A Golden Reef Tank

[anbosu]

I'll have to give some thought to your idea of blowing out the sump sections monthly.

What exactly do you have in mind? Just turn a valve which increases the water flow so much the detritus is stirred up into the water column and moves on to be filtered out?

I have given some thought to trying to build an aquarium vacuum. Basically, plumb a long soft line into the feed side of a pump and have the output run through a canister filter and return the water via another soft line back where it came from. I know pumps generally don't like to "suck" as much as they like to "blow" but it seems like a do-able project. Maybe something like that already exists? I haven't done any significant research on it.

You could buy a cheap shop vac and use that. If your sump tank is elevated at all you could also build something with valves on both ends, keep the middle part filled with water, and the siphon starting should create a vacuum effect. I stole that from pmrogers on his build, it works pretty well.

 

[serenity]

I wish I could hire you to come plumb my system, the attention to details is something to marvel over. You have given me a lot of ideas for the fish room I am starting to build out.

I so badly want to leave the walls without drywall in the fish room, but looking at your setup, I may just finish them. I literally finished every other wall in the basement I built out for my father to live with us in, I need to just do it.. I look forward to seeing water in the system!! Keep up the amazing work!

 

[halmus]

You could buy a cheap shop vac and use that. If your sump tank is elevated at all you could also build something with valves on both ends, keep the middle part filled with water, and the siphon starting should create a vacuum effect. I stole that from pmrogers on his build, it works pretty well.

I'll have to look back over his thread to see what he did. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the ideas.

My first priority should be getting this thing wet and creating detritus so that I have something to complain about.

 

[FishyFishy69]

WOW. This room is the thing my dreams are made of!! Almost my dream tank size too... but I'd like to go 6X6.

Are you going with bar stools around the granite ledge?

 

[halmus]

A Golden Reef Tank

I wish I could hire you to come plumb my system, the attention to details is something to marvel over. You have given me a lot of ideas for the fish room I am starting to build out.



I so badly want to leave the walls without drywall in the fish room, but looking at your setup, I may just finish them. I literally finished every other wall in the basement I built out for my father to live with us in, I need to just do it.. I look forward to seeing water in the system!! Keep up the amazing work!

Thanks for the compliments.

I personally would recommend sealing off the area for moisture concerns if nothing else. Of course that requires us to do something with the moisture when it's mostly contained.

If FRP is in the budget, it is an awesome product to put in the walls. Then, you wouldn't even really need to mud the drywall seams in my opinion.

I would have covered every wall in the room (and probably the ceiling) if my wife hadn't stopped me. Instead, I covered two important walls. Compromise.

 

[halmus]

WOW. This room is the thing my dreams are made of!! Almost my dream tank size too... but I'd like to go 6X6.



Are you going with bar stools around the granite ledge?

It's like you're in my head!

When the tank was installed, my wife asked, "do you think it's big enough?" It looked small in the big room.

Where was that mindset when I was fighting for bigger dimensions prior to ordering?

I would have gone bigger. But, again I compromised as long as I got to keep the large filtration area. Big compromise, right? I have nothing to complain about.



Furniture arrives this Friday along with bar stools for the tank bar top.

Pool table arrives the Friday after.

 

[1933Ford]

It's about that time of day on a weekend.



I went on a 8 mile run up the mountain behind my house today before starting plumbing again. I'm a little pooped.

Lookout Mountain or North Table? I've done a few runs up Lookout myself. But my runs include pushing down a gas pedal that is attached to an Edelbrock carb sitting on top of a 350 Chevy motor. :wave:

I stand in my back yard and look at the north side of North Table Mountain.

Greg

 

[halmus]

Lookout Mountain or North Table? I've done a few runs up Lookout myself. But my runs include pushing down a gas pedal that is attached to an Edelbrock carb sitting on top of a 350 Chevy motor. :wave:



I stand in my back yard and look at the north side of North Table Mountain.



Greg

Greg

Hey neighbor! I must run by your house all the time. I'm on the North end as well. I won't post my address up publicly even though the InterWebs probably know more about me than I do.

I'll PM you some time and we'll have to get together. Currently work/life is insane for me because I'm the only one filling the job role usually occupied by three combined with trying to get this tank wet in my off hours.

It looks like you've been in the hobby for a long while. Do you still have a tank running or did you trade it in for a shiny chrome carb for your hot rod? Both hobbies can be money pits.

