315g Mixed Reef Peninsula and Frag Tank

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For 5 years I have successfully run a 150g Planet Aquariums display tank with a 25g frag tank. After searching for more than a year, my partner (Tabatha) and I found a new home with the perfect floorplan. We started construction in August of 2016. In May of 2017, we closed and started moving in, behind the dining room/study was a gameroom that would be perfect to have a fish room with the display showing through the wall into the study. If we were going to put a hole in the wall though, I wanted a bigger tank.

The tank and support equipment would live in the game room, with the new display being viewable from the dining room/study. The 150 would also go into the game room until the 315 was ready. We had to flip the layout of the house to accomodate the ramp in the sidewalk in the next picture. The builder did not have a copy of the floorplan flipped, so we just mirrored it.

This was the lot we purchased in August of 2016. It was a fun process to watch the construction take place.

The only downside to the layout was the wall we needed to bust a hole in was semi load bearing and there was a hot water heater installed just on the study side of the wall. We considered having the water heater replaced with a tankless one, but the installation was too much and it was brand new. The electrical in the now fish room was upgraded to GFCI and a second 15 amp GFCI service was installed in the room as well. The hot water heater is the large grey cylinder at the top of the picture to the right.

Whole House Generator

Auto Transfer Switch

In December of 2017, the first major upgrade we made was a whole house generator. We started just wanting backup power for the fish room and ac, the cost to do the whole house from that point was negligible. The cost of wiring in a new subpanel to support just a few circuits was about the same as wiring into the main panel on the side of the house. We settled on a 22kW Generac that runs off the natural gas service the house already uses. The generator has an auto transfer switch to go between shore and genie power. It takes about 30 seconds for the generator to start up when power is lost so there are UPSs on the critical gear in the house. The transfer back from genie to shore power is seamless. Now that power was in place it was time to order some tanks.

After recovering from the generator purchase, we started working with River City Aquatics in Austin to make sure every aspect of the tank design was considered before ordering. It took several months for us to decide on the footprint we wanted. I had always had a dream custom tank in mind but Planet Aquariums has also just released their Mega Matrix line and the pricing was very attractive. I had a Marineland 90g cube before the current 150g. My dream tank was two 90g cube marineland tanks side by side. The cube measures 30" x 30" x 30" and I just fell in love with that form factor. Two side by side would be amazing. As we started to lay things out in the fish room, it became clear that a peninsula style tank would work best. It would allow the tank to be viewable from both sides, with the plumbing pushed to the end, the tanks plumbing would be tucked into a corner of the room. We finally settled on a 72" x 36" x 30" with Planet' tideline overflow. There was still lots of discussion about glass thickness and bracing that took another several months to sort out, I can't thank Jake at RCA enough for his patience with me. The tanks were signed off on and ordered in October of 2019 and delivered in late November.

Delivery went as smoothly as possible. The display had to be flipped onto one side to fit through the door, that was taken off its hinges. The original plan was for the display tank and stand to be stored in the fish room during construction. The stand was 1/4" too wide to fit down the hallway to the fish room. We decided to store it in the study. Luckily I had built some dollies to move the display out of the study during construction.

One of the dollies I built. A pair of these went under the display so I could roll it out of the study while doing construction.

Flipping the tank onto its side so we could get it through the front door.

Coming through the "front door".

The display tank safely transferred to my dollies and stored out of the way.

The stand would not fit down the hallway to the fishroom, so it was stored in the study as well.

The frag tank and stand went into the fishroom easily.

10 days after the tanks were delivered, I cut the first hole in the wall. Power for the current 150 had to be extended in from another circuit in the house so the power to the room could be cut. Some more equipment was moved to the second GFCI circuit in the fish room, but I didn't want to put too much on it in case it had to be cut during construction.

The hole that would be cut for the display.

Hole cut!

Plastic went up in the fishroom. A small room of plastic was created to keep more dust out. A thicker plastic (to the left) was hung from the ceiling to protect the current 150.

All drywall gone with a view into the fishroom from the study.

Temporary studs in place so the wall could be taken out. A new header and jack studs would take its place.

One thing we could not decide on was access to the tank from the front. I had read several in wall build threads that mentioned regretting not having access to the tank from the front. I was on the fence and Tabatha decided she would like the tank and a small border only. In case it really became a pain to not have access to the tank from the front in the future, I decided to build the frame for a set of cabinet doors under the new header for the wall. The downside of this was I could not slant the tank side of the wall towards the study. I was worried without the tank side of the wall slanting, there would be a section towards the front of the tank that the lighting would be blocked by this section of wall on the backside. After a small experiment, the lighting impact was small and confined to a small area of the front of the tank, only along the top. We decided this was an acceptable trade off and built in the frame for potential cabinet doors in the future. Neither of us were interested in access to the filtration under the tank, access from the front would just be for cleaning and feeding from the top.

New header with frame for cabinet doors should we want them later.

View from the fish room. Once the bottom plate was removed, the stand for the display was rolled into the fish room and covered in plastic.

Once the stand was in the fish room, the last piece of drywall went in.

Backside of the new wall. The bottom piece of drywall will be supported by the front of the stand once it's in place.

Study side taped and floated.

Fish room side.

Texture and paint done. I have to say texturing a wall is an art by itself. I tried shooting it myself on several test boards and could never get the combination of mud, air pressure, and dry time just right. I knew I was in over my head and paid someone to texture both sides of the wall for me. It was money well spent.

The fish room side.

By early January 2020, construction on the wall was done and it was time to place the display stand. The front 4 leveling feet would sit on the slab of the house while two feet on the sides of the stand, and the 4 feet on the back of the stand would sit on porcelain tile. The tile was rated for 10,000 lbs per sq ft so I didn't have any concerns about it breaking. I was concerned about the bolts that make up the leveling feet slipping or staining the tile. Since the front feet had to set out about a 1/4' more than the back, I decided to add a nut that could be tightened back against the bottom of the stand to hold these feet secure. Unfortunately, you can't just run to HD for 3/4", 18-8, stainless steel nuts. Fastenal had just stopped selling to the public too, getting my hands on these at a reasonable price became a chore. The rest of the feet sit directly on the nut and bolt head. Under the bolt heads that rest on the tile, I added a 2" x 2" piece of plexiglass to prevent the bolt rusting and staining the tile. The bolts and nuts are both stainless steel but they will rust.

Display stand in place. You can see the front feet sitting on the slab of the house. The side and back feet sit on protective plastic discs to prevent the bolts from rusting against the porcelain tile.

We didn't want to lose this outlet on the study side. The outlet box would be painted grey to match the wall.

With the stand in place I realized I needed to do something about a sump. I had toyed with the idea of running a large sump and a separate large refugium. My idea was for the frag tank to drain into a refugium since the frag tank would have less flow going through it compared to the display tank. The refugium would drain into a second set of bulkheads built into the skimmer section of the sump. I could take some off the shelf sump and drill the new holes myself but I decided to approach some custom manufacturers to see about custom pricing. I was really impressed with John at Advanced Acrylics. In just a couple of hours we were able to bang out a design that incorporated a large refugium that could be plumbed the way I wanted.

The design that would be built. This was my dream setup and I couldn't believe how easy the design process was, at what I thought was a very reasonable price.

Once I had the stand in place, the electrical hooked back up, and the filtration ordered, things got very busy professionally. Not much would happen for another month or so. I ordered some rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater (Thanks Deb and Richard!) and got the first big order of equipment from BRS in mid February. I knew the build would take a few months to complete at best, with me only able to work on it the couple of days I was off work each week. I really wished I had a chunk of time to set aside to work on it. Lol.

The first set of gear from BRS!

On March 12, I got my wish. I am a broadcast engineer that mainly does college sports for a couple national networks. We were just a few games into the Big 12 Basketball tournament when sports stopped. The next few months would be a whirlwind of furlough, unemployment, PPE, furlough, unemployment, repeat... I got busy putting this thing together, it was clear I was not going back to work anytime soon. With the extra time I knew I would be able to make something nice rather than just having to throw it together.

The first thing I worked on was lighting. I used generic black box LEDs over my current 150, and that was I thought I was going to use over the new tanks. I got busy building the voltage follower circuits I would need to make the black box lights controllable from the Apex VDM ports. The plan was to use 12 lights over the display and another 9 over the frag tank. I wanted a solid panel of leds over these tanks. In order to split the control circuit 12 or 9 times, and get the full range of dimming, the current for the control has to come from a separate power source. The voltage (0-10v) would be fed to the input of these circuits, they would be powered by the drivers in the lights, and output the voltage and current back to the driver which dims and brightens the LEDs.

Boards built to be voltage followers to allow full control of black box LEDs.

About the time I started soldering these boards together, I discovered Reef Breeders lights. I was very impressed with their layout and the ability to control all 6 channels independently. I really liked the price, and was even more impressed when I couldn't find any of the lights for sale used. I searched several local clubs and eBay with no luck. While searching for mounting solutions I came across dputt88's video and absolutely fell in love with the lights. The problem was they were currently out of stock. Logan was excellent with updates about when more would be in. In the meantime, I ordered a lighting truss from 8020.net that I would attach the Reef Breeders to. The next thing I had to figure out was how to move these things.

The black box LEDs sit off the current tank about 10". I cannot tell you the number of times I have leaned in to look at something in the tank and banged my head on the lights. One of the things that was a must is the new lights must move out of the way when I needed to get into the tank. I'd initially considered a simple rope and pulley kind of system but didn't want to see the rope going up a wall and across the ceiling to the lights. There was no way I was putting hydraulics, or the oil required, anywhere near a saltwater fish tank. Electronic wenches seemed like a good option but the motors in the ones I was familiar with were louder than I wanted to use. I decided electric actuators was the way to go. I was already familiar with DC circuits and understood the concept immediately. Supply DC power to the motor and the actuator pushes a rod out, reverse the polarity of this power and the motor will pull the rod back in. I would use (4) 32" Reef Breeder Photon V2+s over the display and (3) 24" over the frag tank. I estimated with the aluminum t slot and the 4 lights, the display lights would weight about 75-80 lbs, with the frag tank being about half of that. I settled on (2) 400 lb, 24", 12v actuators from Progressive Automations.

LIGHTS!!

Lighting truss built out of aluminum T Slot for the display. I decided on a coated 1/8" (3/16" with coating) steel cable to hang it with.

After drilling holes into the ceiling where I wanted the steel cable to pass through, I placed 2x4s over those holes and attached them to the rafters on either side. I then went back downstairs and drilled a hole into the 2x4s. In those holes I glued nylon spacers so the steel cable could be passed in and out of the attic without tearing up the drywall of the ceiling.

The nylon spacers mounted in the ceiling from below.

Two of these were made, one for each cable that would pass through the ceiling. I ended up using eye bolts as guides for the cable to keep it on track.

I had to thread one of the support cables through some utilities. That is a gas line, emergency drain for a hot water heater, pan drain for a hot water heater, and the water supply to half the house. No problem.

Behind those utilities, there was another water line right where the two support lines attached to the actuator. There was no doubt the hardware would chew up the foam and eventually the pex itself. To prevent this I connected everything and then slid a 3" piece of pvc over the hardware and mounted it to a rafter so it wouldn't slide back.

Hardware inside the pipe.

Since the house features an open floor plan, there are two very large beams that run the length of the house. The actuator for the display tank is attached to one of these beams.

I used several 2x4s on top of saw horses that were setup on top of the stand to mount the truss to the two support wires coming out of the attic.



Testing the actuators.

Lights mounted!

Before I could get started on the frag tank lighting system, the sump and fuge came in. These were pieces of art. I was stunned. I couldn't believe how beautiful they were.

The sump, fuge, and a deep sand bed box all came in freight from California.

I quickly got everything unwrapped and checked for damage. This was definitely motivation to get this build done.


The sump and fuge would sit in the garage a week while I finished up the lighting and one other project. Two water storage tanks were delivered the day after the sump and fuge. These are 23" x 82" and hold 135 gallons of water each. I will use them to relace (3) 45 gallon brute trash cans that I have used for years. The thing I like about them the most was the 16" manway into the tank.

The Brute trash cans that were on their way out.

One of two water tanks that will be used to hold RO/DI water.

After cleaning them up a bit, I leaked tested them and then moved them into the fish room. I put down some thick plastic, some cinder blocks, and some painted plywood as a platform for the tanks. I only filled one of them as I needed the other to store water should I need to move them around.


I could finally turn my attention to finishing up the frag tank lighting.

There were a couple water lines and the main return duct for the house I had to deal with for the frag tank support lines.

The little bridge I built to keep the support wires from chewing into the return duct.

The actuator for the frag tank was mounted on one of the supports for the roof. The two support lines are fed through a third pulley.

In case either actuator were to fail, I added a set of two clamps before the eye bolt on the first pulley of each system. These clamps will not pass through the eye bolt and should prevent the trusses from falling into the tanks below. Should.

Since I was in the attic, and we weren't going to be able to move the water heater, I added an apex leak sensor to the leak pan. This way I can at least be alerted to a problem with it an hopefully avoid a disaster. The leak sensor and power for the actuators was run down the wall and into the fish room.

Attaching the frag tank truss to its support wires.



It took 6 of us to lift the display tank into position. It went in pretty smooth. There was only a 1/4" of clearance top to bottom for it to slide in.

It was a huge accomplishment to finally see the tank in the wall.



A time lapse video I shot to show off the independant control I had of each set of lights. They do not move quite this fast but they move! It was at this point I was getting really excited about the build. I had never imagined the two actuators would work as well as they did and the t slot really looked nice. The next task seemed daunting, it was time to plumb this sucker.

 

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Before I could start on the plumbing, 150 lbs of gorgeous rock showed up from Tampa Bay Saltwater. This stuff was full of life. Tons of macroalgae, sponges, crabs, snails, lots of coraline algae. It was beautiful.

The rock would cook in a 75 gallon tank with light, flow, heat, and a skimmer for a few months while I finished the build. I also added a basket of (64) 2” x 2” x 2” MarinePure cubes to cook with the rock.



As I placed the sump and fuge, my blood ran cold. We messed up. The primary drain on the side of the fuge was placed to be the same height as the top of the sump. This seemed right as that's where the drain would be plumbed. We forgot to account for the elbow needed between the drain and bulkhead. Ugh. The quickest solution I could come up with was to put the fuge on a short stand, to give me enough room for an elbow on the other end. Unfortunately, this pushed the top of the fuge closer to the top of the frag stand. I mocked it up and there was still enough room to reach most of the fuge. I ended up using two pieces of 3/4" plywood that was glued together and painted black to match the stand. This gave me plenty of clearance in case I didn't run the pipe perfectly level too.

