B"H
I would like to share with the great fellow hobbyists here at reef central, the upgrade-rebuild process I'm beginning, and I would greatly admire any input, advice, suggestions etc.
Please excuse my imperfect English, I hope it's not that bad.
Even worse are my photo skills, I will try to post pictures but don’t expect quality.
This will not be a standard short process upgrade, but rather a step by step outside inside upgrade.
In order to understand the above, I will first shortly present my current system and stress the points I would like to fix and the goals I would like to achieve with this upgrade.
I began my first SW tank 3 years ago in A RSM 250 but quickly upgraded to the current system.
My system is split into 2 parts.
1. The inside part which consists of the display tank with almost no equipment (except for dosing pumps) under the tank, the tank splits the area between my dining room and hall leading to kitchen and is viewable from 3 sides.
The display tank dimensions are 220 cm L 65 cm W and 65 cm H total 937 liters (aprox. 87"L 26 W 26 H total 248 gallons) made of 12 mm glass super clear on the front, lighting over the tank is sfiligoi 12 X 80 watt t5 + 6 x 39 watt, flow is 2 vortech mp-40 and one mp-60.
The tank is a highly mixed reef, with lots of SPS, LPS, clams and some softies and nps too. As for fish I am highly overstocked with lots of fish but mainly smaller types like wrasse, anthias etc. and only 2 tangs.
2. The outside part that consists of the filtration sump fudge etc. is located outdoors in my backyard at a distance of 8 meters (26 ft.) from the DT with 2 pipes running under the floor and connecting them.
Here we have the sump measuring 90 x 50 x 70 cm
A 7000 l-hr reef octopus pump with a split output feeds the deltec 3070 external skimmer and the teco TR-30 chiller. In the sump there is a large reef octopus methanol fed nitrate reactor, a avast marine ozone reactor, a GEO 610 reactor filled with Britewell aluminum type phosphate media, and a nextreef reactor with activated carbon.
The return pump is a pan 250
Connected to the sump from the back is a plastic bin refuge measuring 112 x 72 x 60 cm.
On the side I have another 2 tanks connected to the system, the upper one holds some mangroves, and the bottom one currently holds live rock I recently finished curing and is designated for the upgraded tank.
As mentioned above the upgrade will be done in two stages with giving some time between stages in order to try to keep the system as stable as possible.
The first stage will be focused on the outside part and stage 2 will be focused on the inside DT.
The goals I want to achieve on the outside is as follows,
1- moving all components under the roof, in the current setting I have to cover everything in the winter because of rain which makes maintenance difficult , in the summer this is not a problem since we have 5-6 months with no rain so I uncover the lids (as seen in pic. above) but in the winter this is troubling, by doing this I will be losing the direct sunlight to the refuge but it's worth it.
2- neatness and esthetics, I want to change to a huge glass sump that includes a big refuge ( replacing the plastic bin) and space to hold all the reactors inside , the dimensions will be aprox. 210 x 80 x 65 cm.
3. putting up a winter closing (removable) from the roof down in order to keep temperature up in the winter, with my current setting I have strong winds in the yard that make temp. drop allot and I find myself paying a high electric bill in the winter due to heating (much higher than chilling in the summer) I believe that by keeping the winds out will cut the heating drastically even if the surrounding temp stays the same.
Goals for the inside DT
1- making a wider tank of 1 meter (39" ) width, which will not only give me more space and volume but also the ability to create a decent display on both sides of the tank , with the current tank the back side is very narrow not letting much place for corals and light penetration. I might also make it 40 cm longer so total DT volume should be between 1430-1690 liter (378-446 gallon)
2- Changing the place of the overflow from the current internal (ugly) to external along the left side of tank.
3- Changing the live rock and getting rid of the curse called bryopsis, and making sure it doesn't get in again. This might be the main reason I am jumping in so fast to this whole change.
4- The same as in 3 but replace bryopsis with aiptesia.
5. Removing all fish and putting them through a full quarantine process, I've learned this the hard way as I went through a massive odinium outbreak a year ago and lost about a half of my fish.
Total volume of new system should be about 650-700 gallon.
Again I will highly appreciate any input, advice, critique etc.
