reef System V2

[pascal32]

wow, long day. Converted the old stand to hold a 2x4 tank and put the old Rubbermaid frag tank on it. Drilled the old 50 gallon quarantine Rubbermaid tank and put that on the sump stand. Picked up a new "water rail" which provides water to the reactors and frag tanks - $100 in fittings - ouch! dosing pump is up and running. Put it all together, and it's all wet and loaded! One threaded fitting has a drip every 20 minutes, I'll fix that tomorrow. Ballast for the radium is in place, just need a hook to hang the light and she's ready to roll!

So the excitement for the day was the lack of temperature in the system. somehow it got down to 74 degrees. Turns out the controller had the heaters off - operator error all the way. So I grab every heater I have and throw it in - OUCH - got one heck of a shock off one of them, that boy is in the garbage!

How this could take all day and into the night is beyond me, all I know is that its a lot of plumbing. The frag tank plumbing is temporary so I ran it across the front which will make it easier to take out when I move to glass tanks.

I have an unusual filter sock design which I used in a friends system, unfortunately I realized that I never ordered the part. micro bubbles galore. I'll order it on Monday so I have it by the end of the week, not much else I can do.

 

[Capt_Cully]

That temp dip is a lot scarier to me that a momentary alk dip. Hope everything fared well.

 

[pascal32]

yeah, corals are not happy. They are hanging in there and should recover. Luck have it one of my 250s quit overnight. Heading over to ABC for a replacement.

 

[belgian_waffleman]

A rebuild is always exiting.
I did mine in the spring, the main update for me was the full siphon overflow. I love it, it is super quiet.
I ended up changing some hard piped PVC with Spaflex to reduce vibrations (=noise).

It is always hectic to do these swap outs, keep it safe! and Good Luck!

Nico

 

[pascal32]

A rebuild is always exiting.
I did mine in the spring, the main update for me was the full siphon overflow. I love it, it is super quiet.
I ended up changing some hard piped PVC with Spaflex to reduce vibrations (=noise).

It is always hectic to do these swap outs, keep it safe! and Good Luck!

Nico

thanks. looking forward to the full siphon! for now they are provisioned for a future tank swap - for now the regular overflows will have to do!

 

[pascal32]

update -

skimmer and reactor are on line and refugium stand is built and in place (not plumbed).

I'll take more pictures after I clean up all the wires and the whole place!

most of the reefkeeper outlets have an electrical box with one or two extension cords going to the power strips. this lets me keep the power strips away from salt and the items they are powering close to the outlet. this has a nice advantage that I can quickly "re-assign" a port by moving the plug on the power strip.

some of the outlets are upside down as I moved the power boxes from the old stand and mounting positions changed

radium light mounted with magnetic reeflex ballast:

frags under radium:

T5 lit frag tank:

 

[Capt_Cully]

Great work Pascal. Impressive investment in time!

 

[jeremyjoslin]

Awesome. Can't wait for the tour!

 

[pascal32]

Spent the day with the fam and had a great dinner! did manage to get most of the basement cleaned and just moved the 72 onto the main system. The old rock was infested with aptasia, that is currently staged for cooking, The new rock is dry rock from BRS which cycled for a month or two. The phosphates from the dry rock pinned my Hanna so I added three cap fulls of ATM lanthanum 4 days apart to the bin which dropped it to 0. unfortunately I was only able to move a 1/3 of the rock as I was out of water for rinsing it, the rest will go in tomorrow when I have more water.

When you walk into the living room the 72 is shaking, going to put in two supports tomorrow to stabilize the floor.

All and all it's almost there!

 

[pascal32]

You are welcome as soon as I'm done!

 

[Gravesj1s]

Looking good bro.

 

[Capt_Cully]

Definitely impressive in person.

 

[pascal32]

thanks, I've been working to get odds and ends cleaned up. I'll post some pictures this week.

 

[iamwrasseman]

i can't wait to see what you have done as its so much more amazing to see in person . it was an impressive setup before the improvements so its gotta be awesome after all that you have done Pascal. i'm sure i may receive a ticket to the show at some point in time ?

 

[mr86mister]

Sweet Pascal. Nice frag tanks. Can not wait until one day when I have the space and time to do that in my basement!

 

[scott473]

I know its an old post, but have any new updates?

 

[pascal32]

Hi there! I've been off tending to other things besides the tank. System has been running well without my intervention. If I can catch a break I'll take some more pictures, might be a while though.

focus right now is as to why I'm loosing LPS and the SPS are looking good. Lost some frogspawns, acancs, and a head of orange torch.

 

[Randy15]

Brown jelly? A pest of some sort possibly. Try dipping all the lps if possible.

 

[pascal32]

it's not brown jelly, they are receding. Levels were good when I checked (thought last week) - now KH is at 6.4 - shame on me for not catching it. with a lot of SPS even a day or two of not dosing is a big hit. Letting the kalk and 2 part settle - couple days and levels will be good again.

for the LPS this started the other month. I dosed interceptor and things got a lot better. not sure what the issue is (noting that levels were good when this started)