Joeogio's 125 and 40gb reef tank build

joeogio · Jun 17, 2013

Hello I am new to this forum and want to do a nice writeup on my build. The system is already up and going and has been since September of 2012 the build is mostly complete and has been pretty successful. How im going to go about doing the writeup is to give a general overview of the system then continue with pictures and detailed aspects of each part of the system.

joeogio · Jun 17, 2013

The overview: my system consist of a 125 gallon tank and a 40 gallon breeder both tanks are plumbed into one DIY sump that sits under the 125 and all of the electrical is under the 40gb. The 125 is strictly sps only while the 40gb is mixed reef. My goal with the 40gb is to get a blue carpet anemone and make it a clown and anemone tank.

(This is a old pic, there will be new pics so you can see the progress)

revsgirl · Jun 17, 2013

Wow! Very nice!

Chasing the Dream Giver, not the dream! Tonya

Gladfelter · Jun 17, 2013

Looks great. I wish I had your canopy! Thanks a lot for coming to the Frag Swap!

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

Gladfelter said:
Looks great. I wish I had your canopy! Thanks a lot for coming to the Frag Swap!

Thanks! And yeah I really enjoy the canopy but it could be a little taller the splash guard over the leds is like 3 inches from the water. And thanks to all for hosting the swap

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

The sump: I built a sump 36"L 15"W 13"T from 1/4 inch acrylic my cuts weren't the breezy so I braced it heavily because I had some bubbles in the joints, part of my problem could have been because I used straight methylene chloride instead of weld-on which has some filters depending on which number you use, but anyways the sump is holding up great.

The first Chamber is where my three drain pipes dump which then overflows into the built in filter sock tray, then skimmer chamber and bubble trap, my skimmer is a reef octopus xs200 I also have a brs gfo reactor. He soon I'll be buying a reef dynamic bio pellet reactor.

Below are some pics of the sump and skimmer when they were new and now nearly a year later,

everything could use a good cleaning

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

Lightning and electrical: on the 125g tank I built a diy led system which has 3 100w 20k multi-chip leds on 3 20" black anodized heat sinks with 3 pc fans I also have it all setup and wired to add 3 20w royal blue leds which I have yet to do. The heatsinks are from rapid led and the fans and leds and drivers are from ebay vendors I have had no trouble from the lights or drivers yet but I really need to add the blues soon I plan to do so in a couple of weeks.

Here are some pics of the light fixture it is suspended from a track under the hood so I can slide it back and forth and I also forgot to mention that the drivers are dimmable

And here's some pics under the stand of the 40gb where all of my drivers and goodies are but it is extremely unorganized and has been that way since I moved the whole setup back in January

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

Water movement: a reeflo dart pump returns the water from the tank up through 2 1/2" returns drilled in the 40gb and through 2 3/4" top mounted returns in the 125 it also feeds whatever reactors I want to run. For circulation in the 125 I have a second dart pump that is fed by a 3" bulkhead in the back of the 125 and returns around the top of the tank through 4 3/4" returns. the 40gb has a mp10. These pumps are pretty quiet and have served me well so far. Although I plan to add 2 mp40s to the 125 when I have the funds to create more random flow

revhtree · Jun 18, 2013

Great tanks!

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

revhtree said:
Great tanks!

Thanks!

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

Livestock: in the 125 I have a sailfifln tang a yellow tang, a pair of engineer gobbles, diamond back gobbie, a pair if oscilaris clowns, and a big serpent starfish, and many sps corals.

In the 40gb I have a CUC from reef cleaners, a bicolor blenny, a sixline wrasse, a pair of oscilaris clowns im holding for a friend. A couple kinds of duncans, zoas, some pipe organ, a birdsnest colonie and a green leather.

Here are some up to date pics of the tanks and corals, I had a few of my sps get stn for some unknown reason but things seem to be improving now and im sure when I get the other leds added and the biopellet reactor going ill get some massive growth and colouration out of my sps

Flameback Pair · Jun 18, 2013

Will you dose anything besides organic carbon? (bio pellets)

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

powers2001 said:
Will you dose anything besides organic carbon? (bio pellets)

oh yeah im going to add another post about maintenance

joeogio · Jun 18, 2013

Maintenance: weekly I clean the socks, and the cup, and I do a 15g water change. But I skacked off on the water changes for a few weeks and I think that had something to do with the stn. I am currently dosing kalk about 1tsp per gallon of top off handled by my jbj ato. I do plan to get a stand alone dosing system to dose ca and alk after I upgrade my old reef keeper to a apex system. I also need to start testing more because I pretty much just play it by ear. I use to test more but I just kept getting the same results so I quit

joeogio · Jun 19, 2013

Update: I just ordered 6 20w royal blue leds. The heatsinks are already drilled and tapped and wired up for the leds all I gotta do is hook the up. Im excited Ikniw they are going to make everything pop and hopefully they will help with the growth and color of my corals

joeogio · Jul 3, 2013

Update: the leds I ordered from my favorite ebay seller came in

I got them all koohed up and boy its blue

Heres a pic of the tank with the whites and blues on the blues are dimmed at 30% and the 100w are dimmed about 50%
Ill take some cool pics with the blues way up soon but heres a teaser

joeogio · Jul 5, 2013

Here's some pics I promised

joeogio · Aug 9, 2013

Time for an update, the 40 gallon was growing some Un wanted algae. Took me a while to figure out what was going on but I think I found the culprit. I was doing my weekly water change and I was going to unscrew the lock lines and clean some of the nuisance algae off and I noticed there wasn't much flow coming out of the returns and turns out my lock line check valves were bad and restricting the flow a lot so I removed them and re installed the lock line.

I thought it was odd at first to see algae in the 40g when I've never had a problem with it before in that tank and the 125g was looking fine. But I'm glad I finally figured out what it was