Reef Tank DIY - For Dummies
 

Hi all,
I've been stalling on my tank upgrade because I'm feeling way out of my depth (see what I did there), and I've been hesitant to start a build thread here because you're all so intimidating to a newbie like me. :mrgreen: Anyway, I thought perhaps others out there like me would be interested in something like this instead of the amazing tank builds you usually see here, so I'm taking the big leap forward.

My 75-gal tank will be 2 years old this November. I bought 2 green spotted puffers that the LFS told me were freshwater, and long story short, eventually ended up buying a used tank on CL and setting up a SW tank for them with the help of some nice folks on the Puffer Forum. I learned about live rock and mixing salt, and now I think I'm hooked. My current set-up is pretty medieval. All second-hand stuff except for the lights. No sump, hob Remora skimmer, SB Reef lights. I do a 16-gal water change once a month with buckets, and manually top off water twice a day. I do not use RODI water. (Please don't hate me).

My fish in order of when they were added: 2 green spotted puffers, YWG+shrimp pair, ocellaris clown pair, long nose hawkfish, mandarin, tail spot blenny, flame hawkfish.
Coral...a bit of everything including RBTAs (a lot of 'em), zoas, and some lps & sps.

I've been having a real blast thus far and luckily have all my original livestock, except for a lawnmower blenny who wouldn't eat and a long-nose hawkfish that jumped (RIP Lenny & Fergus:cry:).

However, I know my skimmer is barely able to keep up, I need to learn about dosing, and I'd like to set up a sump so I can have a refugium to increase pod population (for future girlfriend for my mandarin).

*note: apologies for crummy iphone pics



My immediate hurdle - I have no idea how to plumb this.

My current tank:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4426/...2a20f18b_c.jpg

The tank I bought: 72 x 18 x 18
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4390/...8551daf0_c.jpg

It came with a stand. My husband stripped and reinforced it (he's reasonably handy and owns power tools haha).
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4431/...95fc567a_c.jpg


My immediate hurdle - I have no idea how to plumb this.

Here is how it was originally plumbed:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4395/...8404cc83_c.jpghttps://farm5.staticflickr.com/4363/...fea2f2a7_c.jpg

Before I go ahead and try to duplicate this, any thoughts on whether I should change anything? Any improvements I can make?

Here is the sump that came with the tank: 36 x 14 x 18
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4434/...1ff97f3a_c.jpg

It has no baffles (new term I just learned) so I would like to put some in and have 3 compartments. Kinda like this except the other way around (not my photo):
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4507/...d38ab777_c.jpg

So, I'm thinking, from left to right: skimmer, then refugium, then return.

Questions:
- I would like pipes to be black instead of white as they will be somewhat visible if tank is viewed from the sides. Is it better to paint or buy black pipes? I can order from the US as I shop online frequently.
- glass baffles for glass sump, right? Where is a good place to buy the glass?

Any tips, info would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!

Thanks for your help Wardog. Sorry for all the clutter:redface:

It's not a huge deal, but since you're starting from scratch I would do

Filter Socks > Refugium > Skimmer > Return.

Refugium's work better when placed in front of the Skimmer, or even Parallel to the Skimmer because a lot of the nutrients that the refugium uses to grow would be "skimmed" out if the skimmer was placed in front. Obviously the skimmer won't skim out everything, but if we're going with best practice, try and feed the refugium as much good nutrients (and pods!) from the display as possible, and then let the skimmer pick up whats left over.

Some people even T off the overflow so that the water heading to the refugium doesn't go through the filter socks. This method is to save some of those pods that are coming from the display that would otherwise be caught in the filter socks and get thrown away. Check out some of the higher end manufactured sumps from Trigger and Eshopps to get ideas for layout.

For making baffles, I had good success just going to a local glass shop and having them cut me the glass to the correct size. Just make sure you get aquarium safe silicon and be generous - remember that bubble traps are your friend.

