding port when I had my tank made. Its basically a box with a rim that drops into a square hole in the euro brace around the top of the tank.





I built my own APEX breakout box for ~$20 and used RJ11 connectors for easy connect/disconnect. plenty of DIY breakout box info just search.

white box below my EB8

[TulaneDane]

I like the setup, Indyman. Looked around a bunch and had to order a couple feeding rings online. Will see how it works. Also ordered a Breakout box & float switch to help control skimmer overflows.

Two clowns still doing well in QT. Will be 2 weeks this Saturday.

All five Trochus snails are still doing well as is the Mexican Turbo. Two Scarlet Leg Hermits also doing well.

Blue Knuckle Hermit seems to be doing well, though he's quite nocturnal and rarely leaves his cave under one of the island mountains. Emerald Crab also seems to be doing OK, but don't see him much either as he stays wedged in some tight spaces.

Had my first setback on a pair of Scarlet Skunk Cleaner shrimp.

Put them both in on 6/11 after a 1 hour drip acclimation.
On 6/13 one of them molted.
On 6/14 one died. Tested NH4, NO2, & NO3 all zero. Second one still eating.
On 6/15 did a 10% water change. 2nd one still eating.
On 6/17 second one died. NH4, NO2, NO3 still zero.

Rest of readings appear OK.

First graph is Ph (Red) and Salinity (Grey)
Second graph is ORP (green) and Temp (Blue)


The spike down in ORP on 6/15 was me cleaning the probe to confirm the reading.

Not sure what's going on, but obviously going to figure it out before I revisit any shrimps. The only thing that comes to mind is my ORP. It's been hovering around 450. Anything else I could be missing?

[TulaneDane]

Frustrations continue.

Lost my Emerald Crab this weekend. Put him in on 6/6, so he made it about 2 weeks. NH4, NO2, and NO3 still reading zero. Rest of my parameters haven't changed since my last post.

All five Trochus snails still going, as is my Mexican Turbo. Both scarlet leg hermits also doing well. Haven't seen my Blue Knuckle Hermit in a few days but he's been pretty shy to begin with.

This weekend will be 3 weeks in my Quarantine Tank for my clown pair and was planning to move them over to the display tank.

Should I be worried about moving my clowns to the display tank?

[Indymann99]

If your clowns are doing fine after 4 weeks I would say end of the week (5weeks total) you move them to the DT.

[nicdu]

I personally wouldn't move the clowns to the DT until you figure out the cause for the shrimp and crab deaths. I don't think all three perished by chance. Molting, while normal shrimp behavior, can also be indicative of a shrimp that's stressed or trying to get rid of toxins that have built up in their shell. I would be kind of concerned at this point. Are you running carbon or anything to remove any possible contamination?