Azoox Tank Re-Build

[PFoster]

I am not sure if we should call this a tank build as its really a tank re-build.

We have been running a 24g Non-Photosynthetic tank for about 2 years now and have learned an absolute tonne!
But in this learning we have hit a few stumbling blocks that warrant a tank rebuilt.

The old tank is a 24g Current USA Solana with the following equipment:
Sapphire skimmer
Sapphire reactor for carbon and phosban
MP10's for flow
Ozone generator
Reef Brite 24" 50/50
Reef Brite Mini Mag Moonlight
And a dosing pumps for feeding.

Here is a pic:
http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2189&g2_serialNumber=1

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2193&g2_serialNumber=1

As for lighting, this tank is an NPS tank so it does not require any lighting for the corals to grow but you do want some light so that you can see the corals of course.
We tried quite a huge variety of LED lights for this tank and in the end our favourite light was the Reef Brite LED strip so after going through several other lights we settled on a single 24" 50/50 strip and a moonlight.

Before I get into the rebuild I will touch on why we are rebuilding the tank. With the existing system and the level of dedication we were able to give to the tank there were some great points but also some limitation to the old setup.

First off was the skimmer.
While the Sapphire skimmer work really well, we found that the foam impeller + the heavy bio load on the system meant that the foam impeller kept getting clogged. When the foam was clogged skimmer production decrease but every time you cleaned it fully you also lost some foam and so the foam need replacing periodcally. Ultimately what this meant was that for a tank that requires constant feeding, this skimmer probably was not the best skimmer. A needlewheel style skimmer that was HOB would have been better but as you can see in the pic if we had put a HOB skimmer on this tank we would not have been able to adjust the heat in the house :)
If we were to do it all over again I would use a skimmer rated to a MUCH larger tank.

Water changes.
As the sump for my main display has been in the basement for so long, I am very spoiled. While it is good to do weekly water changes on every tank, it is very important to do weekly water changes on an NPS tank. Azoox tanks require constant feeding and excellent water quality, two things that just do not go hand in hand. When Trina or myself missed weekly water changes you could definately see it in the corals. On my main system I have it plumbed so that I just turn a ball valve and the sump empties to a drain in the floor. For the 24g though we had to empty 2 buckets of water from the tank into a bucket then carry the buckets of water up to the next storey to dump it out. All the new water had to be brought up a full floor too from the basement. Kudos to you if you are ok with doing this weekly but both Trina and myself will admit that it did not happen as often as it should.

Place to hide equipment.
The cardiff is a fantastic looking tank and stand and it matches our display tank so we really liked it. But as the wood that goes around it is one solid piece there is nowhere to hide any equipment. We were thinking of putting a fridge in the stairwell to the left of the tank on a shelf that could onlt be reached from the second floor. In this fridge we would keep the foods chilled so that we could just refill the food container once a week for feeding as opposed to having to refill the food container every couple days. The feeding lines coming from the fridge we had planned to run through the wall and have them come out of the drywall and directly into the tank.

Tank Size.
Well thats obvious. Bigger is better. Enough said.

So to sum it up these were the 3 main reason or rather excuses for a tank rebuild.
Water Quality
Cleanlyness of the tank setup
Size.

[reefwars]

can i ask where you get your livestock?? i plan on starting a non photosynthetic tank in the future so ill be following along and im looking for great places to order livestock:)

[PFoster]

Unfortunately for you I am in Ottawa, sorry.
Good quality livestock is absolutely critical for keeping an Azoox tank.
A couple pointers is I may.

Only buy nps corals that are in excellent health. This varies a bit depending on the species. For example if a gorg arrives in and a tip has a bit of damage just cu it off and it should be ok. But dont buy it if there is no polyp extention. This could be a water quality issue at that store but then you have at ask yourself how well it is being cared for by the store. Damaged gorgs MAY come back, but its a long and tough rode to bring them back to full health. Dendronephthya that are damaged are very difficult to bring back. Its possible, but I highly recomend against it especially for someone just getting into nps corals

Try to buy your nps corals when they first arrive into the store. Very few stores and very few distributors had tanks setup specifically for azoox corals. So a coral that has been sitting in the stores tank or a distributor then the stores tank for weeks is probably well on the way to starving to death. Getting them to feed again can be tricky. Most stores do not bring in azoox corals which will actually work in your favor. Find a local store (or an online store that you can trust) that has excellent water quality. Its always easy to tell who they are as their water should always be crystal clear and algae free. Ask them if they can special order the piece in that you are looking for. Be aware though that if you special order a dendronephthya or gorgonia species the store often does not have any control over the color that arrives so if you dont take the piece not only will you loose your deposit but they may never order another one for you.

I would definately tie your azoox tank into the 200g you are build there btw!
That exactly what this thread is about actually. I am adding my azoox tank onto my main system which is a 144g half cylinder display, total volume 500g with sumps, fuge and cryptic zone. The large system will help maintain excellent water quality and the azoox tank will feed all your corals in the big system.

[don.ald]

what do you feed?

[PFoster]

I have actually been working closely with hobbiests in Germany, Canada and in the US to write an azoox feeding guide actually. We just released a final draft actually on Canreef here and a few other forums for last min feed back.

All the dry foods, amino acids, vitamins etc that I feed are from Fauna Marin:
Sea Fan
Min F
Clam
Energizer
LPS Food
Zoa Food
Min D
Ultra Pac
MinS

Frozen foods:
Shrimp roe
rotifers
cyclopeeze
Mysis

I feed quite the arsenal of foods but there is a huge variety of corals in the tank.

Do you keep any nps corals don.ald?

[PFoster]

Success with the 24g.
Obviously with this setup there have been some corals that have done very well and some that have not done as well due to the limitation of the system.

Dendrophyllia and Tubastrea;
As expected these were very easy to care for. We have several pieces in the tank some at the top and some at the bottom. The pieces at the top definately get fed more often as they are easier to feed. We feed these regularily with the FM LPS food and for any pieces that we have recently purchased we soak the food overnight in the Energizer. We did find that a few of the species that we purchased were a bit more picky than others for feeding. We rescued a Dendrophyllia that was in crazy rough shape it is well on the road to recovery but still to the day sometime it just doesnt want to open. But if you put some of the energizer on the pellets, feed a couple to the tank and next thing you know its open and ready for food! We recently purchased a Tubastraea micranthus (Black Sun Coral) from Fish Tails and it had some damage from shipping but we managed to get it eating in 2 days so I am positive it will fully recover.

Balanophyllia;
Very interesting piece! I had ready that these pieces tend to only open at night and its partially true. There are three in our tank, 2 in partial light and one in full darkness. The 2 in partial light will only open during feeding time if the light is on. When they do eat you can easily feed each polyp 8-10 pellets. The one is full shade is open 24/7 and rarely if ever gets directly fed via pellets so it must be catching some of the fine particle food in the tank as its been well over a year now and it is a very healthy coral!

Archohelia Rediviva
http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=771&g2_serialNumber=1
http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=623&g2_serialNumber=1
http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=625&g2_serialNumber=1

This piece is one of the very few corals that naturally is healthy and pure white at the same time. We have 3 of these in the tank as both Trina and I liked this coral so much. 2 pieces are pure white with a hint of purple where the polyps extend and the other piece is a purple base with clear/white polyps. For feeding these primarily eat part of the food mash that we prepare and dose to the tank hourly. Occasionally we feed them some of the pellets as well, but not regularily.
The pics above were taken in a coral bed before they were added to the azoox tank so the polyps were not open, sorry.

Diodogorgia nodulifera
We have had excellent success with this piece, probably better that any of the nps gorgonia sp.
I do feel though that at least in part this is due to the condition that the pieces arrived in. As they ony have a short trip here from the caribbean, when we got these pieces they were in amazing health. We have had 2 piece for about a year now and both are doing well. One piece is near the bottom and is in strong laminar flow and is definately the healthier of the 2. The other piece is closer to the top, and directly under the Reef Brite. If the water parameters are not bang on this piece will not open and has developed a light film of algae on the surface several times. This film need to be cleaned up and the water quality improved or it just wont open and feed. We will certainly be addressing this in the new tank.

