Hey guys, I’m Bean, a sarcastic, gimpy, old broad-combat veteran turned shepherdess with a whole lot of sass and not nearly enough spare time. I used to be deep into reefing, from the late eighties through the early 2000’s, but I had to break down my reef and give my corals to locals when I bought a ranch in a rural area with horrible water quality and quantity. Some of you might remember me from reef central days, but probably not, unless you were super into monti’s and ricordea florida or yumas. I’ve been raising four horned heritage sheep, goats, cattle and poultry for the last 11 years, and finally my husband and I have had the electrical upgraded to our ranch, and resurrected an old stock well to provide water for our livestock. This means I can at last start working on my 12 years in the making piecemeal science project reef build.
Because I started this build in 2009, most of the equipment I amassed for it is now super outdated. I can relate. I’m pretty okay with moving forward with old tech though, since I have a massive MH and VHO bulb stash, and I’m not super thrilled by the windex blue LED look. My aquarium and sump were both custom built for me by Envision Acrylics, because after scratching glass aquariums, I realized my main objection to acrylic was not really all that big of a deal after all.
The display tank (I promise it’s under there) is 72” long, 24” wide, and 19” deep, with an external adjustable weir fed dual overflow box. I’m short… almost too short to have got in the Army short, and I wanted a tank that had greater surface area than the tall ones provide. 19” is the max depth for me to be able to comfortably reach the bottom while standing on a chair, so that’s what I went with. This beast is designed for closed loops to provide in tank circulation, and while I know a lot of modern reefers will raise an eye at having bulkheads through the side of the aquarium, for me it has just the sort of steampunk vibe that I adore. I was a diesel mechanic in the Army, so I guess I got used to functional ugly. I have one big huge beast of a Super Aqua Sea Dolphin pump for the main closed loop, with a Oceans Motion 4 way powering the switching. Yes, I know about magnet failure, and consider switching the magnets out as part of my long term upkeep costs. A second Oceans Motion 4 way will be handling my upper level, adjustable for when corals grow in closed loop, running on a PCX-70 blah blah pump. Filtration will be powered mostly by removable socks and a beast of a homemade DIY downdraft skimmer, run on a PCX-55HP pump. I’ve got a Snapper floating around here somewhere for powering the return, and my return will be over the top into the tank. I plan on keeping tabling acros, plating monti’s, maybe a stag, maybe a really spectacular digita, and a few gorgonians for motion In the display. I strongly prefer plating and tabling to bushy type SPS, and I don’t plan on any LPS in this system, although I might keep a couple islands of ricordea florida for nostalgia.
The sump is where the cool experiment is taking place. When I was last in reefing, DSB’s were the rage, but they were already being called into question. In the past, I’d ran a 29 gal with UGF with horrible results, a 125 with a deep sand bed successfully, a 135 bare bottom with meh success, and a 58 SSB with raging problems. I really disliked the look of BB, and I love sand obligate residents, so I thought hey, let’s try SSB in the main tank, and a remote DSB that’s limited in size for power outages and cleaning, contained, and proof against disturbance. Then I learned about miracle mud, and I thought well… let’s try that too, but I want the option to be able to remove either or. My hope is to grow seagrasses in the deep bedded part of the sump, and macro algae for more active nutrient export in an undivided refugium compartment. The skimmer pulls from the tank return compartment, returns at end of sump, and the return to tank pump is plumbed into the larger, mid sump compartment so that I could pull both freshly skimmed water and copepod/plankton laden water from the refugium and seagrass compartments. I figured I could set my kalk reactor to drop into the skimmer return compartment, and my calcium reactor to drop into the seagrass compartment so that the seagrasses could utilize excess carbon dioxide. I was hoping that the remote DSB would negate needing my Korallin denitrator reactor, although with heavy feeding of frozen that was a continuing back up bandaid. Seagrasses are highly efficient once established, but their growth isn’t guaranteed and I figured that if I used nylon mesh sewn into pockets to match the segregated compartments, I could make it so that the DSB & mud compartments could have their substrate removed in one “easy“ swoosh.
So here it is, 12 years later, aquarium science has made all sorts of advances, but I’m going to play around with this because it’s here, and I still have the same passion for tinkering with seagrasses. If this system fails, I’ll redirect my seagrass passion into my 58 gallon tank, which is still in my garage. We have to do some structural things to the house, planned for spring of 2022, like pull the seventies rug, lay in tile, move the HVAC vent from behind the tank, add an extra beam and some foundational support beneath the tank, and add a couple floor drains that tie to the septic. Soon here, I‘ll start cycling my now long dead live rock from previous builds, most likely in the garage in a livestock tub. My thoughts of what I want in the tank, livestock wise, drove a lot of this build, with my favorite fish being mandarin dragonets, sand sifting gobies, Banggai cardinals, firefish, and flasher wrasses. I love bristletooth tangs as well, with maybe a Tomini or a Square Tail and a Scopas Tang for veg clean up. When I first got into reefing, there were no captive bred mandarins, so my heavy emphasis on living refugiums was strongly motivated by needing to keep up high pod production to feed a heavy load of obligate carnivores. Now, with all the different captive bred fish, my stocking might look a little different, but I still love shoaling fish and more peaceful, brilliant denizens.
