der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Roughly 8 years ago I built a giant plywood tank:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1749114
That tank was demolished last spring. Since then I have been without aquariums (unless you count the betas and other small stuff my kids have). Lately, I've had the itch, so I am setting up a much smaller and more manageable system.
I didn't mind the complexity so much on the large tank, because honestly it wasn't that complex. What really got me on it was the sheer scale. It takes time to deal with a tank that large, even when "everything" is automated. Besides the time, there's a huge risk. I had a lot of actual sleepless nights, worrying about the tank. It's never good to lose livestock or have a tank disaster, but when you nuke a normal tank it's not a big deal, compared to something going wrong in a system with 400-ish total gallons of water in it. Some people have the constitution to deal with that, I apparently don't. No matter how redundant and over-engineered I did it, I just don't think I dealt with that much volume well.
So, I'm building something smaller this time. It still needs to be fairly simple and fairly self-sufficient. It won't be nearly as DIY, mostly because I don't have the time any more. But also because, honestly, I think I'm going to enjoy building a system that's mostly off the shelf. I'm sure I'll be frustrated with things that don't meet my needs, but the main thing for me is that it's a different adventure this time around.
Okay, enough words, on with the details.
I've purchased most of the equipment, it's started to arrive. The UPS man is going to be very busy, this ended up being something like 8 or 9 separate orders from 6 different vendors that broke down into nearly 15 shipments. I sold everything (even my refractometer) when I took the tank down, so I am literally starting from scratch.
1) Tank is an 18" cube (24 gallons) from aquamaxx. Rimless low iron glass.
2) Sump is a standard 10g with baffles
3) SCA-301 skimmer from eBay
4) Kessil A160we LED unit for light, with Kessil's own controller to dim and fade
5) BRS biopellet reactor
6) BRS media reactor for carbon/GFO
7) 100w Jager heater
8) DIY ATO with a peristalitc pump, to top off with kalk
9) Quiet One 4000 pump, to run return and the reactors
10) An RO/DI system from BRS, since I sold mine
11) Bulkheads, valves, salt mix, sand, test kits, refractometer, all the other small stuff you need on a reef tank
12) I'm using a stand I built for a nano maybe 10 years ago but never actually used.
The stand and the ATO are probably going to be the only actual DIY efforts on this tank. The stand is already done and the ATO is cheating since I bought a kit, so it's basically a zero DIY system. New territory for me.
I still need a few odds and ends but I feel like I have a pretty good head start. Buying EVERYTHING all at once from scratch is kind of daunting, even when you've done this reefing thing before. I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff.
I don't really have a plan yet for livestock. I want to build a system that can handle anything, and then if or when I make up my mind, I'll be ready to go. Since the system is so small, I may be re-stocking it from scratch every once in a while, anyways.
Things are arriving now, I'm traveling some in the next two weeks and have a busy life but I will update as progress is made.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1749114
That tank was demolished last spring. Since then I have been without aquariums (unless you count the betas and other small stuff my kids have). Lately, I've had the itch, so I am setting up a much smaller and more manageable system.
I didn't mind the complexity so much on the large tank, because honestly it wasn't that complex. What really got me on it was the sheer scale. It takes time to deal with a tank that large, even when "everything" is automated. Besides the time, there's a huge risk. I had a lot of actual sleepless nights, worrying about the tank. It's never good to lose livestock or have a tank disaster, but when you nuke a normal tank it's not a big deal, compared to something going wrong in a system with 400-ish total gallons of water in it. Some people have the constitution to deal with that, I apparently don't. No matter how redundant and over-engineered I did it, I just don't think I dealt with that much volume well.
So, I'm building something smaller this time. It still needs to be fairly simple and fairly self-sufficient. It won't be nearly as DIY, mostly because I don't have the time any more. But also because, honestly, I think I'm going to enjoy building a system that's mostly off the shelf. I'm sure I'll be frustrated with things that don't meet my needs, but the main thing for me is that it's a different adventure this time around.
Okay, enough words, on with the details.
I've purchased most of the equipment, it's started to arrive. The UPS man is going to be very busy, this ended up being something like 8 or 9 separate orders from 6 different vendors that broke down into nearly 15 shipments. I sold everything (even my refractometer) when I took the tank down, so I am literally starting from scratch.
1) Tank is an 18" cube (24 gallons) from aquamaxx. Rimless low iron glass.
2) Sump is a standard 10g with baffles
3) SCA-301 skimmer from eBay
4) Kessil A160we LED unit for light, with Kessil's own controller to dim and fade
5) BRS biopellet reactor
6) BRS media reactor for carbon/GFO
7) 100w Jager heater
8) DIY ATO with a peristalitc pump, to top off with kalk
9) Quiet One 4000 pump, to run return and the reactors
10) An RO/DI system from BRS, since I sold mine
11) Bulkheads, valves, salt mix, sand, test kits, refractometer, all the other small stuff you need on a reef tank
12) I'm using a stand I built for a nano maybe 10 years ago but never actually used.
The stand and the ATO are probably going to be the only actual DIY efforts on this tank. The stand is already done and the ATO is cheating since I bought a kit, so it's basically a zero DIY system. New territory for me.
I still need a few odds and ends but I feel like I have a pretty good head start. Buying EVERYTHING all at once from scratch is kind of daunting, even when you've done this reefing thing before. I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff.
I don't really have a plan yet for livestock. I want to build a system that can handle anything, and then if or when I make up my mind, I'll be ready to go. Since the system is so small, I may be re-stocking it from scratch every once in a while, anyways.
Things are arriving now, I'm traveling some in the next two weeks and have a busy life but I will update as progress is made.
