My new grow-out system

[Juck]

OK,, not dead sophisticated but it works for my one breeding-pair of Ocellaris.

The tanks are 20 Longs, the black sumps are 2 x 28g, each with a 3" oolitic sandbed and approx 90 lb of live rock. The glass sump is a 37g tall which houses a 950gph skimmer and a Quiet One 5000 return pump. All tanks drain through a filter sock, filter floss and a wet-dry before they get to the sumps. The system runs approx. 80 degrees F without a heater,,, I deliberately added a lot of 'splashing' to the system to assist with evaporative cooling (hence the 3 drains from the rubbermaids to the 37g).

The shims under the stands are because my garage floor has a slight slope towards the door,,, something that may come in handy if I ever get a flood.


Total cost was probably close to $1000,, not including the 37g glass tank which I had already,,, and not including about 2 full days of my time.

My electrician friend 'Barry the Spark' is coming round on Monday to sort out the electrics,,, kinda Jerry-rigged at the moment.

When I turned it on this morning for the first time, I was staggered to find no leaks in any of the 120-plus joints. It works perfectly,,,, I'll give it a week to bed-in and then start putting my juvies in there,,, the wife is sick of 10g tanks all over the place.


Thanks to Dave, Derek and Kathy for their advice before I took the plunge,,, the system I came up with at first would have sucked big fat donkey nads.

BTW ,,, Uniseals rule.

 

[mwp]

JUCK, I WISH I had a basement or garage to do something like that in. VERY CLEAN and nicely done - good luck!

One question - I used steel shelving for my orchid lighting racks...after a couple years the shelves had kinda rusted a bit and that was just with fresh water running around from watering the seedlings. How and or Have you protected the shelving/supports from contact with saltwater?

Matt

 

[colby]

sweet...clean man, lloks nice.

Colby

 

[Kathy55g]

Oh man, that is one pretty system. Makes me wish I could start all over again.

Suggestion: put a shelf over the whole thing that is strong enough to support a couple of gallons of water. You can do the drip thing for water changes when the larvae are too young to go on system, and also put air pumps and air valves on it.

Very nice work.

 

[Siklid]

very nice set up, much better then most i have seen to date


Ray

 

[Juck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7489351#post7489351 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwp
JUCK, I WISH I had a basement or garage to do something like that in. VERY CLEAN and nicely done - good luck!

One question - I used steel shelving for my orchid lighting racks...after a couple years the shelves had kinda rusted a bit and that was just with fresh water running around from watering the seedlings. How and or Have you protected the shelving/supports from contact with saltwater?

Matt

Thanks Matt. Don't get me started on that shelving,,, I initially bought one lot of shelves and set it up as 5 shelves vertically,,,, that didn;t work at all because there is no flexibility on where you can put the middle shelf and there was not enough room for 2 shelves of tanks and the sumps.

So,,, following the example in the instructions I set it up as 2 workbenches. The side with 3 shelves was fine,, but the other just had a top shelf and a bottom shelf and it was incredibly unstable,,, no way I was putting nearly 500lb of tanks on a wobbly workbench.

Of course they don't sell spare shelves so I had to buy a whole other set of shelves just to get one extra.

The shelves are also made out of 1/2" particleboard,,,, and particle-board + water = collapse,, so I laid 3/4" plywood on top of all the shelves (except bottom-right) to evenly distribute weight over the frame and protect the particle-board.

Will the metal rust? You betcha,,,, can I do anything about that? Well I can try not to spill anything, but other than that I'm open to suggestions!

 

[Juck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7489726#post7489726 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kathy55g
Oh man, that is one pretty system. Makes me wish I could start all over again.

Suggestion: put a shelf over the whole thing that is strong enough to support a couple of gallons of water. You can do the drip thing for water changes when the larvae are too young to go on system, and also put air pumps and air valves on it.

Very nice work.

Thanks Kathy. Although you can't see it in the picture, there is a hole in the wall where my RO/DI line comes in (the RO/DI system is on the other side of the wall anyway,,, very handy) when I get a handle on the evap rate, I'll set it up to drip into the sump.

I will have to put a shelf up to house my Air pump and battery-backup ,,,, Barry the Spark will be setting that up for me as well.

 

[Juck]

oops

 

[Juck]

I also wanted to mention that the skimmer I am using is a Jebo 520. It's a fairly simple 23" skimmer that comes with an 800gph submersible pump (not 950gph as I mis-stated in my first post above)..

When I first got it, I was not particularly impressed with the build quality so I decided to test it against my Euroreef ES 5-2 with waste water from my 75g broodstock tank after my big monthly water change. I put them both in separate tubs with 15g of water and set them going.

The Jebo skimmed the nuts off the Euroreef,,, even though it's not fully run-in yet.

I'm a big Euroreef fan,, and yes, the ES 5-2 only comes with a Sedra 300gph pump,,,,but considering the performance so far,, the Jebo was a bargain at a mere $70, which includes the 800gph pump.

 

[Kathy55g]

One bit of further advice: Paint, paint, paint. Paint the wood to keep the water from seeping in, and paint the metal to provide a modicum of rust protection.

 

[Dman]

Very, very nice Juck.
As for the shleving above the tanks a good idea, but I just use a small piece of ply across the back of the tanks in a pinch. I have low cielings in my basement so I don't have the luxury of vertical integration.
Derek

 

[tanglovers]

Very Nice Setup, Extremely clean and organized.

What are other opinions of the Jebo Skimmers? The price is awesome and looks like Juck is having good luck and compared it to the Euro-reef. Just looking for other opinions/suggestions.

Scott

 

[Juck]

Yey,,, just moved my first lot of fish into the system.

 

[FishGuttz]

That is an absolutely fantastic setup!

 

[ricordiaking]

WOW! that's a great setup, can I get that form u

 

[JHardman]

Nice.

A couple of things come to mind that might be of help...

1) Get a air pump. The amount of O2 that those juvi's take is a lot, and any power outage or loss of skimmer could cross the line.

2) Kind of goes with #1, get some sort of generator with a ATS.

 

[Kathy55g]

Nice looking fish and setup you got there!

 

[ediaz]

I am with Hardman

If you can get a generator in case of a power failure.

When I was at the hatchery I sometimes had batches of juveniles suffocating just while I changed the filters and the system was off, big filters.

Ed

 

[Juck]

>>I am with Hardman
>>If you can get a generator in case of a power failure.

Well,,,, I do have this little thing,,,,,

I did add the airline to the tank after taking the pictures of the fish. The Air Pump is wired up to 2 deep-cell marine batteries which kick-in if the power fails.

There's also a very loud battery-powered alarm on both the garage circuits if they trip-out or fail. I guess we're lucky in that there's always at least one person here at the house 95% of the time.

 

[ricordiaking]

Nice, I invested in a generator also, after that power outage in NYC a few years back.
I also use UPS that I bought from tigerdirect.com real cheap.