My New 350 Build

[Reefme3]

Hi guys.

Well this will be my 1st reef tank. I have been running a freshwater turtle and fish 90 gallon tank for about 1 year and 6 months. I have attached some pictures for you guys to see.

I have been studding and introducing myself to reefing for 6 months now and I finally decided to pull the trigger on Cyber Monday. Why Cyber Monday, well I saw so many of these expensive lights, pumps protein skimmer, etc. all on sale from 25 to 50% off.

So in early December I bought a 300 acrylic tank used on craigslist and transformed it into my sump. I measured and separated the areas just the way I wanted and separated and glued my baffles.

I have since brought in the tank and assembled the stand for the 350 above the sump.

I am now much farther along I just don't have pictures to show. Other than the pictures of my aquascaping, which I will post shortly.

Let me know what you guys think so far.

 

[marinelife]

Welcome to RC, Looks like a good start. Will be watching this one!

 

[Reefme3]

I couldn't post all the pictures so I separated it.

Here are some pictures of my freshwater tank and the aquascaping I did this weekend.

Well that is 200lbs of 14" or large Pukani rock I purchased from aquacave. The rock is awesome, the center piece rock has to way over 40lbs and it is way over 24 on all sides. All rock I think came over 14".

I have 75lbs more of regular Pukani, not the 14"coming this week, to creat bridge formation to connect the large pieces. .

So far the rocks have been curing for 4 weeks.

Week 1 was plain water.

Week 2 I added chlorine to the water for 3 weeks.

This weekend I performed a water change and the smell of chlorine was not existent. The 1st week or 2 it had a very strong order.

I filled the trashcans up, put a heater and pump and dosed it with Seachem Prime to remove any traces of chlorine.

I got a call from my tank building and I have an estimated delivery date of February 28, 2018. Cant wait....:bounce1::bounce1::bounce1::crazy1::crazy1:

 

[Bono]

The sump looks great but is there a way to remove it without breaking everything down?

 

[Reefme3]

The sump will be permanently installed under the tank. :eek1:

I was planning on doing the Triton Method so since I read that they recommend 10-20% size of the main display to be used as a fuge. I went with the largest possible fuge I could. My fuge is about 21% the size of the display. :crazy1:

There is enough room to service and remove pumps and protein skimmer, given it will be tight once everything is in place.

But I don't see a need to replace the fuge. Unless there is a catastrophic failure with the acrylic and it starts leaking. At which point I will have to hack it up and settle for something smaller that I can fit through the existing openings of the stand.

I am still debating leaving the protein skimmer in the freshwater top off chamber of the sump. The cabinet will be 2' longer at each side of the display. So I am contemplating moving it into the right side of the cabinet.

I already started the refugium in order to start cycling the sand and sump and I had my protein skimmer overflow and it dumped all the garbage into the freshwater chamber. I had to suck out all the water and fill it with fresh RODI. This is why I am debating moving the skimmer out of there. Not to mention it will make it all hell of allot easier to service.

I need to post updated pictures. I will take some pics tonight.

 

[saf1]

Looks nice. I'm sort of on the fence about boxing in the sump. Maintenance, leg, arm room, and what if something happens and you need to replace it or clean up just got 10x more difficult. Better yet what happens if you decide to stop Triton and do something else.

I like the wood and what not. You have good attention to detail for sure

 

[PhishyRupert]

Yeah, love being able to pull sumps out when needed especially for extensive cleaning

 

[McPuff]

The rocks look great. In my opinion, you have to have large rocks to create a nice, aesthetic scape in a large tank. Looks like you'll have something nice. Definitely consider the worst case scenario when planning your sump and access to it. Whatever might happen probably WILL at some point. If you have the ability to have a remote sump, you will never regret it. That said, it would certainly work under the stand. I've done both ways but 100% prefer the remote version.

 

[Reefme3]

I considered the remote sump but I had too many concerns. The other wall in my living room backs into my garage. So I thought about installing the sump in the garage but then I would need to solve several issues. The most concerning was the temp differential between the house and garage. Summertime temps in the garage can get as high as 90 and some cold fronts can drop the temps to 40-50's. So maintaining a constant temperature would be impossible.

I would have had to partition off my garage and insulate the room where the sump would go. Maybe even install a window a/c unit.

Plus the garage is 3' below the finish floor of the house. So the pump will have to be upgraded for the added head loss or I could build another stand for the sump. Too many variable and I think my wife would not go for the garage conversion to a fish room.

The way it is now, the display tank will sit at 42" from the floor and extend 30" high. I can still be able to reach over the tank and the center of the tank will be at eye level +/-57". This still gives me room to fit my body between the top of the sump and the bottom of the stands structure.

Well latest update:
I got my 27 dollar full spectrum Chinese LED kits. I drilled two holes in the acrylic cover and siliconed the lens and the heat sink to it. This will make them waterproof from below. I also siliconed the inside of the LED driver to make it splash proof. Each LED is rated for 200 watts. I can fit a 3rd LED on the cover over the pumps which encroaches 1/2 way into the fuge. But I am not sure if 300 watts is an overkill for the fuge. With the size of the fuge maybe not, I am leaning to buying a 3rd. Any thoughts???

I also received 75lbs more pukani. I ordered these smaller in order to build more caves/bridges between the large boulders. The rocks I got are much bigger than I expected, I guess I will be chiseling them to get them to the desired size.

 

[Reefme3]

Updated pics of the sump.

 

[Samina]

Following along on this one!!

Love the turtle tank btw.

I know you said you'll still have space to service everything once up but will you have enough room to remove the whole skimmer if need be once everything is place?


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[ClownNut]

man, make sure you try to take everything in and out the sump one more time.
i can't imagine how can you take that skimmer out of there.

