Midnightts 180 Build

[Midnightt]

I guess it is time to start showing my build...

So a few years ago I started looking into saltwater tanks. And, I decided to start small with an old 55 gallon tank I had laying around. Took only $200 to get it going and start playing. Few months later I changed the lights, few months after that I got an APEX, and so on and so on.

I figured since I'm finishing my basement I might as well plan on a fish tank that was easier for me to care for and that means easier for me to enjoy!!!

Lets start with how the basement looked. Completely bare!!! :bounce3:

So I started building some walls




And a stand for the tank. Don't worry the stand wasn't completely done at this point.



I kept building though. In the back of this picture you can actually see the tank. But, this is the picture of the bar build that I'm doing.



Progress.....





Stand is getting closer to being done...

 

[Midnightt]

And the filter is finished being built. The filter made the trip home too!!!



In case you are wondering it is a Lifereef lf1-300 with an in sump protein skimmer. I picked lifereef based on a few recommendations. They know how picky I can be and this basically fit the bill to ease my tension on cleanliness.

Here is a picture of the boxed up refugium. Don't worry you will see my feet in a few pictures!



And the skimmer. Sorry about all the I-phone pics....


BOOM!!!


More BOOM!!!

 

[Midnightt]

Canopy is just about done!


Here is a picture of how much I wanted to be able to open on my stand. Basically wanted to be able to get into it from every side of the tank.





Finally stain!!!




The canopy all stained



If you look you can see that I painted the inside with a kills product. Hopefully did a good job on it. Next step for these is to seal any gaps with a caulk. Just haven't done it yet.

 

[Midnightt]

This is about where I'm at. I have to keep pushing on with the basement and the tank. Obviously I have to get the basement done before the tank can be setup. But, while I have time to work on it I generally don't get much time.

I have been figuring things out on the tank a little at a time. I've decided on doing auto water changes so I had to figure out to get them into the filter cleanly. I found a source for the quick connect push plugs and already had tapped holes. Only problem I had was the thread on the filter didn't match the threads on the plug. The good news about that was that they work like a bulkhead. Sealing to the acrylic on both sides.



And since I had a tap that I could use to fix the whole I did that.



And the final result...




The next step for me is to finish the bar and figure out a mounting rack for the lights. I have 3 radions that I picked up from the used section. I am pretty excited about them and can not wait to get this thing going.

 

[Midnightt]

We've made more progress on the basement! I wanted to share some more pictures.



Since it was so long since I've done the framing, studying for the CPA exams, I had to go back and block some of them and sand others back so the walls wouldn't be wavy. Whatever, it gave me an excuse to buy a 6ft level. Took my time and got them within 1/8" across the wall just in time for the insulation guys.

I'm sure someone will say it so I will explain right away. Yes that PVC pipe dips down a little bit. No biggy as it is not carrying water. Well it is, but not the pipe. That will have 3, 1/4" lines. 1 will be auto top off and the other two auto water changes. The run is only about 30 ft. Both, manufactures have already confirmed the pumps will be able to handle that.



Insulation!!! After doing my research and getting quotes before I built the walls I determined that the price increase was minimal to go spray foam over insulation and adding a vaper-barrier to the walls. So spray foam it is. What sucked the most was having to stay out of the house for 24 hours. :hmm5:




Added an emergency drain. The plan is to drill a whole at the top of my filter. If the water raises that high for some reason or another the plan is that it will drain into this tube and go behind the wall and drain into the sump pit. I know it probably wouldn't pass code but, I figured it isn't going to carry water unless we have something happen. so if I ever have to have the basement inspected I will just remove it and tuck the line back so it can not be viewed.
Again its purpose isn't to be used unless there is an accident in my tank and the filter can't hold the water. Just redundancy! :lolspin:

One more for now.....


Drywall is up. The nice thing about this is that it went up smooth. The guy I'm going to have tape it actually did my house when it was being built.. Kind of random that he was a friend of a friend. His suggestion was to hang the drywall in the way that gets the least amount of seems. Vertical isn't preferred but, it got me 35ft less of tape lines. The two boxes on the left are going to hold the 20 amps circuits for the tank. I think I'm planning on running 2 seperate circuits just in case. The other PVC that you see on the left is a 2" and it is going to be used as a pipe chase should I need to run additional items from the tank to the water changing station or two somewhere else in the basement. I figured might as well do it now then have to figure out how to do it later.