Thanks for your input philg3. There seems to be a bit of a discussion about this, and I'm going to start taking notes since my head is swirling with info. Is the layout dependent on what the refugium is mainly for, ie nutrient export or pod farm? For me, I want a place to increase pod population. I was lucky enough to get great live rock that a local reefer had for more than 10 years. My tank never had a cycle, haven't had nuisance algae issues and it's supported my mandarin for a year. However, I'd like to get a mate for my mandarin and possibly pipe fish, so my aim is to establish a pod haven.

So much food for thought. I'm finding it hard to make any decisions, hence my new tank has been sitting since June:confused:

If the goal is to provide pods to the aquarium, you just have to think about it as a "refuge" where there is slower flow and no predators. Rock rubble and Chaeto will give them a place to hide and the slower flow will help them from getting sucked away into the display before they have a chance to breed.

I attached a Diagram similar to the way I had a sump setup years ago. You put the Refugium on the other side of the return pump, so both the skimmer chamber and refugium empty into the return section separately from either side. You can either T off the overflow like on the diagram, or T off the return pump back into the refugium. Either way put a ball valve after the T and you can slow down the flow into the refugium while still having a high turnover through the skimmer and the rest of your filtration equipment.

Thanks for the diagram. Really helps as it's hard for me to visualize these things

That's exactly how I did my sump way back when. Works great for pods and you can empty the pods from the filter socks into the fuge too.

Every now and then a few pods will leave the refugium, get sucked up by the return pump and go straight into the mouth of a hungry fish in the display. It works great!

The melevs reef website also has an excellent section on sump design if you need any more inspiration.

Dunc

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Ok thanks, this sump layout might work out for me - thanks!

How much room should I allot for the return compartment? I thought it would be small as it only accommodates the pump but then I read for various reasons it's sometimes the biggest. I'd like the refugium to be a good size though.

Question: Is there a way to remove the old plumbing going into the tank? Here's the old return with the plumbing sawed off. Is it in there for good, and we have to attach new pipe to it, or is there a way to get it off?

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4384/...2742cdaa_c.jpg

Same question for the other 2 pipes. I guess you can see it was a Herbie system in the far corner.

Thanks!

I always liked a bigger return section. That way there is a bit more forgiveness as far as having to top it up all the time goes.

The refugium section doesn't need to be that big, yeah it would be nice to have a whole other tank as a refugium but not entirely necessary.

Just saw through the bulkhead and then buy new ones for the new plumbing.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

We'd like to put in a new bulkhead but it looks like it's glued in on the other side. I don't know if we can remove it:neutral:

I finally have baffles in my sump! :happy: I went with a simple design and the husband did a pretty decent job with the silicone.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4567/...127a07ef_c.jpg

I did a water test on both the main tank and the sump, and all is well. Whew! I have to admit I was nervous filling up the big tank in the house. It was quite the job emptying it out afterward.

Now onto the plumbing. Went to JL and they had no 1.5" bulkheads in stock and no ETA for pending shipments. Then I couldn't find any pvc fittings at Home Depot - what? I thought they have everything. Will check out some other places this week.
Now I can move on to the plumbing, which is my

Nice work on the sump! Did you order black pipe yet? You can get coloured pvc pipe from www.formufit.com. They supply pipe to BRS and its much cheaper to order straight from them. As far as 1.5 " bulkheads, you might have to order from BRS. A little bit of a hassle with the crappy exchange rate and shipping but what can you do?

Any idea how much shipping is with them Warren?

If I was to order,with my order being 49$ U.S shipping is 45 $ U.S

It's just the nature of the beast with shipping. You are either willing to pay or not for a specific item. Having a PO box in Blaine can also help reduce the cost.

I would not paint pvc pipe. It always chips at some point.

I order a fair amount of stuff online (pick up in Blaine) but having said that, after mooning over all the pretty colours, I decided to stick to something that's a bit of a myth in this hobby - a budget. I think I'll just paint the pipes black. No one will ever see them behind the tank and I can use the $$ towards something else (like coral!). Sigh...it's a compromise.

I do want to change this though...

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4543/...dedf711e_c.jpg

The white part is really bugging me. Not sure what it's called, but I'll have to take out the bulkhead as it's glued in.

