Custom Ohio 200g In Wall Tank Build

Joshua M Hall

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Ok, so I am on Day One of starting the ball rolling of a custom approximately 200 gallon in wall reef tank build. Currently I have 2 questions. First I have always been in love with a rimless Reef Savvy aquarium. I think they look beautiful and I have heard that their quality is unrivaled. So with that, my first question is if it would be a waste of money to go with a beautiful Reef Savvy Tank if most of the tank will not even be viewable? I'm fine with paying the extra money if they are also structurally and durably superior but I am not really sure if that is necessarily the case. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Now a caveat to this is that I do plan on my tank room being a bit of a man cave if you will, and it too will be clean and aesthetically pleasing with areas to work, make and dispose of water as well as relax and appreciate from a different/man cave perspective. My second question is kind of unrelated but I want to have a custom sump made that will not be under the tank for ease of access as well as I want to have a growout/frag section built in. My thoughts are to have a filter sock style that goes into a refugium, to a skimmer/reactor section, that rolls into a growout/frag section, and then into the return pump section. Anyone seen this before or have any thoughts on that idea? I have spoken with a company call Advanced Acrylics in California to have this made and was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this company or knows someone who has. Thanks for reading everyone. I will be sure to keep everyone posted but I for see this taking 1 to 2 years before it is 100% and wet. With that being said if you have any recommendations feel free to let me know. I plan on using all top notch equipment because this will be my final/dream display tank.
 

Lloyd Williams

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Following. Your idea sounds awesome. I look forward to seeing where you go with it. Advance Acrylic is awesome from my understanding. No PERSONAL experience but I’ve heard both but good things.
 

KrisReef

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I’ve dealt with AA, they make nice tanks.
I think a lot of folks put their skimmer first, the refuge. Gl.
 
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Joshua M Hall

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I’ve dealt with AA, they make nice tanks.
I think a lot of folks put their skimmer first, the refuge. Gl.
Thanks for the reply Kris. I’ve not heard of placing the skimmer before the refugium. I was always told that the skimmer should go after so that the algae in the refugium consumes the nutrients and then the skimmer skims what makes it past the refugium.
 
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Joshua M Hall

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Following. Your idea sounds awesome. I look forward to seeing where you go with it. Advance Acrylic is awesome from my understanding. No PERSONAL experience but I’ve heard both but good things.
Thanks for the reply and info on Advanced Acrylics. I haven’t done much homework on them but so far the have been very friendly, responsive, helpful and eager to help me get this sump made. Sense the sump will not sit under the stand it will not be restricted in size and shape so I look forward to see what they come up with. I plan on making and keeping the sump pleasing to the eye and to mount my current XR15 Gen 4 Pro over the growout/frag area.
 

Lloyd Williams

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Are you trying to make a display sump? If so then you got a wealth of options for your “2nd tank”! Lol Think mangroves lol
 
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Joshua M Hall

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Are you trying to make a display sump? If so then you got a wealth of options for your “2nd tank”! Lol Think mangroves lol
Yes, I want my sump to be a display sump. I want it to be completely clear with the exception of the inside two walls making up the refugium section and the inside two walls making the frag section. Those will be black to keep the lights from bleeding out to other parts of the sump.
 

Gregg @ ADP

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Thanks for the reply Kris. I’ve not heard of placing the skimmer before the refugium. I was always told that the skimmer should go after so that the algae in the refugium consumes the nutrients and then the skimmer skims what makes it past the refugium.
In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it makes much difference. With the volume/rate of flow we usually have going through our filters, it’s not like a skimmer is going to strip everything from the refugium or vice-versa. It’s more or a long game.
 

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With the refugium after the skimmer you may get more pods directly in the return and to the tank. Other than maybe having an easier time cleaning detritus from around the skimmer than the fuge I don't think it matters either way.
 
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Joshua M Hall

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E38D7B18-D0D4-404B-A6DB-CA130C95846D.jpeg

So this is my current and hopefully final custom sump design. I’ve been working with the awesome guys at Advanced Acrylics to make this happen. What do you guys think? Any suggestions or opinions good or bad would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Joshua M Hall

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Ok so this is every part and piece of equipment that will be making up the build. It is quite the list but if you guys can think of anything I missed or anything you would recommend against/changing let me know.

Tank: Reef Savvy 72" x 27" x 24" Rimless 200 gallon Phantom Bottom, Armored Seams with Center 21" Ghost Overflow and Dual Return. 3 sides low iron and black back.
Sump: Advanced Acrylics Custom 72" x 20" x 18" with 20" x 20" Frag/Grow-Out Section. Along with 2 x 7" filter socks and refugium.
Stands: Midwest Custom Aquarium Steal Powder Coated Black 72" x 27" x 42" Tank Stand and Steal Powder Coated Black 72" x 20" x 10" Sump Stand.
Plumbing: All Schedule 80 Grey 1" Return and 1.5" Bean Animal Overflow.
Lighting: 2 x Aquatic Life 36" Hybrid T5 and 4 x Radion XR15 G4 Pro w/ diffusers (2 per hybrid). Kessil H160 Tuna Flora Refugium light and Radion XR15 G4 Pro w/ diffuser Frag light.
Pumps: 4 x Ecotech MP40 in main display and MP10 in Frag. 2 x Reef Octopus Varios-8 for return.
Heaters: 2 x Eheim Jager 300W
Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 200INT Skimmer Varios
Controller: Apex Controller plus extra EB832 Energy Bar and Ecotech Live.
ATO: Tunze 5017.
Reactors: BRS GFO & Carbon Reactor - Dual w/ MJ1200
Doser: Apex DOS
Rock and Sand: 150lbs BRS Reef Saver, 20lbs BRS Reef Saver Shelf, 20lbs CaribSea Branch Liferock, 6 x Marinepure 8" x 8" x 4" plate ceramic biomedia for sump. 180lbs CaribSea Special Grade Arag-Alive Reef Sand.

