Daplatapus's 77 Gal

[daplatapus]

Well, I thought I would get a couple pics up of my system. I had this tank since 1992 but was running Cichlid's in it for a few years back in Alberta. When we started thinking of moving from Alberta my sister took it for a few years and it was treated fairly roughly so now it has tons of scratches. But it still holds water and I was dying to have SW fish. I had no experience what-so-ever and didn't really know what I was in for. We've since moved to the island and got the green light from the wife to set it up
I pretty much started last March, reading everything I could. Along the way I've made mistakes but hopefully have learned from them (like not using copper and Amquel together )
Anyway... by late Aug last year I felt I was ready to start ordering some gear and putting this thing together. Here's a couple pics of some equipment I purchased over the summer last year.

Skimmer


refractometer


RO/DI system


heaters and Koralia's

[daplatapus]

And here's the tank I am using. A 77 gal Hagen tank. Dimensions absolutely suck for aquascaping, a fact I didn't really realize until after. 48" long, 24" tall and only 16" front to back.



I got the tank drilled on the bottom corner and siliconed 2 pcs of glass and the plan was to laminate 2 pcs of abs sheet overtop with the overflow teeth cut into it. The pic above is just before painting the back with Krylon Fusion.

and after painting...


water testing


glass partitions for the over flow



and the abs sheets to be laminated over

[daplatapus]

Here's the stand the whole thing is going on, again Hagen original from 1992. It's solid plywood, some of the tape is lifting off the edges and my brother in law (who's a cabinet maker) replaced the top tie 3/4" plywood and it's a bit ugly but still really solid.



I'm plumbing everything down to my 6' basement where I placed my sump. Again remember I've never done this, have never seen this done and only have a ton of reading under my belt. I'm fairly handy (I'm a renovation contractor) but I was really nervous about all this. Thankfully the wife was back in Alberta visiting friends so drilling holes in the walls and fishing spa flex through the floors and walls was a bit less nerve racking
Here's the 1 1/2" safety line being run through the cabinet. I'm running a full siphon herbie into a 80 gal sump.


and here's the main drain. I started out with a 3/4" line but it proved too small for my pump. I am using a Laguna 2900 pond pump and figured I was pushing around 1000 gph after the 12' of head but the 3/4" siphon was probably a couple hundred gph short of that. I was already drill for 3/4" bulkhead and it was a bit late to change now so I just transitioned as quickly as I could to 1 1/4" on both sides of the bulk head and it works like a charm. The only disadvantage I can tell is it is does creat a bit of turbulence in the line and sometimes you can hear the water rushing through the bulk head, but the house has to be dead quiet to hear it.

[daplatapus]

I'm really kicking myself for not drilling my supplies. Anyway, here's a pic of the plumbing for them before the tank was slid into place.


and another of it pretty much in place

[daplatapus]

Moving down into my basement now. I read voraciously on RC for months. On there I found prints from Rocketengineer on stand building and built a stand of a bunch of old cedar 2X6 decking and some 4X4's I had laying around. Here's the cut pcs:


midway through assembling



and the finished product

[daplatapus]

Just to the right of the stand is my hot water tank and water distribution for the house so I thought it was as good a place as any for my RO/DI system. so here it is.


I also got a couple Brute 30 gal cans for RO/DI storage and SW mixing. I still haven't got the mixing station built but am working on it.



have to go to work but will post more later

[ensquire]

Very neat setup, and I'm sure that stand would survive a nuclear blast.


What are your plans for the tank? Full reef ?

[mike31154]

Nice job so far. My 77 is a Hagen as well, purchased used a number of years ago. No idea how old it is, but it's pretty robust that's for sure, no center brace needed apparently. Interesting that you mention your stand is solid plywood. I've peeled a little of the black vinyl off the bottom piece of mine & it looks like very high density presswood. Not sure about any of the other parts, doors etc, haven't peeled any vinyl off those to check. Perhaps mine is a bit newer than 1992 & they went from plywood to presswood to increase the profit margin in later years.