Gorgonia sp.
Dont try to rescue piece. If a piece isnt doing well at the store just leave it be. Trust me, while they can be brought back its a long and hard road. I am not sure if any of these will make the tank trasfer as I am pretty sure I will be inclined to get some nicely shapped, healthy, large pieces for the new tank


Dendronephthya sp
We had excellent success with these species right up until the summer. Then during the summer we were gone for 10 days, then back for a couple weeks then gone for 30 days then back then gone... and expecting our tank sitters to replace the food for the dosing pumps every 2 days was just too much to expect for this long of a period of time. Again this issue is something that will be addressed with the new setup by putting a bar fridge under the tank. Prior to then we had 4 Dendrophyllia that were doing very well and since then 2 of them have come back and are a decent size again. The pieces that have come back were as down to 1-2 inches and now each of them are 5-6 inches. These feed exclusively off of the mash that we prepare and feed via the dosing pumps.





So to address these issues and still be lazy and not have to carry water up and down the stairs there was really only one choice, connect the new tank into the main system.
Water quality would then be maintained with a MR6 skimmer which is more than up to the task.
Already run carbon and phosban on the main system so thats covered.
Instead of running ozone on both tank and having to run 2 controllers now I can just run one large unit on my main system.
Water parameters are already being controlled via the balling method.
And the new stand will allow me to put a bar fridge right under the tank in which I can keep a good supply of food chilled and ready to feed to the tank at all times.

This system is ideal as the dosing pumps will supply a high food concentration into the azoox tank, the low flow rate going through the azoox tank will supply a low food concentration to all of the corals in the main system, and the main system will provide a continual supply of prestine water into the azoox tank. Its truely a win win situation.

[reefwars]

great advice thanks, i had been thinking the same thing that it would be best to have stuff special ordered to cut down on the amount of handling and different waters it has to stay in.

i am moving soon so my 200 and zoa tank have been taken down and sold once home ill be rebuilding the zoa tank into a cube myself but bigger and badder and will be building a decent frag tank off of that.this will take up most of my time in the near future but down the road id like to do a non photsynthetic tank.

ive been reading lots on them and watching alot of videos and bigger is def better if i had one ideally id have a fish room with another tank in the back just for water and id have all my equipment and reactors in there plus a large skimmer.also like you mention water changes are a super must and so id also have a change water plumbed in for fast and frequent water changes.

[don.ald]

Do you keep any nps corals don.ald?
No, but i am interested. stay away from nps because of the feeding requirements. always think of it as a daily time-consuming task.
interested in your auto feed. how often will you mix the foods etc. how long will the food last in your fridge and autofeed setup?

[PFoster]

No, but i am interested. stay away from nps because of the feeding requirements. always think of it as a daily time-consuming task.
interested in your auto feed. how often will you mix the foods etc. how long will the food last in your fridge and autofeed setup?

It can be time consiming depending on how you have the tank setup.

I mix my food mash together once a week and keep it in the fridge.
The mash should stay good in the fridge for up to 10 days but I make only enough mash just to last 7 days. With the fridge below the tank in the new setup I will only have to prepare the food once a week and put it in the bar fridge so it will be way less work.

If you are looking to target feed with a syringe you will want to use the Ultra Pac as it turns the food into a gelatinous state. You will find though that the Pac wont keep it a gel for a full week though, it breaks down a bit faster.

Now as for how long the food lasts in the dosing pump setup, thats part of why I am doing the rebuild. The old setup had the dosing pump next to the tank with no fridge so the food is sitting out at room temp. Here the mash of dry foods will stay good for about 2 days but MUST be chaged every 2 days.

You can make your food mash though, dilute it with some RO water and freeze it in cubes. Then just pop the cubes in a few times a day. I tried this a fewtimes but IMO the continual feeding from the dosing pump is a better option. If you dont have a dosing pump this would be an excellent choice.

As for the frozen foods, I thaw them and feed them the same day obviously.

[PFoster]

great advice thanks, i had been thinking the same thing that it would be best to have stuff special ordered to cut down on the amount of handling and different waters it has to stay in.

i am moving soon so my 200 and zoa tank have been taken down and sold once home ill be rebuilding the zoa tank into a cube myself but bigger and badder and will be building a decent frag tank off of that.this will take up most of my time in the near future but down the road id like to do a non photsynthetic tank.

ive been reading lots on them and watching alot of videos and bigger is def better if i had one ideally id have a fish room with another tank in the back just for water and id have all my equipment and reactors in there plus a large skimmer.also like you mention water changes are a super must and so id also have a change water plumbed in for fast and frequent water changes.

