131g Add-On
 

The new tank is a 131g that I had built by Red Coral Aquariums. Kevin even delivered it to my house, thanks Kevin! It was nice because that option wasn't available with my 150g tank which kinda sucked..

The dimensions are 60Lx18Wx28T. It houses two one inch drain pipes (herbie style) in an overflow box at the back right corner. Only one front pane is viewable so the other three (sides and back) are covered with black vinyl. Eurobraced and polished beveled edges on the front panel and eurobrace. I have to say, I'm quite happy with the tank. It even came with the foam pad underneath so I didn't have to supply my own and the price was quite reasonable in my opinion.

Here she is.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236160

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236184

The stand is just a typical wooden stand built out of 2x4s. Pretty much the same stand plans that everyone else uses I think.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236630

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236201

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236227

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236245

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236273

Here's what the Secondary and Water Change tanks look like.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236837

The plumbing connecting the Water Change tank to the Secondary Sump that you see there has actually changed. I had to drill a third 1" hole to support the flow and so it now looks like this actually.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271236925

Basically, water drains out of the 131g display into the Water Change sump. As that tank fills/overflows it flows into the Secondary sump. The emergency overflow is plumbed directly to the Secondary Sump. The Secondary Sump is connected to the Primary Sump with a 1 1/2" line.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271237034

Water is drawn through and out of the sumps via the return section of the Primary Sump which house two MagDrive pumps. Here's the line (3/4") going to the 131g.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271237128

One of the reasons for this whole exercise is to finally realize my dream of automatic water changes. Here's how it will go down.

1. Feed to the 131g tank is cut (via the controller).
2. Two float switches and one pump will reside in the water change tank. Water is pumped out of this tank until the lower float switch is activated. This pump is plumbed to a drain in the basement. (I cut a hole in the floor to support this).
3. Once the first (lower) float switch is activited that pump-out pump is shut down and the pump-in pump is triggered which pumps in newly mixed salt water from the basement reservoir. This salt water is pumped in until a second float switch at the top of the water change tank is triggered.
4. Once the water change tank is refilled the return pump to the 131g tank is turned back on which pushes the new water through the system.

Still missing a few parts to finish this bit up so stay tuned for a demo once it is all in place.

The light at the end of the tunnel.
 

For lighting I decided to go with an ATI fixture. I originally wanted a Sunpower but my LFS informed me that the supplier was out of those and it would be a few weeks before we could get one in. Instead, he offered a Powermodule at an unbelievable deal so I jumped on that.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238136

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238241

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238259

Here's my hanging rig. Nothing fancy, just a strip of wood run accross the ceiling so that I could anchor it to 3 beams in the ceiling, and punched a couple of holes in the strip to drop down the hanging wires.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238639
http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238591

Lights are:

KZ Coral Light New Gen (14K)
KZ Superblue (22K)
KZ Coral Light (10K)
KZ Fuji Purple
Hamilton Tech Actinic (460nm)
KZ Coral Light New Gen (14K)

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238296

131g Adventures in Aquascaping
 

When I knew that I was going to set up a FOWLR back in January the first thing I did was run out and buy some live rock so that I could start to cook and cure it. Here's my cooking and curing setup.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271238999

By the time I was ready to use the rocks (3 months later) they were nice and clean :-)

Other than the live rock, here's what else I needed to aquascape.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239143

If you've followed this thread from the beginning you may remember that I used acrylic rods and zip ties for my 150g aquascaping. Well, I pretty much did the exact same thing. I had a fairly dynamic structure that I wanted to build so I added the use of epoxy, lots of epoxy..

Here's the main base structure which supports mostly all of the weight. A very very heavy piece of travertine rock anchors the whole thing. A single 3/8" rod rods through the centre of all the rocks to hold them in place.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239351

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239528

Additional structures are similarly held in place by slightly smaller rods and zip ties.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239557

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239693

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239719

Then finally I added this arm structure to the base structure to get something like this.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271239754

Nothing is secured at this point because I actually have to assemble the whole thing inside the tank as the entire structure is way too heavy to lift. There are 3 sections that just hang loose on their joining rods. Once assembled in the tank the they will be secured and joints filled with epoxy..