The stand the refugium will sit on, sitting on the stand for the frag tank.

The sump and refugium in place with most of the pipe and fittings I would need. I started by plumbing the refugium into the sump. I thought this would be the hardest run (and longest) and wanted to get it out of the way.

The top pipe is the emergency drain and the bottom pipe will have a gate valve installed and run under a full siphon.

The run down the wall is installed with a gate valve for the primary drain.To accommodate the PVC unions, I added blocks to keep the pipe off the wall.

I painted 2x4” blocks that were attached to studs. This kept the pipe off the back wall enough that unions could be put inline behind the refugium. The pvc along the wall to the left is attached directly to the wall.

Under the stand, I attached pieces of wood to the back of two metal supports so I could then attach the pvc to these new wood supports and keep them flush with the wall. This also shows the drain lines from the fuge attached to the sump. The stand I built for the fuge left plenty of room for the elbow!

The plumbing at the back of the display tank. The line with the gate valve is the primary drain. If I could do the plumbing all over again, I would move the gate valves closer to the sump. They take a couple hours to completely purge themselves of air.

Where the plumbing from the display attaches to the sump. Originally I had planned on all 5 of these pipes running on top of each other. When I measured things out, before running the fuge lines, I measure the space I’d need with a piece of pvc. Well, elbows ended up at the corner where the pipes went under the stand so it didn’t leave enough room for 3 more pipes. Even without leaving any space between the 4 already on the wall, I didn’t have enough room to run the 5th on top. Grr. I decided to run the 5th pipe in front of the top pipe attached to the wall. From front to back, left to right is display second emergency, display first emergency, display primary, fuge primary, and fuge secondary drains.

The frag tank to refugium plumbing. I was able to disconnect the fuge from the sump using the unions I’d put in so I could pull the frag tank and fuge out and get to the back. Left to right is Primary (gate valve), first emergency, and second emergency drain. I didn’t have room to put unions on the emergency drain lines, something I always do. The elbows on the first emergency drain (middle pipe) where it turns to go towards the fuge, had to be shaved down to make them fit. I had to take about an 1/8” off the end of each elbow.

The fuge side of the plumbing after placing the frag tank and stand back in place. The primary drain has the pipe attached. I may cut it back some as it extends about 6” into the water, I feel like the drain would purge air faster if there was less pressure here. I do not attach pipes to my emergency drains so I can hear the water splashing if the primary needs to be adjusted.


The next thing I needed to make was a manifold for the return plumbing. My return pump would be an Ecotech Vectra L2. It would drive both tanks plus a UV sterilizer, media reactors (purigen and carbon), and an algae scrubber. The returns to both tanks would leave the manifold as 1” vinyl, I used 1”x (2) 3/4” Y adaptors to split the 1” feeds into (2) 3/4” lines to feed the locline on both tanks. The UV sterilizer, reactor, and scrubber feeds are all 1/2”, with an additional 1/2” valve for future needs. I built the manifold out of 1 1/2” pvc. I normally build a return into my manifolds that flows unused water back into the sump, which keeps head pressure of the pump. With a DC pump I didn’t need this return, the pump can just be turned down.

All the pieces of the manifold cleaned and ready for glue.

The finished product. I solvent welded the ball valves in pairs to make sure everything lined up. It was easy to line the pairs up as they went together. I left enough pipe on the end, before the cap, that another pvc tee can be added if the extra 1/2” feed isn’t enough in the future. This would also give me a place to attach a support to this end of the manifold.

Getting the manifold level and welded in.

I attached a threaded rod to the far end of the manifold and supported it from the bottom of the stand. I was worried that full of water, the manifold would weight enough to rip the bulkhead out of the top of the sump. It was risk I didn’t want to take. The plywood this attaches to is 3/4” and the screws penetrate 1/4” so I wasn’t worried about damaging the bottom of the display.

I played with several different ways to plumb the return pump into the manifold. Vinyl tube, spa tube, different placements of the pump, etc. I had hoped to go straight up from the pump to the manifold but this put too much pressure against the electrical connection at the back of the pump. This setup seemed like the best compromise. I had to shave down both sides of the elbows to make them fit right. The ring you see between the bottom of the elbows and the top of the pump is a pvc reducer, not pvc pipe. The output of the Vectra is 1 1/4” and I built the manifold out of 1 1/2” pvc. I increased the pipe size here to try and avoid as much head pressure as possible with the 2 45s and the 90 degree at the top, before the manifold.

Everything together. I was real happy with how this turned out.

All the vinyl tube added.

Where the 1" vinyl tube splits to (2) 3/4” vinyl tubes that feed the returns on both tanks. Each tank hs (2) 3/4" returns.

The reactors, UV sterilizer, and algae scrubber sit behind the display tank.

The drains from reactors, UV sterilizer, and algae scrubber. The returns to the tanks can be seen below them.

The reactor, UV sterilizer, and scrubber drains roughed into the sump.

I made a mess out of the fish room, it was time to clean up some and start in on the electronics.



With the plumbing out of the way, I turned my focus to the Apex and pump controllers. I also needed a place to mount the switches for the actuators. I looked at some of the commercial options from Ikea and Adaptive Reef, but eventually decided to make my own. I had a good idea of what I wanted pretty quick, building it would be another thing. I have never built a cabinet before.

The rough sketch of what I wanted. Once I started looking at it on the wall, I decided to build it in 2 parts. The first part would be the lower section with the energy bars. I decided to mount them as far back into the cubby I built for them as I could in order to leave some room in front for the power cables that will plug into them.

The whole thing started as a 1/2” x 5/8” frame. I nailed this together and screwed it to the wall.

The frame attached to the wall. I would have to build the cabinet around the drains from the fuge to the sump, and the return back to the frag tank.

I extended the frame out from the wall. This was built in several sections. I drilled out the two sections that went around the plumbing, then cut them in half. Cutting them in half made the holes slightly egg shaped so I had to sand them back out. I was able to slip the back section behind the plumbing and then pop it out and attach it to the frame. I ran short supports out from the back piece and used this to attach the front piece. Once the plumbing was covered, the rest of the top of the frame went on as one piece, as well as the bottom section.

A shot of the cabinets humble beginnings from the front. I attached boards across the cabinet that ran underneath and above the plumbing. These would be for wire management and to hold a set of cooling fans.

Test fitting the energy bars into the bottom of the cabinet. In the original design I wanted to mount the Apex break out boxes down here too, there wasn’t enough room.

A friend helped me layout the front door and cut all the squares and holes. The top 8 holes will hold the vortech and pump controllers. The Vectra controller has a 1/8” heatsink on the back of it so we routed out a section for it and drilled additional vents for it. The large square hole to the left will hold the Apex brain. The 3 boxes to the right of it will hold switches for the actuators. Of the 3 smaller squares, the most left one will hold the display actuator control, the middle switch will hold a switch that turns the actuator power supply on and off, while the right most smaller square will hold the control for the frag tank actuator. The 9 holes under that are for Apex modules. There is a blank section at the very bottom for future expansion. After the face of the door was cut, I added a 3/4’ x 1 1/2” border.

A second 3/4” x 1 1/2” was laid at a 90 degree angle on top of the first.

Test fitting the door to the frame of the cabinet. I also extended the bottom power section out so it was flush with the top cabinet, and added a border to the bottom section.