Basement build to finish in no particular order...
1. Taping guy is coming to tape the main walls this weekend. Said we should be able to get most of it done this weekend. Once that is done I plan to paint so I can start setting up the tank and cycling.
2. Building cabinets on storage spaces.
3. Plumbing the bars water supply line
4. Dry-walling soffit
5. Drop ceiling
6. Carpet
7. Running wire into conduit
8. Electric over the bar
9. Soffit behind the bar after #3 is done
10. Tiling the bar
11. Building the bar counter. (Thinking recycled barn wood)
12. Electronics!!!!

Tank stuff to finish in no particular order....
1. Waiting on main pump to come from Germany
2. Determining if main pump will work with filter or if I need to rig up an additional return from the filter to ensure I don't starve the pump. Premium Aquatics is doing most of the leg work on this one.
3. Plumbing
4. filling
5. cycling

I feel like I'm in the home stretch! Rule of thumb is that it will always cost more then you plan. lol :bounce1:

 

[dave.m]

I know it probably wouldn't pass code but, I figured it isn't going to carry water unless we have something happen. so if I ever have to have the basement inspected I will just remove it and tuck the line back so it can not be viewed.

Actually, it is very much to code if you have installed a trap. Best thing to do in these cases is have it inspected before you re-pour the floor. That way you have a record of what was done and the associated approval in hand.

Also, I think this is a very smart thing to add to your sump as a sort of "last defense" strategy. Unfortunately not many have the opportunity to add it as you have.

Dave.M

 

[Nanook]

What happens if your main pump from Germany goes bad? Get a backup.

Build looks great so far

 

[Midnightt]

Thanks! I plan on it once the tank is in full stride. I just heard back that I need to modify my filter to put the pump on it. The filter only has a 1" and there isn't room to open that up to more then one inch. So the plan is to put a a second 1" in and then plumb those into a wye fitting that adapts it out to 2". I had a feeling that was going to have to happen and luckily I do not live to far from a guy who does awesome work with acrylic.

 

[Mark...]

Nice build! It the basement a walk out?

 

[Midnightt]

It is not a walkout. I kind of wish it was. Would have made it easier to get the tank downstairs. If I ever decide to go bigger I'm not looking forward to trying to wiggle that down the stairs!

 

[Midnightt]

Well it turned out that I needed to bring the filter to an acrylic guy that is local to me. I decided to use a DC pump instead of the pump that came with the filter. DC pumps are way more energy efficient then the Panworld that came with the filter.

The guy is going to put a third drain in the filter in the middle of the other two.

After I will plumb two of them into the wye below. It has two 1" inputs and one 2" output which will fit the pump perfectly. I probably could have gotten away with going smaller but, I decided against it.


Also, I tinted the back glass. It came out pretty good too!


Finally my floats got delivered. I also asked the acrylic guy to make extra mounting points. These are going to be attached to the Apex for safety. It isn't going to control anything unless something else fails. For instance I am using the Avast Ato with the pressure tube. If the pressure tube for some reason doesn't kick on the ATO one of these will be at the minimum level in the sump. The other will be at maximum level and then the last one is probably going to go into the tank. Just in case.

 

[Midnightt]

This weekend the drywall tapping guy came buy and made quick work of it. Was done in 5 hours. I couldn't believe it considering some of the quotes I got were double his price and they said it would take a week! He is coming back today to do the sanding but, from what I can tell there really isn't much sanding for him to do. He did say it would be less then an hour.

Once he is done I'm going to pull the wires for all the outlets in the basement. The fish tank is going to be on a separate 20amp GFCI breaker. I was planning to run two separate 20 amp circuits for it but, decided that I wanted to just attempt to run 1 and if I need to add another it wouldn't be so difficult.



I guess the final step is waiting for the pump to get in. The filter changes should be done today or tomorrow. Not in a huge hurry because I can't really do much without the pump. I can't wait to get it going!!!!!!!!!

 

[dave.m]

I have had some experiences with that kind of float valve. Make sure you take them out, disassemble them and clean them well once a month. The guy I got mine from said they were really only good for about two years and then they should be replaced, especially if you are relying on them for critical failure back-up.

Dave.M

 

[THEREALTROUT]

Keep the good work coming!

 

[Midnightt]

Well we are all painted. 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint. I'm not a big fan of painting. But, not having the outlets in, trim in, or the ceiling I did not have to tape of be too careful. Just had to get good coverage. Once the paint dried I wired up the outlets and put the breakers in the panels. It took some looking in the store but, finally found the GFCI breaker for the tank.

Once that was all done I decided why not put the trim behind it in place.





