50 gallon sumpless build

[Fmelindy]

Hi everyone, I am a new poster here, having been reading the forum for some time and getting lots of great information.

I am from Newfoundland in Canada and, while not new to reefing,have been out of the hobby for almost 10 years, while going through some fairly fundamental life changes including overcoming serious illness and a divorce.

Anyway, no sob stories! I am ready to start again. My new wife has been quite reluctant to let me venture down this path again, having lived through a significant incident involving my last 125 gallon tank wherein the hose popped off my return pump in the night and sprayed the contents of my sump all over the cabinet and floor. This was simply stupidity, I didn't have the hose on the return pump clamped, utter stupidity and praying for an accident.

So, long story short, I have convinced her to let me try again with a smaller water volume and no sump - she is now totally paranoid. So my latest system is built completely with safety in mind and, since she is so paranoid about spills, is only permitted in my concrete floor workshop with a floor drain. So this system is not about being pretty. I will be using a 50 gallon 36x18x18 tank as it is a good footprint for aquascaping and is a decent water volume. Using a combo of dry rock and live from an existing reefers tank to seed.

Consequently I have put a lot of thought into safety, both from a spill's perspective and an electricity perspective so here are the measures I have built into my build:

1. Overbuilt 2x4 stand
2. Oversized stand so that there can be a trough around the aquarium in case of sizable leaks
3. This trough is lined with heavy plastic sheet and has a drain to two large rubbermaid style tubes that can together hold the entire volume of water in the tank.
4. Leak sensors will be positioned at two places in the trough connected to a profilux
5. The profilux and all associated wiring for all components is mounted on a board on the wall behind and above the tank at a distance of around 2 feet.
6. The stand is open to and built over the concrete floor drain and is left open for easy access - again, not built for looks!
7. All equipment is hang on, no sump
8. The totes under the stand will also serve as ATO and AWC (not anticipating actually using them for a drain for a catastrophic leak but only 5 gallons of RO and 5 gallons of fresh salt will be in these at a a time, so the majority of space here can be used just in case. I work from home so keeping this topped up should not be a problem
9. Webcams (wyze) will be setup to monitor both front and back of the tank 24/7.
10.profilux will completely monitor and control the tank with all bells and whistles and appropriate alerts and reminders
11. Everything will be on a GFCI circuit
12. Skimmer cup will have level sensor for shut off in case of overflow

Whew, that sounds like a lot. Have I missed anything?

In the meantime my goal for this system is to keep SPS, which I acknowledge will be challenging with no sump. To that end, I have the following equipment :

Deltec mce600 HOB skimmer
HOB reactors for GFO, carbon and possibly biopellets
Profilux ph, redox, salinity and temp monitoring and control
Schuran calcium reactor setup which will be fed off the reactor pump for now
Vortech mp40qdw
Two blackbox LEDs, this will be upgraded at some point
Profilux simu LED moonlight and thunderstorm simulation for coolness (!)
Sea swirl return for the reactor pump
Seneye for PAR monitoring

For looks, my plan is to have an "overflow box" built in the back middle of the tank which can house heater, reactor pump, skimmer intake, level sensors for ATO and AWC. Of course ,there will be no standpipe or anything because this is not a drilled tank but looking forward to a time when I may be possibly permitted to do this at least the box will be in place.

My question is, will this work or what does it mean for my husbandry. It seems like a great idea to me but I cant shake the feeling I have forgotten something.

Pics will follow and will not be pretty, I am not ready to go yet but even when I am, this setup is built for safety, not aesthetics. If I ever move to a living area I will have to completely reimagine the setup but I imagine that is years off.

Thanks for reading, and great to be back and to get to know you all and learn from your wisdom.

 

[Fmelindy]

So here are the pics as promised, very much a work in progress mind you and nowhere near ready for prime time. This first pic is the tank and stand. The tank only has black background on the side because I ran out of black vinyl and the "overflow box" will occupy that space anyway. Never mind the random stuff strewn about, it will all be tidied away as I get closer to launch.

Second pic is of the side shelves and cabinet. The cabinet will house all my testing kits and supplements and is a stand for my little "QT" tank to temporarily house coral frags and small fish for inspection. This has some work to do as well but you get the idea. The shelves are for the controller and dosing pump and dosing containers, not ready for those yet either - will add magnetic stirrers to each one. I have another stand alone dosing pump I have not set up there yet,still trying to figure out what I will need to dose.

Third pic is of the space behind the tank where the equipment will be set up, again it is a work in progress and not everything is there yet but you get the idea. Skimmer is still on my curing rock in a rubbermaid. Lots of space behind there and the drain is there for safety, you can also see the trough lined with plastic.

Last one is the controller board. Still have some stuff to add there too, including another PAB bar that is currently controlling the heater on my curing rock in the rubbermaid as well. Lots of tidying up to do there as well but I'm excited to see it all coming together.