Everything mounted. I ended up pushing the Apex modules out to the left and right some so they laid out better. I also had Modular Marine cut me a trim panel for the Apex brain. After I sanded it down, I didn’t like the way the brain sat in the square anymore. This was a nice cover-up. Everything run from this cabinet had to be extended into it. I ended up building 7 extension cables for the (6) MP40s and the Vectra L2. You know you’re working on a real project when you have to order from Digi-Key and Mouser. I ended up buying the cable itself from Digi-Key, part #T1420-5-ND, this is a 5 conductor, 22 awg cable and matched the factory Ecotech cable well. Mouser hooked up the Molex connectors, the male housings were part #538-39-01-2105, the female housing were part #538-39-01-2106, the male pins were part#538-39-00-0041, and the female pins were part #538-39-00-0039. I bought a generic crimper off Amazon to crimp on the pins. The pin will stick out of the crimper a little, all you need to crimp is where the wire attaches. If the pin is too far into the crimper, you will break the section of the pin the clicks into the plastic housing. After trying to hunt down a 3 pin, waterproof, DC power cable for a few days, I found the cable I needed at Reef Breeders to extend the DC pump power for the Skimz skimmer. The Apex modules required a combination of USB, BNC, TRRS, CAT 5, standard 2 conductor wires to extend all of its functionality into the cabinet. The only pieces I had trouble finding the right connectors for were the temperature probes. I ended up splicing in some 2 conductor wire into these lines to get them into the cabinet. While I was working on this part of the build, the company I work for thankfully got some PPE money. This put me back to work for 8 weeks, leaving just evening and weekends to work on the cabinet. This made the cabinet build feel like it was stretching on forever. Without Covid, I’m afraid the Apex, pump controllers, and actuator controls would be spread out around the room. The 3 Apex modules on the left side are all VDMs. The 3 modules in the middle are (2) FMMs with a PM2 module on the bottom. The 3 on the right are (2) LSMs and the WXM module. The brain is an Apex EL so the VDMs and PM2 had to be added.

I added a touch screen to the top of the cabinet. It will be driven by a small Dell computer and will run the Apex software via the local web browser. I will use Apex Fusion outside my network/home.

The inside of the cabinet wired up. The power supplies along the top are for the 6 MP40s. To the right of them are the Vectra and Dell power supplies (The Dell PS sits on top of the Vectra supply). Underneath the MP40 supplies are 2 Apex break out boxes. One box has 5 float switches attached to it that will notify me that dosing containers are low. The 6th on this box is connected to a Davy Jones locker switch that will shut down the skimmer when it’s full. The 2nd break out box has reed switches attached to it that turn LED strips on and off then sections of the cabinet are opened and closed. To the right of the BOBs is the switch and Skimz power supplies. Under the switch PS is the switch itself, a Ubiquiti POE switch. It has an uplink, Apex Classic, Apex 2016, Dell, and a Ubiquiti POE camera plugged into it. The camera monitors the 150 gallon system now. I will be adding 3 more POE cams for the new system in the near future. Under the switch is the power supply for the actuators and a power strip that stays on all the time. Tucked into the bottom left corner of the cabinet it small Dell optiplex desktop. The large umbilical coming out of the middle feeds everything attached to the front of the cabinet door. I also attached an led strip to the inside lip so I could see to work inside the cabinet.

I used a 4” piece of PVC as a conduit to run all the extension cables through. This is from the display side, there is also an opening behind the frag tank.

I added some grey glass to the cabinet door. I wanted tinted to knock down the brightness of the LEDs some.

LED strips added to the lip of the front door. These will turn on and off when the glass door is opened and closed.

I attached refugium lights underneath the display and frag tank stands. These are Kessil H80’s. I ended up being real uncomfortable with how far the mounting screws extended into the plywood underneath both stands. I ended up glueing in a wooden block and then screwing the lights to those blocks underneath both stands.

I got tired of drilling holes in the steel stand pretty fast. To get around this, I started glueing cable tie mounts to ceramic magnets. This was much easier to place the cable tie mounts exactly where I needed.

MP40s mounted on the display tank.

The build as it sits at this point. There is still lots of programming to do, plus rock sand, and water. I was very proud of what I had done so far.

A better shot of the conduit that runs between the display, cabinet, and frag tank. I also built a small platform over the conduit for the ATO container.

 

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I really liked the Reef Breeders lights, to make them even better, a few weeks after I purchased the lights, Logan released an Apex upgrade that replaced the wireless controller and allowed for all 6 channels to be controlled by Apex VDM ports. It would take 6 VDMs for each set of lights, I had two sets of lights, display and frag, so I had 12 total VDM ports. This would allow the display and frag tanks to run different programs. Replacing the controllers was pretty easy.

I used an old 66 block to distribute the control signals to the lights. The display control needed to be split 4 ways, the frag control needed to be split 3 ways. For the display control, I double punched the feed from the Apex on the first column, as well as the output to the the first light. Lights 2, 3, and 4 went on columns 2, 3, and 4. For the frag control, the VDM outputs went on the first column with lights 1, 2, and 3 on columns 2, 3, and 4. Bridging clips were added between columns 2 and 3.

Everything worked! The one Photon 24 that is out didn’t have power at the time.

I ended up sawing the 66 black into smaller sections and mounting them inside project boxes, that were mounted next to the power supplies for the lights. After about a month of running the new Apex controllable Photons, I had to go back to the wireless controllers. I started to notice a flicker that was very noticeable in the white channel of the display cluster of lights. We tried several troubleshooting steps, even connection one light directly to the VDM of the Apex. It still flickered. At this point I was ready to add sand, rock, and water. I took the lights down and reinstalled the original wireless controllers. In the future I hope to have more time to setup the Apex controllers in these lights again. I knew the start of work was coming up and I was feeling the pressure to get the system fired up.

In each of my previous systems I have used Caribsea’s Aragonite Special Grade Reef Sand. I really like the bigger grains, it never seems to get blown around. This will be the 4th system I’ve used it in. We bought 480 lbs, ended up rinsing 400 lbs, and used 320 lbs in the system. The display ended up with just 160 lbs (1.5” sandbed), 80 lbs in the frag tank (1” sandbed), and 80 lbs in a deep sand bed box inside the refugium (10” x 16” x 12”).

With the sand in the tanks, it was time to add water!

With the tanks about 3/4 full, I transferred the Tampa Bay Saltwater rock into the display. There will be another 200 lbs or so that will come out of our current display tank. We laid it all out in these tubs to help with the aquascaping.

The basket of MarinePure that was in with the live rock was transferred into the sump. I added a 2nd basket of media to the sump also.

80 lbs of Marco rocks was added to the refugium. More rock from our display will be added to the refugium as well as macro algae.

With all the sand and rock in place, we filled up both tanks and added water to the sump and fuge. We ended up adding about 450 gallons to get the water to get everything to the appropriate levels.

After a few short hours, things really started to clear up. On the current 150 gallon display, we added and removed the sand several times to keep rinsing it due to cloudiness. We did not have that issue this time.

The front side of the tank.

With water in the tanks, I was able to plug in the rest of the pumps and heaters. It really made the cabinet come to life.


Since this pic I have also added (2) 1200 watt UPSs. While the house has a whole house generator, it takes about 30 seconds to start up. With the lights, pumps, and 600w heaters, there is about 1,000 watts on each circuit for the new tank. The energy bars are split between the circuits so there is only one heater on each 15 amp circuit.


