5ft of questionable decisions....

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Knology

Knology

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Big update.....cause what better things do I have to do? Funny how much I'm getting done locked up in the house....


It starts.
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They take a bit to break in, but they do work well.
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Plumbing ****.
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Realized I never took a pic of how the overflow setup is accessible. Not bad. Has a door that closes over it.
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Knology

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Well, we are water testing. Some ups, and down, and leaks. I'm struggling right now to get what is a pinhole leak I sense in the seal behind the Shadow Overflow. I think these things are very sensitive of any pressure on the seals.

So, I had to change the standpipe heights in the overflow box. Got that dialed in and finally understand how you tune a Bean Animal overflow.

I have ordered the rest of what I "need". No lighting yet. Not a need.

- 200g worth of Reef Crystals. Cheap for now as most of this water will be cycled out well before I have fish or coral. $39 bucks isn't bad to start. I'll run Tropic Marin Pro afterwards.
-I'll be running 2 DCP-20000's as main returns. Both on a 1" PVC line. I'm running 1 now. Seems to work great on about 50%
- Running two VCA random flow generators 1". Not sure if these will be awesome or not. Maybe it was an impulse buy.
- Ordered the 600w Bulk Reef Supply heater kit. I'll order a second 600w heater so I spread these out among two.
-Order a small little pump to help suck water out of the tank/sump when it is time to drain it off the test water and or water changes in the future.
-4 stage RODI kit on the way.

I'll be using all this extra time to put together my saltwater missing station over the next week.

More to come.


Even I have to admit this is looking good...
BTW, the top shelf on the left will house 2x 20L quarantine tanks.
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Yeah baby....took me long enough.
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This JaxRacks kit is incredible. I feel like I have a $1k sump. Baffle height is 15" so this has great volume.
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You have to do some research on the standpipe height. Dialing this in takes some trail and error.
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cmaxwell39

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Looks good. Glad to see it finally coming together for you. Nice clean job on the plumbing.

How much flow do you feel you are getting from the DCP-20000?? Just curiuous. Also, how much head to you think you are running??
 

Bo.

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Sock inserts look very similar to mine from fijicube, I didn't press them in place well enough at first which led to excess sound. How is yours doing?
 
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They are decent. With it being a basement equipment room, I'm not too worried about sound. I have not gotten to dial in anything quite yet though. I've just been doing some water testing.
 
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Well, I got a lot done this weekend.

-RODI unit is plumbed in. I have a float valve on the way. That is the last piece.
- Saltwater mixing station is done. Kind of surprised I knocked that out in a weekend.
- Moved the light switch. When I put it in, I forgot about planning for the eventual door. I ended up putting the light switch behind the door. That had to change. I'll end up using the junction box left behind for a humidity controller for an eventual fan.

Next is getting some power ran. I'm going to grab 2x 15a breakers and swap out a dual 20a I don't need. Goes to a 240 plug in the garage I'll never use.

I'm going to run 2 circuits so I can spread out the power between the two. More so to put a pump on one, a pump on the other, and if one pops, it doesn't take out the whole system when I'm not looking.

What you can't see in the pictures is there is a room I have crawl-into access that is the dead space under the staircase. this is where I am going to store salt and keep my power management. Instead of having a lot of power outlets in the room itself, I'll keep them away from water in the adjacent room. Wires will mostly be run through access holes and managed on the other side. Plus, then I won't have to get all fancy with wire management.

Some pics of the weekend work.

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Yeah, I still need to take the wrappers off the filters. Have not run up the system yet.
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I am replacing the sink with a larger one from IKEA. This one is just toooo small. I'm getting one roughly double the size. The sprayer will be for washing anything. I figured I really didn't need a full faucet.
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I thought this turned out pretty neat. This is the outlet for the saltwater mixing station. So I can pump out RODI or saltwater to where ever I need.

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DeniseAndy

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Just read through this. Fantastic! Love the back and forth with where the tank should go. Too funny. I think in the kitchen it will get seen a lot. That is where it all eventually happens.

I have abasement fish room and looove it. Out of the way, can be noisy, separate. I go into that room and spend hours. Kids cannot find me that way. :)

Beautiful work on everything really. I knew the sink would not last long when I saw it. Way too small. :p

Cannot wait to see it with rock and water and sand. It will be a great adventure.
 

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Really nice work on everything here.
Hopefully you have done a shut down test making sure the sump can handle it.
 
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Knology

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OK, so.... i knocked out the aquascape. After several hours I got it to a point where I had to admit to was going to look as it as it could get but that was never the point.

Aquascaping is the worst part. You want it to look great but the fact is the rock is meant to be functional. Not aesthetic.

So, here is what I came up with. I got a bunch of shelf rock a while back from a guy and wanted to use it.

It is about 2/3 height on the left and 1/2 the height of the tank on the right. It has a great area all along the back for flow. Everything is tiered so that nothing is meant to cast a shadow over places I want coral to grow. Plus, plenty of places for the fish to add depth and complexity to the space.

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Scaping looks good! Varied heights, plenty of swim holes, etc. Very excited for the starting of the cycle!
 
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Knology

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Tank is full. Heater is in place and tank is up to temp. I've got three bags of salt in now and I'll fine tune the salinity tomorrow.

Guess it's time to start shopping for that 1 raw sacrificial shrimp to kick off the cycle. I was going to get the Dr Tim's stuff, but that's $100....
 

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