Sweet, cant wait to see the build at the new place.

[PFoster]

Now lets get some more progress pics.

So with a game plan in mind it was time to run the plumbing.
I didnt get a pic before I started this mess and I should have but still. Currently I have 3 lines coming from my main display into the basement.
2 x 1.5" drains
1 x 1" return line

As the new tank would only have a low flow rate going to it I can easily tap into one of these overflow lines for the overflow from the tank.
And my return pump easily has enough flow to supply both system so I could tap into that as well, so thats what I did.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2199&g2_serialNumber=2

Adding to these lines sounded easy in theory but it proved to be a bit more difficult in reality. The lines that are curving up are the lines for the display tank. They swoop down through a vent opening that I made in the floor and travel to the left side towards my sump. The horizontal lines going to the right are the ones I just added and go to the new tank.

And here is where the come up and into the living room, through the cold air return from the furnace.
http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2202&g2_serialNumber=2
After taking this pic I replace the cardboard and sealed up the hole to the basement.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2205&g2_serialNumber=2
While I was at it, it didnt hurt to get a bit OCD and tack down the speaker wires and router and such to make things a bit cleaner looking.
The metal brackets worked perfectly here as you could just jam them under the base boards and they held the line down to make it nice and straight and tidy.

So now the line have been run to connect the new tank into my existing system.
Next step is to plumb in the tank.

[PFoster]

So the lines have been run and the tank is ready for installation but there was a snag.

The last tank was a half cylinder so it tucked into the couch very well and did not obstruct our stairs at all.
But this tank is square plus its a bit wider so it is going to stick out an extra few inches.
Plus now the tank will have plubing on the back so it need to be off the wall which means it stick out a bit further.

This tank was a custom order from Perfecto. The standard tank has a 1" drain in it which is a joke, its just too small. So we had a store custom order this tank with a 1.5" drain and a 3/4" return line from Perfecto. As the 1.5" drain is much larger inside the tank, it also mean that Perfecto had to make their overflow box indie the tank larger. Perfecto did a very nice job extending the overflow box into the tank and unless knew about the extention on the overflow you would nevern notice it.

Building my own tank was an option but If i did this it was going to be 36" deep so that I could have a 12" sand bed to keep garden eels but then as this tank is tieded into my display I didnt want to deal with the headache associated with a dsp attached to a primarily sps system... Plus if I was already building a tank it might as well be bigger... and next thing you know it would be a 180g or something ;)

I had also considered ordering a custom tank but after the whole missing whole adventure on Hookups tank I decided against it.

Ok so back on track, the tank arrived and this is what we found:

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2208&g2_serialNumber=2

So for someone doing just regular plubing this may not be an issue, but we need this tank to be as tight to the wall as possible and right now that 3/4" bulk head is way too long!

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2226&g2_serialNumber=2

With the bulkhead that long, and with the 90 that I was going to use, if we did not mod the bulkhead, the 3/4" bulkhead + plubing would push the tank off the wall too far for where the tank sits.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2223&g2_serialNumber=1

So we measured twice and cut once.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2229&g2_serialNumber=2

We left enough material in the 3/4" bulkhead for a good bond and glued in the 90.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2232&g2_serialNumber=2

With the mods be got the total length of the plumbing off the back of the tank down to about 3.25"
We could have gotten the 3/4" line even closer if we wanted too by cutting the bulkhead shorter and tremeling out the bulkhead so the line could push in deeper but there really was no point as the limiting factor would now be the 1.5" plumbing below.

[don.ald]

any updates on the azoo guide release date?
thanks
I have actually been working closely with hobbiests in Germany, Canada and in the US to write an azoox feeding guide actually. We just released a final draft actually on Canreef here and a few other forums for last min feed back.

All the dry foods, amino acids, vitamins etc that I feed are from Fauna Marin:
Sea Fan
Min F
Clam
Energizer
LPS Food
Zoa Food
Min D
Ultra Pac
MinS

Frozen foods:
Shrimp roe
rotifers
cyclopeeze
Mysis

I feed quite the arsenal of foods but there is a huge variety of corals in the tank.

Do you keep any nps corals don.ald?