Just so happened that my guy at Marine Concepts is dying to get to the plumbing stage so he stopped by to have a quick look. He happened to have the PE tubing to run through the wall. And, I decided hey while you are here why don't we go ahead and put the base in place. Once the base was in place and the level was checked, perfect, without any shims, I decided why not put the tank up. And, you know once the tank is up I might as well put the hood on it!



I can not tell you how awesome it looks! I'm so impressed with our work on this thing that I stood there for about an hour just looking at it!

Once I get the parts from Lifereef to add a second drain I will run them right over to the acrylic guy and have him install it. I'll call Dave at Marine Concepts and see if he is ready to come and plumb once the pump is in. Then it comes time to start swapping over the equipment and putting everything together! I'm beyond excited!

However, there is still so much left to do in the basement! Bar is still waiting for me to run the electric. Have to button up the soffit with drywall, counter tops on the bar. Thinking about finding an old bar and trying to recycle the wood for that but, I've never tried it before?

 

[Midnightt]

Tank is up and running. Fish have been transferred. I have been trying to tweak it slowly. It is a massive task considering that when I make one small adjustment every other item needs a small adjustment.

My main issue seems to be that the pump I have can most likely outflow the durso's ability to flow smooth and consistently into the sump. Most people combat this buy using a filter sock. I am not using one. And since my drains go all the way down into the sump and are part of the sump I'm semi limited.

I am super impressed with a few things. My skimmer has been amazing! Super amazing. it is a life-reef skimmer and sump setup. The ATO has been rock solid. I had to figure out the programming on it to make sure it was not short cycling but, once I got it I haven't had to mess with it. Finally, the RD3 pump is super quiet. I mean like when it was first kicked on I had to touch it to make sure it was running.

The water change system, litermeter, has been working well. I got the system used and it was used well to where I decided to rebuild nearly the entire unit. Meaning, new tubes, wire repairs, etc.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get the durso's to flow into the sump without creating a bunch of bubbles in the drain section of my sump? I've slowed the flow down but, that means that I've had to slow the pump down to. I'm running the 80w Red dragon at 55w. Ideally I'd like to speed it up a little bit for turnover. But, I'm not too concerned if I have to keep it slow.

I made a bunch of changes today and will have to see if the display clears up...

 

[dave.m]

If you use 2" soft hose instead of hard plumbing on the drain line and put a couple of 90°s in the hose before it dumps into the sump you will even out the flow and eliminate a lot of the bubbles going into the sump.

Dave.M

 

[Midnightt]

That may be something to try. I've notice that my shorter drain line has more issue being tuned. I also noticed yesterday, and I can not believe that I didn't see this before, that I was having too much flow through my fuge. Which was creating bubbles. So I figured out a way to slide a piece of pipe into the fuge drain to slow it down enough where the water level stays the same and the flow into can be dialed way down. That solved one problem but left me trying again to dial in the durso's.

The shorter one is creating a bit of a headache. And, there really isn't a good way for us to change around the drains. Most of it is vertical with 1 short section on a 45.

I may try to see if I can figure out a way to attach a reverse durso in the sump on this side. But, I do not think I will have enough room.

On the plus side I've been able to get the pump up to 60 watts and it is an absolute monster! So glad I figured out how to slow the flow through the fuge.

 

[Midnightt]

I got the bubbles in the sump down to a minimum by plugging the whole in the durso essentially making it a stockman pipe with an elbow at the top. I then dialed the flow in the drains back. If your wondering...Yes I have two emergency drains. It is really difficult to get the levels of the two sides perfect but, I got them pretty close so that if/when they fluctuate it won't get stuck in full up or full down. If I was planning on doing this from the start I would not have used ball valves as it is really hard to make minimal adjustments.

I believe I still have a micro bubble issue that I can not track down. My plumbing is special because my filter only had room for 2 1" bulkheads which then wyee into a single 1.5" pipe before the pump. All this happens more then 5" before the pump and the only elbow I have in place is a long turn elbow and it also 5" before the pump.

If I tap the tubes I can hear the air move along or so I assume that is what I hear. I may check the fittings on the suction side because I seriously doubt the plumbing is at fault on the pressure side since it is all hard plumbed. Before the wyee I used tubing per the filter builders warranty.

Question is for anyone who has dealt with micro bubbles. Are there different types. Meaning if they look one way it'll point to one thing and if they look another way it'll point to another?

I used a flashlight to check the return section on the sump and didn't see any. But, I can see them in the display and in my fuge. My fuge is also ran off the return line. I have made progress on how many but, I want them all gone.

For reference the pump has a 1.5" suction side and a 1" pressure side.

 

[asmodeus]

dude that tank is looking awesome , however the stand is off centered from the tile lol push it more to the right:bum: