4ddiction’s 60g Mixed Reef Build

[4ddiction]

My ph was staying around 7.91 - 8.1. So I decided to make a fresh air intake for the skimmer since the sump is in the basement. I took a 1” pvc pipe and filled it with some carbon media to act as a snorkel for the outside air. Added some foam to the intake elbow to block any critters. On the bottom of the snorkel I added fittings to run my tubing to my skimmers air intake.

I’ll kee an eye on the ph and see if this helps or not.

 

[4ddiction]

So far no crazy change has happened to the pH. It hit peak at 8.17. Going to keep it going for a few days to see if any significant change occurs

 

[4ddiction]

My oxydator finally came in from Germany. Just gotta wait on my 12% h2o2 to arrive. Excited to test out this piece of “equipment”

 

[Kid_Vegas]

You guys with basements make me jealous, I wish I could have a fish room / area to put my equipment.

 

[4ddiction]

You guys with basements make me jealous, I wish I could have a fish room / area to put my equipment.

Haha I waited many years to be able to do this. Just made the addiction even worse haha

 

[Scott chilton]

New reefer to these forums. Starting a new build since I am moving locations of my tank. Decided to start a thread to document and share my progress enjoy!

Background:
Started my addiction to salt water tanks about 8 years ago. First tank was a 6g where I had no clue what I was doing. Slowly I learned via my own mistakes and help from various reefing sites. I ditched the 6g and started up a 40g with a 10g sump.

Over time the 40g became a mixed reef with decent success!

Tank was growing and doing well until hurricane Sandy came around and we lost power for 9 days straighht. 98% of everything died. I had fish die in my hands as I tried to keep the tank warm/oxygenated. The sole two survivors were the black clown fish and one blue reef chromis who are still alive and well today.

I rebuilt the tank with foam rock walls but it was short lived as I soon found out the bottom of the tank was cracked and started to leak. So the project was scrapped.

Finally I purchased a 60g cube rimless tank and it flourished once again.

The tank was up and running for a few years but it eventually experienced a crash most likely due to an Alkalinity swing. I lost some fish, most sps and lps. The zoanthids managed to survive and took over the tank.

The Move

Present day I have moved to a new house and the 60g was still at my parents home. I always wanted to go larger (Red Sea 750xxl) but I had to move the tank to my house. So i began building a fish sump room in the basement and kept the 60g tank upstairs. The entire fish room was designed with the 750xxl in mind as a future upgrade. Hope you guys enjoy the build!

Equipment

Tanks

• 60g 24” Rimless Cube
• Trigger System 39 Sump
• 18”x18”x10” frag tank

Lighting

• Ecotech Radion G4
• Kessil H160 Flora
• Led frag light

Flow

• Ecotech Mp10s
• Iwaki MD55rlt

Filtration

• Vertex Omega 150 skimmer
• BRS reactor w/ Carbon
• 10L of 25mm Siporax Ceramic media
• 3 filter socks
• Cheato fuge

Cooling and heating

• 1/4hp chiller
• Eheim Jagger 150w x 2

Electrical

• Two dedicated 20amp electrical circuits
• Apex Lite
• Apex PH module
• Apex WXM, VDM module
• Avast Marine break out box
• Avast Marine skimmer swabbie
• Avast Marine RO Barrel tender
• Grounding probe
• Custom undersump LED lighting

The Build

Built a monster stand to house the sump tank, equipment and frag tank.

Along the wall I hung up a base to house the equipment feed and return manifold. The return and drain lines are plumbed along the wall as well.

Drilled sump for external filter

Plumbing galore

Used a laundry plumbing line box for the upstairs to keep the plumbing somewhat neat.

Completed the main drain lines for the herbie overflow, and the main return line upstairs.

Picked up a 44g brute trash can to house my fish during the move and while I set up the display tank with its new aquascape.

