Thank you so much. Really helps.Nope, I never get tired of helping others out!
Ironically my cabinet setup is/was actually temporary. I just wanted to get something in there easily and quick... which I did. So I bought black Rubbermaid wood shelving from Home Depot and then cut it to length. I simply spray painted the cut end just in case it could be seen at the edge. I used L brackets on the backside to hold the top plate in place. Then of course the middle plate is hinged to that. The bottom plate is simply pressure fit in place so it's easily removable for service and to refill my DOS. The back plate, which holds my Apex EB8 and power bricks, is simply screwed to the back of the cabinet. I used a simple bolt latch to hold the middle plate up when servicing:
I ditched the loop that comes with it and simply drilled a hole on the interior side panel of the cabinet for the bolt to slide into. The hole only needs to be 1/4" deep or so. I then used some black paint on a touchup brush to paint the raw wood inside of the hole.
Finished my media reactor setup. I decided to do a manifold inline with the return line. I did 3/4" hose(about 6" long to eliminate vibrations) out of the pump and then into 3/4" schedule 80. Up from there into the 3/4" manifold, which T's out to 1/2" gate valves and into the reactors. Works absolutely perfect. This is my first time doing anything with plumbing at all, so I was pretty happy with the results.
IMG_4098 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4060 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4085 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4078 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
A shot of my water change line. Simply priming this line, turning off the pump, open the valve in the image, open the drain valve in the basement... instant syphon to drain the entire main sump area. I love sitting in the chair in front of my tank and using Apex Fusion to turn on the basement pump to pump salt water back up to the sump. I really hated lugging buckets around with my old tank.
IMG_4108 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4434 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4278 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4421 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_4402 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
Ok, I have a major update, but not necessarily by choice. I completely removed all of my sand and rock, then replaced with all new. Here's why:
When I did my original aquascape, I used rock that I aquired from a friend. The pieces weren't ideal, but I used hydraulic cement to make structures that I was happy with... bonding smaller rocks together to make larger ones, making overhangs etc. Everything was fine for the first three months. I then noticed a couple of the cemented joints starting to "break" down. The cement was getting soft and starting to deteriorate. The small dark grey parts of the cement were flaking away and making the sand in the area look bad. Luckily, the "infected" areas were not really structural ones so I didn't worry about it too much. The areas where I really needed the support were still solid and completely intact. Until about a month ago when those areas started to also break down. Now the sand really looked bad and I was going to be facing a landslide of reef rock before too long. On top of that, I was never happy with the sand. To start off, it was REALLY dusty. It also wasn't consistent. It had larger chunks of stuff that would color up with surface algae and then look really out of place in the sand. So being completely fed up, I ordered up 120 lbs or Marco Rocks and Tropic Eden Miniflakes. In the past, I used Marco Rocks in my nano and was 100% happy with them.
I put all of my coral in my sump and performed a 24 hour swap. First getting the rock out and then the messy job of getting the sand out... without removing any of the water. Here it is with everything out:
IMG_5122 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
I think I clogged up about 20 filter socks throughout this process lol. It was very late at this point so I let the tank clear up over night and then I continued on with it when I got home from work the next day. I did my aquascaping with the new Marco Rocks. Since they sent me a nice variety of large pieces, I didn't have to bond anything together to get the look I was after. Next up was the Tropic Eden sand. Let me tell you, this stuff is basically dust free... it's unbelievable! Then I simply moved the corals back into the DT and I was good to go. I used a bottle of Dr. Tim's All-In-One to make sure I didn't have a crazy cycle. All parameters tested great every day. I had a very minor, 1 week long diatom bloom. And that was it. I have had great results with Dr. Tim's in the past and the results were equally impressive this time around. Back in business:
IMG_5285 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
IMG_5307 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
A quick video I made for documentation:
I'm actually really happy that this happened. I wasn't 100% happy with the original rock work and hated the sand.
IMG_5735 (1) by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr
