Tank in progress

[Molehs]

Seems I forgot to share my progress here. This is a erpeat of what I posted on the other seahorse site.

75g tank and 25g fuge. The right side of the fuge will have cheato with a power head to give it high flow, while th left will get slow flow with the 6+" deep sand bed. It then drains into the main. The main has/will have about 1" bed and I'll be adding macro to both tanks as well. The main will be lit with LEDs.

This is my manifold to divert flow to the main and fuge. There is also the blue valve which was there in case I wanted to reduce the overall flow and send some straight back to the sump. Turns out that I'll be doing some improvements to the delivery system to help increase the in water flow. But as it stands currently it's not too bad.

This is my hole in the wall that has all of the water and electrical leading to the basement.

This is a drain pipe between the tanks so that if I want to do siphon cleaning it can done without buckets or a long hose.

And then in the basement:

Those are my mixed salt water(right) and RO auto top off(right) 30g buckets. The auto top off isn't hooked up yet.

My RODI with regulated temp for optimum RO output.

The 50g-ish sump. Plenty of space for a skimmer. The PVC bent up on the right will be the emergency overflow that will be piped into the house drain.

So while I assume and know that some of the things are the best way of doing stuff, it's where I'm at for now.

Also been working on a DIY Arduino based controller. Just finished installing the basement float and temperature sensors and solenoid valves for the auto top off.

This is the current layout of my main screen. Still some diagnostics on screen but the icons left to right are:

scheduled stirring of mixed salt water reserve, auto top off into system or replenishing self, heating or cooling system, blue LEDs on/off, LED heatsink fans on/off, white LEDs on/off. I created all of the icons and they change based on the state of each item.


cheato tumbler in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeCY5wh98ow

 

[Molehs]

The mess that is my Arduino setup. It hasn't been mounted yet. Still trying to tweak out the code.

And my refugium in it's infancy:

 

[Molehs]

Fried my Arduino accidentally. Ordered a new one. But I got my LEDs up and running finally. 18 CREEs with a mix of blue, royal blue, cool white and neutral white...I think... been a while since I ordered them.

 

[namxas]

You're going to need to cover the intakes of those Maxi-Jets...open PH's are a recipe for tail amputations. In fact, since you have a sump, why not hang that skimmer down there and keep all that cr@p outta your nice DT?

 

[Molehs]

The Maxi is temporary to help keep water moving. Currently my main pump is pushing up about 12 feet and I'm not getting a huge amount of turnover or flow. I've got a plan in the works to help make thing more efficient. Just not quite there yet. Planning on taking a 2nd 40g-ish sump I have and make it a purely pod factory that will be part of the system to help add pods constantly. I don't expect it to be enough to feed everyone but enough that they will always have a snack if they choose.

The skimmer has been removed already. It's too small and currently there is nothing for it to pull out and it just adds bubbles to the tank. I really wanted to make sure it worked before selling it. I'll need a bigger one once I need one.

For now I'm just slowly ramping up the bioload over the summer without horses so that I can see what I'm in for temps wise and give all the rock, deep sand bed, and pods time to really be in good functioning state before we get horses in the fall. Instead of a full blown hard cycle, I started by adding a good amount of curred live rock, some live sand, some cheato, random sponges, etc, and a chromis named Marlin. And every couple of weeks I'll add another fish, while throwing in more macro and clean up crew. This way the bacteria will build up slowly and not cause a toxic shock of a typical cycle. Been up for a week and all of my numbers have been zero, checking once or twice a day. Once the fall comes and the tank can handle the bioload the horses would create I'll donate the fish the the LFS and be ready to go. It's a slow process but it's not stressful on fish and doesn't result in massive amounts of nitrate that has to be removed with initial excess water changes.

 

[Molehs]

Just got in some random grab bag macro from reefcleaners.org. I think I've identified most. Let me know if you see a macro that would be better for the fuge/show tank.

Main tank macro:

Refugium macro:

 

[Molehs]

Due to near 100*F temps predicted tomorrow I went ahead and hooked up the chiller(bottom) and the 2nd fuge (top).

2nd fuge front.

 

[wdt2000]

Very nice.

How much work did the DIY Arduino take? I have been considering building one for my breeding room.

Have you tested the temp regulator on the RODI? Does it produce less waste than straight cold water?

What are you planning on keeping?

 

[Molehs]

There are a number of threads of people doing very informative Arduino set ups. If you do it that way, it's not likely to be too hard. But if you choose to do everything from scratch with lots of features, like I did, it can be a bit of a nightmare sometimes. But it's very rewarding in the end now that, more or less, everything works.

I haven't tested the volume difference based on temp of the RODI, but lots of sources said close to, but not over 77*F is the best output. I have a 2nd RO chamber that I'm adding in to further reduce waste water.

In the fall I'm planning on keeping 4-6 erectus to start.