David's 220 basement in wall upgrade with fish room

DH78

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I'm in the beginning stages of upgrading to a 72x24x25 aquarium. This build will be slow, but knowing myself, if I don't start posting now I'll likely never do it.

Let's start with the current tank:
120 gallon with built in overflows using durso drains. The tank itself was bought in 2000 and started life as a brackish tank with a wet/dry trickle filter. In 2002, I converted it to a saltwater FOWLR still using the wet/dry trickle filter. In 2003, I began adding various corals to the tank. It was all softies and LPS and survived a couple moves. In all honesty, looking back at my practices, lack of knowledge, poor advise from LFS, and no friends in the hobby, I think the tank thrived in spite of me more so than because of me. In 2013, I broke the tank down and sold all the live stock as I just couldn't bear going through the process of moving the tank again given all the work we were doing when my wife and I bought our first house.

Fast forward a few years and I began getting the itch again and my wife wanted the tank again as well. I put the tank back up. I was surprised to find that just about all the equipment I had still functioned. I had to buy new lights and a skimmer. I built a sump out of an old 55 gallon tank. Well after a few years we decided it's time to get a bigger tank and make a fish room. The journey begins here. I will post some more updates today to get caught up to where we are in the project.

As a starting point, here is a pic of the current tank.

IMG_0728[1].JPG
 
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DH78

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The tank is already on order. I went with Glass Cages. Joe has been amazing to work with so far. Here is the drawing of the tank.
 

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DH78

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The sump is also on order. I went with a CL-60 from Synergy Reef. Both tank and sump are likely 8-10 weeks out.

From my current equipment I will be transfering:
1. Apex
2. Cor-15
3. Red Sea rsk600 skimmer
4. Pentair 40 watt UV
5. 2 xf250 gyres
6. Plank Autofeeder
7. Avast Marine Kalk Reactor
8. BRS carbon reactor
9. Tunze Auto top off
10. Prime Fuge Light

Plan is to add:
1. 3 Red Sea 160S lights with a homemade pendant hanging kit
2. A second cor-15 for the second return
3. 2 XF 350 Gyres
4. 2 1" Randow flow nozzles from Vivid Creative Aquatics
5. New Inkbird controller
6. 2 new heaters
7. upgraded mixing station
 
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DH78

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First picture is the starting point for the area that will have the tank and fish room. Second picture is what we got done last weekend. Hoping to have the walls Drylocked and framing put up after this weekend.
 

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DH78

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For folks with large aquariums, what size water storage containers do you suggest. I am thinking of using 100 gallon vertical tanks for my mixing station. Should I go bigger? Any specific percent of total volume you think I should have on hand?
 
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Also, any suggestions for best pump to use for mixing and transferring between the RODI tank and Salt tank. Thoughts on the Hydor Seltz D or Should I get an Iwaki? Any body using on the cheaper external pumps from Amazon and had a good experience?
 

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Looking good so far! How big is your fish room? I'm still working on my 270g build (84x30x25) and for my RODI system I went with 105g reservoirs. My thought process was that only about 100g of that will come out (the drains being around the 5g mark). That means I can easily setup my sensors/floats to add 100g of fresh RODI water, allowing me to just dump in two bags of IO salt and be very close to 35ppm on my salinity. I've yet to make a second batch of new salt water, so I've not got it all worked out yet though.

I figured having 105g of NSW and 105g of RODI on hand to mix in a matter of minutes was enough for my 270g system. As for the mixing station pump, I'm reusing an Ehiem (maybe a 1260) from my 60g cube. It takes just over a minute to move 5g of water in my RODI setup:

200gBuildRODI-191705.jpg


I plan on switching the pump out to the same pump I use as my returns. I've not done that yet as I'm going to be upgrading the returns in the next year or so. At least that is the plan.

By running the same pump as your returns, you always have a spare on hand that you can steal.
 
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DH78

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Looking good so far! How big is your fish room? I'm still working on my 270g build (84x30x25) and for my RODI system I went with 105g reservoirs. My thought process was that only about 100g of that will come out (the drains being around the 5g mark). That means I can easily setup my sensors/floats to add 100g of fresh RODI water, allowing me to just dump in two bags of IO salt and be very close to 35ppm on my salinity. I've yet to make a second batch of new salt water, so I've not got it all worked out yet though.