Here I am assembling the structure in the tank. Photo courtesy of the wifey :biggrin:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271240052

Here's what the final structure looks like. Epoxy is also used to cover up all the zip ties.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271240229

Fill'er up!
 

Time to fill the tank. It took quite a while to make up enough water but I did use water from the cooking and curing bins as they tested out to be quite good by the time the rocks were ready.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271240489

What better way to wait than to surf canreef on this..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271240593

I have to say, canreef is great on the iPhone but it is damn sexy on the iPad. :biggrin:

There's more, but let's take a little break and see what Mr. Blue Starfish is up to these days.

Oh look, he seems to have taken up liverock climbing.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271240746

and after a climbing session he likes to crash and chill out on his zoa couch.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271240796

Looks amazing kien, love the way everything is setup, can't wait to see it in action, looks very cool.

TJ

So hold the phone.... you got a power module for a fowler????

love the set up man, its going to look killer once everything is done

Kien... we need to talk.... You gotta stop setting up reef tanks so the rest of us can have a chance for TOTM. Seriously, Its getting out of hand...


Love the scape, gonna be a beauty for sure:mrgreen:

Why not just have the tanks separate? You have 2 return pumps anyway. Isn't the fowlr just going to increase your nutrients and make it harder to maintain you the levels in your mixed reef? I'm assuming it's mainly to ease you water changes b/c your tank is in the middle of your main floor but why not just implement your sump with water change section on both tanks? I guess you'd also need another skimmer but don't or didn't you already have one?

Don't get me wrong. Love the tank! And you're far better reefer than I'll ever be but just a few things that came to mind

WOW!!! Looks really good kien!! Cant wait to see this tank full of fish, Do u know what kind of fish your going to put in there yet?

I like how the water change sump/container turned out! Ill be putting mine together this week i hope it works out, seeing how u had to put in a third hole in the water change container do think putting 1 or 2 2" holes would work? How many gallons/hour is going through your tank?

Thanks!

Daniel

Hopefully, I will get a chance to see this setup in person. Really like the black looks of the tank

My goal is to reduce duplication of maintenance and equipment. One skimmer to clean, one tank to dose and test, one tank to heat, one controller to monitor the temp, pH, salinity, etc.. I wouldn't say that it will be harder to maintain levels in the mixed reef and I wouldn't say nutrient levels are necessarily going to go up. What I have effectively done is increase my entire water volume by 150g taking my total water volume to the 300+ mark. Plus I have a new skimmer coming that's rated for 400ish gallons and will be dumping in another liter of NP BioPellets :-D In the end I think of this as one 300g system rather than two systems. Just like with everything else in this hobby there are pros and cons and there typically isn't a right or wrong answer, just different answers. So by no means would I consider my setup the RIGHT way of doing things.. just the way that I'd like to do it :biggrin:

Thanks! I'm not much of a plumber but it depends on the size of the pipe that you're feeding the water change tank with. In my example I have one 1" drain pipe feeding this tank from the 131g tank and discovered that two 1" outlets from the water change tank could just barely keep up with that! (like both 1" outlets were totally submerged). That kind of had me scratching my head but whatever.. I just drilled a third 1" drain and that solved that. I'd imagine a 2" hole would flow more than enough. The reason I went with 1" outlets is because I wanted to maximize the water in the water change tank as much as possible. 1" holes allows those holes to be higher up on that tank, and when the feed water is cut off I only loose an inch or so of water when it drains to the bottom of those bulkheads. A 2" hole will be much bigger, so you'll lose a bit more volume in the water change tank.

As for stocking, I'm thinking this will be an "Angels & Demons" sort of tank. Angelfish and Triggers :)

The phone is off the hook! :lol: I know that I am going to throw some corals in this tank, probably SPS :-) (hence the "reef" in FOWLR reef :lol:).

word ! I seriously need to stop setting up tanks.. no seriously ! :lol: Although I am in the process of installing a separate power circuit on the main floor with its own dual 20amp breaker so I think I might be good for at least another couple of tanks? :drinking: Really what I should have done is just enclosed my entire dining room with 1" acrylic and turned that whole space into a tank.

