a ELOS 70 Mostly SPS BLOG - "My Final Build"

[Rotknee]

Now the fun begins! You know you have to be extra careful during the install. Your wife is going to be looking at you like "Don't you mess up my new floors!" LOL. How are you going to plumb the drain from the tank to your sump? On the 70 is the drain size 1.25" (or whatever the metric equivalent is)?

 

[cpllongjk]

Now the fun begins! You know you have to be extra careful during the install. Your wife is going to be looking at you like "Don't you mess up my new floors!" LOL. How are you going to plumb the drain from the tank to your sump? On the 70 is the drain size 1.25" (or whatever the metric equivalent is)?

I will check the sizes tonight. I believe the drain is 1.25" but will check tonight if its metric or standard sizing. Also the return I believe is 3/4" but will check also.

 

[cpllongjk]

Now the fun begins! You know you have to be extra careful during the install. Your wife is going to be looking at you like "Don't you mess up my new floors!" LOL. How are you going to plumb the drain from the tank to your sump? On the 70 is the drain size 1.25" (or whatever the metric equivalent is)?

Rotknee I was wrong, very sorry! The drain on the overflow is 1 1/2" or at least the tubing that comes with the tank is. I never measured the tubing and after ordering a 1" to 1 1/4" barbed adapter and it not working... I thought dang why did I not measure this first.

 

[cpllongjk]

Update. Since August I've had to wait on tank because of our house remodel. We've installed and blended hardwood flooring with the rest of the house, textured and painted the whole house and finally decided on a placement for the TANK.

Picture of the closet and flooring before the remodel.

Picture of closet demo'd so you can see potential.

Flooring getting installed next to tank.

Dry fit before doors above and below tank go in.

Picture of new tank with doors on. I cut one door to short and need to remake it.

Picture of the "closet" right next to the tank. The area below the tank is used for "stuff" and a massive 10 gallon top off reservoir.

Pictures of the rockwork. I will update pictures soon with my DSLR so the pics are better.

 

[Rotknee]

Rotknee I was wrong, very sorry! The drain on the overflow is 1 1/2" or at least the tubing that comes with the tank is. I never measured the tubing and after ordering a 1" to 1 1/4" barbed adapter and it not working... I thought dang why did I not measure this first.

No worries as I have yet to pull the trigger on a new tank. We may be moving soon and will be able to set my dream tank up at that time. Glad to see things have moved forward.

edit...love that rock work! Looking forward to watching next steps.

 

[RobW]

Nice work! I'm in the process of finally building my dream tank as well. We moved into a house a couple years ago. We have been renovating slowly room by room. Now that we are doing the living, the dining, and kitchen areas... we decided it was the perfect time to go ahead and put a tank in. We are building a 280 gallon system.

 

[cpllongjk]

No worries as I have yet to pull the trigger on a new tank. We may be moving soon and will be able to set my dream tank up at that time. Glad to see things have moved forward.

edit...love that rock work! Looking forward to watching next steps.

Thanks, I wanted to avoid the rock wall because I love flow going behind the rock. I also wanted to give lots of room for corals. At the end of the day theres only so many ways to rockscape a cuboid reef.

 

[cpllongjk]

Nice work! I'm in the process of finally building my dream tank as well. We moved into a house a couple years ago. We have been renovating slowly room by room. Now that we are doing the living, the dining, and kitchen areas... we decided it was the perfect time to go ahead and put a tank in. We are building a 280 gallon system.

Very nice RobW! Post a link to some pictures once you get stuff going, I'd love to see it. If theres one thing I learned about myself in the hobby... Bigger isn't always better. Really think about the size of the tank and how much work it is to keep that sized reef. I've had larger reefs, and by larger I mean the largest is about 100-120 gallons. I realized very quickly with my busy life that I cannot take care of a 100+ gallon tank but I can take care of a 50 gallon-ish tank. I know that sounds weird but its just the way it is.

Btw my original intent was to make custom cabinet doors out of whatever wood my wife decides to decorate with. But then she said "dont you want the focus to be on the TANK." I'm like "of course." So she said paint the doors the wall color so they blend in. In other words, make the wife happy and you will have a happy time reefing.

 

[Clayton Jessup]

Wow [emoji50] @cpllongjk ! Your Elos build is coming along so nicely ! I absolutely love your build and can’t wait to see it progress!! Keep up the amazing work !!

 

[cpllongjk]

Wow [emoji50] @cpllongjk ! Your Elos build is coming along so nicely ! I absolutely love your build and can’t wait to see it progress!! Keep up the amazing work !!

Thanks Clayton!

I'm having a problem I thought I would only have to deal with over the summer already and we are only week 3 into the build. The "tank closet" is causing heat to become trapped inside due to poor ventilation, "I think." The tank hit 80 degrees yesterday and while I was at work it went up to 82 degrees. My house is setting at 71-73 degrees and my controller tries to keep my tank at 77.0 plus or minus 0.5 degrees.

