Zum14's 90Gal-As reef as I can get it.

[zum14]

Hello. Wasn't sure about doing one of these this round with this tank, but if it wasn't for people doing tank journals I would run out of things to search on forums. So here we go. Started with my wife telling me that she did not want me to upgrade. She said I should figure out what my end goal is and go for it. So, I started pricing and figuring out tanks, skimmers, lights, etc, etc. Quite simply the budget got to 6k and she stopped. So that leads me to a 90Gal tank I came across from a guy that happend to be moving the day I called him and told me half of his asking price and he would deliver.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01875_zps6494b4cb.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01877_zpsc7c6a295.jpg


Sweet. Its not perfect. But it is a full stand which is a first for me and tanks. Never got the stand finished. Again, not perfect. The tank was already drilled. One 2 1/2" hole and one 2" hole. This led me to cutting the 2 inch hole to 2 1/2 and drilled one more 2 1/2" hole for an internal overflow box and a bean animal overflow. Well once I got the fittings and started measuring the box I quickly realized how narrow a 90Gal tank is. Oh well I will work around it. No overflow box. not a huge deal just wont have quite the surface skimming as with the box. I will also be flipping the elbows so they at least grab some surface water. So after a bunch of cleaning, some minor mods to the stand were left with this.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01889_zpsc1c94f5e.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01892_zpsbfde0749.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01891_zps2f7ac5b4.jpg

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01890_zps3b4690f9.jpg


I have finished all the plumbing for the return and the ocean motion so far. I will be running an eheim 1262 for a return for now. Eventually I will move up to a waveline or something down the road. I know people are probably thinking hey he didnt put any unions in his pipes, what if he needs to do a repair. Well there are perfect spots for unions but I figure when I have to cut the pipe to do a repair then I will put a union in. Why spend the $10 each for now. Plus the ones Ive seen have been very restricting. I decided to go with filter socks on this sump as you can see. Im little worried I have my baffles a little high and maybe have some trouble with the water level when the socks are a little full. I can always add a wall ontop of the acrylic to get some more head pressure on top of the socks. Im still trying to decide on a skimmer. Either bubble magus nac 5 or 7 or a vertex omega 150. (used market isnt too hot ) I have also decided to try some vortechs on this tank. Still saving for them. Waiting for a good used deal that will ship. (tough cause these sell fast ) Got some nice Lumenmax 3 reflectors and vertex ballasts from a fellow canreefer. Very nice. Anyways, working on a rock structure as got all my rock from eli today. Very nice stuff. He was quick with shipping too. Very good experiance. Will tie or epoxy the rocks when I get happy but Im still struggleing.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01899_zps20d3b5a8.jpg

I like the rh side of the picture and my wife told me not to mess with the bridge but Im having a bit of trouble with the LH side. I have thought of putting a nice LPS coral there and having a tableing acro off the top rock on the LH side. It will be in direct path of the vortech so should be good for flow. So ya thats pretty much it for now. Any comments on rock positioning would be appreciated. The structure currently is 4" from each end and 2-4" from the tank walls front to back. The tallest is 18" in a 22" tank. (too tall?)

[kien]

Looking good! That's some serious cabinetry and nice touch with the starfish knobs :-)

[zum14]

Looking good! That's some serious cabinetry and nice touch with the starfish knobs :-)

You want them? haha. Wife said they gotta go.

[kien]

You want them? haha. Wife said they gotta go.

Doh! I actually do like them :-). I have the same ones on my kids closet doors.

[whatcaneyedo]

I tried 45 degree elbows for the outputs of my returns initially as well but I found they just shot water right to the bottom which blew sand around and 90 degree looked like the wake behind a boat. So I cut an angle at the end of the 90 and that worked best. With your smaller return pump you might be alright though.

No time for a longer post right now.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture655.jpg

[FishyFishy!]

What kind of overflow are you going to run? Are you planning on an internal wier? Or just leaving the holes as overflows?

[Madreefer]

What kind of overflow are you going to run? Are you planning on an internal wier? Or just leaving the holes as overflows?

Yea what this guy is asking^^^

I'd like to rip my tank apart and take my overflows out and do that very thing with the holes.
Good to see your setting up again and off to a nice start. We need more tanks in town.

[zum14]

I tried 45 degree elbows for the outputs of my returns initially as well but I found they just shot water right to the bottom which blew sand around and 90 degree looked like the wake behind a boat. So I cut an angle at the end of the 90 and that worked best. With your smaller return pump you might be alright though.

No time for a longer post right now.



Hey, Thanks. Ill have to watch for that. Im kind of going for the lower turnover through the sump and using the main flow from the vortechs. (ideally closed loop could provide the high flow but im very uneasy drilling all them holes in a tank that im not sure is designed for it )

What kind of overflow are you going to run? Are you planning on an internal wier? Or just leaving the holes as overflows?

