drummereef's 180g in-wall build

[drummereef]

The "mess of wires" :lol:

You crack me up Brett - that's gotta be the cleanest sump room in the history of the hobby! I've seen messier operating rooms!

Haha, I take it you work in operating rooms?

Nice sump room. You need a counter and sink in there for clean up/fragging purposes..

I installed a utility sink a couple months ago in the adjacent unfinished/laundry area of the basement so that angle is taken care of. I would, however, like a "workstation" for fragging etc as time goes on but need to install a couple other key items and see how much space I have left. On the other side of the door is my shop where there's plenty of counter space to work in the interim.

Not quite yet. The first fish will be my yellow tang I'm transferring from my other tank. Probably some anthias too but will mainly be a coral driven tank.
QUOTE]

maybe you could put a single specimen of something special. like a rare angel or a gem tang :thumbsup: would look awesome through a school of anthias :spin1:

Agree and am currently taking donations. :rollface:

 

[drummereef]

Looks impressive!! Your attention to details is amazing, control freak to the max

Haha, and coming from you who build the most robust sump room I've ever seen........ :lol: Thanks Nook!

Too sweet! I hate having to jam all my crap under the cabinet. So Jealous!

Great work man.

Thank you Megabite.

Way cool. You're definitely the envy of many a reefer right now. Nice work!

:lol: Don't know about that but I appreciate the kind words.

 

[scottkel]

very nice! just went through this entire thread!

scott

 

[Taqpol]

That is one extremely sweet setup! Any plans for underneath the RO/DI machine? A Top off reservoir/water change system seams like it would be perfect! Also, how are the plans for the refugium coming? Will it be a normal refugium or some type of cryptic zone?

Lastly, whats the thing you zoomed in on in the last few seconds? I thought it might be a humidistat or something. Spekaing of which, and sorry if you've already covered it, what was your plan for dealing with humidity and heat in the fish room?

 

[crvz]

The "mess of wires" :lol:

You crack me up Brett - that's gotta be the cleanest sump room in the history of the hobby! I've seen messier operating rooms!

I was thinking the same thing. I'm rather jealous of the tidiness of the room... my seems to be in a perpetual state of "work zone." I'll need some Brett lessons before too long.

 

[drummereef]

very nice! just went through this entire thread!

scott

Thanks Scott.

That is one extremely sweet setup! Any plans for underneath the RO/DI machine? A Top off reservoir/water change system seams like it would be perfect! Also, how are the plans for the refugium coming? Will it be a normal refugium or some type of cryptic zone?

Lastly, whats the thing you zoomed in on in the last few seconds? I thought it might be a humidistat or something. Spekaing of which, and sorry if you've already covered it, what was your plan for dealing with humidity and heat in the fish room?

Thanks Alex. I do have plans for a fresh/salt water mixing station under the RO/DI, just haven't found the right containers for the job yet. I'm looking for some nice plastic drums that aren't too big as I'll only be doing ~20g water changes. I like the ones on plastic-mart.com but just haven't found the right size/shape for my application. Still in the working stages of the fuge so nothing there yet...

Yes, that was the light switch and de-humidistat on the wall in the last shot. The dehumidistat is wired to an 80cfm Panasonic DC driven bath fan located in the ceiling in the center of the room. Seems to do a nice job pulling out most of the moisture. Along with that I have a supply and return to my HVAC which is in the adjacent unfinished area of the basement. The house has a high efficiency heat pump that can operate in "dehumidify" mode so we have whole-house dehumidification year round. Don't really have a problem with heat at this point, even when I left the lights on for 6-8 hrs, as the basement stays about 68-72F year around. The HVAC supply really helps cut through any residual heat no problem.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm rather jealous of the tidiness of the room... my seems to be in a perpetual state of "work zone." I'll need some Brett lessons before too long.

:lol: And likewise I need some "how to grow coral like a pro" lessons from you!

 

[drummereef]

UPDATE:


OK guys I splurged this week. :spin2: I've always wanted one of these since I had my 40g but just couldn't justify the cost at the time. Well, the new tank demands a new top off system.


Tunze Osmolator 3155 - New style with magnet holders

Here's a little on how I set it up. I'm still measuring how much reserve water is needed but I think I can really downsize the reservoir volume quite a bit. That should help a little with TDS creep as there would be more freshwater turnover in the reservoir. The 5 gallon bucket is temporary as I see how the system works over the next couple weeks and until I can find a more permanent reservoir.


Tunze Osmolator 3155 - What's in the box

With every Tunze product I've owned you have to install the rubber bumpers to the magnet holders.

Rubber bumpers

Tunze includes two magnet holders depending on your application. I decided to use the combination magnet for a cleaner install. The other option is to use two magnets, one for each sensor.

As you can see the Osmolator uses an optical sensor (right) as the main top off control and a float switch (left) as the backup high level sensor. An audible alarm will sound if the float switch triggers the controller that there is a high level error.

This is the terminal that connects the controller to the pump.

More to come..... :fish1:

 

[drummereef]

Now on to the plumbing...


The temporary reservoir, a 5 gallon bucket.

Float valve that is plumbed to the RO/DI. My RO/DI also has an auto shut-off valve so when it senses back pressure the RO/DI unit will also shut off.

Drilled a hole to accept the float valve.

Float valve installed.

RO/DI plumbed to the float valve.

Voila! We have water.

More to come..... :fish1:

 

[drummereef]

And finally.....


The pump sits in the bottom of the bucket and is plumbed out the side towards the sump via the black tubing.

This is how the outlet of the pump feed mounts to the sump.