[PFoster]

There are still a few details that we are sorting out. The manual is done so to speak but we are adding a few more details and food recepies from other hobbiests in the USA that have had amazing success with keeping nps tanks.

Have you seen Mikes tank in the Jan issue of advanced aquarist magazine?
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/1/aquarium
His tank is definately what anyone keeping nps corals should aspire have!

[PFoster]

Now its time for the drain.

Again as I needed the plumbing to be as tight to the tank as possible I needed a specialty 90.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2214&g2_serialNumber=2

As you can see in the pic above this is not a standard 90. This 90 has one side that is a female slip fitting and one side that is a male slip fitting. The advantage of this is that the fitting can be just a bit tighter to the tank.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2211&g2_serialNumber=2

As you can see in the picture, the drain line is sticking out just under 4" off the back of the tank but I would like it to be closer so its time for some mods.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2217&g2_serialNumber=1

A few seconds and a cop saw sure made quick work of that one. A word of warning though, you have to go crazy slow if you are going to try this as the plumbing piece wont touch the guide plate (on my saw anyways).

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2220&g2_serialNumber=2

And now the pumbing for the drain and for the return line both stick off the back of the tank about 3.25"
I could have actually made the 3/4" line go tighter against the tank but I knew the limiting factor would the the 1.5" line and had done some quick math to estimate that the closes I could get this line to the tank was 3.25" so its nice to see that they both worked out to the same length although I suppose I should really have done the 1.5" line first :)

[PFoster]

I didnt snap any pics of the process here as it was just some basic plumbing, but here is a pic of the back of the tank with the plumbing complete

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2518&g2_serialNumber=1

Not entirely sure who had the brilliant idea to put the 3/4" bulkhead right above the 1.5" bulkhead and so close but a 45 degree elbow took care of it quite nicely.

I did install a double union ball valve on the 3/4" like so that we could controll the flow to the tank from inside the stand. I didnt get a pic of this either, but I am sure it will follow in some later pics.

And as we were using a double union ball valve, we needed to come in closer to the stand which is wy I put in a dog leg right after the 45 degree elbow in the pic.




Now its time for the fun mods!

One of the main reasons for the tank upgrade was so that we could add a fridge to this setup.
Previously when we made the food mash it would only stay good for 2 days at room temp and then it would have to be changed. We have been changing the food every 2 days for what feels like an eternity and both Trina and myself have had enough!

Long ago I had planned to install the frigde in the upper part of my stair well and run the likes down to the tank. This would mean tat you either saw the lines on the wall (not what I want) or I would have to take the drywall off and feed the lines through the wall to the tank (again more work than I care to do).
So when we chose this tank we got a nice stand from perfecto that would easily house a fridge.

Now for the complication...
Before we could fill the tank we had to get the fridge installed as the foor on the front of the stand was decent enough, but not big enough to put a fridge in from the front. It just so happened that I had a small bar fridge left over from university that would do the job quite nicely.
So we put the fridge in from the back of the stand, elevated the fridge so the door would open and pushed it against the wall.
I didnt get a pic of this, but no matter how you positioned the fridge in the stand, when you open the fridge door it hits the door frame for the stand. It does open, but not enough to get easy access into the fridge. So if it is not going to be easy to get into the fridge, chances are it just wont happen as often as it should.

So Shaun stopped by and we did some brain storming and came up with a great idea!
And here it is:

This is a pic of of the top hinge for the fridge door

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2520&g2_serialNumber=1

We decided to remove it.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2522&g2_serialNumber=1

And instead of leaving it on the top right side, we relocated it to the bottom right side of the door

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2524&g2_serialNumber=1

So now if you are thinking about it I bet you have realized that there are 2 bottom hinges to the door and no top hinges, and you would be correct.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2526&g2_serialNumber=1

Thats the beauty part!
Now the front door sits on the 2 bottom hinges and the magnets hold the door firmly shut and in place.
When you want to open the door you just pull the top towards you

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2528&g2_serialNumber=1

And lift the door off the hinges to remove it from the fridge entirely.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2530&g2_serialNumber=1

So while you are in there the door is a bit beyond completely wide open.... but as you only have to go into the fridge once a week to change the food mash mixture I am sure it will be fine.

