Los' 360 reef CAD plans and setup

[Los]

Sure. I went to Radio Shack and bought a project box, 3 switches of at least 6 amps each, and a couple bags of the connectors that were sized right to attach to the back of the switches. Those connector pieces are important, because it would be very difficult to attach the wires to the switches using a soldering iron without any of the wires touching. With the connectors, it's a piece of cake. Rather than splice into the heaters and pumps, I grabbed a few short extension cords and spliced into them instead. I then plugged one end into a power strip and the other end into the pump or heater. The biggest challenge was drilling into the plastic project box. For that, I used these flat type bits that have three points. I'm sure there's a name for those, but I'm not mechanically inclined enough to know it.

I'm not an electrician and I recommend contacting someone who knows what they are doing. That said, I took the extension cord and in the middle of it separated the two wires. I then cut one of them, stripped back the wire a bit, and crimped on a wire connectors onto each stripped wire. I then plugged the connectors into the switch and tested them out. They worked fine. One of the switches had a ground spot too. I'm not sure I did this part right, but I split the ground wire (the middle wire in the three wire extension cord) and attached both of them to the connector that plugged into the ground slot. If you don't know what you're doing, please get some help. I don't want to be responsible for someone burning their house down or worse. Electricity can be dangerous stuff!

BTW, the switch box really isn't necessary. The easiest solution is to have a power strip nearby and to just plug or unplug the outlets as needed. Another option which I used to use are these handy power strips you can get at Wal-Mart that have a 2" or so circular switch half way down the cable that you step on to turn the device on and off. I'm guessing it's used for lamps. You could simply velcro a couple of those to the wall and plug your heaters and pumps into that. It doesn't get simpler than that.

Hope that helps.

 

[Los]

One more thing I really should have pointed out. If you have a heater in the inline tank, you need to make CERTAIN to unplug it before you empty that tank. You don't want the heater to get super-hot with no water in the tank and then have it melt a hole in your plastic container or crack when the cold RODI water comes in. I used to use one of those black VisiTherm stealth heaters which turn off automatically if they are out of the water. That should have been the perfect solution, but let me tell you why it's not. After checking pretty much every device, I figured out that the VisiTherm stealth leaked electricity. II couldn't figure out how to measure it, so I couldn't tell you how much it leaked, but it was enough that it would make my finger tingle a bit if I was barefoot and stuck my hand in the tank. I replaced it with a second VisiTherm heater and it leaked as well. Since I'm 0 for 2 with VisiTherm stealth heaters, I switched to a normal heater and I make sure it's laying flat so that it's always in the last 1" or so of water that doesn't drain out. And then as an added precaution I always turn the heater switch (in the project box) off before emptying the tank.

 

[kc350twin]

Los, the one question that comes to mind and maybe I missed it. Where is you ATO sensor and does it trip when you are doing a water change or closing the valve to go to the frag tank? If that makes sense.

 

[Los]

Montipora Eating Nudribanch

Montipora Eating Nudribanch

While at MACNA, I picked up some really cool corals and a clam. Some of these pieces are ridiculous; the prettiest corals I've got, by far. I had set up a quarantine tank beforehand, thank goodness.

The clam didn't get dipped and went straight in the quarantine tank (QT). My dipping protocol for everything else was to add 2-3 drops of Flatworm Exit into the bag and I swirled it around for a minute or so. I then removed the coral from the bag and placed it in a solution of 10X the normal dose of interceptor and 1 cap/liter (as per instructions) of Revive. After 3-5 minutes, the coral was rinsed in a bucket of tank water and put in the quarantine tank. The next week, I again added Interceptor to the QT and added carbon the next day. This weekend, I again added Interceptor. I'm not sure why, but there were still pods cruising around the glass, so I added a second dose from a different batch the next day. Interceptor is very temperature sensitive and if it is mailed to you in the winter, it can be deactivated by the cold. Anyway, I also dipped the acros and montis in Revive. Much to my surprise, this guy came out from the monti frag:

After 3 minutes in the Revive, I took him out, rinsed him off and added him to my display. Just kidding. I put him in the measuring cup and took his picture. He's about the size of a small grain of rice and I believe he is a Montipora Eating Nudibranch - definitely bad news. Very bad news. I would have thought Revive would have nuked these guys, but he's still up and running. Any suggestions on what to do to make sure these guys are gone before I put the corals in my tank? Also, is it safe to pull the clam out or is there a reasonable risk that he could carry the nudis into my display? If someone has lived through these and can give me some sage advice, I would appreciate it.

 

[Los]

Los, the one question that comes to mind and maybe I missed it. Where is you ATO sensor and does it trip when you are doing a water change or closing the valve to go to the frag tank? If that makes sense.

KC, I should have mentioned that. One of the coolest things about this type of setup is that the water level doesn't change materially when you do a water change, so you don't have to worry about forgetting to turn off your auto-top-off system. The return pump still runs and the sump volume hardly moves at all. I use the optical sensor that came with the Tunze Osmolotor (these things rock, btw) and it is mounted in my sump just to the left of the water tanks. When I turn the main valve 90 degrees and force the inline tank offline, in order to do a water change, the water is simply rerouted back into the sump through my frag tank. The water level in the sump may move at most 1/4", but probably not even that much. Everything keeps running as normal. I could leave it that way indefinitely if I wanted and the auto-top-off doesn't know the difference.