I figured having 105g of NSW and 105g of RODI on hand to mix in a matter of minutes was enough for my 270g system. As for the mixing station pump, I'm reusing an Ehiem (maybe a 1260) from my 60g cube. It takes just over a minute to move 5g of water in my RODI setup:

200gBuildRODI-191705.jpg


I plan on switching the pump out to the same pump I use as my returns. I've not done that yet as I'm going to be upgrading the returns in the next year or so. At least that is the plan.

By running the same pump as your returns, you always have a spare on hand that you can steal.
Thanks for the reply. Nice clean setup you have there.
The room is 11x12. I like the idea of sizing the tanks based on a bucket of salt. Also, thanks for the idea of using the same pump so a spare is on hand.
 
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Nothing much to update this week. The stand is almost finished. I'll post a pic when it is completed. One of my water storage containers is on order. I'll have to order the second one when they get back in stock. Synergy has started making the parts for my sump.
Just so I can post a pic, my wife finally got one of our blenny hanging out in the clam.
image0[784].jpeg
 
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I am starting to think of what new creatures I will add to the new tank. I will be adding additional clean-up crew such as snails and likely some shrimp. Making the transfer from the current tank will be:
1. Yellow Tang
2. Foxface Lo
3. Lawnmower Blenny
4. Diamond Goby
5. Blue green Chromis
6. 2 Pajama Cardinals
7. Sanjay Black Photon Clownfish - want to add another as one of the pair jumped out on me and I couldn't save it
8. 2 Black and white Chromis
9. Lubbock's wrasse
10. Sand sifting Star

I'm not looking to add a lot more fish, but does anyone have suggestions for fish that will occupy a different level of the tank or offer a different color than my current fish?
 

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Looking good so far! How big is your fish room? I'm still working on my 270g build (84x30x25) and for my RODI system I went with 105g reservoirs. My thought process was that only about 100g of that will come out (the drains being around the 5g mark). That means I can easily setup my sensors/floats to add 100g of fresh RODI water, allowing me to just dump in two bags of IO salt and be very close to 35ppm on my salinity. I've yet to make a second batch of new salt water, so I've not got it all worked out yet though.

I figured having 105g of NSW and 105g of RODI on hand to mix in a matter of minutes was enough for my 270g system. As for the mixing station pump, I'm reusing an Ehiem (maybe a 1260) from my 60g cube. It takes just over a minute to move 5g of water in my RODI setup:

200gBuildRODI-191705.jpg


I plan on switching the pump out to the same pump I use as my returns. I've not done that yet as I'm going to be upgrading the returns in the next year or so. At least that is the plan.

By running the same pump as your returns, you always have a spare on hand that you can steal.
Those are awesome! Do you mind sharing where you got them?
 
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DH78

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Got the first of two storage water storage containers today. I ended up going with two 100 gallon vertical storage tanks. I'll get some pictures up this weekend as the plan is to finish the walls, get the floor down and hopefully a base for the water station.
One thing I didn't consider fully when I decided on these tanks (they are a great price from Home Depot) was their height. They will have no problem fitting, but the base is going to end up being just tall enough to make the bottom bulkhead line up with the pump. Even from the floor, there will be less than two feet from the ceiling in the basement. Need to keep them low enough to have access for dumping in salt.

In case anyone is interested, 100 gallon vertical water storage tank in green made by Chem-Tainer online from Home Depot. Almost $100 cheaper than other websites I checked.
 
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DH78

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Floor laid, one water tank here, and started running the electrical. Powering the electrical will be a couple weeks. We have to run a gas line to the kitchen and we are replacing the electric range with a gas one. This will free up a 50 amp breaker that I can change to two 20 amp breakers to provide power for the new tank. Just to make it easy, the dedicated circuit for the current tank will be converted for the outlet needed for the new range to minimize the amount of wall that has to be cut out to install the needed hardware for the range.

fish room .jpg
 
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Not that it is directly related, but we also finished off the other side of where the tank is going. When the tank is in, this whole half of the basement will be finished.

room 1.jpg
room 2.jpg
 
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DH78

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Stand is built. I know it's not pretty at the moment, but it will get a facing once the tank is in and the wall is finished. Plenty strong to support the tank.
stand.jpg
 

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