Another Risk, reefer 350

[Risk1994]

That is rough. Every reefers worst fear when moving a tank.
Did that happen when it was just being rolled on the dollies (without bumping the tank into anything)?

WITH bumping.

 

[58e970b2-3f88-4897-87ba-5]

Thanks for clarifying. I love the look of rimless tanks, but so far I am a little nervous of how much more fragile they sound.

Will be following along. Build is looking great so far. I wish my setup looked that clean.

 

[Risk1994]

I love the look also...I wouldnt worry about the fragility...I was careless.

 

[Risk1994]

So around the same time as the crack we had a small flood in the bathroom that leaked down into the basement. Was a major pain but forced me to remove some of the sheetrock covering the basement ceiling. found an easy path to under the tank for the RO tubing.

Problem is the sill plate under the tank cant be reached, it sits on some huge pieces of lumber... I dont want to cut into that (especially before sitting 1000 pounds of salt water on top), cutting into my newly installed hardwood flooring is a no-go also. Really stuck on how to proceed.

Decided to cut into the sheetrock behind the tank in the basement stairwell...found like 24" of lumber....

Im not cutting into any of this.

 

[Risk1994]

Found this stuff at Home Depot for hiding wires. Fits 3 pieces of RO tubing and an aquabus cable perfect...

Shallow enough to leave plenty of room to fill with wall joint compound. After I secure it to the wall.

Kept the larger pieces of sheetrock to fill in the larger areas...will be like it never happened.

This will be the dead last item in case I need to run anything else.

 

[Risk1994]

Been testing out the RO unit as I've never had one. I installed a pressure reducing valve as my house is 100+ PSI. Turns out the first three canisters lower the pressure by around 20 PSI. I cranked up my PRV full open and get this on my RO unit...

Called BRS and they said this was normal. I'm confused...I read that 100PSI was too much, which is what Im running now and my RO says 65PSI, which the BRS guy said was good. I suppose Ill just live with it like this.

What kind of pressure do all those people with 50-60 PSI get? 35?

 

[Risk1994]

Here's what I came up with for mixing station. As you can see I'm paranoid about leaks. Hence placing the containers in another container. They are sitting on blocks in the tub. The Motor is an aqua-mag 1200. The whole thing is on furniture dollies so can be moved as needed to access the other equipment in the room. Ill put in cribbing until the moment I ever need to move them.

These are 40gallon containers. I really like them as they came drilled and with 12" lids, easy to get in to clean.

 

[Risk1994]

Had to do some origami to fit it all in here. There are enough unions to make it easy to remove containers and motor if needed.

Nice big lids

overkill

 

[Juniorh2r]

Go as big as you can ! I wish I would of gone bigger but next time I upgrade I won't make the same mistake. BTW nice gear!

 

[Risk1994]

So we have septic here and I really don't want to put salt water into it as its bad for the buried concrete tank. I also dont want to dump 150 gallons of waste into it just to make 50 gallons of RO.

I got the water saver RO to limit the waste water...1.5:1 ratio.

These have been my biggest concerns going from a 10gallon nano...

RO waste water - My plan is to dump the RO waste into the pool, which is only around 30' away from the room the unit is in.

Water change salt water - I'm really unsure about this...I purchased a 50g rubbermaid to store it assuming Ill periodically pump it into a field I have in my backyard, its like 100' away but on a slight downgrade, so should only be like 10' head pressure. I have a 100ft roll up waste line I use for when I backflush my pool into the same area. The mag drive output fits a garden hose so I can use that to go from the basement. As you can guess this will be a HUGE PIA.

I suppose I can just dump it in the drain? How much waste water to do you AWC guys create? Do you do 20% monthly? If so this is less than 20gallons a month...I mean how bad can it be? One family member who will remain nameless will burn up 40 gallons for one shower. Is dilution the solution?

 

[Risk1994]

If I cut a 4.5" hole in the bottom of the cabinet, I can stand the UV upright. Otherwise it has to lean.

Im just worried about structural integrity. Anyone think Ill be weakening the cabinet too much if I cut a hole like 4 or 5" away from the back right corner in the pic below?

 

[Homer2020]

Nice work, seems like we are tackling a similar project at the same time. I bought the Tunze 8555 to fill the 5 gal RO reservoir in the sump area, and 3155 for ATO, but I really wanted to use the Apex stuff since I have it and will need to use it for the DOS AWC. I just keep hearing so much bad news about the Neptune ATK so I'm probably going to stick with the Tunze. What did you decide? BRS and my LFS people say Tunze 100% so it's hard to argue with that. See my build thread for more info.

As for cutting into your stand, I'm not a structural engineer (but I work with them), 4-5" would scare me, I suppose the force is straight down, so you'll have plenty of structure left, but I'd still be concerned about it buckling, maybe someone that actually knows could chime in.

 

[Risk1994]

As for cutting into your stand, I'm not a structural engineer (but I work with them), 4-5" would scare me,

I agree, I couldnt bring myself to take the risk...

Here is my sump now, tank full of water and leak testing. Sump area is a mess but still setting things up. Getting experience with the APEX also. My plan is to put the UV in the sump. Upright so just the bottom half is wet. I actually called Pentair to ask about this...the guy out of hand said its not recommended...but when pressed had no idea why...we discussed it and neither of us could see the added risk over plumbing outside. It will go where that unused pump is in the sump.

I have a custom 3d printed bracket being made to hold the rollermat so the area under it will be open.

Theres no schedule 80 tubing going into the sump, this way I can slide out the sump easily if need be. The rollermat can be replaced/serviced very easily. Red Sea diaghram replaced with gate valve. There are 2 optical sensors in the return chamber, and an avast diaphram pump...have to figure out the APEX programming to get that to work.

 

[Risk1994]

Progress has been creeping along. Between Covid and the weather around here there is virtually no school for the kids anymore, but work hasnt let up a bit. Meaning double duty for me.

My mixing station is pretty much completed, and I already had my design pay off. I had both containers filled, one with RO, one with Salt, and left the taps open after spending a day mixing. Turns out one of the lines coming off the pump wasnt threaded on completely. Overnight I had around 20 gallons of salt water leak out!

Turns out this was no big deal as ALL of it was captured by the big black container on the bottom. No SPILLS!

It was still a huge pain to clean it all up but at least there was zero damage.



Mixing station looks bad here but is coming along. Im trimming down all those RO tubes. Three to display tank and one to QT (for easy top off) Plus one for supply and one for waste. All these have been run through the house, just need to connect up the AWC ones whent the tank gets going.

Whole thing is on wheels which is really nice.

 

[Risk1994]

I set up the APEX and played around with it quite a bit. I set up low/high sensors on the sump using the FMM module. I also set up top off using the Avast diaghram pump. This thing is GREAT! pumps up from the basement with no problem, I got the one with the APEX power cable so it doesn't take up a spot on the powerbar.

Programming the APEX is fun, I was worried it would be a very byzantine interface, but the learning curve was very shallow.

I also got a Break out box from Avast. This will be fun to play around with, I plan to have several buttons for feeding, cabinet door monitor and an 'OH ****' button for the family.

 

[Zach B]

Great build restoration. Sorry about the tank. Definitely following :)

 

[Risk1994]

I really wanted to hang my rollermat on my sump but it only has a 1/2" deep bracket. My sump has eurobracing so that wouldnt work.

I had this printed by Stratos at printed3d.parts. He did a great job.

As you can see its adjustable and it fits great....

 

[Risk1994]

Check out all the room under the rollermat!

there is an output under the rollermat you cant see, my plan is to put the out line of the Apec AWC in there.

 

[Risk1994]

Onto the QT tank. Im on day 8 now of Dr. Tims fishless cycle on my 20g long. I followed instruction precisely but have seen zero progress, no ammonia reduction yet. I probably got a dud from BRS. Perhaps since it was shipped in the cold. I hate to think I just threw a week of work out the window.

You can follow my QT situation on Humblefish's forum here....

You cant see but there is a white RO tube coming out of that vent under the tank feeding the avast pump sitting on top of the filter. This allows top off with the touch of a button. The RO tubing that feeds the display tank runs right under this tank so why not?

Its killing me the thought I went through all this just to have to do it again due to a bad bottle of bacteria.

 

[Risk1994]

While the QT tank full of useless bacteria sits and does nothing, I started on my Aquascape...

66lbs of marco, along with a 40lb bag of caribsea special grade. Also some base rock thrown in for stability.

Also bought tons of extra thick glue and accelerator from BRS.