Waiting on BRS to deliver some more goodies so I can turn my current 4 stage water filter into a 7 stage water filtration system.

Started to make RO/DI water for the sump to run a leak test on the basement plumbing. So far no leaks on the manifold system!

In addition I plumbed in my second RO filter to my drinking water filter system. Probably the best upgrade was the addition of a permeate pump and removal of the stock ASOV which has increased my pressure. Increased pressure at my refrigerator and ice maker which is great! With the addition the system currently sits like so:

• 5 micro sediment filter
• 5 micron VOC carbon
• 1 micron carbon
• 75 GPD RO membrane plumbed in series with anothe 75 creating a 150 GPD permeate
  • Tees into drinking water loop with omnipure filter
• Other portion of tee feeds DI resins
  • Cation DI resin
  • Anion DI resin
  • Mixed DI resin

Town TDS:

• 387 PPM

Drinking water TDS

• 20 PPM

Reef Rodi water TDS

• 0 PPM

Set up my Avast Marine Barrel tender to ensure maximum and most efficient resin consumption.

The Big Move

​

Been a crazy few weekends but the move happened and the tank is all set up.

Temporary holding tank where the fish lived for a day and half. Had to paint the stand along with the back and bottom of the tank.

Thank god for lasers making hanging of the Radion G4 a lot easier

So far I have a carbon filter running along with the skimmer. Waiting on my chaetomorpha to be delivered.

Also have 3 jars of various copepods arriving to stock the refugium and the new rock.

 

[Scott chilton]

ur thread is really inspiring me to do a basement sump. Ive been wanting to do it for SO long and just havent pulled the trigger. After browsing through ur build and looking at ur pic, IM DOING IT!!! our basements are pretty darn similar. hope you dont mind if i "borrow" some of ur ideas. Keep up the great work my friend. ill be sure to send u some pics of my build

 

[4ddiction]

ur thread is really inspiring me to do a basement sump. Ive been wanting to do it for SO long and just havent pulled the trigger. After browsing through ur build and looking at ur pic, IM DOING IT!!! our basements are pretty darn similar. hope you dont mind if i "borrow" some of ur ideas. Keep up the great work my friend. ill be sure to send u some pics of my build

Pull the trigger and do it! A little more work but definitely worth the extra space. My previous tanks had sumps under the DT and I hated working on the sump in the cabinet.

 

[4ddiction]

Added my oxydator to the tank today. Took 12% hydrogen peroxide and cut it down to 9%. Starting with only one catalyst. We’ll see how she clears up the water.

 

[4ddiction]

Finished painting the trim in the fish room. Here’s how the tank sits

 

[4ddiction]

Finishing up the last of the sump. Organized one of my drawers with some kaizen foam.

Also setup part of my dosing distribution, of course I had to color code everything.

 

[4ddiction]

Hooked up and programmed the avast skimmate locker so I can continue to wet skim.

 

[Lorenzo Angotti]

Welcome and you certainly know your stuff! amazing pipework, good luck on your build

 

[4ddiction]

Welcome and you certainly know your stuff! amazing pipework, good luck on your build

Thank you! Just have to wait for the parameters to stable up.

 

[4ddiction]

Can anyone ID some of this nuisance algae growing on my macro chaeto? It’s almost slime like, and gets air trapped in it so some of it floats. Brownish green color maybe? Any ideas?

 

[4ddiction]

Trying out some rowaphos to clean up some nuisance algae.

 

[4ddiction]

Got the barrel tender up and running with my rodi. Changed all of the filters so rodi water should be on point.

The barrel tender will allow me to utilize my three stage resin more efficiently.

 

[4ddiction]

This skimmate locker was totally worth it.
Saved my butt on overflows twice.

Current state

 

[4ddiction]

Really loving this thing. Allowing me to skim as wet as I want.

 

[Spanky05]

Great looking build!

How's it going?

Does your boatload of siporax keep both nitrates and phos low or just nitrates?