Here is a pic of the fridge under the stand.
Once we modded the door, there was no need to raise the fridge so that the door would swing open.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2532&g2_serialNumber=1

Next up, time to drill the fridge to to run the lines in for the dosing pumps!

[PFoster]

For layout, the dosing pump would have to go on top of the fridge. I had originally been thinking of having the dosing pump in the fridge, but I want the extra space and flexability afforded by having the dosing pump outside.
Plus for this type of fridge, its the freezer that actually cools down the rest of the fridge. So if the dosing pump was very high up it might frees the liquids inside of the actual pumps...


Time to measure twice and cut once!

I got out the square and made my marks on the top of the fridge where the line would be going through for the dosing pumps. This too a few min and bit of sketching things out on paper as I wanted the dosing pump the be dead square about the fridge and I wanted the lines to be able to into the fridge perfectly straight.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2536&g2_serialNumber=1

To make sure the holes were perfectly lines up I punched the holes... yes with a scribe.... but still.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2538&g2_serialNumber=1

First the holes were drilled at 1/8"

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2542&g2_serialNumber=1

Then the were drilled out larger

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2544&g2_serialNumber=1

And a pic from inside the fridge

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2546&g2_serialNumber=1

If you are going to try this yourself I think it is worth mentioning that the holes for the lines that we drilled were just slightly smaller that the diameter of the tube. Not by enough to pinch the line, but by just enough that Trina had to work at it for a while and twist the lines as they went in to get them to fit.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2548&g2_serialNumber=1

A decent interference fit should mean that you have zero air movement between the fridge and the lines. You will always have some temp lost due to the lines coming out of the fridge being cold and transmitting the cold to the outside, but it will be minimal.

Here are the lines installed through the top of the fridge.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2550&g2_serialNumber=1

And now finally with the fridge done we can install it under the tank and start to transfer the livestock over and fill the new tank!

[gobytron]

Very cool and unique build...
Thanks for sharing.

I thought that the tank you have is a current usa cardiff (http://current-usa.com/cardiff.html) though, and not a solana? (http://current-usa.com/solana.html)

[PFoster]

Thank you.

The old tank was a current USA Solana

The new tank is a perfecto, not quite cube. 24" x 24" x 18" tall

[gobytron]

I think if you check the links I posted, you will see that the first picture posted on this thread is of a cardiff and not a solana...

semantics though and I suppose irrelevant in the light of a great build.

[PFoster]

LOL, sorry.
Yes I meant the cardiff.
And thank you once again

The cardiff is actually still setup and sitting in my living room room as we speak.

I wanted to take my time with the setup and equipment detail so instead of rushing things I actually just shifted cardiff over and setup this tank in its place.

The number of times I have had to move our sectional counch though so that I can work on the tank...
Lets just says its been a few :)


Details to follow this weekend:
MP10 Install
Individually switched powerbar
and livestock transfer!

I think I will be doing some mods to the fridge door too to make it easier to open, but not sure if I will have a chance to get the acrylic today.

[gobytron]

LOL, sorry.
Yes I meant the cardiff.
And thank you once again

The cardiff is actually still setup and sitting in my living room room as we speak.

I wanted to take my time with the setup and equipment detail so instead of rushing things I actually just shifted cardiff over and setup this tank in its place.

The number of times I have had to move our sectional counch though so that I can work on the tank...
Lets just says its been a few :)


Details to follow this weekend:
MP10 Install
Individually switched powerbar
and livestock transfer!

I think I will be doing some mods to the fridge door too to make it easier to open, but not sure if I will have a chance to get the acrylic today.

Lol...
I can imagine how relieved you will be to have a build in place you are personally satisfied with that will not require moving anymore furniture and enables you to keep your food mashing to a minimum.

I don't know that Ive seen any other non photosythetic tanks on here before...I must admit, I like the concept, especially for an upstairs tank in my 40 year old house that pretty much necessitates a reverse light cycle which being a 6 am to 2pm and in bed by 8 kind of guy, leaves me little time to actually enjoy the upstairs display.

I'm looking forward to some close up full tank shots, I would love to see some of the original cardiff if you have any...

[PFoster]

I will see if I can find some decent macro shots of the cardiff for you.