Haven't decided where I want to mount the controller yet so I wire tied it to the conduit for now. I think I will permanently mount it under the 4-gang receptacle with the supplied Velcro but need a day or two to decide.

This is all you see in the return area of the sump, very clean and tidy. I'm also going to tidy up the wires with some split flex as you can see here also.

Here's the reservoir positioned on the side of the sump. Yes, that mess of wires will be gone soon! Once I find time to finish the conduit project I can tidy up all the wires.

And for the best part of this story..... THE TANK HAS CYCLED!!! :beer: Just about 4 weeks to the nose since I originally seeded the tank with live sand.

 

[Greenmaster]

WOOT! Time for fish :-D

 

[drummereef]

So does anyone have an issue with me transferring my Yellow Tang to the 180g before I pick up a cleanup crew? I can't imagine either stressing the bio load very much, especially a few snails. There hasn't been any algae cycles yet but I'm sure that's not to far off. I'll pick up a few snails along the way as the tank demands.


As long as the levels stay where they are for the next day or two I figured this would be a good weekend to git er done.

 

[Taqpol]

As far as I'm concerned, tangs can almost be considered part of the clean up crew! You're not showing any ammonia or nitrites, I'm sure the tang would love to "stretch its legs" in the much bigger tank, and besides its normal food It will love grazing on the various brown algae cycles that will be heading your way soon!

 

[Fishdisease]

If your params are good, the tang will be quite happy!

just an aside but I gotta comment on your name Taqpol. Both my wife and I are geneticists (pop gen folks), she's a phd and managing a lab currently, and I use to manage a gov't wildlife research lab. Good times....

 

[Fishdisease]

Oh and I had a question or you Drummereef...did you even consider LED lighting? I'm looking at doing a very similar project to yours (except my basement is currently unfinished so I'm really starting from scratch) and I'm getting caught up in the LED vs MH debate....

 

[tegee]

Brett...

As I mentioned a couple of times through your thread...I only had hours, not weeks to perform a complete change over and only lost one fish and no corals. So, yes your yellow Tang will be very happy in its new surroundings. Not to mention will help your tank cycle better and faster imho.

Good luck...

 

[Nanook]

Your tang should be fine in the new tank and will help it cycle a bit more.

 

[Greenmaster]

I know this question isn't directed at me... but current LED tech puts off more heat/less light per watt then MH. The biggest reason to go with LED is to create your own mix of light because LED's can be used to enhance a specific spectrum better then any other light source and can produce an exact wavelength at a better watt/heat ratio (that's why hospital OR's use them)

 

[drummereef]

As far as I'm concerned, tangs can almost be considered part of the clean up crew! You're not showing any ammonia or nitrites, I'm sure the tang would love to "stretch its legs" in the much bigger tank, and besides its normal food It will love grazing on the various brown algae cycles that will be heading your way soon!

Well, tomorrow is the big day for Mr. Tang.

If your params are good, the tang will be quite happy!

just an aside but I gotta comment on your name Taqpol. Both my wife and I are geneticists (pop gen folks), she's a phd and managing a lab currently, and I use to manage a gov't wildlife research lab. Good times....

Oh and I had a question or you Drummereef...did you even consider LED lighting? I'm looking at doing a very similar project to yours (except my basement is currently unfinished so I'm really starting from scratch) and I'm getting caught up in the LED vs MH debate....

LED's are very cool indeed, but at the time I didn't (and still don't have, haha) have the knowledge, time, or resources to build my own fixture(s) the size I would need for my system. Maybe as the technology continues to develop, especially on the DIY hobbyist level, I might get my fins wet but that's basically why I went with MH.

Brett...

As I mentioned a couple of times through your thread...I only had hours, not weeks to perform a complete change over and only lost one fish and no corals. So, yes your yellow Tang will be very happy in its new surroundings. Not to mention will help your tank cycle better and faster imho.

Good luck...

Thanks tegee! Tomorrow's the day. I'll post some pics when I'm done.

Your tang should be fine in the new tank and will help it cycle a bit more.

Great Nook. Thanks again.

 

[drummereef]

On another note... I removed all the coral out of my 40g today and brought it to the LFS for store credit. It was mostly LPS and Softies with the exception of some Orange Monti Caps. I won't tell you how much they gave me but.... :dance: Nice to have a good LFS in town. Probably should have kept some but I figured there no time better than the present to take the SPS plunge.

 

[Taqpol]

I know this question isn't directed at me... but current LED tech puts off more heat/less light per watt then MH. The biggest reason to go with LED is to create your own mix of light because LED's can be used to enhance a specific spectrum better then any other light source and can produce an exact wavelength at a better watt/heat ratio (that's why hospital OR's use them)

I've done a fair amount of work with LED light for reef aquaria usage, but I by no means consider myself a guru. Still, this sounds absolutely wrong to me. Cree makes LEDs that put off more then 100 lumens/watt, and I know that this was an astonishing figure that blew other forms of lighting completely out of the water. As far as the heat issue, LEDs do require more heat management then MH at the die end, but none of the light they produce is in the infrared range, which means the water is not heated as much by the presence of the light.

just an aside but I gotta comment on your name Taqpol. Both my wife and I are geneticists (pop gen folks), she's a phd and managing a lab currently, and I use to manage a gov't wildlife research lab. Good times....

Hahaha, you're the second person in all of RC to comment on the name. When my co-workers found out about my screen name they made fun of me, but I play a few different games and am active on a few different forums and Taqpol is NEVER taken.


/hijack

Brett, looks good! Make sure to take a picture of the tang in his new home. Its so great that you have good fish stores, I hope the ones down here turn out to be half as good as the ones I left.