Custom Cabinet for 90g Reef (Build Thread)

[RumLad]

Thanks for the civics lesson C - not needed, but thanks anyway.
I am fully aware of the water treatment process, and was not in search of such a fine answer as yours. Just a simple question about how the OP felt using water in such a fashion in this day and age in the Atlanta suburbs. Seeing as he admitted to using water in the secrecy of his garage, and you yourself have posted about doing such things as sneaking around at night in order to use water made me think that this water topic was an issue down there. Apparently from your responses, it is not an issue at all, as there is no water wasted, nor consummed without need. So it really is no big deal. A straight answer as such was all that was needed.

Now, back to the build.

When will the tank be installed in the family room?
Will it have water by Thanksgiving?

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

Buying sand & salt today, moving the tank into the living room tonight. Plumbing tonight, filling tonight/tomorrow with RODI water. First live rock goes in Saturday.

I'm pumped!

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

Buying sand & salt today, moving the tank into the living room tonight. Plumbing tonight, filling tonight/tomorrow with RODI water. First live rock goes in Saturday.

I'm pumped!

 

[~sp0ok~]

good job there RedEDGE2k1 ..

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

Well it's almost 1am on a work night, and I'm about to call it a night and head to bed. Twas a loooong night.

During my lunch break earlier today I bought four 20lb bags of Caribsea "Fiji Pink" live sand and a 160g bucket of Instant Ocean. After work, I stopped by PetSmart and bought three 15lb bags of dry aragonite sand, because I didn't think the 80lbs of live sand would be enough. Afterwards I went to Lowe's and bought the plumbing parts, and after three additional trips to the store, I finally had everything I needed.....but I didn't actually get around to plumbing anything tonight. I ran out of time.

I called a friend over to help move the cabinet sections upstairs, and after carefully negotiating two flights of stairs (with a mid-landing & a 90Ã"šÃ‚° bend in between) the cabinet was finally in the living room, after 8 weeks in the garage. It wasn't as hard to move as I thought it would be -- awkward and bulky, but not terribly heavy.

I put felt strips on every piece of plwood that makes contact with the hardwood floor, then stood her up and put the tank on top. I attached and tightened the overflow/return bulkheads before putting the tank on the stand. This eliminated any hassle trying to tighten the retaining rings through the cabinet holes.

I then added the dry sand. I'm going to keep the top section/canopy off until I have added live rock, etc. because it's too heavy for my girlfriend to help me move. So I can't move it without calling over help -- so I want to keep it off until I know I can put it on the bottom section and not have to move it again for a while.

I spread the dry sand out evenly, then poured the live sand on top. In the end, I only used three bags of the live sand. With three 15lb bags of dry sand and three 20lb bags of live sand, I have a total of 105lbs of sand in the 90g tank and a sandbed that is 2-2.5" thick, which is plenty in my opinion. Now I can take the 4th bag of live sand back to the store and get my $32 back. That money will go towards a pH probe for the AquaController Jr.

Speaking of which -- do you guys know if any pH probe will work, or does it have to be the one made/sold by Neptune? My LFS has a probe for $59, but it's not the Neptune brand.

Here you can see the depth of the bed. I wanted it to be an inch or so above the tank trim -- it worked out perfectly.

I discarded the first 3 or 4 gallons of water my new RO/DI unit made last night. Tonight I had it running while I was moving the tank and whatnot, and by the time I was ready to mix saltwater, I had about 9 or 10 gallons of pure water ready to go. So I mixed this, checked the salinity with a refractometer, and began pumping the water into the tank with a Maxi-jet 1200 pump and some clear tubing. If you're wondering about the hammer, I used it to hold the tubing in the tank while I took this picture.

I used the "cup & plate" method to help reduce clouding of the water.

So this is where I call it a night -- here's how my tank looks as of now. I put a heater in the tank to keep the water warm until tomorrow night, when I'll be doing the same mixing/pumping routine again.

 

[cannarella]

Now we're cooking. Looks better and better every time.

 

[RumLad]

Is the RO/DI unit on the same level in the house as the tank, or are you carting water up and down stairs? You could pump into a Brute near the tank for the initial mixing / filling operation, if toting that h2o gets too much.

Saltwater by Thanksgiving! A long journey so far , but seems well woth it when you see the finished product taking shape.

 

[mlrtime99]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11193100#post11193100 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RedEDGE2k1
Speaking of which -- do you guys know if any pH probe will work, or does it have to be the one made/sold by Neptune? My LFS has a probe for $59, but it's not the Neptune brand

Hey Red, it depends on how your controller has been calibrated. All the ph probe will do is return a certain voltage at a certain pH. If it's calibrated and the same sensitivity as the neptune probe it will work great. I'd ask your LFS if they'd let you test it for a night. Mix some samples, test them with litmus or whatever analog pH testers you have and see if the LFS probe is accurate.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11194464#post11194464 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RumLad
Is the RO/DI unit on the same level in the house as the tank, or are you carting water up and down stairs?

