Trichome's 118g NPS Project

[Trichome]

The Build

I bought a house in April of 2010 and it gave me a good reason to build a nice big fish system. Little did i know it would be as labor intensive as it has been. After having a couple years keeping saltwater reef tanks under my belt and going to several meeting to see everyone's systems i took several ideas and made my own reef system. I decided i wanted a sump in the basement for several reasons. From there i choose to have a 180g starfire mixed reef in my living room and a 118g in wall non-photosynthetic tank in my bedroom on the second floor. I have all these tanks linked together via in wall plumbing. I will have a Reeflo Hammerhead pump pushing water from my basement 22.5 feet up to my 118g in wall non-photosynthetic tank. From there the water will overflow down ten feet to my 180g mixed reef and that will overflow down to a turf scrubber and then into the sump.

One of the first projects was to knock out the wall in my bedroom for the 118g tank. Kevin was a huge help in this part of the project. Thanks Kevin!

The tank sits between two closets in my bedroom.

Next i had to build a stand for the tank to sit on.

 

[Trichome]

Then i put a 3/4 inch plywood down and laid 1 inch thick foam on it.

 

[Trichome]

Well i finally got my 118g tanks external overflow drilled. It took 3-4 hours but it is worth it. It is going to look sharp when i get it going. Here is the pictures from the build.

This is the drill bit i used to cut the glass. It cost about $7.00 at Lowes.

This is the Dremel i used to cut the glass.

Here is the tank right before i started drilling. The board is clamped on to give me a guide so i am able to make a nice and straight cut.

Wow this is taking long. Here is the start of the cut.

Got a little it more done.

Almost done!

Finally done cutting the glass!

 

[Trichome]

The glass i was cutting though was 7/8 inch thick.

Its not siliconed on yet. I have to put it in wall first then i can silicone it.

Its in its final resting place.

 

[Trichome]

After using the rotozip bit i would not recommend it to be used on an expensive tank. I have seen others us that method before and it worked for them but i did get some hair line cracks going in the scrape direction. I have to do another external overflow on my 180g starfire tank and i am not going to be using the rotozip tile cutting bit. I recently found that Rotozip sells a 1/4 diamond encrusted bit that would be safer to use and i plan on giving that a try. Here is a link to it. http://www.tylertool.com/rotozip13.html" or on ebay cheaper.

This is the RotoZip drill bit i used to drill the slot in the 180g starfire tank. I bought two of them off eBay for $7.99 each + shipping. They are $40 at Lowes.

I borrowed this hand tool from a friend and it worked great.

Today I siliconed the overflow for the 118g tank into place. Here it is drying.

 

[Trichome]

My overflow is only 14 inches wide on my 118g tank up on the second floor. This left me with very little room for the three 1.5 inch overflow pipes. Putting in Stockman or Durso standpipes would have been a very tight fit if it was even possible. I saw an article about Maggie Mufflers on Reef Builders and figured I would give them a shot. I think i read somewhere that they are more common on the West coast. Has anyone ever heard of these or used them? Here are some pictures of them.

 

[Trichome]

This is taking me forever to plumb. I guess its better to take a long time and get it done right the first time than to have to do it over later when there is water in the tanks. I have not used a 90 degree yet. Everything is done with 45's so far. Here is the pictures of the plumbing from the 118g tank to the 180g tank. I still need to plumb from the sump in the basement to the 188g tank on the second floor.

You can also see the 20amp outlet i installed and ran from the breaker box in this picture. I will be moving the box under the sand away from the pipes soon. The orange extension cord is running down to the basement where i hope to have a controller eventually.

 

[flying_dutchman]

Great start, tagging along.
Any ideas on feeding systems, what you want to keep etc. yet?

 

[Trichome]

Great start, tagging along.
Any ideas on feeding systems, what you want to keep etc. yet?

I currently have the following at a fellow reefers house while i am getting this build done:
Two types of Sun Coral
Balanopyllia
Big polyp Dendrophyllia
Branching small polyp Dendrophyllia
Chili

I would like to stock:
Archohelia Redivia
Rhizo
Cirrhipathes spiralis

As far as fish go i would like to have about 3-5 Bimaculatus Anthias but i have been told they would be to big for my tank. Several sites say you need to have a 70g-100g tank to keep them so my tank would be on the small side for them. I am still doing research on the other deep water fish options. I am going to keep this a deep water tank coral and fish wise.

For feeding i am looking into getting a automatic dry food feeder and building a refrigerator system like Aquabacs.

 

[flying_dutchman]

Cool, the fridge system is getting popular

 

[WSI2406]

nice start, looking forward to see another NPS project..

 

[Western_reefer]

Its looking good!

 

[Aquabacs]

Loooking forward to seeing another non-photosynthetic aquarium added to our growing family. :beer:



Mike

 

[uhuru]

This one sounds like its going to be awesome!

 

[dave.m]

Hi, I'm interested in the Maggie Mufflers, but I'd like to ask, why did you need two, since you're not using all the extra BeanAnimal steps?

Also, for the plumbing, is there a reason why you went with hard PVC through the walls instead of flexible hose? You mention you didn't use any 90° fittings, but you wouldn't even have needed 45° fittings if you had gone with hose.

Just trying to understand the rationale to help with my learning.

Thx,

Dave.M

 

[Trichome]

Hi, I'm interested in the Maggie Mufflers, but I'd like to ask, why did you need two, since you're not using all the extra BeanAnimal steps?

Also, for the plumbing, is there a reason why you went with hard PVC through the walls instead of flexible hose? You mention you didn't use any 90° fittings, but you wouldn't even have needed 45° fittings if you had gone with hose.

Just trying to understand the rationale to help with my learning.

Thx,

Dave.M

Hi Dave. Thank you for the post. As far as why i needed two Maggie mufflers, i choose to use two because i don't think i have enough room to make the standard durso standpipes. Thanks for the link to the BeanAnimal system, i needed a refresher. I think i can cap the one muffler for a full siphon and then cap the other and install the airline. I think it should work. I still need to adjust the height on the pipes too.

As for the plumbing i wanted to hard plumb it because the spaflex tubing is pretty expensive and i have talked to people that have had problems with it leaking at the connector joints. I didn't use the hose with barbed fitting because it restricts the inside diameter at the barb.

I am always open to ideas to improve my setup so if anyone sees something questionable please don't hesitate to call it to my attention.

 

[dave.m]

Please don't consider these as criticisms. I haven't built a tank before, and am only asking to learn more.

Dave.M

 

[Trichome]

I have been pretty busy trying to get the tank plumbed by the end of the week. Here are some pictures of my progress:

This is where the water is entering the tank after taking a 22.5 foot trip though the walls from the basement.

Here is all 4 of the pipes running between my 118g tank on the second floor and 180g tank on the first floor. In order from left to right, uptake from sump,full siphon standpipe, emergency standpipe, open channel standpipe.

Is this tank half full or half empty?

 

[mitsuklypse84]

that build looks great

 

[Trichome]

I think I finally got the rock work done for the 118g tank. I got the idea for this rockscape from John Ciotti's "œUpside Down Reef" nano tank. To build this i used a 1/2 inch thick piece of acrylic rod as a support in the middle. To make sure everything is nice and in place i used some epoxy putty to hold it in place. The top rock is one large piece of Tonga rock with several other pieces of Tonga rock attached with plastic zip ties. Here are the pictures of the process:

The drill i used.

Here is the rock work out of the tank.

Here is the first half of the rock work in the tank.

The whole thing in place in the tank.

Close up

Right angle