I would like to share with the great fellow hobbyists here at reef central, the upgrade-rebuild process I'm beginning, and I would greatly admire any input, advice, suggestions etc.
Please excuse my imperfect English, I hope it's not that bad.
Even worse are my photo skills, I will try to post pictures but don’t expect quality.
This will not be a standard short process upgrade, but rather a step by step outside inside upgrade.
In order to understand the above, I will first shortly present my current system and stress the points I would like to fix and the goals I would like to achieve with this upgrade.
I began my first SW tank 3 years ago in A RSM 250 but quickly upgraded to the current system.
My system is split into 2 parts.
1. The inside part which consists of the display tank with almost no equipment (except for dosing pumps) under the tank, the tank splits the area between my dining room and hall leading to kitchen and is viewable from 3 sides.
The display tank dimensions are 220 cm L 65 cm W and 65 cm H total 937 liters (aprox. 87"L 26 W 26 H total 248 gallons) made of 12 mm glass super clear on the front, lighting over the tank is sfiligoi 12 X 80 watt t5 + 6 x 39 watt, flow is 2 vortech mp-40 and one mp-60.
The tank is a highly mixed reef, with lots of SPS, LPS, clams and some softies and nps too. As for fish I am highly overstocked with lots of fish but mainly smaller types like wrasse, anthias etc. and only 2 tangs.
2. The outside part that consists of the filtration sump fudge etc. is located outdoors in my backyard at a distance of 8 meters (26 ft.) from the DT with 2 pipes running under the floor and connecting them.
Here we have the sump measuring 90 x 50 x 70 cm
A 7000 l-hr reef octopus pump with a split output feeds the deltec 3070 external skimmer and the teco TR-30 chiller. In the sump there is a large reef octopus methanol fed nitrate reactor, a avast marine ozone reactor, a GEO 610 reactor filled with Britewell aluminum type phosphate media, and a nextreef reactor with activated carbon.
The return pump is a pan 250
Connected to the sump from the back is a plastic bin refuge measuring 112 x 72 x 60 cm.
On the side I have another 2 tanks connected to the system, the upper one holds some mangroves, and the bottom one currently holds live rock I recently finished curing and is designated for the upgraded tank.
As mentioned above the upgrade will be done in two stages with giving some time between stages in order to try to keep the system as stable as possible.
The first stage will be focused on the outside part and stage 2 will be focused on the inside DT.
The goals I want to achieve on the outside is as follows,
1- moving all components under the roof, in the current setting I have to cover everything in the winter because of rain which makes maintenance difficult , in the summer this is not a problem since we have 5-6 months with no rain so I uncover the lids (as seen in pic. above) but in the winter this is troubling, by doing this I will be losing the direct sunlight to the refuge but it's worth it.
2- neatness and esthetics, I want to change to a huge glass sump that includes a big refuge ( replacing the plastic bin) and space to hold all the reactors inside , the dimensions will be aprox. 210 x 80 x 65 cm.
3. putting up a winter closing (removable) from the roof down in order to keep temperature up in the winter, with my current setting I have strong winds in the yard that make temp. drop allot and I find myself paying a high electric bill in the winter due to heating (much higher than chilling in the summer) I believe that by keeping the winds out will cut the heating drastically even if the surrounding temp stays the same.
Goals for the inside DT
1- making a wider tank of 1 meter (39" ) width, which will not only give me more space and volume but also the ability to create a decent display on both sides of the tank , with the current tank the back side is very narrow not letting much place for corals and light penetration. I might also make it 40 cm longer so total DT volume should be between 1430-1690 liter (378-446 gallon)
2- Changing the place of the overflow from the current internal (ugly) to external along the left side of tank.
3- Changing the live rock and getting rid of the curse called bryopsis, and making sure it doesn't get in again. This might be the main reason I am jumping in so fast to this whole change.
4- The same as in 3 but replace bryopsis with aiptesia.
5. Removing all fish and putting them through a full quarantine process, I've learned this the hard way as I went through a massive odinium outbreak a year ago and lost about a half of my fish.
Total volume of new system should be about 650-700 gallon.
Again I will highly appreciate any input, advice, critique etc.