I’ll be updating this thread slowly, since this build is currently constricted by the flooring & structural timeline. It‘s good to meet y’all!
Because I started this build in 2009, most of the equipment I amassed for it is now super outdated. I can relate. I’m pretty okay with moving forward with old tech though, since I have a massive MH and VHO bulb stash, and I’m not super thrilled by the windex blue LED look. My aquarium and sump were both custom built for me by Envision Acrylics, because after scratching glass aquariums, I realized my main objection to acrylic was not really all that big of a deal after all.
The display tank (I promise it’s under there) is 72” long, 24” wide, and 19” deep, with an external adjustable weir fed dual overflow box. I’m short… almost too short to have got in the Army short, and I wanted a tank that had greater surface area than the tall ones provide. 19” is the max depth for me to be able to comfortably reach the bottom while standing on a chair, so that’s what I went with. This beast is designed for closed loops to provide in tank circulation, and while I know a lot of modern reefers will raise an eye at having bulkheads through the side of the aquarium, for me it has just the sort of steampunk vibe that I adore. I was a diesel mechanic in the Army, so I guess I got used to functional ugly. I have one big huge beast of a Super Aqua Sea Dolphin pump for the main closed loop, with a Oceans Motion 4 way powering the switching. Yes, I know about magnet failure, and consider switching the magnets out as part of my long term upkeep costs. A second Oceans Motion 4 way will be handling my upper level, adjustable for when corals grow in closed loop, running on a PCX-70 blah blah pump. Filtration will be powered mostly by removable socks and a beast of a homemade DIY downdraft skimmer, run on a PCX-55HP pump. I’ve got a Snapper floating around here somewhere for powering the return, and my return will be over the top into the tank. I plan on keeping tabling acros, plating monti’s, maybe a stag, maybe a really spectacular digita, and a few gorgonians for motion In the display. I strongly prefer plating and tabling to bushy type SPS, and I don’t plan on any LPS in this system, although I might keep a couple islands of ricordea florida for nostalgia.
The sump is where the cool experiment is taking place. When I was last in reefing, DSB’s were the rage, but they were already being called into question. In the past, I’d ran a 29 gal with UGF with horrible results, a 125 with a deep sand bed successfully, a 135 bare bottom with meh success, and a 58 SSB with raging problems. I really disliked the look of BB, and I love sand obligate residents, so I thought hey, let’s try SSB in the main tank, and a remote DSB that’s limited in size for power outages and cleaning, contained, and proof against disturbance. Then I learned about miracle mud, and I thought well… let’s try that too, but I want the option to be able to remove either or. My hope is to grow seagrasses in the deep bedded part of the sump, and macro algae for more active nutrient export in an undivided refugium compartment. The skimmer pulls from the tank return compartment, returns at end of sump, and the return to tank pump is plumbed into the larger, mid sump compartment so that I could pull both freshly skimmed water and copepod/plankton laden water from the refugium and seagrass compartments. I figured I could set my kalk reactor to drop into the skimmer return compartment, and my calcium reactor to drop into the seagrass compartment so that the seagrasses could utilize excess carbon dioxide. I was hoping that the remote DSB would negate needing my Korallin denitrator reactor, although with heavy feeding of frozen that was a continuing back up bandaid. Seagrasses are highly efficient once established, but their growth isn’t guaranteed and I figured that if I used nylon mesh sewn into pockets to match the segregated compartments, I could make it so that the DSB & mud compartments could have their substrate removed in one “easy“ swoosh.
So here it is, 12 years later, aquarium science has made all sorts of advances, but I’m going to play around with this because it’s here, and I still have the same passion for tinkering with seagrasses. If this system fails, I’ll redirect my seagrass passion into my 58 gallon tank, which is still in my garage. We have to do some structural things to the house, planned for spring of 2022, like pull the seventies rug, lay in tile, move the HVAC vent from behind the tank, add an extra beam and some foundational support beneath the tank, and add a couple floor drains that tie to the septic. Soon here, I‘ll start cycling my now long dead live rock from previous builds, most likely in the garage in a livestock tub. My thoughts of what I want in the tank, livestock wise, drove a lot of this build, with my favorite fish being mandarin dragonets, sand sifting gobies, Banggai cardinals, firefish, and flasher wrasses. I love bristletooth tangs as well, with maybe a Tomini or a Square Tail and a Scopas Tang for veg clean up. When I first got into reefing, there were no captive bred mandarins, so my heavy emphasis on living refugiums was strongly motivated by needing to keep up high pod production to feed a heavy load of obligate carnivores. Now, with all the different captive bred fish, my stocking might look a little different, but I still love shoaling fish and more peaceful, brilliant denizens.
I’ll be updating this thread slowly, since this build is currently constricted by the flooring & structural timeline. It‘s good to meet y’all!
Last edited: