A Low Country Reef Tank....one more final upgrade

SPotter · Aug 2, 2014

a few updates....

New strainers for the CL arrived on thursday and I will do leak test #2 today.

Premium Aquatics - Aquarium Supplies

I decided to build a couple of drip pans that would go under each CL pump. I used some extra 1x4's and bough a 7x10 pond liner on amazon for $30

Made some progress with the plumbing in the fish room...

And then yesterday I picked about 350 lbs of live rock from a guy in NC that was getting out of the hobby.....

Today I hope to finish the plumbing in the fish room and do my leak test on the DT.

indyjaco · Aug 2, 2014

Looks great Steve. What kind of life are you expecting to get out of a set of Radiums? I am in the debate for my future build on doing LED again or attempting MH.

SPotter · Aug 2, 2014

indyjaco said:
Looks great Steve. What kind of life are you expecting to get out of a set of Radiums? I am in the debate for my future build on doing LED again or attempting MH.

This will be my first time using MH's so I can only go by what others have posted. I will be happy if I get 9 months out of them.

SPotter · Aug 4, 2014

Drip...Drip...Drip

So leak test #2 failed. I developed a drip from the same bulkhead at about the same fill level on the tank. I drained the tank, removed the bulkhead, inspected for any debris or anything sticking out from the bulkhead. Nothing was noted but then I started looking at the bulkhead and it looks like it is leaning or tilted. So my guess is that the flange of the bulkhead isnt sitting 100% flat on the acrylic. I went ahead ordered a new bulkhead and hopefully this will be the problem.

Brem · Aug 4, 2014

this is awsome!
How can i subscribe to this thread?

(really noob from holland here..

)

fishroomlady · Aug 4, 2014

you can go to the top of the page and it will give you the option to subscribe under thread tools

SPotter · Aug 5, 2014

I have been going back and forth on what type of lighting to supplement the MH's with and I finally decided to go with T5's. I was looking at a used LET 8x54 retro kit that is for sale on here but then I saw them on BRS for $311 brand new so I pulled the trigger on these......now need to think about what bulbs.

4 Ft LET Lighting Miro-4 T5 High Output Retrofit Kit - Bulk Reef Supply

SPotter · Aug 5, 2014

Well...third time is a charm! New bulkhead arrived today and swapped out the old one. Filled the tank and no leaks from any of the bulkheads....however having some drips from the closed loop fittings at the diverter so that will need some attention. My next life I want to come back as a plumber!

SPotter · Aug 7, 2014

Made some additional progress over the last couple of days. New bulkhead arrived and passed the leak test on the bulkheads. I filled the tank about 80% of the way to test out the closed loop pumps and ran into some additional drips from the threaded fittings on the diverter. I was able to fix all of them on the left side diverter and now I need to work on the right side. Here is a quick video of the Flowwolf closed loop diverter in action. The Flowwolf has 7 settings and it is currently set on random in this video. So far I am very impressed with all of the settings but really impressed with the waves it makes on this setting. I will get another video once the right side drips are corrected and I can run both pumps at the same time.

Flowwolf test - YouTube

Reefpharmer · Aug 7, 2014

Very nice build, following along to see progress

SPotter · Aug 10, 2014

Ok I finished the plumbing in the fish room, took the new skimmer and natureef reactor out of the box, cleaned my ca reactor, drained the tap water from the tank, rinsed the dry marco rock that has been sitting in boxes since november and did my aquascape. Still have a few minor drips to correct with the cl plumbing but here we go.....

Aquascape 1.0

Left Side

Center

Right

Skimmer and Reactor

SPotter · Aug 23, 2014

Made a lot of progress over the last few days. I decided to change my light configuration up a little and ordered aluminum tubes from eztube.com and created a custom rack.

Got that done and unpacked the rest of the MH's

And then there was light.....

Plumbed in the final piece to my return line....

Need about another 100g to finish filling the tank and sumps in the fish room before flipping the switch on the system. I hope to have this done tomorrow.

SPotter · Aug 28, 2014

As with all new builds there will be ups and downs. I was really excited to finally flip the switch on the entire system last night. Everything started flowing nicely, my concerns of the 26ft run from the tank to the sumps were overblown, my durson drains are dead silent, no leaks or drips from any of the plumbing that I did but when I went out to the fish room there was a stream of water coming from the return pump. I thought right away it was the shaft seal but quickly realized it was coming from the seal where the volute joins togethers. I tried tightening the screws but nothing is working. So after doing some reading and debating what to do, I have decided to sell the pump with full disclosure that it leaks at a very low price and replace it with a Dolphin 6250 pump. I have been extremely impressed with the performance and how quiet the 4750's on my closed loop are. New pump will be here tomorrow...thank you Amazon Prime!

SPotter · Aug 28, 2014

Pretty embarrassed over this one.....I was so afraid of over tightening the nuts with fear of cracking something, I didn't tighten them enough. I decided to go back and give each nut another turn. Turns out they needed a lot of tightening. Pump is running with no leaks now. So, now that I have a brand new Dolphin pump arriving tomorrow.....what would you do? Stick with the reeflo and know that there could be seal issues down the road or swap it out for the Dolphin?