I think that pretty much covers it. Let me know what you guys think or if I have missed anything.
 
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Joshua M Hall

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Is there anyone here who could sanity check my plumbing? Mainly recommend additional unions anywhere and add/remove ball valves?
 

Eagle_Steve

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Looks really good and the planning you are doing is awesome. Wish I would have done that lol.

I do see some areas on the long pipe runs that don't really need a union, but for ease of thing that may come, may benefit from one. Personally I would try to remove some of the 90 degree elbows and replace with some 45s. Also don't forget that you will need a siphon break of some sort. A hole drilled into the return at the tank pointing towards the water, reverse check valve to pull air when pumps shut off, etc. I use a check valve reversed on each of my returns. The check valve is out of site and a short piece of pipe comes to just above the water line. The pipe is just out of site behind the tank as well. My check valves are 1/2", tied to a Tee in the returns for example. Numerous power outages and no issues, even though I run a lot of water in my sump.
 
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Joshua M Hall

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Looks really good and the planning you are doing is awesome. Wish I would have done that lol.

I do see some areas on the long pipe runs that don't really need a union, but for ease of thing that may come, may benefit from one. Personally I would try to remove some of the 90 degree elbows and replace with some 45s. Also don't forget that you will need a siphon break of some sort. A hole drilled into the return at the tank pointing towards the water, reverse check valve to pull air when pumps shut off, etc. I use a check valve reversed on each of my returns. The check valve is out of site and a short piece of pipe comes to just above the water line. The pipe is just out of site behind the tank as well. My check valves are 1/2", tied to a Tee in the returns for example. Numerous power outages and no issues, even though I run a lot of water in my sump.

Steve, Finally some help and exactly the type of pointers I was looking for. First I will apologize for the quality of this picture but I am trying to figure out this "reverse check valve" configuration you are talking about. Here is a blown up shot of how mine is as of now. Are you saying in addition to these check valves you would have additional ones flipped the opposite way? If so could you elaborate a bit more? Thanks again for the help!
Check Valve.JPG
 

Eagle_Steve

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Ok. I will try to explain this as I can barely draw stick figures lol. Wish I was at home to shoot a pic of mine. The check valve is installed backwards above the waterline and tee’d into the return. When water is being pumped the spring door inside stays closed (installed this way it’s normal closed anyways), and when the pump stops a suction is created. This pulls on the spring door opening it and killing the syphon. It is sort of a back up to the check valves installed near the return pumps.

My tank for example has maybe 1/8” of drain back in the pump return area of my sump with this setup and used to have about an inch, even with check valves installed at the return pumps. This is of course ok, but I had a check valve fail on a tank in a power outage and flood the floor before, so this tank being triple the gallons of what the other one was, I wanted a back up. I did try the small hole drilled into my returns right above the water line. No good. Hated the noise. This option seemed a better fit and actually works. I tested it by blocking the check valves (I have serviceable ones from BRS) with foam, kicking the pump off, and seeing how much water pulled back. 1/2” is all that went into the return pump chamber.

Hope this all makes sense. I will also try to find you an example of it if I can. I know there are quite a few tank builds on here with the same setup.
 
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Joshua M Hall

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Ok. I will try to explain this as I can barely draw stick figures lol. Wish I was at home to shoot a pic of mine. The check valve is installed backwards above the waterline and tee’d into the return. When water is being pumped the spring door inside stays closed (installed this way it’s normal closed anyways), and when the pump stops a suction is created. This pulls on the spring door opening it and killing the syphon. It is sort of a back up to the check valves installed near the return pumps.

My tank for example has maybe 1/8” of drain back in the pump return area of my sump with this setup and used to have about an inch, even with check valves installed at the return pumps. This is of course ok, but I had a check valve fail on a tank in a power outage and flood the floor before, so this tank being triple the gallons of what the other one was, I wanted a back up. I did try the small hole drilled into my returns right above the water line. No good. Hated the noise. This option seemed a better fit and actually works. I tested it by blocking the check valves (I have serviceable ones from BRS) with foam, kicking the pump off, and seeing how much water pulled back. 1/2” is all that went into the return pump chamber.

Hope this all makes sense. I will also try to find you an example of it if I can. I know there are quite a few tank builds on here with the same setup.

No this makes perfect sense now. Great idea. I love redundancy :) Especially when it comes to preventing damage to my house and a happy tank!
 

don_chuwish

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Only thing I'll add is that I too used SCH80 for the cool grey look, but it was really a waste. Both in $$ and time spent sourcing things. Not to mention the slight flow impact of the narrower inside diameter. If I had it to do over I'd just go as pure white SCH40 as possible and maybe spray paint what could be seen outside the stand.
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

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