That’s the point I’m at right now. I dosed the tank with Stability which seems to have helped considerably with my cycle. I have not detected any ammonia or nitrate in two weeks. I am sure adding cured live rock helped some too. There is still lots to do! I finally got my hands on 5 Versa dosing pumps. I’ve had the containers ready to go for a while. I also have a quarantine system I am going to be setting up. There will be (2) 40 gallon breeders, one for fish, and another for corals. Each tank will have a custom sump from Modular Marine and a Skimz skimmer. Reef Breeder Photon V2+s will also light the quarantine system so there is less acclamation from quarantine to frag/display for corals. There is a Davy Jones locker and Swabbie that need to be added to the skimmer. I also need to trim out the study side of the tank. It will have a 4 inch white wood border around it eventually. There is still lots of programming and little tweaks that need to be made. I haven’t fired up the UV, reactors, or scrubber yet. The skimmer is already producing some nasty looking stuff. It has been 4 years to the day since we purchased the lot to get the new system up and running. While I’m pretty happy with things, I am always open to suggestion of questions about what I’ve done, I’d love some feedback! Thanks for taking the time to read about my build and for contributing to my knowledge over the years.


As a bonus, here are some pics of my current setup! After the livestock is transferred to the 300 it will be sold. I will be sad to see it go.

The full system!

FTS of the display. This tank is busting at the seems with coral. I outgrew it a year ago.

FTS of the frag tank. This tank is overgrown as well.

This pic doesn’t do the two chalices in the back justice. The Hollywood Stunner/Alien Eye is probably 14-16” across and 8-10” deep. The Iron Man is half that size. I also bought the Strawberry Lemonade SPS frag when it was 1”. Its taken about 4 years for it to grow to the size you see.

The sump for the current 150. Its an off the shelf marineland 75 gallon. I added a few baffles of glass and started running water through it.

The cabinet on the left of the system, that the frag tank sits on, houses the Apex classic that runs this system. It is pretty basic with (1) PM2 module, (1) WXM, and (1) FMM.

The cabinet to the right houses the media reactors and ato container. There is a solenoid in this cabinet that allows the ato container to refill by itself as well.

 

[Jimbo662]

Amazing new set up!

 

[lilkiwi930]

That is amazing, I wish I had the money to do everything that you are doing. But I am a beginner.. I am upgrading from a 32g to a 72g once I move. I even have a sump. The thing is I dont completely understand how the sump works. So reading some of this stuff helps a lot. But it is looking beautiful.

 

[revhtree]

Before I could start on the plumbing, 150 lbs of gorgeous rock showed up from Tampa Bay Saltwater. This stuff was full of life. Tons of macroalgae, sponges, crabs, snails, lots of coraline algae. It was beautiful.

The rock would cook in a 75 gallon tank with light, flow, heat, and a skimmer for a few months while I finished the build. I also added a basket of (64) 2” x 2” x 2” MarinePure cubes to cook with the rock.



As I placed the sump and fuge, my blood ran cold. We messed up. The primary drain on the side of the fuge was placed to be the same height as the top of the sump. This seemed right as that's where the drain would be plumbed. We forgot to account for the elbow needed between the drain and bulkhead. Ugh. The quickest solution I could come up with was to put the fuge on a short stand, to give me enough room for an elbow on the other end. Unfortunately, this pushed the top of the fuge closer to the top of the frag stand. I mocked it up and there was still enough room to reach most of the fuge. I ended up using two pieces of 3/4" plywood that was glued together and painted black to match the stand. This gave me plenty of clearance in case I didn't run the pipe perfectly level too.

The stand the refugium will sit on, sitting on the stand for the frag tank.

The sump and refugium in place with most of the pipe and fittings I would need. I started by plumbing the refugium into the sump. I thought this would be the hardest run (and longest) and wanted to get it out of the way.

The top pipe is the emergency drain and the bottom pipe will have a gate valve installed and run under a full siphon.

The run down the wall is installed with a gate valve for the primary drain.To accommodate the PVC unions, I added blocks to keep the pipe off the wall.

I painted 2x4” blocks that were attached to studs. This kept the pipe off the back wall enough that unions could be put inline behind the refugium. The pvc along the wall to the left is attached directly to the wall.

Under the stand, I attached pieces of wood to the back of two metal supports so I could then attach the pvc to these new wood supports and keep them flush with the wall. This also shows the drain lines from the fuge attached to the sump. The stand I built for the fuge left plenty of room for the elbow!

The plumbing at the back of the display tank. The line with the gate valve is the primary drain. If I could do the plumbing all over again, I would move the gate valves closer to the sump. They take a couple hours to completely purge themselves of air.

Where the plumbing from the display attaches to the sump. Originally I had planned on all 5 of these pipes running on top of each other. When I measured things out, before running the fuge lines, I measure the space I’d need with a piece of pvc. Well, elbows ended up at the corner where the pipes went under the stand so it didn’t leave enough room for 3 more pipes. Even without leaving any space between the 4 already on the wall, I didn’t have enough room to run the 5th on top. Grr. I decided to run the 5th pipe in front of the top pipe attached to the wall. From front to back, left to right is display second emergency, display first emergency, display primary, fuge primary, and fuge secondary drains.

The frag tank to refugium plumbing. I was able to disconnect the fuge from the sump using the unions I’d put in so I could pull the frag tank and fuge out and get to the back. Left to right is Primary (gate valve), first emergency, and second emergency drain. I didn’t have room to put unions on the emergency drain lines, something I always do. The elbows on the first emergency drain (middle pipe) where it turns to go towards the fuge, had to be shaved down to make them fit. I had to take about an 1/8” off the end of each elbow.

The fuge side of the plumbing after placing the frag tank and stand back in place. The primary drain has the pipe attached. I may cut it back some as it extends about 6” into the water, I feel like the drain would purge air faster if there was less pressure here. I do not attach pipes to my emergency drains so I can hear the water splashing if the primary needs to be adjusted.


The next thing I needed to make was a manifold for the return plumbing. My return pump would be an Ecotech Vectra L2. It would drive both tanks plus a UV sterilizer, media reactors (purigen and carbon), and an algae scrubber. The returns to both tanks would leave the manifold as 1” vinyl, I used 1”x (2) 3/4” Y adaptors to split the 1” feeds into (2) 3/4” lines to feed the locline on both tanks. The UV sterilizer, reactor, and scrubber feeds are all 1/2”, with an additional 1/2” valve for future needs. I built the manifold out of 1 1/2” pvc. I normally build a return into my manifolds that flows unused water back into the sump, which keeps head pressure of the pump. With a DC return I didn’t need this return, the pump can just be turned down.

All the pieces of the manifold cleaned and ready for glue.

The finished product. I solvent welded the ball valves in pairs to make sure everything lined up. It was easy to line the pairs up as they went together. I left enough pipe on the end, before the cap, that another pvc tee can be added if the extra 1/2” feed isn’t enough in the future. This would also give me a place to attach a support to this end of the manifold.

Getting the manifold level and welded in.

I attached a threaded rod to the far end of the manifold and supported it from the bottom of the stand. I was worried that full of water, the manifold would weight enough to rip the bulkhead out of the top of the sump. It was risk I didn’t want to take. The plywood this attaches to is 3/4” and the screws penetrate 1/4” so I wasn’t worried about damaging the bottom of the display.