 

[maroun.c]

Found your thread yesterday and just finished reading it.
Thanks for sharing all the details of your build very informative especially as I'm planning an upgrade next year after we move to out new appt. Love how much planned your system was before you started it.
Very interested in the waterchange system, The switchbox idea looks much safer than a power strip and pulling?plugging power plugs with wet hands... hope I can find these locally.
The pegging system is also very interesting as I always struggle with falling corals. however how would you deal with corals that you get that have encrusted the plug they're on? would you just brake it from teh plug and glew it to your rocks with the rod? Do you think its worth doing wider holes that would fit the regular frag plugs?
Last question is about yoru circulation. I do have a "modified" CL with OM on my 150 and I think I will have it also in my upgrade. Since adding a Vortech to the tank I clearly notice that the CL can't match the flow you get with a Vortech. however I'm only running around 1000 GPH through my CL and maybe I'm not getting the best out of it. Would appreciate your feedback on the flow you get with your CL. Don't think i will have 10 holes in the bottom of my tank as I worry about that single hole thats there and not used. Like you I travel all the time (sometimes away for 3 weeks a month) and a leak risk is too much to live with. in my tnak I added a pumps partition in the tank behind the overflow and it sucks water via holes inth glass tot he pumps supplying the CL which returns from above the water line and not the bottom. That could be a reason why I'm not so happy with the CL but this proved very efficient just because of the ability to orient the flex tubes of the CL towards or away from any area in the tank that needs more or less flow...
Sorry for the long post and thanks for any input you can provide before I end the planning part of the upgrade.

 

[Los]

Thanks, Maroun. I periodically have regular frag plugs that are partially encrusted over. If I bought them from someone else, I ALWAYS break them off in order to avoid introducing some nasty hitchhiker. In my frag tank, I've started using only pieces of liverock rubble that I've already drilled for the acrylic rods. However, I still have some old frag plugs left. When I want to put a frag plug encrusted coral into the tank, I simply attach it to a rock+acrylic rod piece with some putty and then mount that to my live rock via the pre-drilled holes. I love the system. I don't think it would be worth trying to drill holes in your live rock to accommodate frag plugs, because most frag plugs are too small and the corals will quickly encrust onto your live rock. One of the nice things about the rubble based frag mounts is if something starts to fully encrust it, I can simply mount that mount onto a larger mount. The idea is to not let the corals encrust onto my liverock, unless I want it to, so that I can move my corals around to another hole easily or take them out of the water to frag, etc.

Regarding the closed loops, I love Oceans Motions 4-ways. That said, I have a couple Tunzes and you get way more bang for your buck with them, especially with the new 6XX5 series. They give more flow, for less juice, and they are a piece of cake to move and maintain. In my next tank, I'm going to skip the closed loops. As an added benefit, it's very easy to hook up a backup battery to the Tunzes and Vortechs. That's critical if you travel a lot.

One more point. If you travel and want to know that everything is OK, I highly recommend getting an AquaController. I have mine e-mail me the parameters on my tank every hour. It also keeps temperature, pH, lights, calcium reactor, kalk reactor, etc. all under perfect control. If you don't have a controller and you travel that much, you wont regret getting one. I know everybody thinks their controller is the best, and I don't want to start a debate here, but the AquaControllers are really, really nice.

 

[Los]

On the off chance that any reefers wouldn't mind giving a tank tour, I'm going to be in Cologne, Germany this weekend and then the Republic of Georgia and Azerbaijan towards the end of the month. If you live there and wouldn't mind showing me your tank, please shoot me a pm.

 

[mx36]

Where did you get your water storage containers at?

 

[sltloser]

Here's an article by Eric Borneman about the nudibranch and how to possibly get rid of them http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/index.php

if you have questions about it he can be found on the marine depot forums and u can ask him there .
Hope this helps

 

[leslie hempel]

awsome system what are those containers refered to as when you buy them? im looking for a couple.. please pm me of you dont mind. i want to try get the here in SA

thanks Les

 

[Los]

Thanks, Sltloser. Great article.

Mx36 and Leslie, I'm in China at the moment, so I can't check my receipts. As soon as I find out where the tanks came from, I'll post a link on here.

 

[kc350twin]

Los in China? Man what do you do for a living? Your all over the place.

Well if you don't mind here it a link for the containers. I'm on my iPhone so you will probably have to copy and paste.

http://www.plastic-mart.com/class.php?item=913

 

[CryptoFusion]

Cool setup. I really like the water change system. I'm working on something similar myself.

 

[mx36]

kc350twin, thanks for the link.

 

[Los]

Los in China? Man what do you do for a living? Your all over the place.

Well if you don't mind here it a link for the containers. I'm on my iPhone so you will probably have to copy and paste.

http://www.plastic-mart.com/class.php?item=913

Thanks for posting the link, KC. Yeah, my work involves a lot of traveling. I'll send you a PM in a minute.

Thanks, Crypto. I didn't design it, but it's one of my favorite things about my setup. I can try and do a rough 3-D model using Google Sketchup, if that would help you.

 

[kc350twin]

I don't know how you keep a reef tank when you travel so much. You have a way to monitor it from the road?

 

[SpacedCowboy]

I don't know how you keep a reef tank when you travel so much. You have a way to monitor it from the road?

Seems to me he's mentioned the remote viewing and the remote monitoring in every other post

Simon

 

[kc350twin]

Seems to me he's mentioned the remote viewing and the remote monitoring in every other post

Simon

Whoops--- it has been a while since I read this thread. Sorry .
I'm following so many threads now.

 

[Los]

No worries. It's still a challenge; for example, I still need to have alkalinity tested while I'm gone (my wife is taking care of this and emailing me the results) and if I happen to have a quarantine tank set up, as I do now, I need someone to regularly check on it.

Something that makes life much easier is having Nick nearby. If anything comes up, he's only 10 minutes away. In a real pinch, my wife has Dr. Mac's number (from PacificEast Aquaculture) and he can come and assist with any big issues.

If it wasn't for the AquaController, I wouldn't be able to be in this hobby.