29G to 65G Upgrade - Build Thread

[swilcoxen]

I’ve spent so much time reading “build threads” over the past six months, I decided to post one of my own as I upgrade to a new 65 gallon tank.

My current setup is a 29 gallon in which I’m keeping LPS, mushrooms, zoanthids, and a Kenya tree coral or two. Fish consist of a Pink Skunk Clown, a Firefish, a Yellow Head Jawfish, a Barnacle Blenny, a Yellow Clown Goby, and a Bangai Cardinal. All of this will be moving to the new tank.

I’ve got 130 watts of Power Compact, a Red Sea Prizm Skimmer (which I don’t like), 2 Koralia Nanos, a Phosgen Reactor, and an AquaClear Power Filter that I use for carbon.

Here are some pics!

I’m trying to keep the expenditures down on this project, so I’ve opted to buy an established 65 gallon setup from a fellow hobbyist. I purchased the following as part of my “package” deal:
65 Gallon Reef Ready Tank
Stand/Canopy
Sunlight Supply 6x39 T-5 Light Fixture (mounted in canopy)
Eheim 1262 Universal Pump for Return (900 gph before head loss)
20 Gallon High to be used as sump
150 Watt Heater
Mag ?? Powerhead
Bunch of live rock
Bunch of live sand
Number of corals (Most notably some nice Acropora frags, a decent sized Frog Spawn, a few zoanthid colonies, what I believe to be a Sea Stalk Briareum, and some other odds and ends I can’t identify)

He was missing a skimmer. I decided to go with an Octopus Needlewheel 200 for this setup. Ordered from Marine Solutions on Monday (2/11) and had it by Thursday (would have been here Wednesday, but we had an ice storm in DC). Here are a few shots of it running in my kitchen sink.

On to the next post for the build.

 

[swilcoxen]

Before heading out, I had some prep work:

Making water…. I’m in a smallish apartment, so the guest bathroom is the water making station!

Holding tanks for new corals…

After a number of hours spent breaking down the system at his place, I trucked it all back to my place in DC. The tank needed some cleanup, but here it is sitting on the stand in its new home.

After some cleanup and filling her up with water (complete with requisite sand storm).

Setting up the sump.

One thing I decided really quickly as I started setting up the sump is that I need to get some new plumbing. Instead of the flexible tubing coming down from the overflows, I want to use straight PVC. I’ll be picking that up at the hardware store today. My plan is to cap it with a 90 degree elbow so that the water pours into the sump as follows.

I’m a little unsure of how to give this an “adjustable height” so that the elbow hits the water at just the right spot. How do others handle this? Do most of you just measure to your water line and then plumb it, or do you set it up so you can adjust as needed?

On to the next post!

 

[swilcoxen]

Moving right along, here are some shots the sump was all setup and the skimmer is skimming.

A shot fully filled and with the lights on.

And finally, a full tank shot.

That was about all I could take last night, so today we’re on to aquascaping. I have a nice load of live rock, but I have a specific layout in mind that requires a few more pieces. So, on to the LFS! Here’s the rock I’m holding now. (Since moved to a larger bin with a powerhead for circulation).

 

[swilcoxen]

Before heading out to the LFS, I figured I'd post a few of the things I'm still pondering.

Calcium Supplementation:
In my 29 Gallon I simply used SeaChem Calcium Advantage to keep my calcium levels in check. I'm thinking something more automated is in order here. At the moment, I'm leaning towards Kalwasser, however I do have a CO2 tank/regulator already and may decide to go the reactor route. If I did, I'd probably try and build one myself. Does anyone have any links to a decent build plan?


Refugium and/or Phosgen Reactor:
I haven't decided if I want to move my Phosgen Reactor over to this tank. I had planned to setup a refugium (although I'm about out of space under the tank and may wind up needing to build a new sump/refugium so it all fits). Would running the Phosgen Reactor along with a refugium be overkill?


Water Circulation:
The return pump current runs to a tee in the tank and directs water to both sides of the tank. The gentlemen who owned the tank previously had a single Mag powerhead (can't recall model number) on the back wall pointing straight to the front of the tank. This may work short-term, but I really wanted to go with a couple lower power powerheads and possibly a wave timer of sorts. I hope to keep LPS/SPS and some clams in this tank, so.... Something I'll continue to ponder.

 

[swilcoxen]

I managed to get my rockwork finished up yesterday. Some pictures for your viewing enjoyment. The rock in the front that is partially covered with Zoanthids will be coming out as soon as I find a buyer. You can see in the top right corner one of the rocks is covered in what I've been told is an encrusting gorgonian. I'm not sure if it actually survived the transport, but time will tell. The frogspawn on the right hand side came with the tank as well and had to go here for lack of anywhere else to keep it. It's not yet opened up, so we'll see if it comes back as well.