I played with several different ways to plumb the return pump into the manifold. Vinyl tube, spa tube, different placements of the pump, etc. I had hoped to go straight up from the pump to the manifold but this put too much pressure against the electrical connection at the back of the pump. This setup seemed like the best compromise. I had to shave down both sides of the elbows to make them fit right. The ring you see between the bottom of the elbows and the top of the pump is a pvc reducer, not pvc pipe. The output of the Vectra is 1 1/4” and I built the manifold out of 1 1/2” pvc. I increased the pipe size here to try and avoid as much head pressure as possible with the 2 45s and the 90 degree at the top, before the manifold.

Everything together. I was real happy with how this turned out.

All the vinyl tube added.

Where the 1" vinyl tube splits to (2) 3/4” vinyl tubes that feed the returns on both tanks.

The reactors, UV sterilizer, and algae scrubber sit behind the display tank.

The drains from reactors, UV sterilizer, and algae scrubber. The returns to the tanks can be seen below them.

The reactor, UV sterilizer, and scrubber drains roughed into the sump.

I made a mess out of the fish room, it was time to clean up some and start in on the electronics.



With the plumbing out of the way, I turned my focus to the Apex and pump controllers. I also needed a place to mount the switches for the actuators. I looked at some of the commercial options from Ikea and Adaptive Reef, but eventually decided to make my own. I had a good idea of what I wanted pretty quick, building it would be another thing. I have never built a cabinet before.

The rough sketch of what I wanted. Once I started looking at it on the wall, I decided to build it in 2 parts. The first part would be the lower section with the energy bars. I decided to mount them as far back into the cubby I built for them as I could in order to leave some room in front for the power cables that will plug into them.

The whole thing started as a 1/2” x 5/8” frame. I nailed this together and screwed it to the wall.

The frame attached to the wall. I would have to build the cabinet around the drains from the fuge to the sump, and the return back to the frag tank.

I extended the frame out from the wall. This was built in several sections. I drilled out the two sections that went around the plumbing, then cut them in half. Cutting them in half made the holes slightly egg shaped so I had to sand them back out. I was able to slip the back section behind the plumbing and then pop it out and attach it to the frame. I ran short supports out from the back piece and used this to attach the front piece. Once the plumbing was covered, the rest of the top of the frame went on as one piece, as well as the bottom section.

A shot of the cabinets humble beginnings from the front. I attached boards across the cabinet that ran underneath and above the plumbing. These would be for wire management and to hold a set of cooling fans.

Test fitting the energy bars into the bottom of the cabinet. In the original design I wanted to mount the Apex break out boxes down here too, there wasn’t enough room.

A friend helped me layout the front door and cut all the squares and holes. The top 8 holes will hold the vortech and pump controllers. The Vectra controller has a 1/8” heatsink on the back of it so we routed out a section for it and drilled additional vents for it. The large square hole to the left will hold the Apex brain. The 3 boxes to the right of it will hold switches for the actuators. Of the 3 smaller squares, the most left one will hold the display actuator control, the middle switch will hold a switch that turns the actuator power supply on and off, while the right most smaller square will hold the control for the frag tank actuator. The 9 holes under that are for Apex modules. There is a blank section at the very bottom for future expansion. After the face of the door was cut, I added a 3/4’ x 1 1/2” border.

A second 3/4” x 1 1/2” was laid at a 90 degree angle on top of the first.

Test fitting the door to the frame of the cabinet. I also extended the bottom power section out so it was flush with the top cabinet, I also added a border to the bottom section.

Everything mounted. I ended up pushing the Apex modules out to the left and right some so they laid out better. I also had Modular Marine cut me a trim panel for the Apex brain. After I sanded it down, I didn’t like the way the brain sat in the square anymore. This was a nice cover-up. Everything run from this cabinet had to be extended into it. I ended up building 7 extension cables for the 6 MP40s and the Vectra L2. You know you’re working on a real project when you have to order from Digi-Key and Mouser. I ended up buying the cable itself from Digi-Key, part #T1420-5-ND, this is a 5 conductor, 22 awg cable and matched the factory Ecotech cable well. Mouser hooked up the Molex connectors, the male housings were part #538-39-01-2105, the female housing were part #538-39-01-2106, the male pins were part#538-39-00-0041, and the female pins were part #538-39-00-0039. I bought a generic crimper off Amazon to crimp on the pins. The pin will stick out of the crimper a little, all you need to crimp is where the wire attaches. If the pin is too far into the crimper, you will break the section of the pin the clicks into the plastic housing. After trying to hunt down a 3 pin, waterproof, DC power cable for a few days, I found the cable I needed at Reef Breeders to extend the DC pump power for the Skimz skimmer. The Apex modules required a combination of USB, BNC, TRRS, CAT 5, standard 2 conductor wires to extend all of its functionality into the cabinet. The only pieces I had trouble finding the right connectors for were the temperature probes. I ended up splicing in some 2 conductor wire into these lines to get them into the cabinet. While I was working on this part of the build, my company thankfully got some PPE money. This put me back to work for 8 weeks, leaving just evening and weekends to work on the cabinet. This made the cabinet build feel like it was stretching on forever. Without Covid, I’m afraid the Apex, pump controllers, and actuator controls would be spread out around the room. The 3 Apex modules on the left side are all VDMs. The 3 modules in the middle are (2) FMMs with a PM2 module on the bottom. The 3 on the right are (2) LSMs and the WXM module. The brain is an Apex EL so the VDMs and PM2 had to be added.

I added a touch screen to the top of the cabinet. It will be driven by a small Dell computer and will run the Apex software via the local web browser. I will use Apex Fusion outside my network/home.

The inside of the cabinet wired up. The power supplies along the top are for the 6 MP40s. To the right of them are the Vectra and Dell power supplies (The Dell PS sits on top of the Vectra supply). Underneath the MP40 supplies are 2 Apex break out boxes. One box has 5 float switches attached to it that will notify me that dosing containers are low. The 6th on this box is connected to a Davy Jones locker switch that will shut down the skimmer when it’s full. The 2nd break out box has reed switches attached to it that turn LED strips on and off then sections of the cabinet are opened and closed. To the right of the BOBs is the switch and Skimz power supplies. Under the switch PS is the switch itself, a Ubiquiti POE switch. It has an uplink, Apex Classic, Apex 2016, Dell, and a Ubiquiti POE camera plugged into it. The camera monitors the 150 gallon system now. I will be adding 3 more POE cams for the new system in the near future. Under the switch is the power supply for the actuators and a power strip that stays on all the time. Tucked into the bottom left corner of the cabinet it small Dell optiplex desktop. The large umbilical coming out of the middle feeds everything attached to the front of the cabinet door. I also attached an led strip to the inside lip so I could see to work inside the cabinet.

I used a 4” piece of PVC as a conduit to run all the extension cables through. This is from the display side, there is also an opening behind the frag tank.

I added some grey glass to the cabinet door. I wanted tinted to knock down the brightness of the LEDs some.

LED strips added to the lip of the front door. These will turn on and off when the glass door is opened and closed.

I attached refugium lights underneath the display and frag tank stands. These are Kessil H80’s. I ended up being real uncomfortable with how far the mounting screws extended into the plywood underneath both stands. I ended up glueing in a wooden block and then screwing the lights to those blocks underneath both stands.

I got tired of drilling holes in the steel stand pretty fast. To get around this, I started glueing cable tie mounts to ceramic magnets. This was much easier to place the cable tie mounts exactly where I needed.

MP40s mounted on the display tank.

The build as it sits at this point. There is still lots of programming to do, plus rock sand, and water. I was very proud of what I had done so far.

