330 gallon build.

[azjohnny]

Nice build, I have a similar stand for my 180, I thought in the beginning the stand was too tall, but now I wouldn't have it any other way.

I have heard of reefers who have run part of their drains horizontally and had problems. Maybe have the area where the 1.5" PVC join the larger pipe higher so there will be more of a gradual downward slope downward or dont have them join at all and have the 2 separate drains collect in the sump

 

[azjohnny]

double post

 

[Giovanni]

I have heard of reefers who have run part of their drains horizontally and had problems.

What problems?

 

[Giovanni]

Lights and Skimmer came today. The skimmer I decided on is a RO xp-5000 external and an automatic neck cleaner. The light were used. I purchased 3 AI SOL Blues and 3 AI SOL whites. I think the whites will have to be sold for Blues. I may move the pucks around to see if I can get a more even color before I trade the whites for the blues. What do you guys think?

 

[BSchaible]

Are those DIY brackets for the lights? Do you have any more pictures of them?

 

[Giovanni]

They are factory. However I do plan on a DIY bracket to it is easier to move them out of the way.

 

[Carch melanopte]

That looks like some nasty crazing. What thickness material is the aquarium constructed out of?

 

[Giovanni]

that looks like some nasty crazing. What thickness material is the aquarium constructed out of?

3/4. Looks worse than it is.

 

[Giovanni]

I decide to move the LED pucks around in the units to make due and not trade out the whites. I put the pucks from the whites in the outer 4 spots with 70degree lenses and pucks from the blues in the inner 4 spots with 40degree lenses. I figure this will give a higher par for my deep tank and still provide some pop. May move swap the lenses or even half the lenses so between the blue and white.

Also temporarily setup my skimmer and it is pulling out the floaty stuff from the sand already.

 

[dotcommer]

I think the stand height looks great. I just built a 38" stand for my 300 Gallon. That tank looks like it is in great shape. Looking forward to the build.

 

[Giovanni]

Picked up 230lbs of what was supposed to be live rock. Lady tore her tank down the day before said the rock was in bins in her driveway. i assumed it had water on it. So I Drove three hours and when I got there is was now dry. I still bought it as it did not smell to bad. Put half in my tank and the other half in the sump. This am got up and the house reeked worse that goat nuts and mu skimmer was in high gear.

 

[laredo300c]

Goat's nuts.... Thats funny.....

Even funnier is when my wife asked," how come all your reef buddies who come over to the house take a whiff of your skimmer's collection cup"

 

[Giovanni]

You should explain that the reason for sniffing skimmate is much the same as taking a good sniff when walking in a sushi restaurant or a strip club... The quality of the merchandise can be determined by the smell. :eek2:

Goat's nuts.... Thats funny.....

Even funnier is when my wife asked," how come all your reef buddies who come over to the house take a whiff of your skimmer's collection cup"

 

[dankreef]

Following along. Do you have plans of how your final setup of the 125 sump will look?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Picked up 230lbs of what was supposed to be live rock. Lady tore her tank down the day before said the rock was in bins in her driveway. i assumed it had water on it. So I Drove three hours and when I got there is was now dry. I still bought it as it did not smell to bad. Put half in my tank and the other half in the sump. This am got up and the house reeked worse that goat nuts and mu skimmer was in high gear.

*chuckle*

Reminded me of when I went from 10g to 180g (craigslist) bought 2 - 90lbs boxes of Tonga live rock from Dr Mac & Sons, it was shipped straight from Tonga to Las Vegas, where it sat all day long waiting for the next available flight to San Francisco International... which it didn't get in until 11am the next day... oh yeah and we just so happened to be having a little mini-heat wave where it was over 90° for the past few days, even at night it was hot... it was so hot you could smell the garbage sorting facility next to the highway... first time I ever smelled it without actually going to dump something off.

Well short story long, put the rock in the tank and yeah next few days I didn't even want to go into my living room, and unfortunately there were no doors to lock the smell in and it just wandered throughout the house, I tried to stay in a bedroom for the next couple days full on goat nut. I was new to reefkeeping then and my ammonia in the tank spiked to the max value the test kit could read, I just left it and let it go, eventually it came back down

Not sure there was much "life" on that rock afterwards, but whatever, the corals make the rock live IMO.

 

[Giovanni]

Following along. Do you have plans of how your final setup of the 125 sump will look?

Not on paper. I do have a plan in my head though. Just been lazy about building a stand for it all. Now that the tank is together and cycling, I can concentrate on the sump area.

 

[Giovanni]

Got my tunze 6105 pumps in today. Removed the 6055s and placed two of the 6105s. Used the wide nozzles for now. Have them temporarily wired to the apex tor a trial run. Tons of flow! Very quiet but when cycling low/high, they do clunk some times if the low setting is off. Not able to get a wave going. Not sure if I need all 4 so I am waiting to open the second two. If both are on high, where the flow meets in the middle it makes 4-5 whirlpools!

 

[jimmy n]

Looks good! The coloring on the light looks pretty uniform by the picture. The puck changes worked out. Have you checked the par yet?

 

[Giovanni]

Looks good! The coloring on the light looks pretty uniform by the picture. The puck changes worked out. Have you checked the par yet?

Yes, they worked out great. Thanks again for the great deal on the lights. I could not be more pleased. Don't own a par meter. Don't even know anyone that owns one. I did forget to mention I put the lights about 11 inches off the water as you can see in the photo. This is temporary till I come up with a better, less redneck looking way to do it. I still have to skin the stand such.

 

[Giovanni]

A note about the recent semi live rock addition. Even though there was a massive die-off from the rock, there is no ammonia building up as of yet. Maybe there was enough bacteria that survived that I will not have much of a spike if any. The tank no longer smells of decaying matter. The skimmer is putting out the black stuff it should. I dropped a 4 head piece of frog spawn in to use as a litmus test without testing the water every day. I have tons of it in a frag tank at my friend's house.

Also ran some wires today so I can control the pump and lights with the apex on this tank and my 5 gallon nano tank with the same controller.