Mine is not drilled, running sumpless but also have plans for a new tank with basement sump. Aquascaping is a bit of a challenge as you mention with the narrow 16 inch side dimension. I have two groups of rock more or less running down the center so I'm able to clean most of the glass, although there are a couple of spots I can't get with the magfloat where one rock & a coral are too close to the glass. C'est la vie. My livestock seems relatively content with the way things are arranged, but I guess they don't have a choice, they're stuck with where they are for the moment.

Your RODI system looks bomber. Might even be overkill for your area. Not sure about Victoria, but I know from reading various threads here that the Vancouver folks have very low TDS water to start with. Some of them could probably run DI only to get pure water & the DI media would still last a long time. You've got a TDS meter built on to yours, might be an idea to see what your tap water TDS is and tune your RODI rig for better efficiency. If TDS is really low, you may be able to run one or more of your housings empty & save money on filter media plus increase production with less waste water. Looks like it also includes a booster pump, which may or may not be required depending on incoming water pressure. If you're on a well, the booster pump will definitely help production.

Looking forward to seeing more. I started SW with no experience either (not even a freshwater tank) and aside from the odd newb mistake, haven't had any major set backs.

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by ensquire

Very neat setup, and I'm sure that stand would survive a nuclear blast.


What are your plans for the tank? Full reef ?

Thanks! Yeah, it's a really good tank stand plan

The original plan was just FOWLR but it's funny how that changes as soon as you put water in it

It's 9 months old now and counting and I have fish, LPS softies and SPS in it.

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Nice job so far. My 77 is a Hagen as well, purchased used a number of years ago. No idea how old it is, but it's pretty robust that's for sure, no center brace needed apparently. Interesting that you mention your stand is solid plywood. I've peeled a little of the black vinyl off the bottom piece of mine & it looks like very high density presswood. Not sure about any of the other parts, doors etc, haven't peeled any vinyl off those to check. Perhaps mine is a bit newer than 1992 & they went from plywood to presswood to increase the profit margin in later years.

Mine is not drilled, running sumpless but also have plans for a new tank with basement sump. Aquascaping is a bit of a challenge as you mention with the narrow 16 inch side dimension. I have two groups of rock more or less running down the center so I'm able to clean most of the glass, although there are a couple of spots I can't get with the magfloat where one rock & a coral are too close to the glass. C'est la vie. My livestock seems relatively content with the way things are arranged, but I guess they don't have a choice, they're stuck with where they are for the moment.

Your RODI system looks bomber. Might even be overkill for your area. Not sure about Victoria, but I know from reading various threads here that the Vancouver folks have very low TDS water to start with. Some of them could probably run DI only to get pure water & the DI media would still last a long time. You've got a TDS meter built on to yours, might be an idea to see what your tap water TDS is and tune your RODI rig for better efficiency. If TDS is really low, you may be able to run one or more of your housings empty & save money on filter media plus increase production with less waste water. Looks like it also includes a booster pump, which may or may not be required depending on incoming water pressure. If you're on a well, the booster pump will definitely help production.

Looking forward to seeing more. I started SW with no experience either (not even a freshwater tank) and aside from the odd newb mistake, haven't had any major set backs.

Thanks Mike!
Yeah, no center brace in mine although if you put your eye to the front panel it's got a clear deflection to it, maybe 3/8" or so. But It's always had that so not too worried. I did re-seal it when I got it back from my sister and other than some cracking on the top rim that oozes salt creep (that drives me nuts!) it's still a great tank.

My rock work ended up being just a wall with a couple top pieces leaning on the back glass with a bit of epoxy in-between. I too have a couple pieces too close to the sides and can't clean as well as I probably should. Not real happy with it and I'm going to try re-aquascaping once I get my nano up and running. I'm going to try and move 30% of the rock to the nano and the sump.

As far as the RO/DI system, you're totally right, way over kill. I tested the incoming water once I had it set up and if memory serves me correctly it was around 70 TDS or so. after the RO it's 0. I actually never thought of skipping a chamber, thanks for the idea.
My house pressure is barely 60psi and with the 2nd reef miser membrane they recommended at least 80 psi to get the 1:1 discharge rate. I'm on a water meter so water conservation is pretty key for me.