A better shot of the conduit that runs between the display, cabinet, and frag tank. I also built a small platform over the conduit for the ATO container.

This is one of the more impressive builds I have seen! WOW! Keep us updated!

 

[revhtree]

I added some grey glass to the cabinet door. I wanted tinted to knock down the brightness of the LEDs some.

Can you give us some more details on this cabinet?

 

[sprice]

Amazing new set up!

Thanks!

 

[sprice]

That is amazing, I wish I had the money to do everything that you are doing. But I am a beginner.. I am upgrading from a 32g to a 72g once I move. I even have a sump. The thing is I dont completely understand how the sump works. So reading some of this stuff helps a lot. But it is looking beautiful.

This will be my 4th saltwater system and I'm not sure what number aquarium overall. It has taken years to feel comfortable building to this point.

You can spend as much money in this hobby as you want to. Lol. It doesn't always buy you much. I hope I've invested in some quality gear that will keep this fun instead of always having to fix or maintain it. Some things are more expensive but have proven themselves to me in the past. I started with a BioCube almost 10 years ago, this hobby will grow your patience.

To me the sump is a place to keep the life support gear for the system, I like to leave my display tank pretty clean. The sump is a good place for heaters, skimmers, extra rock, UV sterilizers, anything you don't want hanging inside or off your tank. It also provides a place for more water, which leads to more stability. Everything you see is a product of these forums, I just read build after build after build thread over the years.

Thanks for the compliment.

 

[sprice]

Can you give us some more details on this cabinet?

Here is a video I made:


It starts with a quick tour of the room and then mainly focuses on the cabinet, inside and out. There is a lot going on. Anything specific you'd like to know?

 

[sprice]

I realized this morning that I skipped over the 2nd half of the Apex modules in the video. Below the (2) FMM modules is a PM2. I knew going in I wanted 2 break out boxes and 2 temp probes. This made buying the Apex EL an easy decision. The right column is (2) LSM modules and the WXM for the vortechs. The display has a 5 LED string of moonlights and the frag has 4 LED string.

 

[sprice]

The new system has been up and running a little more than a month now and seems to be doing well. I did have a small outbreak of dinoflagellates but they disappeared after about 10 days. As they started to recede, I added the first round of clean up crew. In addition to the snails and crabs that came with the rock, I added 20 red and blue leg hermits, 20 margarita snails, 5 zebra turbos, 20 nassarius, 5 brittle stars, 5 peppermint shrimps, and a small tuxedo urchin. About a week after the dinos went away, hair algae showed up:

We were worried the small blue tuxedo urchin (top, middle of pic) had disappeared. Turned out he was just cruising the same rock we put him on, he's just covered in algae now. Lol.


I was expecting the hair algae but caught me off guard as I hadn't detected any ammonia or phosphates. I did realize after testing this morning that my test kits expired last year so I have new Salifert Ammonia, Nitrate, and Phosphate test kits on the way. About a week ago I added a lawnmower blenny to the display:



He's a cutie, and a hard worker.

With the outbreak of hair algae, I also fired up the UV Sterilizer.

It took me a couple days to get the flow dialed in. I don't think I had enough flow going through it so there wasn't any impact for a few days. After adjusting the flow, the algae in the display has thinned out quite a bit. I'm glad I used the clear bulkheads that came with the sterilizer to plumb it, they give it a cool glow. I plan on running the sterilizer 24/7.

The frag tank has also gotten a few new inhabitants:

While picking up some frags that were moved around the old frag tank by a devil damsel, I broke a piece of birdsnest off a small colony. Rather than glue it to a plug and leave it in the old system, I knew my parameters weren't terrible in the new system, so I threw the accidental frag into the new frag tank. I watched it a few days and it was doing great. I decided to move a small piece of digitata and an acro that weren't happy in the old system either. The small piece of digitata took off, it colored up in a few days and had great polyp extension. The acro finished bleaching out unfortunately. I had a second, larger, piece of digitata that was also not happy in the old system. SInce the smaller frag did so well, I moved the larger piece in a week or so later. It is starting to color up and have some polyp extension, although much slower than the smaller frag. I also found a couple saddleback clowns for sale at the LFS. I couldn't pass them up. I have a mated pair of Ocellaris in my old display that will go into the new display, so this pair went into the new frag tank. I wasn't ready to throw an anemone in there just yet, so I put a small euphyllia frag in there hoping they'd host it. They have not as of yet. A small rock of mushrooms was also pulled out of the current display and added to the new frag tank, just to see what they did. Their color is amazing under the Reef Breeders and they seem to be very happy.

The accidental birdsnest frag, small digi, and the euphyllia for the clowns.

The larger digi that seems to be recovering. It was almost completely bleached out when I moved it over.

Superman Ricordeas are all happy. The small brain frag to the right had no visible flesh left when I dropped it into the new frag tank. After a few days, there is visible flesh that has good color and appears healthy.

I've also had the opportunity to correct a couple small plumbing mistakes. The primary drain standpipe between the frag tank and the fuge was too long. It extended almost 13" under the water level. This added a lot of air pressure that took forever to purge out. I cut it back so it is just 2" below the water line now. I rinsed my PVC cutters real well with tap water, making sure to give every surface a good scrub. I then rinsed it with RO real well. I packed the 45 degree elbow attached to the main drain between the fuge and sump with purigen, and cut the stand pipe in place, under water. It worked well but put more pressure on the rest of the plumbing than I expected. I was worried the bulkhead was going to pop at one point.

I took 11" off the primary drain standpipe between the frag tank and refugium.

The standpipe now extends just 2" below the water level. The water level in the external section of the weir on the frag tank dropped almost 1.5" after cutting this stand pipe, much more efficient.

I took about 3" off the primary drain standpipe between the fuge and sump also. You can see what's left of the standpipe just behind the skimmer to the left.

It now extends just 2" below the water surface also.

I wasn't able to get the cutters into the section of the sump where the display drains are. The primary display drain standpipe extends into the water 5-6", I'd love to cut it back to just 2" also. I will figure something out. I did place my hand under this pipe and there is not a ton of pressure there so it is not a priority.

The moonlights for the two tank are fully functional, the LSM modules needed to be setup. The display has a 5 led string and the frag tank has a 4 led string. I run the cool blue and uv channels off the reef breeders while transitioning into the apex moonlight each night/morning.

Display moonlights, right down the middle.

Frag tank moonlights in a square arrangement.

I finally got the salinity and PH probes for the Apex calibrated and into their holders. I remember this being a pain on the apex classic and was putting it off for some reason. The apex 2016 made it a breeze.

PH, Salinity, and one of the Temperature probes. This temperature probe controls the heaters, there is a second temp probe in the external weir section of the frag tank to make sure the heat propagates through the system.

Probe outputs added to Apex dashboard. TMP is the temperature probe in the sump, TMPx9 is in the external section of the weir on the frag tank. The frag tank stays about a degree cooler than the display.

When I originally setup the room, I added a dehumidifier and plumbed it to drain into our water softener drain that was just on the other side of the wall from it. I'm glad I put that sucker in. With the cooler weather, our AC is not running nearly as much as it had for the last month. The humidifier is set to come on automatically at 50% and has been running a lot the last few days. I need to adjust its drain line some as it has sagged with use.

Picked up a Danby from the local Costco. It's rated for 50 pints a day. I expected between 4-5 gallons of evaporation per day so it will work great. There is a vinyl tube that runs just behind the top of the water storage tanks to a drain in the garage.