Take a bean animal and instead of the 2 main elbows turning down they will all be turned up. Ideally I was going to do an internal overflow box and have a bean animal overflow but due to the tank only being 18" front to back it would have closed off way too much of the tank. So its just going to be ugly elbows in the tank but oh well. It will work. Ill take some pics when the waters flowing to give you an idea.

Yea what this guy is asking^^^

I'd like to rip my tank apart and take my overflows out and do that very thing with the holes.
Good to see your setting up again and off to a nice start. We need more tanks in town.

Hey. See above. Do you want an internal overflow box? If your ripping your tank apart id look into doing an external box, all the surface skimming and nothing to see. I find it quite amazing that other towns around our size have 2 or 3 nice stores but not us. Oh well. Just have to wait a bit longer. Havent seen an updated pic on your tank lately. Hows it doing?

[Madreefer]

Hey Tyler, I have 2 internal overflows but I want to take them out to free up some more tank room. I'd like to use the four holes in the bottom of the tank just for return lines and drill a couple of holesi n the back upper corners of my tank and use them to drain to my sump. Not sure what the method is called but just a gravity drain. Its how I have my fuge plumbed. Last I seen my tank it was looking pretty good. My wife says everything looks good. I'm working out of province so no idea. I'm home for a week at the begining of March and going to be throwing some fluke tabs in it to kill off my clove polyps. You'll have to come over for a pop and have a bullchit.

[zum14]

Hey Tyler, I have 2 internal overflows but I want to take them out to free up some more tank room. I'd like to use the four holes in the bottom of the tank just for return lines and drill a couple of holesi n the back upper corners of my tank and use them to drain to my sump. Not sure what the method is called but just a gravity drain. Its how I have my fuge plumbed. Last I seen my tank it was looking pretty good. My wife says everything looks good. I'm working out of province so no idea. I'm home for a week at the begining of March and going to be throwing some fluke tabs in it to kill off my clove polyps. You'll have to come over for a pop and have a bullchit.

Sounds good. I think I understand what you want to do but that may cause some interesting problems. Im sure you will come up with something.

[zum14]

Update.

So first I must ask you please excuse the murky water as what I thought was a good sand rinse job was quite obviously p*ss poor. Anyways. I ran into a problem. When I got this tank it already had 2 holes in the back upper corners so I pretty much decided on an internal "calfo" coast to coast with a bean animal overflow. Well. Drilled the one extra hole, got the bulkheads and elbows in, measured for the internal box. Nope. 18" wide tank with a 6" internal box. Nope. So ugly elbows it is. I figure I will leave them turned up and will get at least some surface skimming. Well problem #1. As you can see I have one elbow on the syphon line that has been cut off at the top of the bulkhead, basically as low as I can get it. The second line is there as the balance.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01903_zpsbbf7b852.jpg

So everyone knows you need a certain amount of head pressure above the fitting to maintain a syphon so you dont get the whirl pool sucking air problem. Well due to the small size of my sump and the amount of water needed to maintain the syphon I was either left with not enough water in my sump or the fitting sucking air. Solutions. Well I cant add any water to the system as when everything is unplugged the tank drains to the lowest elbow and I have about 1" of room left in the sump. So lower the tank water level, sump level is good but then it sucks air in the syphon. Hmm. Cant turn the elbow upside down, works good for not sucking air but then the tank wants to drain to the lower edge of the bulkhead and there just isnt enough room in the sump for the extra water. This problem plus the added noise of the water running into the socks and through the sump was just unacceptable. So instead of trying to keep tweeking things I figured Id better nip it in the bud now. I didnt really want to pay for a large pump to pump the water up from the basement but I think its the proper thing to do in this case. This----

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01890_zpscbc65fa3.jpg


Now looks like this----

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01902_zps29835190.jpg


And this---

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01906_zpsbc39ed5b.jpg

Please excuse the paneling. Havent renovated the laundry room yet. Oh well. The plumbing on the overflows runs about 11 horizontal feet and about 12 vertical feet. Im not too worried though, guys are running 1 1/2" overflows on other systems running larger pumps so even with the extra elbows I think I will be ok.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01904_zps97b7d1db.jpg