The cardiff is an amazing show piece from a few feet away but up close the distortion from the glass makes it almost impossible to get a decent pic. The camera has to be dead level to the ground and taking a pic at 90 degrees to the glass. Any angle at all and the pic comes out fuzzy every time.

As for the light, the cardiff had a single 24" Reefbrite and the new tank will have 2-3 Reefbrites LED fixtures. These do not contribute any heat whatsoever. With 3 ReefBrites on the tank you can easily keep some photosynthetic corals in the tank as well and you dont have any heat trasfer to the tank.

[gobytron]

I used to hate that about my old 72 bowfront too...

pics of tanks are hard enough to take of a box...throw a curved pane in there and you literally throw a curve to the photographer.

[PFoster]

Now its time to move the sectional for the last time!!
One more moving of our giant couch and the fridge is installed under the tank and we are ready to transfer the livestock!

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2596&g2_serialNumber=1

I am sooo happy I don't have to re-arrange the living room anymore to move this tank and stand again...

Now with the fridge in place and the tank back against the wall, we removed most of the corals from the rock work and were ready to transfer the rock. When we put the Cardiff together we used a combination of the artificial rock that we make and live rock from Australia as the structure and diversity are like nothing I have seen before of since. The artificial rock was great as it raised the live rock well out of the sand bed. And the Aussie rock was great as we could create some real cliff hanger structures. This of course did require the assistance of epoxy and for this we used the Two Little Fishies Pink epoxy. In hind sight the pink probably was not the best choice. As this is a NPS tank there just isn't enough light to get coraline growth so the pink is still clearly visible... But as there is only one piece of live rock and 2 pieces of artificial rock at least there are only a few joints.
K.. back on track..
Trina and I went to move this rock and after all this time the epoxy is still rock solid!
The entire structure lifted up in just one piece which was just awsome as it made the transfer crazy easy and crazy fast.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2576&g2_serialNumber=1

One of the biggest issues with the last tank was that we really did not have the space for the azoox gorgonia as they grew out. So for the new tank with a much larger foot print we decided to keep the exact same rock structure and just enjoy the extra space that I am soon would soon be filled in with corals :)

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2578&g2_serialNumber=1

You can see in this picture the piece of Diodogorgia nodulifera growing on the side of our rock structure. This piece has been in our tank for over a year now and growing quite well. Hopefully it doesn't mind the transfer as it is one of my (and Trina's) favorite pieces.

Time for some gravel!
We picked up some of the Carrib Sea, special grade reef sand locally and I left Trina to rinse the gravel :)
She added 2-3" of gravel in a bucket at a time and rinsed it as best as she could but it never goes perfectly clear...
After washing about 30 lbs we added it to the tank.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2580&g2_serialNumber=1

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2584&g2_serialNumber=1

And now for a part we can all truly appreciate.
To add the water to the tank I just opened the ball valve on the 3/4" line and let the water start to flow!
You can see the ball valve that controlls the flow to the tank in the first pic in this post, just above the fridge.
All the splash on the front glass was because I had the water pouring onto the rock and it made a bit of a mess which doesn't really matter anyways since its inside the tank... but still..

[PFoster]

Now while the tank clears we started to run the wiring. I am crazy fussy when it comes to running piping lines or wires or anything. I really like all the wires to run in line and be nice and clean looking. Yes the end product looks simple, but that's the beauty of it. In the end if the lines look easy it was probably pretty tricky to put together but IMO well worth it.

I am not sure if I will run a controller on this tank yet. I do have an old RK2 sitting around the house somewhere that I might use but for the time being I am going to use an individually switchable power bar.

Here is the cabinet inside that we are starting with

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2554&g2_serialNumber=1

Here you can see the ball valve that controlls the flow to the tank. The fridge and the lines coming out of the top are tight to the left side of the stand. This should give me enough space to always be able to reach the ball valve and install the power bar on the right side and always have decent access to it.

I put in a couple screws, and attached the power bar to the inside of the stand

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2556&g2_serialNumber=1

It may be hard to see in the pic but I used the cable staples to attach all the lines to the side of the stand and keep them in line.
The plug on the far left of the power bar is for the fridge.

So for this power bar to have the switches on the bottom for easy access the cord had to be at the front side of the tank. To keep the lines clean I left a bit of space above the power bar and ran the power line to the back of the tank up here.