I installed a bathroom fan to vent the closet based on humidity but I must of installed the wiring wrong. The fan only comes on if I enable it with the light. I don't want to run the light or the fan 24/7 so I'll need to go up in the attic and rewire the fan. My original goal was to have the light and the fan on separate switches, and the fan to come on with the built in humidity sensor.

For now I'll just keep the top doors open to allow air to exchange and increase evaporation until I get the fan fixed. That's one drawback I did not envision so soon, and we're not even into summer. I can't imagine when its 100+ outside and I'm trying to cool the tank then.

 

[cpllongjk]

1 Month Update

Current Stocking List:
2 Diamond Tail Flasher Wrasse (1 Male 1 Female)
2 Black Frostbite Clownfish (Bonded Pair)
1 Captive Bred Yellow Tang
1 Captive Bred Blue Mandarin
2 Borbonius Anthias
1 Helfrichi Fire Fish

Inverts:
2 Small Rainbow Anemones
1 Blue Tuxedo Urchin
20-25 Various Hermits and Snails

Corals
21 Battlebox "randoms" from Battlecorals
These 10 are mounted on rock currently.
1. SPAINBOW
2. HONEYCOMB
3. BC RAINBOW MELON
4. MR. NEUTRON
5. GILLIGAN
6. FLESCHDANCE MILLI
7. BUBBLE BATH UNICORN
8. AQUATIC MAN TABLE
9. SKINNY LOVE
10. BATTLESTAG

Still on the Frag Rack (Back 2 Front)
I haven't decided where I want to place all of these. Maybe some of you can help me decide!
1. ADAM BOMB
2. BC FLAMETHROWER LORE
3. FROSTBITE VERMICULITA
4. AMANAMAN
5. KERMIT SONG GRANULOSA
6. RR RAINBOW LOOM
7. DAYSLO MILLI
8. BC PLANET YELLOW
9. BC SPACE LASER
10. BC STUCK IN STALLIS
11. SUPERMAN TENIUS (back row)

 

[cpllongjk]

Month 2 Update (Photos taken May 17th)

Battling some Dinos (Just added Fauna Marin's Dino-X, will see what happens in coming days.)
Also not in picture, switched out the Tunze 6095 and Gyre 330 for 2x MP40s on 5/25/19 both pumps only running at 20-40% random reef crest and lagoon mode at night. Nutrient Transport mode for an hour before and after lights.

 

[cpllongjk]

Well Ok, sorry for not updating you all on the status of my tank and keeping up a good journal. I've been super busy this summer with the family and kinda depressed about the tank and what I "thought" was Dinos.

I kept adding Dino X and turkey basting what I thought was Dinos only to find out it wasn't Dinos at all. After basting the rocks and areas that had "dinos" on them my buddy noticed that under the "dinos" he thought he saw Bryopsis. Sure enough it was! Here are some pictures of the tank before my ReefFlux Treatment for the Bryopsis. I started the treatment on June 14th.

FTS on June 14th Before Treatment of ReefFlux

Pictures of what I thought was Dinos not going into overflow and accumulating at surface in low flow areas.

 

[cpllongjk]

Here is a FTS of 1 month after the reef flux treatment. Almost all bryopsis dead, and "dinos" all gone.
I lost some coral due to the algae not due to the treatment. All the corals that survived this ordeal are rebounding very well and are growing like mad and coloring up like crazy.

Also no fish were lost with the treatment, I took the pictures at 1 am so all fish were hiding.

 

[SneakyTortuga]

How do you like the mp40s vs the tunze?

 

[infinite0180]

Did you ever end up recoeving the Elos stand?

 

[cpllongjk]

How do you like the mp40s vs the tunze?

I switched to the MP40s mostly for aesthetics however, another big reason I switched was that on one of my tunze 6095s the black wire casing near the pump broke up and cracked. The wires inside the casing were now open to water and if those wires ever got exposed I would have electricity flowing inside the tank, and I don't want that. I ended up throwing away that pump.

I had to go with MP40s because of the thickness of the glass. I was right on the cusp of MP10 vs MP40 but had to go with the 40s. On my last tank, I went with MP10s and they kept falling off when modes were switched. I didn't want that problem this time. The MP40s are working beautifully but I cannot go over 60% or water is sloshed out of the tank. Great news is I still have backup batteries from my last build so I will hook them up soon so I will be covered in a power outage.

Did you ever end up recoeving the Elos stand?

Yes, The stand took forever and is still setting in the garage because I ended up not using it. The stand was the main reason for the delay of the tank being shipped.

 

[cpllongjk]

Updates coming soon.

The tank has been setup for a little bit over 1 year and is finally out of its "ugly" phases. Sad fact was I lost many fish and many corals in process. What corals survived are now thriving, and have been for months. I added another 18 frags and everything is growing like crazy. Everything is super stable and where I want it. I really wish I didn't have to endure so many losses on this tank, but that's the name of the game when you "RUSH" in this hobby.

 

[isaiahwittingslow]

Sorry to hear about the losses. Looking forward to some updated pics!

 

[Maxx]

I'd love to see some updated pics.