Love how you document all the little details Kien. Looks like a really nice tank you had made there I'm looking forward to seeing more. My only concern is those 3 pipes tying those tanks together. You added one more pipe to keep up with the flow...so you have enough plus a tiny bit? I'm sure you'll make sure they never get plugged...but there isn't a great margin of safety there from what I understand...

Thanks :-) Ya, those three pipes going out of the water change tank flow more than enough now. Two of those pipes was actually enough to just barely keep up with the overflow of the 131g's 1" drainpipe WIDE OPEN. I just didn't like how close I was cutting it with just the two pipes as they were totally submerged when running in that mode (but still keeping up). Adding the third is what's giving me that margin for error, plus the herbie is not typically run with the main drain pipe wide open so there's a margin for error there as well. On top of that, if the main herbie drain plugs up the WIDE OPEN emergency bypasses the water change tank entirely and goes straight to the secondary tank which is a total non issue. Trust me, I fear floods like I fear root canals :biggrin:

Got it just wanted to make sure =) I know you're no noob AND you're on hardwood lol. What controller are you using to manage water changes? I missed that detail.

no worries, thanks for keeping me on my toes! it is appreciated :biggrin:

I run a profilux controller, but I'm pretty sure all the controllers out there have level sensor inputs? I don't know for sure as I've never seen any other one in person, but I would assume that they do?

My profilux actually has 3 level inputs. I use one for a fresh water auto-top-off, and the other two are being used for the automatic water change tank.

Wow lots to catch up here ! Looking great by the way. I'm waiting for my Profilux III update kit. How is your main display? I've read about some complaints that display is really dim or parts of it. Also did you get warranty with yours, with all the self installs and problems with the way people are doing them I've been told that self install are not warrantied. I've wrote to them with this concern and all they did was respond back with the "how to install update manual" :confused:.

I do find the main display dimmer than the previous one, but I rarely use the main display. Instead I have the ProfiluxView II that I use for all displays. Very hand because the controller is tucked under the stand.

I did not get warranty with mine, I doubt that that's even possible? To be honest, if I was them i would not warranty self installs either as A LOT can go wrong, horribly wrong. I think people should only attempt self installs at their own risk. Aqua-Digital (Canadian supplier) actually provides an upgrade install service if you ship him your unit he'll install it for you and that *may* be warranty, I don't know. Again, I certainly would not recommend to anyone to do the install by themselves if they are at all hesitant. The instructions are pretty good but there are little gotchas like 1. they don't actually spell out how to remove the top cover. 2. There are screws that need to be removed from the PCB but they are not standard screws so you need to run out and buy a screwdriver for it but they don't tell you what types of screws they are! (I was lucky and just happened to have that screwdriver around from when I took apart my cell phone :lol:). There were other little things that weren't documented that I stumbled on and had scour the internet to find answers too :neutral:

Ya I heard about the free install from Aqua-Digital, but I'll tackle my own. Thanks for the heads up on the few unnoted details. Forgot to ask, what epoxy are you using for you rock work - Aquascape Milliput Epoxy ?

while you've got that bad boy open, make note of what USB chipset you have on there. It is the chip on the USB controller/port. If you want to install the windows usb driver you'll need the chipset, there are two different ones. I had to open up my box a second when I found out I needed this info. If you need to flash your firmware with the flasher program (like I did), you'll also need to know which microcontroller you've got in there. The flasher program lists a crap load of them and I had to do some searching to figure out which one I had.. I could not for the life of me get the box to flash via USB or ethernet, had to use the serial port and a USB to Serial convert because I have no computers in the house with a serial port. I also had troubles connecting to the P3 upgrade with the latest ProfiluxControl software. I had to flash the firmware to the latest in order to use ProfiluxControl.

I use Tailor Aquatics Epoxy. Seems to be the only kind LFS in calgary (at least the ones I visit) seem to carry.

We also carry the D+D Aquascape Epoxy.
Out of 10 Epoxy sales 6 are D+D and 4 are TA.
Kevin

Hmm, I guess I just haven't been looking hard enough. I seem to only notice the Tailor Aquatics stuff I guess :biggrin: They work well enough and come in two colours (although the other guys probably have two colours too). Maybe I'll try the other stuff some time to compare. I seem to go through a lot of epoxy..

