Triple-S Fish Ranch - 1700gal 164†x 48†x 56†SPS peninsula build
- Thread starter pmrogers
- Start date
gokarter88
New member
Wow amazing build so far! Beautiful house. Tagging along
Thank you, John!
I chose freshwater simply to avoid the hassle of mixing salt. That, and with all of the pollen and dust outdoors, I was planning to drain and refill the tubs every few weeks, so using salt seemed wasteful. I haven't actually kept up with that part of the plan, though, and am starting to wonder now if the salt water might have a better or different way of leaching the phosphate out. I think I will switch to salt water this weekend. Would hate to start up the tank and learn then that the salt water was able to pull out new reserves of phosphate from the rock.
A Reef Scene
New member
Have you given any thought to a show size fish?
theReefKing
New member
Thank you, theReefKing! I agree completely on the sump. My last sump was perfectly functional but did look a bit like a wiring and plumbing explosion as I added and rearranged things over the years. Happy to talk more about the sump via PM
I figured why PM when you could share with everyone, and we could all benefit from your design and strategies in the sump design.
When you have time, could you expand on all the ins and outs of the sump? What are all the flow paths?
What are all the various chambers?
Is the refugium part of the sump? Or separate?
Drain points?
Access points?
Any moving parts to control the flow paths?
I would like to know all the nitty gritty of it, because it looks like one of the most well planned out designs I have ever seen.
Thanks for your time, and thanks for allowing me to steal every single idea you are about to share for my yet to be built sump
To honor your knowledge and contribution I will dedicate my SUMP to you "in the tank that Reef Central built"
I figured why PM when you could share with everyone, and we could all benefit from your design and strategies in the sump design.
When you have time, could you expand on all the ins and outs of the sump? What are all the flow paths?
What are all the various chambers?
Is the refugium part of the sump? Or separate?
Drain points?
Access points?
Any moving parts to control the flow paths?
I would like to know all the nitty gritty of it, because it looks like one of the most well planned out designs I have ever seen.
Thanks for your time, and thanks for allowing me to steal every single idea you are about to share for my yet to be built sump
To honor your knowledge and contribution I will dedicate my SUMP to you "in the tank that Reef Central built"
matt_97055
New member
When I use to build cellphone towers I got to play with a 375 ton crane with a 80' jib. It took like 10 18 wheelers and a smaller crane to put it together. Oh yeah the good old days. This is one Hell of nice biuld! I can't wait to see it up and running.1. Excellent point, rbarn. Our 205 was starphire and I did manage to put 3 significant scratches in it over its 15 year life. Mostly from over eager use of a metal algae scraper. Even still, the first impression on seeing the tank was that it was new and you had to make a point of looking for scratches; contrasted with the acrylic 750 that was half the age and looked like a war veteran. My plan for the new tank is to use only acrylic-safe algae pads and scrapers. My biggest worry for now is losing control of one of the taller aquascape pillars during install.
2. Yeah, I got a kick out of the crane. I was a huge Tonka fan as a kid.
Crane counterweight
The counterweight is 25,000 pounds and had to be delivered on a separate 18-wheeler flatbed.
Crane footing
Apparently even 18" square feet might punch through the asphalt of the street, so they bring 4' steel plates to further distribute the weight.
Probably so. And, given the amount of detritus and slimy bio stuff in the bottom of the containers when I drained them this weekend, I would do at least one additional full water change and rock scrubbing.
Good to hear. My understanding of chemistry is fuzzy at best, so I started to worry a bit once I came up with the (completely unfounded in fact) concern that saltwater might leach phosphate out of the rock in some different manner than freshwater.
I intend to grow all of the show size fish from juveniles so that I can enjoy them for longer. One lesson from my previous 750 is that this size class of tank (including the 1700) is not large enough for the bigger show fish to look fully comfortable. The XXL Vlamingi and Naso looked positively cramped at times in the 10' 750, and at only 40% longer this tank isn't going to be all that meaningfully larger for strong swimmers.
Thanks for joining in Bollz, Vazroth, Adddo, mrelect, and elvischam!
I figured why PM when you could share with everyone, and we could all benefit from your design and strategies in the sump design.
When you have time, could you expand on all the ins and outs of the sump? What are all the flow paths?
What are all the various chambers?
Is the refugium part of the sump? Or separate?
Drain points?
Access points?
Any moving parts to control the flow paths?
I would like to know all the nitty gritty of it, because it looks like one of the most well planned out designs I have ever seen.
Thanks for your time, and thanks for allowing me to steal every single idea you are about to share for my yet to be built sump
To honor your knowledge and contribution I will dedicate my SUMP to you "in the tank that Reef Central built"
Thanks, ReefKing! Just about all of the details on the sump are in post #10. This sump is far from the end-all-be-all of design but I do hope it will address all of the frustration points from my previous systems. Main design points were:
- Bulkheads for everything-- no loose pipes, tubes, or wires
- Single purpose as central water return point-- all filtration other than filter socks takes place externally
- Fully accessible, in particular, trivially easy filter sock exchanges
- Ability to drain completely-- no need to shopvac out tons of water in order to give it a deep cleaning
- Complete set of covers to minimize salt creep
On to your questions:
Only one main flow path. Display tank drains to turbulence chamber, then over a lip into the main filter sock area, which in turn has an overflow lip in case all 6 filter socks ever clog. Next up is a middle chamber for plumbing in the returns from external reactors and support tanks. Some of these also flow through an additional set of filter socks, while others return directly to the main water column.
Refugium will be separate, if I run one.
There is a drain point for each chamber: turbulence chamber, filter socks chamber, reactor returns chamber, bubble trap/return pumps chamber. If you're particularly attentive you'll see that there is a 5th drain bulkhead on the side. This isn't strictly a fifth chamber, just a by-product of some internal bracing that makes a 3" wall across the bottom of the reactor returns chamber.
For access points, everything will be accessible since nothing will be above the sump.
Monkeyfish
Active member
Tagging along to live vicariously.... I'm in the wrong profession 
FsuNole
New member
And I thought I was going nuts waiting a whole month to start my 58 gallon! I think I'm more excited to see your tank now! LOL Can't wait to see when your addition is done and you can finally put some water in this beast of a project! I may join the Austin club just so I can see the tank when its up and running! haha
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