They're both on the 2nd floor. The RO/DI unit is in the laundry room, the tank of course in the living room. I was contemplating buying a 55g Brute trash can with the rolling base, so I could cart the water back & forth...but opted instead for a 28g rubbermaid container, placed on a shelf above the RO/DI unit for space sake. We live in a townhome, and there just aren't many places to hide a big ugly trash can on the 2nd floor. Besides, after the initial fill-up, I'll only be changing 20 gallons of water or so per month, if even that much.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11195152#post11195152 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mlrtime99
If it's calibrated and the same sensitivity as the neptune probe it will work great. I'd ask your LFS if they'd let you test it for a night.

I went ahead and bought the pH meter at my LFS today, it's a Milkwaukee brand probe. I also bought some 7.01 and 10.01 calibration fluid -- I'm assuming the AquaController has a calibration function?

I hope so.

 

[mlrtime99]

Haha one would hope, do let me know how it works because I've always wondered if the same thing was possible with these relatively low tech controllers.

 

[gary faulkner]

If you're wondering about the hammer, I used it to hold the tubing in the tank while I took this picture.

Disaster waiting to happen?

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

"...while I took this picture."

 

[mlrtime99]

Hahah don't worry about it, I think last time I made RO/DI I used a shoe to hold the product line down.

 

[pdhenderson]

One of the best threads of have read in a long time, fantasitic job, I have followed this from the beginning. Looking forward to more!!!!

PS
You need more pics

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

The Perfecto overflow kit installed

Fantastic weekend. I found a steal on Craigslist, for $200 I picked up the following from a guy here in Atlanta who was breaking down his small tank:

18g reef, 1.5 yr established nano tank
Oak stand
2x32w PC light unit w/ moonlights & fans
Prizm Skimmer
PowerFilter 20
48lbs live rock
2" live sand bed
Maroon Clownfish, hosting in a long tentacle anemone
Lawnmower Blenny
Coral Banded Shrimp
Emerald Crabs (2)
Serpent Starfish
Sand Sifting Starfish
Various snails & hermits
Green Star Polyps
Finger Leather
Button polyps (couple different colors)

I think I'll hang on to the little nano setup, maybe I'll put it in my office at work. For now, it's going to sit in the garage, as the 90g is already sucking up enough $$$.

I brought all the livestock home in a 28g Rubbermaid container, and acclimated it over a 2hr period this afternoon.

I used a Maxi-Jet and some clear tubing to pump water from the tank into the Rubbermaid. I used a clamp to kink the tubing, so that the water drained into the rubbermaid slowly.

I could have just siphoned it, I know, but with the pump I didn't have to suck any saltwater in my mouth. Also, once the Rubbermaid was full of tank water, I put the pump in the rubbermaid, and pumped water back to the tank. I did this 3 or 4 times before finally placing everything into the tank.

For now, I'm going to leave the 2x32w PC light over the tank until I get more rock in there. I don't want to put the top section on until things are more "final", if such a thing even exists. I'm thinking I'll add the top when I at least have the tank full of live rock...which will be pretty soon.

I didn't bother paying much attention to aquascaping, as I'll be adding much more live rock in the next week or two, so trying to make things "pretty" now would just be wasted effort. I added a few cups of the nano reef's sand to my sand bed, hoping to further diversify my sandbed's life. This also caused quite a dust storm, as you can see. The VorTech was never turned on.

Here's a cloudy look at the Maroon clown in his anenome. He bites my hand if I get near his home, it's quite amusing.

Various polyps

It's hard to tell, but this is a 10lb rock covered in Green Star Polyps. I know these grow like weeds, so I'm still deciding whether to keep these or trade them in for bare live rock at the LFS. I really, really like this coral -- but I don't want to have anything in my tank that requires trimming often. As I've said previously, I'm going to try to keep my hands out of the tank as much as possible.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

After I had all the new livestock in the tank, I starting working on the sump. I'm using a 20L tank as my sump, with a seperate 15g acrylic refugium. I'll work on the refugium later. For now, I used 100% silicone and three 10"X12" pieces of glass I picked up at Lowe's for $2.50 each to begin making the baffles between the skimmer/return areas.

The wood block was 1.5" thick, so for simplicity sake, I left 1.5" of clearance between the baffles/bottom of the sump.

It was a lengthy process to silicone the hard-to-reach areas. I used a the long handle of a wooden spoon to dab silicone into the seam, little by little, then spread it/smooth it out along the seam.

The glass wasn't the perfect width, so I had to glue them in at an angle. This won't affect the operation of the baffles, just looks a little goofy. Yes, I'm aware I could have had it custom cut. But I didn't, so it's not.

It took some head-scratching and a lot of walking around the plumbing aisles to find all the parts I needed, but other than that, the plumbing system went together very fast. I put a ball valve on the return, so I can adjust it if need be.

I couldn't find any small plastic hose clamps at Lowe's, so I used heavy duty zip ties on the barb connections. It worked out well.

Here's a shot of the sump, complete with baffles, skimmer, return pump, and plumbing.

At the end of the day (literally), I turned on the AquaController to take my first parameter readings. Looks like I'll have to boost the pH a little.

Today was a good day

Stay tuned and take care!
Dustin

 

[FUA]

looking awsome!!!!!!!

 

[lhoy]

I know you used the clamp to control the dripping for acclimation, but I would have gone with the hammer!! ; )

I have been reading the thread and very amazed at your woodworking. Thanks for taking the time to take pictures and post. Looking forward to more.

Lee

 

[mlrtime99]

Do you remember the model of the hinge you used on the door hinges?