A Reefaholic's 1000+ Gallon Mixed Reef System Build

was actually just thinking that at 100gpd your frag tank would be about 3/4 (or so) of the way filled by now. In another day or 2 you may have the frag tank, sump, fuge and plumbing filled up.

Did you ever decide anything on the large external water storage tank?
 
I need to get a breakout box

Yeah, so far I've got three float switches mounted and a total of 6 spots available on the breakout box. (Awaiting drop shipment from Apex as it was backordered at Premium Aquatics)

- Float Switch 1 is high water alarm to e-mail/text me and turn off top off as preventative measure
- Float Switch 2 for top off
- Float Switch 3 for low water alarm to e-mail/text me and turn off return pumps so they don't burn up

Other three switches I'll currently just use for 1/2 floor sensors. Once I get water mixing station up I'll likely just get another breakout box so it's close to where the stations are. Anyone have additional ideas for the breakout box other than the floor sensors as well as floor sensor recommedations?
 
was actually just thinking that at 100gpd your frag tank would be about 3/4 (or so) of the way filled by now. In another day or 2 you may have the frag tank, sump, fuge and plumbing filled up.

Did you ever decide anything on the large external water storage tank?

I will likely get a few vertical tanks sometime this spring/summer. For now I'll be using my two 44 gallon Brutes I currently have. The large tanks with a large reserve is required before I get the DT in place so I'll have it at some point soon:)
 
Looks great Dustin! watching the water fill is amazingly boring!!!!

Steve, I'm very bored with waiting. I know this hobby is about patience but some things just kill you;) This morning before I left the sump was ~60-70% full and the wife was monitoring. Tonight I'll likely add salt to the system and start heating up the water and finish off the programming of the Apex since I've not finished that yet.

Just put an order in with Premium Aquatics for some MP40s and GEO Media Reactors to hold GFO and Carbon. Like earlier stated, anyone have a recommendation on good floor sensors that tie straight into the Apex Breakout box? :reading:
 
this is the one that comes out of the unofficial users guide....

http://www.specialtyalarms.com/site/1313932/product/80-519

I need to figure something out for my system now. My ato line has fallen out of the sump on my 80 gallon system and caused a little stress with the wife two days in a row. I keep forgetting to fasten it to something so it doesnt pop out. But now that I have over 500 gallons of water flowing in my newly remodeled basement I need to get this set up. My problem is with Verizon Fios I cant seem to get email and text alerts. We have tried working on this over and over again with no success.
 
Thanks for the link Steve.

From Page 26 of the Unofficial Apex Guide I just used a GMX account for my address. Since they don't support SSL I did this and it worked like a charm immediately. Are you saying that you have problems authenticating to the SMTP server or receiving to your Fios account?
 
Tonight's little project is rebuilding the LM III pumps so I can get them mounted and ready to go in a couple nights as I'm still awaiting another rebuild kit. I love these pumps and if you've not used them you would love them! Very reliable and probably the best upgrade on my previous system that lead to great stability.

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Thanks for the link Steve.

From Page 26 of the Unofficial Apex Guide I just used a GMX account for my address. Since they don't support SSL I did this and it worked like a charm immediately. Are you saying that you have problems authenticating to the SMTP server or receiving to your Fios account?

Not sure what the problem is but both Allan and Russ from the neptune forum spent an hour on the phone with me and remotely logged into my pc. theres something with fios that blocks the emails and texts and then it causes my controller to lose contact so then I cant even check my stats.
 
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Not sure what the problem is but both Allan and Russ from the neptune forum spent an hour on the phone with me and remotely logged into my pc. theres something with fios that blocks the emails and texts and then it causes my controller to lose contact so then I cant even check my stats.

A little off topic but I have the apex with FIOS and can get email and everything and stats to phone and computer. I did tech support also so I may be able to help. I dont want to hijack the thread but PM me and maybe i can help you
 
No problem if your Hijacking, for the better good:) Steve, try setting up a GMX account as shown in the guide and if that does not work or waddleboy can't help shoot me a PM, I'm willing to help you out. Most ISPs block some SMTP ports but maybe your old account you tried used port 25, and GMX uses 587. It's worth a try and the whole 2 minutes it takes to add it to the Apex and create an account on GMX! Let me know how it goes!

And back to the thread! Just got done rebuilding the LMIII and after an hour or so of troubleshooting got the pumps working again. Hopefully they are good to go for quite some time now.
 
Still 'PATIENTLY' waiting on this water to fill. I calculated that the sump/frag tank only add up to 211 gallons so this RO/DI unit is not putting out it's full GPD. First 14 hours it ran on older filters but I changed out the sediment, carbon, and DI so those are'nt the culprit. Booster bump keeps it at a steady 50 psi so that can't be the problem either. Guess I'll have to check with previous owner on how old the membrane is as that may be the culprit. If so, I'll likely pick up two membranes so I can run them in tandem and get better waste water ratio and more GPD per day.

Water is so close to coming to the return section which is last section to fill. Maybe in the morning?!?

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Finally, this morning I had enough water to fire on the return pump! Added some salt and kicked on two 300 watt heaters...Temperature of water was 62 so we'll see how long it takes to rise to 78. Added some salt and will work on dialing in the SG tonight. Once I have that going and in check on temperature/specific gravity I'll flip the valves to the refugium to tie it in.

I've been looking into floor sensors and the water bug seems like a nice system that you can add up to 6 sensors to. Still have to do some research before I pull trigger but is something I'd like to incorporate.

http://www.amazon.com/Winland-Electronics-WaterBug%C2%AE-Water-Sensor/dp/B000BKQ75G
 
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Little Progress

Little Progress

Feel like I have to update this thread regularly:) I got some things done...

- I added salt last night and then this morning and think I should have the SG dialed in so I can bring the Refugium online tonight.
- Temperature was also still rising because I failed to plug the heaters into the right plugin so only one was going.
- Built skimmer stand to bring skimmer up to right level
- Got shipment from Neptune with EB4 and Breakout Box and mounted those this morning
- Set up port forwarding on router and am able to access my Apex outside of my intranet

EB4 and Breakout box in! (Not too exciting but had been backordered and was waiting on them...)
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Skimmer on stand. Just used some eggcrate and PVC. I will likely pick up some gray egg crate from HD online to match my other things...Especially to build the frag racks for the frag/grow out tank.
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Temperature was @ 75.4 when I left this morning. Apex status page is currently registering 77.1 so should be up to 78-79 range when I get home.
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If all checks out tonight I'm going to bring refugium online and use ammonia to help it cycle. Heard it smells great so looking forward to that;) Not sure on how long I keep the ammonia between 1-4 ppm and continually dose on this? Need to do some reading.
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Have you checked into Special Blend or Stability? We've used both of those products (especially during initial startup or when getting dead rock ready for the tank), with some success.
 
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