270g FOWLR and Fish Room Build (image heavy)

[Kershaw]

Amazing build! Two questions

what did you use to dye the pvc fittings?

and do you think that flex seal would work inside a stand? I intend to put some trim along the edges and pour flex seal to create a pan.

 

[Oberst Hajj]

Thank you. I don't recall the name of the dye, but just search PVC dye on eBay and it will come up. Just keep in mind that any imperfections in the PVC will show through the dye. So don't expect them to be all glossy like the stuff you can buy that is already colored.

It might be a little hard to get the flex seal to stick to the sides and not drip back down. It is really thick and heavy. To create a pan, Home Depot has some thick gray rubber material that is used in showers that works well. It comes in sheets or a roll. The guy that build the 60g cube stand I have used it. He folded the corners up and sealed them together with heat. I don't know what it is called though.

 

[Kershaw]

Thank you. I don't recall the name of the dye, but just search PVC dye on eBay and it will come up. Just keep in mind that any imperfections in the PVC will show through the dye. So don't expect them to be all glossy like the stuff you can buy that is already colored.

It might be a little hard to get the flex seal to stick to the sides and not drip back down. It is really thick and heavy. To create a pan, Home Depot has some thick gray rubber material that is used in showers that works well. It comes in sheets or a roll. The guy that build the 60g cube stand I have used it. He folded the corners up and sealed them together with heat. I don't know what it is called though.

Awesome thank you!

 

[LVReef]

That's a very nice build! Can you take some pictures of the sump? I also have an SK-60 and I'm planning on plumbing it this week. Hoping to get some ideas.

 

[Devaji]

nice progress bud! I had about 10 pages to catch up on...lol but here we are.
so many nice things to comment from the laser engraved plugs labels to the long nose butter fly and so much more.

do let us know how the avast feeder works out for you.

 

[Oberst Hajj]

That's a very nice build! Can you take some pictures of the sump? I also have an SK-60 and I'm planning on plumbing it this week. Hoping to get some ideas.

Thank you. What kind of sump photos are you looking for?

nice progress bud! I had about 10 pages to catch up on...lol but here we are.
so many nice things to comment from the laser engraved plugs labels to the long nose butter fly and so much more.

do let us know how the avast feeder works out for you.

Thanks, I need to work on some update posts for this thread.

The Plank has been working very well for me. I like it much better than my Apex auto feeder (which has been sitting on the shelf ever since the Plank showed up). It is very consistent in the amount of food delivered and is very silent. The Apex unit was neither of those.

 

[ReefDreamz]

Absolutely incredible build! Thank you for sharing. One question about the SK-60 sump. The total water volume is listed as 74 gallons. What would you estimate the actual normal operating volume in the sump is for your setup? I'm trying to estimate generally how much extra volume the SK-60 has above the normal operating volume in the case of a power outage. Thanks!

 

[Oberst Hajj]

Absolutely incredible build! Thank you for sharing. One question about the SK-60 sump. The total water volume is listed as 74 gallons. What would you estimate the actual normal operating volume in the sump is for your setup? I'm trying to estimate generally how much extra volume the SK-60 has above the normal operating volume in the case of a power outage. Thanks!

Thank you. I think I run the water level in my sump a little high, it is 11.5" deep in the skimmer section ( the engraved deep markings stop at 9"). I calculated out that I have roughly 53g in the sump. That is not factoring what volume the equipment and extra live rock take up. You can see my water levels in the pic below (the sump is dirty right now, so don't judge. lol).

I control how much back siphon I get from the tank with the placement of my line locks on the return lines in the tank. I have small siphon breaks drilled into them and I also have the fan shaped tips on them. This allows me to break the back siphon so a lot of water does not drain back into the sump and still get decent flow down to the bottom of the tank.

One thing I have noticed is that you can not run a whole lot of flow through this sump if you are using dual roller filters. They just can't it.

 

[McPuff]

Your fish room makes me immediately think of the interior of the Death Star. :0)

 

[Oberst Hajj]

Your fish room makes me immediately think of the interior of the Death Star. :0)

lol, thanks!

 

[Oberst Hajj]

I know there are several things I need to update the thread with, but for now I'll just share a photo of several of the fish doing their thing...

 

[JumboShrimp]

That photo is very artistic!

 

[Mjl714]

Fantastic photo. Look forward to what is going on in your tank.

 

[Jeffcb]

I know there are several things I need to update the thread with, but for now I'll just share a photo of several of the fish doing their thing...

Fish are looking good . Nice pic.