I found the D+D sticks better but takes 3 x longer to dry. I usually leave it out for for 5 min.

WOW very very impressive Kien. I have now got it into my head that I will never win TOTM with set up's like this out there. Nice work :thumb:

No shortage of money in MR reefer's house

thanks :-)

Check it! :biggrin:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478066

So this is what I'll be using to handle the extra bio load. What we have here is a Bubble Magus 220CS. Thanks Kevin! (@Red Coral Aquariums). Above is how it came, unassembled.

Equipped with the EHEIM 1260 pump.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478186

The skimmer cup is massive !

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478229

And here she is fully assembled. The instructions were interesting to say the least. I think my broken-english reading skills have gotten quite good now.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478255

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478349

I will definitely be using this outlet to feed my ghetto external-hang-on skimmer collection cup.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478366

And a very handy adjustment dial with markings!

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478419

And everyone loves a top-down shot right?

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271478454

Looking good! Nice skimmer! Are you going to run this with your other skimmer or all by itself?

All by itself. It is rated for 315-450g so I should be good to go :-)

So after all that, here's what I ended up with.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271486809

I'm having a bit of a conflict with the low rock pile to the right. I really want to turf it but its the only cave structure I have for fish to hide and I think that's pretty important in the long run, so I may have to keep it. And yes, those are SPS pieces that I kept from the 104.72 lagoon. They were crowding the 150g reef so I threw them into the FOWLR.

Here are a few of the inhabitants.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271486915

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271486932

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271486951

There are a few others but I'll save them for later :biggrin:

This weekend I hope to skin the stand and set up the automatic water change.

Setup looks great Kien. Great pics and explanations of everything too. Both tanks are amazing. Looks like you are wearing scrubs in the one pic. Work at a hospital?

He he, thats what I was going to ask as my wife is an RN :)

Looking Incredible Kien!:mrgreen: I think the rockscape is very neat! A stellar build, as if we would expect anything but from you!

tank looks awesome. love it

Thanks everyone! And yes, those are hospital scrubs I'm wearing :-)

So this evening I finally got around to plugging in the Bubble Magus. I had assembled it on Friday but didn't have a chance to actually start using it until today. Luckily I have plenty of room in the sump to wrestle that beast in. Here he is busy skimming away.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271665764

So when I plugged the Magus in I decided to clean out and replace my carbon. This process took about 20 minutes plus another 10 minutes of cleaning up. After I reinstalled the carbon reactors I took a peek at Mr. Magus to see what he was up to. I was quite shocked at what I saw. This is 30 minutes worth of skimming..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271666038

Fish poop on the walls of my brand new shiny skimmer cup!

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271665984

I am officially a Bubble Magus fan boy! :lol:

Mmmm.. seafoam..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1271666094

Wait until BM breaking in and you will be more impressed.

Great picts and description as always

Today I decided to top up my NP BioPellets and while I was at it, I figured I'd re-plumb the reactor. The reactor, although performs beautifully, is kind of awkward to plumb. Currently I have a crap load of hose adapters to go from my MaxiJet 1200 into the Vertex with hose snaking through the sump. Not a very clean setup but got the job done.

Instead of flex hose all over the place I decided to use rigid 1/2" PVC and cemented all the pieces together. I also wanted to minimize the footprint of the whole rig so it took a little playing around with. I also wanted to increase the input so I threw a bigger pump at it.

Utilizing this cheap-o 500gph pump from Odyssea.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272056830

Here's what I ended up with..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272056874 http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272056901

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272056926 http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272056948

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272056967

here she is in the sump.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272057059

Even with all of those 90 degree bends I still have to throttle back (about 1/4 turn) the input or the pellets get blasted through the outlet. Also, as you can see here the outlet drops right in front of the inlet to the skimmer.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272057110

and here is my new full sump shot.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272057137

i am impressed! Here is what the Bubble Magus pulls out of my system.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1272057482

yummy!

What's the blue stuff wrapped around the pump? I see you have it in the water as well.