Now with the power bar installed and clean, we need some flow.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2558&g2_serialNumber=1

On the Cardiff we had been using 2 of the MP10's. We were not sure if this would be enough flow, but before we replace them with some MP40's we might as well give them a try and see if they will cut it for flow on a azoox tank. If they are enough flow we will probably upgrade them to a pair of MP10WES's but again we want to be sure first.

But to install the MP10's the holes were a little too small for the screws that we had on hand and well... I didn't want to make the trip to Home Depot..

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2560&g2_serialNumber=1

So its time to break out the drill again!

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2562&g2_serialNumber=1

And sure enough they fit just fine now :)

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2564&g2_serialNumber=1

I didn't want the cables to be in the way of the ball valve so I installed the pumps on the left side of the back of the stand.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2568&g2_serialNumber=1

I zip tied the lines coming out and down from the controller and the line going back up to the tank together so that it looked clean.
For the power supplies I didn't want a birdsnest behind the stand so I zip tied all the lines together and stuck them on the back of the fridge. With the tank against the wall and now full of water I couldn't get a pic of this but I can fill in more details if anyone is interested.

Ran the power lines to the switchable power bar and tacked the lines down.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2570&g2_serialNumber=1

Here is a full shot from outside the stand

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2572&g2_serialNumber=1

[PFoster]

So the tank wasn't quite clear yet but my lack of patients got the better of my and I turned the system on. I figured on a system with over 500g of water volume in total, the dust from a 45g wont make much difference.

I ended up removing the Diodogorgia nodulifera while we were filling the tank as I was worried about how long it was out of water + if the dust would causeit any damage. You may or may not have noticed, but its actually missing in the last few pics.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2586&g2_serialNumber=1

The glass is still a bit hazy, but in the pic above you can see one of the two firefish in the tank and in the center of the rock work you can see one of the dendron

In the pic above you can see an orange azoox coral in the center of the rock work. This pieces has orange polyps.
In the pic below you can see another orange azoox coral, but this one has white polyps.

http://reefwholesale.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2588&g2_serialNumber=1

These 2 pieces have a few things in common.
They were both shipped as Dendronephthya sp.
I am positive that neither of them are Dendronephthya sp
I suspect the bottom one may be a Alcyonium glomeratum.
And both of them have proven to be quite hardy!

Here is a list of the current tank inhabitants for fish and inverts:
2 Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica)
1 Yasha Haze Gobie (Stonogobiops yasha)
1 Blue Stripe Pipe Fish (Doryrhamphus excisus)
1 Cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis)
3 Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni)
20 or so Nassarius
1 Caribbean Serpent Starfish

Now with the tank water cleared up we will start to transfer the corals over and should have some pics and a list up soon.

[PFoster]

I'm looking forward to some close up full tank shots, I would love to see some of the original cardiff if you have any...

Here are a couple of pics for you.

I had a pair of pom pom anemone crabs in the tank for a long time but could not find them on the transfer... Hope they made it....
These guys are craz cool to watch but as anybody knows that has one, they are quite reclusive. They can disappera for weeks on end then one day you see them walking arounf like this.

The second pic is of the Blue Spotted Jawfish.
The sandbed in this tank was not deep enough for him, plus with the minimal points of contact on the sandbed he eally could not build a proper burrow.
So he never really settled in and kept jumping. On the Cardiff we first tried the glass lid that came with the tank to keep him in. I have never had a glass lid on a tank before so although I have read about the negative side effect I never really personally experienced them until this tank. We noticed that the redox was steadily decreasing so we stared doing more water changes, changing the food mash dailey and put on a bigger ozone generator. After a few weeks though, even with a 350mg ozone generator on a 24g tank we could only maintain the redox around 250. Then the glass lid issue occured to me, we removed the glass top and over the next few days the redox went back up the 375. So then we made a window screening top for the tank to stop him from jumping.
But once a week he would end up in the back section of the tank and eventually one of the pumps got him...

We were able to keep him for about a year, but I wouldnt try again withough first building an area for him to build his burrow.

[PFoster]

Sorry, things have been a bit busy recently.
Just as un update, the tank has been running smoothly for a bit now. We have added some of the corals from the 24g back in as well as a few new pieces.
I will see if we can snap a few pics and update the thread.

[reefwars]

any updates:)