Yes bulkheads with threads on both sides are best. unless your using slip on the inside and not gluing your standpipe or elbow. If you use slip glued on the outside and the rubber seal ring needs replacing you have to replace that whole section of plumbing.
https://i.imgur.com/cNWRUGUl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Atl4umvl.jpg
And you wont have the cheesy white slip x thread adapter inside the tank

Ok thanks for the info. I've been trying to read up on this stuff but it's hard to get a lot of detail. It's a bit of a slog going thru this learning curve but it's a real benefit to get a better understanding of how the tank runs. I'm trying to sit through the BRS 52 Weeks of Reefing, and they did mention that it's best you're able to take stuff apart for maintenance.

I wouldn't worry too much about the white coupling on the inside of the tank. Within a couple months it will be covered in Coralline algae and it will look the same as the black at that time.

I picked up my Black Friday skimmer purchase today! Kinda excited as this is the nicest thing I've bought for my tank. The packaging was pretty slick.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4529/...5a7aea5527.jpg
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4584/...bb1064c354.jpg

I really like it:) - clean lines and very solid construction. Love how smoothly the cup screws in. Well, it looks nice anyway; I'll have to wait a bit to find out how it works. I didn't want to finish up the plumbing until I was sure that it would fit, so that should be done sometime this week.

Plumbing is done! We also put the top trim onto the stand so I can be sure it is all fitting nicely before the tank is filled and immoveable. I am not 100% sure that I should paint the stand black. Wondering if it will be too much of a huge black thing. However, I don't have any other furniture that is white in this room so that wouldn't look right either.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4534/...dc51affef9.jpgUntitled by Magdaline Chu, on Flickr

No more ugly white connector!
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4686/...bdb6aa649c.jpgUntitled by Magdaline Chu, on Flickr

I'm not sure about the next step. I need to test if the pipes are water tight but if I fill the whole tank with water, I won't be able to push it back against the wall to its final spot. I was thinking I can just add enough water to overflow to have water drain into sump. Or is this not testing it properly?

Fill it with tap water to test everything running. Also test your sump volume when the return pump turns off. After testing, add some vinegar to help remove oils and such. Run for 1 or two days. Drain it all and then push it into final position.

Also, it looks like your main drain and emergency aren't low enough into your sump. Water is going to splash everywhere.

Ok thanks. Guess I can’t be lazy.

Yeah I haven’t attached that piece yet as I was making sure the skimmer could get in easily. You think the emergency should be lower though? I thought it should be high so the splashing if it happens will be noisy

I had both below the water line in the sump. When set up properly, the main drain is dead silent. If and when the emergency is used you'll know it, as it makes a crap load of noise either way.

Ok, thanks again. I’ll give it a go (she said nervously)

If your worried about colour clash that is a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things I have seen many people use cloth or fabric skirting to hide the colours and equipment. Primary concern should be having a running tank and access to equipment under the tank.

Other than that your build looks awesome so far keep up the good work

IT'S ALI-IVE!

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4540/...13c72ab40f.jpg
Untitled by Magdaline Chu, on Flickr

The husband told me to stop procrastinating, so I finally put water into the tank. I still wasn't sure I understood it completely but once it was running, everything made sense. I re-read the entire GMA Herbie method basic guide again and understood it this time. It did show the that the two downspouts should be under the waterline (not sure how I missed that). The main line as I have it now is probably a bit too long (?) as it should be about 1/2" underwater I think. I left the emergency for now as it was good to see how it worked as I adjusted the valve. We turned off the pump and it was all good. My husband showed a lot of interest in playing around with the plumbing - he doesn't really care all that much about the livestock haha. He also looks forward to all the clutter being cleaned up.

I'm not really a religious person but I did say a little prayer before I went to bed. And lo, there was no deluge this morning.

So I added the vinegar and will let it run for the 2 days. Then some final adjustments, clean up the back, etc. When should I be testing the skimmer. It won't be working properly when there's nothing to skim, right?

Also, the sight of all that water in the tank made my husband think about insurance coverage. Any insight into this?

Main drain looks good. Definately bring the emergency below the rim of the sump. Running the skimmer now in the vinegar water will help get the manufacturing oils and dust off it. It will take a couple weeks to get it set properly once you introduce livestock. After you drain the tank don't worry too much about wiping down every last bit of vinegar water. Consider it your first carbon dose. If you speak to your insurance agent about additional protection, please share your findings with us. Not too many people do this.

