I hauled in the leg tank today, and then sent the other half off to the hardware store for supplies. So maybe tonight, or this weekend, it will be set up and chugging along making water. Its going to be part of an automatic water change system. I'm so excited not to have to lug water around anymore. Its going to be awesome!

Upended In my kitchen
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0016-2.jpg

From above
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0017-2.jpg

From inside
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0018-3.jpg

This thing is going to be awesome!

The reason I ask is because if you are going to use the return for a fair amount of flow in the DT I might be a little worried that a one foot overflow may not be able to handle that kind of volume, or it may be noisy. I have 4' of overflow and your tank is way larger than mine. On the other hand Kevin certainly knows what he is doing so it's probably fine.

Yeah I'd personally do a pair of them 2 feet wide each but that's just me. That stock tank is awesome! Even my 20g gets nasty after one mix it's going to be labour intensive to clean that beast especially with the ribs catching some leftovers. Not much you can do tho I will do the same one day.

Holy crap Girly....that storage tank is bigger than you!:razz:

I'm definitely going to think more on that overflow. It is a lot of water, and I want to make sure it all runs smoothly all the time! Although due to the shape and accessiblity in of the tank room behind the tank, the overflow is probably only going to potentially be widened on that back left hand side. I'm starting to think about making it 3ft or 4ft wide now.

The stock tank is pretty cool. Its ridiculously light, and was super easy to source and pick up. As for cleaning that baby out my master plan is use the hose! The tank will stay in place, and I'll just run a hose from the sink to the tank. The access hatch at the top is 12" across which gives me lots of room to get an arm in an direct some water flow from the hose. I loath the monthly job of cleaning out my own 30g water barrels now, so I thought this one through, and paid the extra for the 12" opening over an 8".

We're going to start assembling the water change system tonight, we've got most of our plumbing from the hardware store, but some of the specialty stuff is going to require a trip to my favorite SW store here in town.

I also got my last quote last night, which makes me extremely excited. I do have one more person that was suggested to me that I also want to approach for a quote, but the original list of companies have all been spoken to and I've got numbers and details back from all of them.

Wow, its been busy here. So we've selected our builder, and we're taking holidays this winter, the first time ever for us. I'm also tweaking the size of the original overflow, I need something to handle max 6000gph. The tank should be installed in December if my schedule and the builder's works out.

I'll take some photos tonight of the tank room, its been progressing. The leg tank is installed, and they layout has been affirmed. Its now just a matter of finding some time to finish it, and then paint/seal the walls against the humidity and the salt.

I'd be really interested in hearing more about your automatic water change system. I am just about to start plumbing mine, but it's not to late for me to change the design. Are you doing automatic or continuous?

- Brad

I'll post a better and more descriptive explanation tonight on that portion of the system.

Oh come on. Who'd you go with and are you building on-site?

We've selected Concept Aquariums to build for us, and they'll be doing it all on site! We got quotes from 5 separate vendors, and ultimately Concept's quote best fit into our goals.

As for the water change system, I am lame, I went home from work, tossed some laundry into wash and promptly feel asleep at around 7:45pm. I'll do better with those photos tonight.

sump design
 

Hi Catherine I think I have the basic idea for your sump setup, see if this will work or if we need to make some changes to this:biggrin:

thanks

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/a.../cathsump2.jpg
http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/a...cathsump-1.jpg

Good choice Catherine :)

The automatic water change system will change 10gal of water everyday, it will be setup with 2 10gal tanks beside the sump one to hold fresh salt water and one to remove old saltwater, it will be controlled by a controller that I am designing so it will be hands free....one thing I am working on is to get the controller to actually make the salt water as well but need to figure out how to incorporate a salinity probe into my design

10 gallons a day? Wow I hope you're using IO!

well a water change for that much water volume will be about 160Gal, so instead of trying to do one large one we will do a bunch of smaller ones.......maybe 10gal every 2 days not super positive yet but something along those lines.

and no not using IO

I figured you wouldn't be I was sorta speaking from your wallet's perspective =) I think that's a pretty sweet way to change water and a chance to have more gadgets which is fun.

My wallet is telling me that I'll be buying salt in pallets, and it may end up being only 5g a day after we see what kind of impact it has on the tank. There is definitely a balance that will need to be struck here between the costs, the results, and the bioload.

I actually haven't given any thought to the type of salt I want. Everything just keeps changing, and I really don't know what I like/don't like anymore.

Catherine why not Stick with IO I have been using it since 2002 and never had one problem with it. So I couldnt tell you anything else about other salt , to me SALT is salt

In the past I've always received the poorest results when I used IO. We'll just figure out what is available when we're ready I suppose. I used to really like Red Sea salt, and had great results.

give seachem some thought...... its distributed locally(in cowtown) so availability will be easy and very little shipping(if any) costs

Too be honest, I would have to disagree. I went from 2 year old pails of Seachem to Reefers Best and I my tank improved dramatically. Corals that were brown for the last year have started to color up, and that's after one 100 gallon water change.

I'm sure it's not the case with everyone but for me a change in salt made a huge difference.

may be its was the 100 gal water change too Park:question:

Do you use SeaChem?