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/DSC01905_zpsd6002517.jpg


Im not too worried about the pump getting enough flow to the tank either. Its only a 90 gallon and if the barracuda isnt strong enough I can throw the hammerhead impeller in and watch that meter fly. Ah whatever right. I apologize for the crappy photos. Another one of those thought I did ok and well you know the rest. (maybe a new camera will go on this years xmas list) Up next will be giving the sump a good scrub. Figuring out a catch box and filter sock for the syphon and balance line, (going to leave emergency out of the socks ) and then when the return pump arrives I will be plumbing in the suction and return for that, trying to decide if I should run a spears check valve on the return as thats a lot of air in the return line to be pushed out at the tank, makes for a lot of splash. However check valves can be bad too. Not sure there. Then get the Apex wired up and programmed as I wont run this tank now without it. Too much water downstairs that could all end up upstairs. I dont care about downstairs, its sloped heavily to a drain 6' away. No biggie. Still trying to decide on a skimmer. I know the old beckett style skimmers are power hogs but there proven and you can find some used for a good deal. The new cone skimmers are looking nice but I wonder about the quality on some of the lower models. I have had good luck in the past with bubble magus but I see theres a recall on some of there pumps. I dont really want to spend $1000 plus on an Alpha. The omega looks promising but might be a bit small now for the total water volume I will have now. Im guessing closer to 200Gal now. Oh well. It does solve my noise and water syphon issues completely though so thats nice.

[zum14]

Surfin through here I realize it has been a while since the last update. Again Russell I hope you take imitation as a form of flattery. Ended up getting a Bullet 3 on a good deal and am feeding it with a tarpon. Ran the skimmer intake outside and saw my ph go up fairly soon after. Still working on some electrical ( I dont think I can ever get it to a place where Im happy with how the wiring looks ) and programming on the apex. I really enjoy this part of the build. Setting up, tweeking, programming. I have to say I am a fan of the automation. It is really amazing what you can do with an Apex and I still wonder how I ever had a tank without one. Also decided to tee a line into my return. One to help drain it if I need to work on it ( I went with a check valve) and two, able to get water out of the tank relatively easy. Still working on getting a few more float switch's set up. Need to figure out something for my skimmer collector. Oh and water sensors. Still gotta figure that out. It never really ends. Also managed to whack together a screen top for the tank. I have to devise something relativley sturdy for the sump as I am sure my cat will be on top of it. So heres a couple of pics from a few days ago. Ill take some of the tank tomorrow. I still need new bulbs and an EB4 for upstairs to run them. Went with the GFO and Carbon reactor this round. Should be here soon as I go back to work.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/007_zps0f1cbbfa.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/007_zps0f1cbbfa.jpg.html)

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/008_zps6f0d799e.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/008_zps6f0d799e.jpg.html)


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/009_zps46847484.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/009_zps46847484.jpg.html)

Hooked a couple of float switches into my RO/DI resivoir so when the level drops it turns a solenoid valve on which allows the resivoir to fill till the top float switch is opened and it turns it off. The float valve is there as a safety. Takes me out of the process. I like that. Theres some safetys in there. Top off wont run if the lower float is closed, but it doesnt take long for the resivoir to rise enough to open the float switch and allow the system to resume.


http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/001_zps52f06df8.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/001_zps52f06df8.jpg.html)

[zum14]

So for the record heres a FTS for my start. Its taken with my ipad so sorry for the quality. I still need new bulbs and now that I have some rock from a mature system I can start watching the life spread. Looking forward to it.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/002_zpsf3a4c544.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/002_zpsf3a4c544.jpg.html)


Some life gotten on the rock. Looks like ones a maybe a mushroom? The other looks kinda like some toadstool.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/005_zps7aad9602.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/005_zps7aad9602.jpg.html)

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/004_zpse46ad8a2.jpg (http://s838.photobucket.com/user/zum14/media/004_zpse46ad8a2.jpg.html)

[zum14]

Well its been just over 6 months. I have to say this has to be my slowest start to anything I have ever done. Its been worth it though. I let things just grow for about 4 months then picked a tailspot blenny and purple firefish whatcaneyedo was willing to part with and since it was the only time I could get them I took the opportunity. It sat like that for another 2 months pretty much empty since the tailspot kinda perches everywhere and the firefish hides all day. I just grabbed a couple frags from him a few days ago. Im pretty happy with the progress so far. Life has spread pretty well and is starting to look like something other then bleach white rock. I dont know what all the rumors of dry rock being laced with phosphates because I didnt really have an algae bloom to speak of really. Just the normal from overfeeding the system (purposly) I have a bunch of snails and clean up crew so just want to make sure everyones looked after. There sure are a lot of pods and critters roaming around with the lights off too. Really neat. I have an order from JL coming on wednesday with a bunch of fish and shrimp. Pretty stoked.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/zum14/IMG_0675_zps06a3fedc.jpg

[Madreefer]

Hey Levi was texting me earlier tonight askin if I wanted to get in on a J&L livestock order. If you PM me I can pass on his cell number to you.
And your tanks looking great by the way.

[pgtanks]

you should put up a full tank shot for us