 

[McPuff]

I am definitely tagging along. The craftsmanship is quite amazing and makes me feel highly inadequate. :0) That's going to be an awesome basement.

 

[halmus]

I am definitely tagging along. The craftsmanship is quite amazing and makes me feel highly inadequate. :0) That's going to be an awesome basement.

Thank you. I plan on spending a lot of time down in my basement cave.

I'm looking forward just to some of the furniture arriving tomorrow. I'll be happy to sit and stare at an empty tank.

 

[1933Ford]

Greg

Hey neighbor! I must run by your house all the time. I'm on the North end as well. I won't post my address up publicly even though the InterWebs probably know more about me than I do.

I'll PM you some time and we'll have to get together. Currently work/life is insane for me because I'm the only one filling the job role usually occupied by three combined with trying to get this tank wet in my off hours.

It looks like you've been in the hobby for a long while. Do you still have a tank running or did you trade it in for a shiny chrome carb for your hot rod? Both hobbies can be money pits.

I live over in the older neighborhood. Been in this house for 26 years and in the neighborhood 32 years. Things were far and few between back then.
I tore down my reef a few years ago. It had been running for about 27 years. I jumped on the "mini reef" bandwagon back in the early years. Sprung was still in college, Thiel was coming into his own, George at Sandpoint was doing some high tech stuff and the "go to" guy for reading was Martin Moe. I've seen a lot of good over the years and some snake oil. I was a very early user of halides. I had Jeff at Lifereef order some plant lights from Omar at ESU for me. They were a 100 watt, 4300K bulbs. The three bulb ballast could have doubled as a small boat anchor.

I can relate to the busy thing. I'm now retired but during the last 8 years of work I worked weekdays along with some weekends and on call 7x24x365.

You ever see me out in the car (I run down 93 into town on occasion) honk, wave, throw a dead fish at me.

Your project looks sweet. A well thought out plan. Your attention to deal is amazing. Look forward to seeing the finished product.


Greg

 

[halmus]

Thanks for the compliments Greg.

My first tank was in 97. It's was a horrible mess at the time. I had poor guidance back in the Midwest and a extremely limited budget. PC's were the best I could do.

The next tank was from about 2008-2012. That was a big step up and successful.

Now, I'm trying to incorporate years of dreaming and mistakes into an ideal system (ideal for me).

It's all about priorities. I enjoy a well planned out work space and the back end is a big priority for me. That isn't everyone's concern and a clean back end doesn't guarantee a successful display. But, it can't hurt.




In other news, it was a waste of a day with some of the custom furniture arriving wrong and late. Then, I started working on the overflow boxes for the frag tank only to find that the last person to use my router and jig for overflows toasted the router bit and didn't replace it. (He's fired!)

So, I ran one single drain line and gave up for the day. Haircut and taxes. Two things I hate but the day's wasted anyway.

More progress tomorrow. Long run Sunday and mandatory fun that takes me away from tank progress. Pics early next week.

 

[halmus]

I made some of the first braces that will hold the plumbing secure along the sumps.

 

[halmus]

One of the return lines splits off and will supply a couple hundred GPH to the sump that supports the frag system.

 

[halmus]

As a reference for the last picture above, the bottom 1 1/2" line feeds the Vortec that supports the frag system. That vortec feeds the two frag tanks, two reactors, and the skimmer. It might be a lot to ask of a single pump but I'm not planning on running a huge amount of water through the frag tanks, just a lot of internal circulation for each tank.

The second line from the bottom is the feed line that comes from the main system. It also won't run an enormous amount of flow through the sump, just enough to keep the frag system water well mixed with the main.

The top line is the return from the skimmer.

 

[halmus]

The skimmer for the frag system. RO 2000 (I think). I still need to buy a fitting from HD to attach the feed line via a flexible hose. That is controlled by the gate valve that's sitting open.

 

[halmus]

The frag sump has two return lines back to the main sump. One is 1" and will run full siphon. The other one is a 2" backup line. That's a trend with this build for all of the external tanks. I run a modest amount of water to it and have the primary and backup drain lines. The 2" is overkill by far, but it's peace of mind.

 

[halmus]

The other end of the frag sump. The two reactors for carbon and GFO.

 

[halmus]

The inside of the frag sump. There's a lot going on in there. I'm going to add another baffle on the other side of where all of those lines feed into the sump.

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[halmus]

A couple other shots of the progress.