If you don't mind my input I would suggest Seachem's Salinity Salt. I've used a lot of different salts but I really like this one. I went from their Reefers salt to this. If you do some research it is one of the most balanced salts out there. I'm sure you plan on keeping SPS's & LPS's along with your clams. The bucket also makes 225 us gallons. And you gotta love the lid :) Do be carefull where you buy it as I've seen over $30 difference in town. PM me if you want.


http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/r...g/IMG_1609.jpg

The lock for the lid

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/r...g/IMG_1610.jpg

I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon about salts anymore (been burned far too many times on this) but I have to say this one sounds different.

http://www.aquavitro.com/Products/salinity.html

What really attracts me to this one is the batch testing by lot#. So you can look up your salt's #'s online by entering it's batch# or lot#. Brilliant.

I've been hosed by other brands printing #'s on the side of the bucket but finding out that they may as well be complete fabrications. Maybe you need to roll buckets and so on but IMO you really shouldn't have to. If the mixture isn't homogenous enough at the bucket level how can one be certain it's homogenous within the same batch? By publishing the batch# test results, Seachem is upholding this particular product to a higher standard. I'll probably buy this salt next and see how it goes. Also 225gallons is a nice size too.

what's a good price for a bucket? might try it too.

Has anyone read about the Red Sea coral pro salt mix? apparently it's some pretty nice stuff. I've seen some threads on other forums of people who got their hands on it and tested the mix and the alk/mag/calc numbers are pretty impressive!

http://www.redseafish.com/Prod283.asp

I want some!!!!

I've used Red Sea Coral Pro in the past, but really found my tank was happier with regular Red Sea salt instead of the Pro.

That Seachem stuff seems pretty sweet actually, the idea of testing by batches is quite attractive. Now the flip side is what kind of price am I looking at for something like that. I haven't priced out salt in over a year, I've had buckets and buckets that I'm getting through still.

I saw that Seachem Salinity at pisces pet emporium yesterday for 99.99 I havent seen it before then but then again I have only really looked into IO Reef, Red Sea and Kent.

Considering the price and it does 225 gallons vs the reef crystals i normally get for 65 ish and does 160...I just might give this a go. I'll have the website up and check it before i buy it lol. RC is high for both calcium and alk always for me which i like. It's incredibly low on mag tho so something more balanced would be nice.

no I dont personally use seachem (H2Ocean is my flavor).....I merely suggested seachem because as I said it is distributed locally so there should be any availability issues for you with that brand.....lots of peeps have lots of opinions about what salt is "best".... I just assumed that because of the sheer massiveness of your system that a "high end" brand wouldnt be on your radar.....

I think my radar is broken....I think what I'm going to do is just buy whats cheap and has a relatively untained recent history and use that to cycle the tank. After that I don't know...I know what I've liked in the past and I know what I definitely didn't care for. I'll just have to come see you one weekend and we can make a pallet deal or something.

We're just waiting on final drawings now. The deposit is paid, and once we sign off on the drawings its just a waiting game. I'm DYING for this tank to be in place. I can now picture the tank in place and chugging along, full of tangs, clams and SPS!

So are the rest of us..:biggrin:

I think I'm going to try out this Aqua-Vitro salt and see how it goes. It sounds extremely appealing for my needs, so I figure why not?

Anyways a little bit more progress has been made on the build!

First a shelf was made in the fish room for the leg tank. Below will be the final home of the RO/DI, along with some storage space for additional salt and some bigger supplies. For perspective purposes I'm standing in the doorway, at my right is the utility sink, and to the left is the back of the tank.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0004-7.jpg

Temporary home of the RO/DI. Eventually all the walls will be replaced by blue board, poly-ied, painted with heavy duty paint, and sealed.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0006-2.jpg

Good old solenoid doing its job.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0011-2.jpg

The pump still needs to be installed, but you get the idea of how the initial plumbing from the leg tank will work.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0019-4.jpg

The start of blue boarding.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0028.jpg

Full tank shot for November
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0023-4.jpg

One with the cardboard removed
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0026-3.jpg

You can see where the leg tank sits in relation to the display
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0027-4.jpg

Looks like its coming along pretty ok. I myself am considering using aqua-vitro salt. A reefer friend of mine bought a pail and his tests weren't even close as what it showed on the pail. It was only his first batch so maybe it gets better further down the pail. Just figured I'd let ya know,

Wow you guys have done a lot looks great!

What's going through that solenoid? Is that an orbits sprinkler job? Is there any difference between that and the ones the reef-type diy sites sell? Not sure what metal insides and ro/di water will do just curious. Great idea.

Yup, its just a Orbit's sprinkler piece. Its all PVC I believe, no metal. Its been working well so far for us.

This weekend we OKed the final drawings of both the sump and tank! I also got most of the basement cleaned out. I think I have one more dump run, and then some cleaning to do, then painting, and finally pick up some plywood for the tank stand. Its going to be a busy month in our house.

Oh you poor thing:biggrin: We're not going to feel any pity... not when Tibet's coming home soon.

Wow....impressive build.

I've done frequent 100 gallon water changes in the past so I'm not sure. I'm mearly basing my opinion on what I've seen in my tank. After one water change with different salt things improved greatly. Would the same dramatic change have happend by going from Seachem to IO? I don't know, I would only be speculating.