A new year, and new beginnings...
I thought it was a perfect time to fill the tank with saltwater:biggrin: The husband completed his part of the project by securing the pipes, adding the back to the stand and pushing the tank to its permanent spot. So now he can go back to his spot on the couch:lol:

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4762/...d13d2aefc8.jpg

After a couple of days I added my first live thing - a ball of chaeto in the sump fuge section. Hope it likes the pink light. Then I moved over a few rocks and a bit of sand. The old tank is only 3 feet away so I'm planning to move things over in stages. I'm pleased to see the little sponges and feather dusters on the rocks are still happy. (I forgot to not expose sponges to air, oops) I'm seeing the tiny white things on the glass just as I did with the old tank. Never did figure out if they are pods or what.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4699/...5b99af2deb.jpg

I'm waiting for my new 32" SB Reef light to arrive to add to existing one. I have saved a spot next to the sump for an ATO container but I'm not sure what to use yet.
In the meantime I am mulling over plans on how to safely catch my little pistol shrimp as he will be one of the first to set foot in the promised land.

Looking good! Great idea to plan for some future adding.

I finally put the skimmer in. I made a stand with egg crate & per instructions letting it run without the cup for 24 hours. I really love this thing. So red and shiny. And silent.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4676/...409dd8a0c7.jpg

So I got a canary to test the waters as it were. I guess in theory all creatures are equal but I didn't want my own fishies to be the first in the new tank:redface:. He's a Springer damsel, so he's supposed to not be evil. Also eats flatworms should the need arise. Having said that, I'm growing fond of him already. His name is Neil. One small step for...

He's doing great. Hid for the first day & coming out to eat the next.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4766/...d7a0d4ac9a.jpg

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4607/...9888aaffc5.jpg

Lol... canary sounds more like new tankmate. FWIW... my damsel is actually pretty mellow and plays well with others. It could be that everything else is way bigger then him, but none the less he is super passive which is good.

Damsels are awesome!
Until they're not!

They're some nice fish, especially as juveniles.
As they grow, most tend to become more dull and aggressive.

Best of luck with yours, I have kept a few myself.

New set up looks like it's coming along nicely!

Well, this Springer's damsel is supposed to be the most mild-mannered, but who knows. All my fish are pretty assertive, and everyone treats the mandarin like he's invisible (apparently he has a noxious slime coat), so I hope it will all work out.

So far, the Vertex has been easy peasy. After the 24-hour break-in, I put the cup on and adjusted the valve per instructions, and it's been silently skimming away. I do like to look at it foaming so nicely, haha. There's only a bit of crud collected as it's only Neil and 1 hermit:lol:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4661/...c9348c5c85.jpg

I think the chaeto ball has grown already but could be wishful thinking. There are pods all over the fuge glass though. Very encouraging!

I pick up my lights in Blaine tomorrow, so this weekend will be the big move. I'm making plans for how to transfer things over. A little worried about the fromia as he likes to spend time on the glass and the new tank is too clean. They are supposed to eat sponges, which are all over, but I've never really seen him on them.

Hahahaha you make reefing so much fun!
Following along...

I’m interested in a lot of different things but I have to say this hobby is one of the most fun ever. Just now I spent 10 minutes on the floor squinting at the tiny copepods on the fuge before I have to tear myself away as the husband/kid have already started getting ready for bed.

I feel guilty sometimes as it does take up a fair bit of my time, as well as not being the cheapest hobby despite my best efforts to re-use & recycle. Everything from the old tank is being moved over, every grain of sand. Luckily so far the KISS methodology seems to be working for me, knock on wood.

Thanks Shao! How’s your build coming along? Btw I bought a neon toadstool from you a while ago and I think it’s splitting? It’s folding in and looks like it’s forming a little frag. Chi-ching! :lol:

I'm too busy watching everyone's builds, no time for mine!

Yes, the Tyree toadstool is one of my favorites and it doesn't get huge like many of the other toadstools I've had.