Happy to finally have critters again. I see amphipods, brittle stars, at least 3 different types of crabs and a worm that sorta looks like a Baseodiscus hemprichii, except it's center red line is thicker, and the outer white is thinner, if that makes sense. It tried to have sex with the heater, until that came on. Then it curled up really fast to be blown away by the powerhead. I thought it was dead at first, but it hooked onto the edge of the rubbermaid and carried on.
The rubbermaid got a 100% WC today.
I've had no ammonia since thursday, nor nitrites, and the nitrates are well below 5ppm ( almost unreadable ). Plus no Phos.
Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to put the rock in the tank in the next couple of weeks.
Tomorrow I'll carry on re-testing the sump and put it into place. Then I'll consider plumbing the overflow, or maybe run some more wiring.
There's enough left to do that I won't run out of projects.

No luck re-testing the sump yet as it's been too cool outside.
With my wife's help, I got the backdrop finished up. It's a sheet of black nylon ($6 Fabricland) and some industrial velcro to 4 corners. I haven't decided yet whether I will be cleaning the back glass, or let coraline cover it.
I cut the eggcrate for the tops and overflow
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...owEggcrate.jpg

Nice!

Well the sump is finally re-tested.
Pics of it and the pedestal have been updated.
The original 2 x 4 pedestal I designed was too tall as I assumed the stand would be 2" taller than it is, so now it's 1" square tubing. Plus, with the pumps now going in the sump, I didn't need a base for them.
I hope to put it in place tonight so I can start plumbing/wiring.

Definately have some kind of a shrimp in my rubbermaid rocks as I just found a molt about 1/4" in length. 2 crabs have died. One the day after I brought the rock home, and the other when I put too much RO in and hit 30ppt. Oops. but I still see 3 more. And lots of brittle stars. They may be Ophiomastix variabilis'

Got the sump in place. Had enough time, before the sick wife fell asleep in the livingroom, to level it and mount the board for all the wiring/boxes/panels/powerbars.
I did get the Jager heaters mounted.

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00813.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00810.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00812.jpg


Can't do much else tonight unless I move the wife to the bed.
She's sick, sleeping in front of the TV, and I am going to leave her alone.
Nobody ever made a wise choice poking any kind of sleeping predator .... especially when they are sick/cranky :mrgreen:
Hope you like, use, learn from my idea of the heaters location.

I finally got some time to start plumbing the tank to the sump. I started with the return line to make sure I wouldn't have to move the tank again and think I'll be happy with it. Of course I hate the 'over-the-back' look, but we don't see the pipes from our seated area.
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00816.jpg

So I moved on to the drains.
I feel for those of you that have to do ALL of your plumbing inside the cabinet. Man, getting the lines to leave the stand just right is a chore/pain on the ol' bod, nevermind all of you having to deal with a sump in the way and such.
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00817.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00818.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00819.jpg

I'm moving along well, taking my time to get everything just the way I want it, and I run out of 90s.
I was hoping to test the overflow bulkheads tonight, and the plumbing running tomorrow. NOT :smile:
And to add for all of us who deal with shipping stuff ...
I waited 4 weeks for new Vortech motor bearings. I e-mailed the supplier today and they are re-shipping. Not a set back, but just a typical reefer's shipping woes.

Forgot to mention I changed the non-surge outlet in post 30 ( bottom right of pic ) with another surge duplex.
This is because I have decided to get a Reefkeeper Elite. I'm waiting on a package price. I'll run the Lite on the QT and won't need a cheap surge/powerbar.
Once I started adding up all the goodies that will be plugged in, it only made sense to go with the Elite so I may have everything on the controller ( minus the backup heaters and Vortechs ). This way, when it fails, EVERYTHING will fail and I won't have to try to figure out what caused the crash :mrgreen:

Things look nice and clean great work. Really love the army of heaters in the baffled area that's a great idea and use of space.

So weird looking through the bottom of the tank into the sump!

Thanks. I saw lots of good ideas on the web, but never saw verticle heaters. I don't want them to eventually leak. They'll never be dry and the accessory pump will keep them active during WC. You'll see when I'm done.
The heaters are;
1-3-5 200w on the Reefkeeper
2-4 250w on the Ranco
Can't wait to get water running.
And, ya, I know what you meant, but HELLO, there is no sump under the stand. It has helped with the plumbing not having styro blocking my view.
No bare bottom here either, so no worries about weird reflections.
I don't know what I'll do with the cabinet space, besides food and salt buckets. I have enough space under the 20QT for all the test gear and so on. Maybe I should set up a curing tank, or better yet, a FRAG tank. Oooooo, the wife will hate that little money pit :lol: