A Golden Reef Tank

[halmus]

No updates??

I wish I had more to update. I have gotten two of the QT tanks mostly plumbed but it's not worth posting pictures of that yet.

My father passed away recently. It was completely unexpected and pretty devastating to the family. I've been traveling back to the midwest quite a bit to do what I can.

Additionally, work is less than ideal. I had planned on considering my options after the aquarium was complete. However, circumstances are such that I'm considering my options right now instead of making tank progress.

I have almost everything I need to complete the tank except time. I think I might be able to make some progress next weekend assuming I can get "grown up" things taken care of this weekend.

 

[dave.m]

Sorry for your loss. Please take all the time you need for the things that matter most.

We can wait. It's not like we're going anywhere.

Dave.M

 

[FernandesReef]

Sorry about your father.

You do great work and have pride in it, for that I take my hat off to you sir.



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[tkeracer619]

Damn, sorry about your dad!

If you need a hand with something let me know.

 

[iced98lx]

Sorry for your loss, tanks are always here when there is time.

 

[halmus]

Thanks for all of the support everyone. Good group of people here.

Everything back home is as resolved as it can be. I will still be fitting in time with the build between other life events. Building is my therapy. I grew up learning the cabinet trade from my dad. I've expanded my building skills beyond just woodworking but that was a good foundation.

Luckily, I've been taking my time with things anyway. There's no reason things can't sit a little longer.

 

[Darthv247]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I am really not looking forward to that Day. You must be devastated.

Glad to see your build is here on RC. I kept going to RF looking for updates there.

 

[halmus]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I am really not looking forward to that Day. You must be devastated.

Glad to see your build is here on RC. I kept going to RF looking for updates there.

Thanks for finding me here. It's too much to keep updates here, on the local Co forum, and RF. I'll keep things up to date here as things progress.

 

[halmus]

I made some supports for some of the plumbing along the wall by all of the reactors. Those have been installed.

 

[halmus]

Here is a big photo dump of the QT systems. I mentioned the general goal before, but to help provide some context here, the QT is basically two separate systems. There's a coral QT and a fish QT. I don't plan on medicating the fish QT. The sump is one large box with two separate sumps built into one. They're a mirror image of each other. I have them plumbed so that with the turn of a valve, I can turn the two QT systems into one single system sharing water.

The coral QT is composed of a return pump which provides water to the shallow tank and a manifold for GFO and carbon. There's a modest RO skimmer. It's pretty simple.

The fish QT is composed of a matching return pump with matching GFO and carbon reactors and a matching RO skimmer. The return feeds x3 tanks above. That can be adjusted so that all three tanks feed into the sump, or any combination of running stand-alone. I made space for a HOB filter in each. They will each have their own heater and a modest circulation pump. The lights aren't in place yet.


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[halmus]

FWTO will be a gravity fed line from a central FW tank located on the top shelf of a rack above the refugium. The top-off is controlled by the toilet plunger valves in each separate sump. I know that might seem crazy to some, but I've used those toilet plunger valves on the last few builds and they've never failed. I made sure there isn't any metal to leach into the water. It's all plastic and rubber.

I built custom acrylic racks that slide over the various dividers to hold the FWTO valves and reactors. Those are the black acrylic inserts you can see equipment attached to. They are bolted in place and can be removed if needed. I'll be using nylon bolts for all of that. I still need to replace a few of the metal bolts you see in a few pics.













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[halmus]

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[Darthv247]

u like the toilet plunger idea. i will have to steal that one. such a savings and they will still do the same job or better. I have always used timers for TO water but the accuracy suffers that way.

 

[halmus]

u like the toilet plunger idea. i will have to steal that one. such a savings and they will still do the same job or better. I have always used timers for TO water but the accuracy suffers that way.

There are smaller solutions available for the hobby. They would fit better. I'm not sure how reliable they are? I've never tried them. The nice thing is that I can always go back and rework this. The bracket is solid but not permanent. It's adjustable in height so I can set the depth in the final zone as needed.

I did have to buy an extra kit of rubber gaskets to make this work. The gasket included didn't seal well around the 3/8" line I'm using.

I personally avoid electronics for top-off even though I know there are some really good products out there.

 

[FernandesReef]

Very neat work...
I like how you have supported the plumbing everywhere you can.


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[halmus]

Very neat work...
I like how you have supported the plumbing everywhere you can.


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Thanks Fernandes.

I'm a bull in a china shop, so supporting everything means there's less to worry about from bumping into pipes. It's extra nice to feel the solid support when you're tweaking the valves. You don't get the sense that all of that pressure is being translated back to a fitting or bulkhead that's going to break.

The Unistrut I'm using is aluminum so I don't have to worry about rust there. However, I'm not as confident in the brackets. We'll see how they do over time.

 

[tkeracer619]

Looks great!

 

[halmus]

Thank you

 

[halmus]

Here is the sketch I did a few months ago planning out the mixing station.

 

[halmus]

And here's the progress so far....

The actual FWTO tank. Top shelf. I'm waiting on some transparent PVC I'm going to run vertically from the open union. I'll use that to visually check the water level in the tank. I'll put graduated marks on that to determine gallons. I'm also putting an "electronic tape measure" in that eventually. The water depth can be correlated to gallons electronically and I can feed that into a user interface to show how many gallons top off I have at any time.