 

[JumboShrimp]

"Doing their thing." Priceless.

 

[redsea01]

Love your setup! Following!

 

[Oberst Hajj]

That photo is very artistic!

Thanks, I kind of think it might be a little too artistic though?

Fantastic photo. Look forward to what is going on in your tank.

Thank you. Hopefully I can get an updated posted over the weekend.

Fish are looking good . Nice pic.

Thanks, some of them are getting fat!

Love your setup! Following!

Thank you and welcome to my build thread.

 

[Oberst Hajj]

This weekend I had to address an issue with my electrical system. When I build the fish room I had two separate 15amp circuits installed. Over the last week or so the GFI outlet on one of them was tripping for no reason. I swapped out the offending outlet and everything appears to be good now.

I did take this opportunity to do some work in the sump that I had been wanting to do. Back in November I tried growing some chaeto in the refugium section of my sump. Instead of the chaeto growing, a bunch of algae started growing on my Brightwell Bio bricks and plates and extra rock I had in there. This got me to thinking about back when I was planning this build. Back then I had planned on running an algae turf scrubber (ATS) to help keep nutrients down. Once the tank was up and running, I really did not want to spend the money on an ATS.

The failed chaeto attempt got me to asking why I could not just build an ATS setup in the refugium section of the sump, but submerged. So, I ordered some cross-stitch plastic sheets off of Amazon and made a stand for it out of the 1/2 pvc I had left over from the tank size mock up I used when doing the rockwork. I just placed this into the sump on Sunday and turn the light back on. Since I'm not sure how well this is going to work, I did not put any effort into making it look pretty. If it does work well, I'll dye the pvc black and probably switch to using white cross-stitch sheets.

Cutting a thin slit into the pvc to hold the grow sheets.

The finished prototype.

And in the sump and lit.

Since I did not want the algae go start growing on my bio blocks again, I decided to move those to the unused space below my roller filters. My hope is that since they are getting less water flow, they will grow more anaerobic bacteria in them and help further reduces the nutrients the system.

I'll report back if any of this stuff actually works!

 

[TheWB]

This weekend I had to address an issue with my electrical system. When I build the fish room I had two separate 15amp circuits installed. Over the last week or so the GFI outlet on one of them was tripping for no reason. I swapped out the offending outlet and everything appears to be good now.

I did take this opportunity to do some work in the sump that I had been wanting to do. Back in November I tried growing some chaeto in the refugium section of my sump. Instead of the chaeto growing, a bunch of algae started growing on my Brightwell Bio bricks and plates and extra rock I had in there. This got me to thinking about back when I was planning this build. Back then I had planned on running an algae turf scrubber (ATS) to help keep nutrients down. Once the tank was up and running, I really did not want to spend the money on an ATS.

The failed chaeto attempt got me to asking why I could not just build an ATS setup in the refugium section of the sump, but submerged. So, I ordered some cross-stitch plastic sheets off of Amazon and made a stand for it out of the 1/2 pvc I had left over from the tank size mock up I used when doing the rockwork. I just placed this into the sump on Sunday and turn the light back on. Since I'm not sure how well this is going to work, I did not put any effort into making it look pretty. If it does work well, I'll dye the pvc black and probably switch to using white cross-stitch sheets.

Cutting a thin slit into the pvc to hold the grow sheets.

The finished prototype.

And in the sump and lit.

Since I did not want the algae go start growing on my bio blocks again, I decided to move those to the unused space below my roller filters. My hope is that since they are getting less water flow, they will grow more anaerobic bacteria in them and help further reduces the nutrients the system.

I'll report back if any of this stuff actually works!

I did something similar to your scrubber idea in the overflow of my AIO tank. I attached a sheet of that knitting screen so that it hung down from the bottom of an In-Tank floss holder and lit it fully submerged like you are doing. I ended up growing a lot of really nasty looking slimy algae with a pink tint to it because the light was too close. Yours should work as long as you roughed up the surface of the knitting screen and you may have to play with the placement of the light.

 

[Oberst Hajj]

I did something similar to your scrubber idea in the overflow of my AIO tank. I attached a sheet of that knitting screen so that it hung down from the bottom of an In-Tank floss holder and lit it fully submerged like you are doing. I ended up growing a lot of really nasty looking slimy algae with a pink tint to it because the light was too close. Yours should work as long as you roughed up the surface of the knitting screen and you may have to play with the placement of the light.

Thanks for the info. I did not rough up the screen that is on there now, but I figured I would need to do that on my other screens.