 

[Reefme3]

You guys are right. I can only take out the Skimmer cup.

I can service all the pumps internally, but removal of the skimmer is would not be possible.

It is an external/internal skimmer so I have the option .

This is why I was toying with the idea of moving it out of the sump and into the cabinet where the RODI filters are.

 

[Samina]

If that's the case, then I think you are right and would be safer to put the skimmer in the cabinet with the RODI filter.

It will save you a huge headache if something needs to be adjusted or fixed on it after your up and running IMHO.


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[McPuff]

If that's the case, then I think you are right and would be safer to put the skimmer in the cabinet with the RODI filter.

It will save you a huge headache if something needs to be adjusted or fixed on it after your up and running IMHO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, I agree with this. You could build a 6" tall tray for the skimmer to sit in. That way, if it leaks at all, you'll be fine. But you definitely want to make sure you can remove the skimmer if necessary. This would be one of those kick-yourself-in-the-balls moments and nobody wants to do that! :spin2:

 

[Reefme3]

Agreed. The skimmer is coming out.

When I originally installed it in there I was still planning on going only with an 8' stand. :headwalls:

But then started seeing that things were just going to be way too tight and since my hardware store only had 12' long lumber it was a no brainier to make the cabinet larger.

Well now I have to decide between the left or right cabinet.

Left cabinet will result in the skimmer pump and return picking up water after the fuge and depositing it in the pump chamber.

Or right side and getting water from the reactor chamber and depositing directly in the fuge.

In other words whats better? Skimmer before or after fuge. I know this is a very highly debatable topic, so I originally did it depositing directly in the fuge because I really had no choice of where the skimmer would fit in the sump.

 

[TrojanScott]

Agreed. The skimmer is coming out.

When I originally installed it in there I was still planning on going only with an 8' stand. :headwalls:

But then started seeing that things were just going to be way too tight and since my hardware store only had 12' long lumber it was a no brainier to make the cabinet larger.

Well now I have to decide between the left or right cabinet.

Left cabinet will result in the skimmer pump and return picking up water after the fuge and depositing it in the pump chamber.

Or right side and getting water from the reactor chamber and depositing directly in the fuge.

In other words whats better? Skimmer before or after fuge. I know this is a very highly debatable topic, so I originally did it depositing directly in the fuge because I really had no choice of where the skimmer would fit in the sump.

I think most people say before the fuge. My current sump, the skimmer is after the fuge, it just fits easier. I don't think it really matters, but that's just my opinion.

 

[saf1]

@TrojanScott - I think it only matters if you are using dosing methods such as Triton. I think they have a "preferred" order.

 

[Reefme3]

Hi guys,

Well here is a little update on the fuge lighting. I wrapped up the wiring on Friday and ran the lights all night Friday night to Saturday morning.

I had a little scare because the temp of the water was extremely hot 84.3 F. :spin2:

Thank god no fish or livestock is in there yet, other than my chaeto ball but i don't think that affected it.

I thought it was the lights that may have heated up the water but thru the morning when I was trying to get the temps with fans and ice I saw that one of the heaters was intermittently turning off and on with the water temps still at 84.

I plugged in the heaters the night before because we were expecting a cold front. And I thought I had set all the heaters to 26c.

When I checked the temp setting of the one turning on it was at 29c. I thought I had set all heaters at 26c, but maybe I over looked this or had 1 too many glasses of wine. So I unplugged all the heaters and just waited for the temps to go down. By night they were down to 80.1. So I ran the lights again Saturday night and Sunday morning the temps stayed constant thru the night and it was still 80.1. Temps are still higher than I like to see at low 80, I will remove the heaters until they reach 78-79, but at least I saw that the lights were not the cause of the problem.

I will be troubleshooting and calibrating the heaters with a bucket of water thru the week to make sure they are properly dialed.

I also set up my biocube for the quarantine tank saturday. Since the main tank is about 6 weeks from arrival I thought it may be a good time to quarantine my 1st inhabitants for 2 months.

I put in a small bottle of bio spira with live rock and live sand to cycle the tank quicly and introduced the fish the following day.

I got 4 little clowns and a condylactis anemone. :beachbum:

On a side note. While at the pet store the guy there started trashing all the equipment I was planning on using.

He said the Jebao pumps are known to catch fire and he also said the Zetlight ZT-6800 are crap. The lights are only good if I wanted to grow algae he elaborated. Then tried selling me on eco-tech lights, pump, controller, wavemakers. I told him I would have to do more research. Didn't really appreciate him trashing the equipment and trying to sell me on thousands of dollars of the equipment he recommends.

I know the Jebao pumps may not be the best, but since I will be running two I thought I would be OK. But now that my wife heard they caught fire she wants to see them in the garbage. :headwalls:

As far as the lights, everything I see on them are good reviews. Not many reviews but all good stuff. I know they are budget lights but I think they should be ok for the tank. Anyone have experience the the Zetlights or Jebao pumps catching fire?

 

[livingcolor]

It is wonderful.

It is wonderful.

Hi guys.

Well this will be my 1st reef tank. I have been running a freshwater turtle and fish 90 gallon tank for about 1 year and 6 months. I have attached some pictures for you guys to see.

I have been studding and introducing myself to reefing for 6 months now and I finally decided to pull the trigger on Cyber Monday. Why Cyber Monday, well I saw so many of these expensive lights, pumps protein skimmer, etc. all on sale from 25 to 50% off.

So in early December I bought a 300 acrylic tank used on craigslist and transformed it into my sump. I measured and separated the areas just the way I wanted and separated and glued my baffles.

I have since brought in the tank and assembled the stand for the 350 above the sump.

I am now much farther along I just don't have pictures to show. Other than the pictures of my aquascaping, which I will post shortly.

Let me know what you guys think so far.