Where the drain for the dehumidifier drops down from behind the water storage tanks and goes through the wall into the garage.

The line drains into the water softener drain in the garage. It's only about a 12' run from the back of the unit into the drain in the garage. On a side note, the RO/DI system in the fsh room is fed off the manifold above the dehumidifier drain line. It is the clear 1/4" line that runs off to the right. The waste water line for the RO/DI system also drains back into this drain.

I still feel like there is a ton to do. Depending on how fast this hair algae goes away, I still have media reactors and the algae scrubber to fire up. I will prolly run some phosban in the reactors soon just to help this hair algae along. I also have 4 more versa dosing pumps and the dosing containers that need to be installed. I use air to keep my dosing liquids stirred, that pump will need to be installed and powered as well. I will add a 4th energy bar under the display somewhere. I have the swabbie and some led lights that go under the stand that will need power in that area. The energy bar at the back of the display is full already. I've ordered some more marco rocks to try my hand at negative space aquascaping. I'm hoping to build up some stands with rock and place some large acrylic frag trays on top of them for the frag tank. If they come out like the idea in my head, they'll look real slick. There are 3 screen tops for the display and 1 for the frag tank that still need to be built. The 1st 90% is easy, it's the 2nd 90% that'll get ya. Thanks for looking. Stay tuned.

 

[sprice]

I made some good progress on the system this week. There is still plenty of hair algae but it seems to be slowly dying off, finally.

The first thing I did was change the nozzles on the end of the locline in the diaplay.

The old nozzles were flared out and I didn't feel like flow was making it anywhere in the tank.

I switched to the round nozzles in hopes they would push water further into the tank. A peninsula style tank is tricky in terms of flow. You have a much narrower space to get water out but at the the same time you need water, and the junk floating on the surface, to flow into your weir so it can be filtered. I am still playing with the flow for sure. It seems like if I point the nozzles down, the surface of the water gets skimmed better. Crud seems to accumulate on the surface of the water in the far end of the tank more than I'm used to.

The Phosguard and Purigen showed up before the new test kits did. I didn't want to waste any time so I added the media to the reactors and started pushing water through them.

Until I took the reactor canister off, I'd forgotten I had to jog the input to the uv filter over. The wrench for the reactors would not fit otherwise. The UV doesn't have a ton of flow so I wasn't worried about the two elbows back to back.

Phosguard on the left and Purigen on the right. I must have spilled some Purigen on the filter bag when I was adding it, as I started flowing water into the reactors, a bit of purigen came out of its reactor. Luckily I'd placed the output of the reactors into my filter socks in case that very thing happened. The Phosguard and Purigen are finally starting to make a difference in the hair algae. I feel like I woke up one morning and it was gone when I cycled my old system. I'm ready for the hair algae to go on and get.

Mr Blenny enjoys the algae, I do not.

I ended up getting the new test kits the next day and still found no trace of ammonia or nitrates. Convinced I had done the tests wrong, I repeated it a couple more times with the same result. After using a Hanna checker for alkalinity, and Icecaps new tester for salinity, I've become leary of titration (or colorimetric?) tests that the results have to be interpreted. I ordered a Seneye. I'll be danged if it didn't tell me the exact same thing as the Salifert tests.

I still need to calibrate the PH and Temp but the Seneye is a cool little device, PH, Ammonia, and a par meter for $200? Seemed like a deal. The replacement test slides are about $10 and last a month too. I am anxious to try out the par meter. There is also a potential dissolved oxygen graph that is cool. While not a direct measurement, it is cool to see how that could be effected.

The big project for the week though was reinforcing the shelf for the quarantine system.

The quarantine system will live in what I hoped would be an off the shelf heavy duty shelving unit from HD. It gave me a place to put the tanks and sumps, as well as a place to mount the lights for the tanks and a little bit of storage. Being able to put the dehumidifier up there and out of the way was huge.

After adding a layer of 3/4" maple plywood, my hopes were high that I could just put the tanks and sumps n the stand and start plumbing. Unfortunately, after adding just 60 gallons of water, the middle of the shelf bowed about a 1/4", the shelving unit would have to be reinforced.

I thought about just attaching a 2x4 vertical support in the middle but I really didn't want to run the 2x4 down the outside of the shelving unit. There was a horizontal cross support in the middle where the vertical support needed to go on the inside. So then I thought I could attache a piece of 2x4 to the metal support on the inside, then attach new horizontal cross braces and the vertical support to that. Well, then I thought if I'm doing that I may as well replace all the horizontal cross supports and run the 2x4 down the length of the main horizontal supports. May as well do it right. After starting to measure things out, it became clear I could not simply slap a 2x4 on the inside of the horizontal supports, they were only 2.5" tall, ugh, everything would have to be cut down. Then I had the challenge of how to build the frame and attach it to the horizontal supports. I couldn't do one side and then attach the second sides support, both horizontal supports would have to be in place to measure the new cross braces, or so I thought. I decided to trim all the 2x4s that would make up the new shelves down to 2.5". The long horizontal supports would be glued into the metal brackets, and then I would run 4" lag screws through the metal support, 2x4, and into the new 2x4 horizontal cross braces. This was going to be interesting if anything.

The stand with the wire racks and plywood tops removed. There were only 3 metal cross supports before, I was going to put 6 in the new shelves.

These were the old horizontal cross supports. The have a little tab on the bottom that sits in a slot on the longer horizontal supports, but that's about the only thing holding them in place. The top edge is also somewhat flimsy without the 4th side.

Once I got the long horizontal pieces cut, I took some scrap wood to put in the metal part of the supports so I could measure the cross braces. This allowed me to get everything cut, sanded, painted, and drilled. I wanted to do as much of the work outside the fish room as possible. I didn't mind assembling the new shelves in the room but I wanted to avoid drilling as much as possible.

The wood after a good sanding.

The new wood horizontal supports glued and clamped into the metal supports. I set them with the wood down so the glue had a better chance of attaching.

Here they are in place with the new horizontal cross bracing. I ended up having to cut both sets of cross braces a second time and repaint those ends. I am not sure where I was off in my measurements the first time.

Inside vertical support clamped in so pilot holes can be drilled and attach it to the stand.

I got to use my handy dandy extension bit to get around the clamp.

After the inside supports were in place, I added a second vertical support that runs between the two shelves to help carry some of the load. A third piece was added under the bottom shelf to transfer some of that load into the floor. I used standard construction screws to attach the second support to the first.

The wire decking had to have a couple notches cut out of it to get around the new vertical support. This made the girlfriend nervous, she'd never seen me cut metal before.

Metal decking around the vertical support.

The plywood that goes on top of the wire deck also had to have a couple notches cut out of it.

Everything back in place. For a little motivation, I had to put the quarantine sumps from Modular Marine in place. Each sump also has a Skimz skimmer. There will be two 40 gallon breeders and those tanks will be lit with two 24" Reefbreeder Photon V2+s also. Since one tank is to quarantine corals, I wanted it lit with the same light as the rest of the system.

There is still a lot to do. This week I will be adding an CO2 scrubber in hopes of raising my PH some. I tried the ole open a window for a day trick and it didn't make much of a difference. I'm hoping the scrubber will do the job. I also have dosing to setup and some rock to do a negative space aquascape with for the frag tank. Thanks for checking it out.

 

[coseal]

amazing!