Last February I drove up to Northridge in CA after responding to a craigslist add to get a tank. After a couple of interesting exchanges my girlfriend and I decided to make the drive.
Once we got there and I purchased the tank the owner asked me a couple of questions about his newly built setup and since it was dark I looked at it briefly to realize that someone had assembled a supposedly high end setup like a kinder-garden kid with his first Lego set, accept the kid would probably be more creative due to his curiosity and interest.
So after a few minutes of looking He asked me what I think? The original question was "If You could look at my chiller and tell me why it’s not working?"
I had to bluntly reply that "he is probably not interested in what I have to say." Considering I could see that he had spent thousands to get an absolutely dysfunctional system.
After he insisted, I told him that whoever worked on his tank wasn’t qualified to even touch it and doesn’t have the knowledge and experience necessary to set up and service a reef thank.
I showed and explained to him a few things that were just mind boggling. Then he asked me if I would be able to fix the problems and to get things functional.
Knowing that I live about an hour away without traffic and that I am absolutely stumped with work and short of time I told him that I won’t be able to. Instead I offered to come and look at the system more carefully during the day to give him a better Idea of what the problems were.
On my next trip there I realized how bad everything was, oceans motions set up 15' away from the tank with flex barb lines, 90 degree elbows, and metal fasteners that leaked on every joint.
A 1850 gallon return pump going through a chiller, not primed, blasting in the middle of the tank from the overflow, facing the front, it started spilling and splashing water off the top after being primed.
I felt really bad for him, and I also got excited by the challenge of building his system properly. Since he had already paid a lot of money for service on his previous tank, and when I saw that his corals were all brown, unhealthy and full of hair algae I decided to make him a deal.
I told to him that I will find the time to take care of the built of his tank under one condition:
Only if he committed to become a more active hobbyist, start learning and understanding how a reef tank functions, as well as the equipment needed.
He agreed, seemed enthusiastic, we shook hands, I already had ideas and knew this was going to be a big project.
I started to do a lot of research and gave him his first homework, Randy’s Reef chemistry.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-03/rhf/
This is how began the saga of the 225gal rebuild. After a year it has become a 500+ gallons system with the 225gal mixed reef display tank, 50gal seahorse tank, 80gal refugium tank, 80gal live rock filtration tank, 45gal frag tank, and an 85gal sump.