So there you have it, I'm probably still a month or so away from go live but the foundation is getting put in place.

 

[Fmelindy]

By way of what I'm planning to keep here I was thinking mixed reef with SPS and LPS mostly but I've also always liked gorgonians so I might go there as well if I can find some nice ones (st. John's NL is not exactly reefing central).

Fish:
2 percula clown fish
Royal gramma
Purple firefish
Fairy wrasses and flasher wrasses
Pistol shrimp and Randall's shrimp goby if I can find one
Big maybe: yellow tang
Even bigger maybe and much later: mandarin

Coral:
Hammer/torch/frogspawn
Acans
Possibly some mixed colorful zoos
Acros
Stylophora
Seriatopora
Pocillopora
Montipora
... you know, your basic mixed SPS, I like em all really
Australian elegance
Possibly: nice goni if I can find a hardy one

I have also had good luck with and love some clams that I may go for later and I would really like some fromia starfish which I have also had good luck with in the past

Any comments on the stock list? See any red flags here?

By the way, what are the best beginner snails for CUC? I am thinking which snails are most likely to be able to right themselves when they flip over?

Oh, and the tank is going to have about 40 to 50 lb of live rock and a 1 or so inch fine sand bed

 

[Fmelindy]

Lol I think I must have put a particularly boring title on my thread!

 

[ScubaFish802]

I’ve had good luck with Margarita, Turbo, and Nassarius snails

 

[AKReef]

I like your thoughts on going with a "spill free" system, but I would think that having a sump is a more failsafe design than all the HOB equipment. Though it does look like you have a trough below it all in case of failure. I just think you're introducing more points of failure with the HOB equipment, rather than running similar equipment in a sump. Just my humble opinion.

I always love looking at other people's setups though. Lots of new toys to play with there!

 

[Fmelindy]

What do you all think of trochus snails? Those good to start with?

Yes i agree with you on your assessment of HOB equipment representing a bigger risk for leaks than a sump, but unfortunately the wife does not see it this way! Lol so I am left with trying to figure out how to make this particular set up as safe as possible.

 

[AKReef]

What do you all think of trochus snails? Those good to start with?

Yes i agree with you on your assessment of HOB equipment representing a bigger risk for leaks than a sump, but unfortunately the wife does not see it this way! Lol so I am left with trying to figure out how to make this particular set up as safe as possible.

Well, what ever it takes, right?

 

[Fmelindy]

Just wanted to post some pics of my last reef from around 10 years ago. It was a 50 gallon as well. My current build is coming along but held up by waiting on my acrylic overflow box. Just figured I'd keep things moving here with a post. This is kind of what I'm aiming for with this tank as well, nice mixed reef, good color, good growth.

 

[Fmelindy]

I really enjoyed this tank. Nice mix of corals.. closed brain, elegance, bubble coral, beautiful gorgonians, a couple softies, some acros and other sticks, some encrusting sps, plating monti, few zoos and a couple clams. Growth was actually a problem in this tank, some of the corals got difficult to keep trimmed back and nobody local seemed to want any frags, even free!

Fish were clowns, fairy wrasses, a yellow tang and a mandarin. I tried to kep the fish load down to keep the nutrients down and ran gfo, gac and biopellets. Had DIY LED lights, small bubble magus skimmer and that's about it. I actually ran into trouble at the end with nutrients at zero.. didnt know it at the time, didnt think it was possible to run into problems with nutrients too low! Some of the SPS started looking a little worse for wear, but then divorce came and it became a footnote and when i moved ,the whole thing crashed and died.

That was when I learned that you cant move an established (I.e. full of detritus) bed of sand without a plan lol

Ah I am laughing now but I was literally crying at the time! What a tragedy for all those beautiful animals

 

[Fmelindy]

So I am just about ready to go now, slow progress. Here is the last shot before I fill her up with rock, sand and water. The acrylic box is made and installed and hides everything nicely.

 

[Fmelindy]

And I'm up and running! Pretty proud of how this one turned out... safe and looks good, very clean in-tank view. The "overflow box" idea really helped out there. Aquascape is not finished but overall looking good so far.... now for livestock, give it a couple weeks. Cycle is done weeks ago.

 

[Fmelindy]

Latest pic from the sumpless build. Clowns and snails added, also have a goby and pistol shrimp, probably not possible to see on this shot. Algae growing now so will have to adjust CUC to suit growth. Lowering phosphate with GFO, right now its between 0.03 and 0.25 on salifert kit. Nitrates less than 5. Ph 8.1, temp 78. Thinking about replacing the vortech with a couple of nero 3s. Dont like seeing the big mp40 head and one pump on this tank is just not enough to clear detritus on the side the vortech is mounted on.