I'm really liking the way I was able to "loosely" stack things in this tank. My 29 gallon had turned into a literal rock wall. This setup provides lots of caves for fish to hide in and has quite a bit of space between and around the rock work. Even better, I don't have rock resting against the back tank wall! My hope is that I'll be enjoying good water flow throughout the tank.

Speaking of water flow. At the moment I have two Koralia Nanos and a Koralia #3 setup on a wave timer. The two Nanos are focused on the lower sections of the tank where I plan to keep LPS and a few softies. The #3 is aimed at the upper portion of the tank where I hope to keep SPS. The Nanos are on a 60 second alternating cycle. The #3 is on a 2 minute cycle (essentially, a double-length cycle). I also have a Maxi-Jet 1200 hanging in the back of the tank pointed towards the front. It would appear that the flow is bouncing off of the front glass and creating random water movement along the front of my rock work.

That was the extent of my work yesterday. Next post will talk about my plans for today!

 

[Zucker26]

It doesn't look like you gave yourself much wiggle-room on the sump water level in the event of a power outtage. If the power goes out, you're gonna need enough room in that sump for whatever volume of water is in all the plumbing.

Otherwise, great setup!

 

[swilcoxen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11870762#post11870762 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Zucker26
It doesn't look like you gave yourself much wiggle-room on the sump water level in the event of a power outtage. If the power goes out, you're gonna need enough room in that sump for whatever volume of water is in all the plumbing.

Otherwise, great setup!

Ya. I ended up taking a bit out. I did a "power failure" test and it came right up to the lip. Dropped it down a bit and now a power failure leaves me about 2" to spare.

 

[swilcoxen]

Ok. Havenââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t gotten around to posting in a few days. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve made some good progress. I redid the drain line plumbing. As seen in the previous pics, I simply had a piece of flexible hose coming from the bulkheads and into the sump. I went out Sunday and picked up a bunch of PVC and the assorted fittings and the pictures below were the result.

I installed a 1ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ to 1/2ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ tee directly below the tank. I ended up gluing this to the bulkhead. In retrospect, that might not have been smart; if I want to change it now Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ll have to destroy the bulkhead getting it off. Anyways, after both of the tee exits, I installed a ball-valve. After those I inserted unions so I could pull the latter part of the plumbing off for cleaning. The section from the tee headed to the right is going to go to a refugium that will in turn overflow back into the sump. I had planned to handle this overflow via a small powerhead (which you can see in the pic above). Tweaking the water flow coming from the drain line to match the output of the powerhead quickly proved unworkable. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m going to build a shelf that will sit next to the sump and hold a small refugium. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ll drill that and allow it to overflow into the sump. I have a small 18W power compact fixture that Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ll put over the fuge.

Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m dealing with microbubbles in my display tank, so Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve got a few filter socks ordered. One will be for the main tank drain line. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m thinking about doing the gate-valve mod on my Octopus NW200 skimmer, then I can use a filter sock on that as well. That is really the source of most of my microbubbles. Kill the skimmer and bubbles more or less go away. I'm hoping the filter socks takes care of this problem.

I was also able to get a 90-degree elbow hooked up to the drain line so that the sump water level comes to its midpoint as seen in the diagram and picture below. This has helped tremendously with gurgling noise.

And of course, I have a few questions!

What sort of water flow should I aim for through my sump? Figuring it holds about 5 to 8 gallons of water, Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m thinking no more than 3x total fuge volume in terms of turnover. That would put me at a paltry 15 ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ 24 gallons per hour.

Speaking of water flow, the return pump Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m currently using is an Eheim 1260 that provides 635 gph. I have 4.5ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ of head pressure on it, which should have it in the 400 ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ 450 gph range. Thatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s almost 7x total tank volume (65 gallon tank). The sump probably holds 12 ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ 15 gallons of water, which means my sump is turning over 30 or more times an hour. Is this too high? Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve read that 3x ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ 5x total volume turnover is most appropriate. Am I close enough this isnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t something I should really concern myself with? Dropping down to an Eheim 1250 is going to put me in the 3x range, which is on the low end of the ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œtargetââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve read about. Would you guys consider making a switch here?

Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m also planning to build myself two media reactors. One will hold Phosphate Removal Media and Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ll use the other to run Carbon. I wanted to daisy chain them together and run them both off of the same water pump. Has anybody tried this? Any issues I might want to be aware of? What would you all consider an appropriate flow rate through these reactors. I was thinking 100 gph or so. Would that be too much? Too little?