Dputt88's 240 gal In-Wall Build

[dputt88]

I have nearly all of the plumbing dry fitted. Let me know what you think of having a manifold on a reef octopus varios 8. A package with some more ball valve have been delayed all week so you will likely see some returns that still need valves.

 

[dputt88]

well its been one heck of a weekend. i finished plumbing all of the floor drains. Since we moved the RO system i plumbed the rejection water into the same drain. not the enitre tank setup has its own drain system in the crawl space.

also we were able to finish framing the wall and we hung the door to the fish room. everything got a couple coats of Killz as well.

next weekend we can cement all of the plumbing for the tank and hang the drywall.

 

[dputt88]

Well I hung drywall this weekend. Unfortunately the power steering pump on my truck blew a major leak so I was not able to make an additional run up to home depot to get 2 more sheets of drywall (mom decided that she wanted the entire side wall to be drywall, not just the new wall for the fish room). So I had to stop at a rather awkward point. Anyways should be a quick fix so next weekend we can finish drywall, paint and finish plumbing.

Oh yeah and I was able to cement the manifold together and all of the returns after the manifold. Just need an extra union and some motivation to cement all of the drains together.

Here's the vapor barrier I put up prior to the drywall. This should be good for protecting the drywall

and heres a shot where I thought I was done.

and here's a shot after decisions were made, a trip to home depot was required, but the truck was down for count.

 

[dputt88]

Well it has been a busy couple of weeks. i have been bouncing around for work but still found quite a bit of time to swing by and help out with the build.

so first there was the mudding... i hate mudding.....

then we got everything primed, painted and trimmed.

meanwhile, as you may have noticed, we moved all of the rock into the tank which now have and egg crate bottom so that it would be easier to soak them in fresh and change the water as it gets dirtier. we have been soaking these rock for over a month so they will likely only sit there for this week and then is saltwater and auquascaping

also about a week ago i plugged the wholes in the sump with glass and silicone. give it another week and it should be able to take on water.f

started a light rack out of t-slot aluminum. great stuff. stille have a lot ot do with it. id like to have a winch or something so it can be raised and lowered.

well it has been a long journey, were all happy that this tank is about to see saltwater soon. so for now we have to deal with the giant headache known as cord management.... heres just the vitals...

 

[Flexin]

Nice!!!

 

[dputt88]

just a little update on the tank. first off we got it up an running... well sort of. its full of salt water and the pump is on. however, the power supply for our apex has vanished. we have been pretty specific about where things are put away during this project yet we still lost it.... given that the power supply looks just like my fathers laptop power supply, he thinks he may have it in his laptop case which is at his not-job (job he retired from). anyways he still stops in here and there so he's going to check on that tomorrow. if its not there we will just be buying another one.

so here's the pic of the tank finally with salt water and sand. were working on the rock situation now. we have carbon running to clear it up.

also i built a cord management cabinet, its not done yet, i still have to cut some holes in it and paint it but i started playing with where i wanted to put things. but all the excess cords and what not will be inside the cabinet while the controllers will stay on the outside. we also bought some cord management tracks so when the cords run from the cabinet to the ground and from the ground to the tank they are not a trip hazard.

and here is what it looks like to keep things running this week before cord management is complete.

 

[dputt88]

Just a quick update. this past weekend we did some work on the cord management cabinet and got the Apex running. Also we got aquascaping version 1 done, there is likely to be some changes but its a start. The water was a little cloudy when I left on Sunday so my dad sent me a pic on Monday after it cleared up. I should be able to grab more pictures if I head over there sometime this weekend.

 

[dputt88]

I got the lights hung this weekend. still looking to get another 2 reef breeders to add to this. then we will likely upgrade to something else come black Friday. I cannot believe how clear starfire glass is, I don't think i will ever buy another tank without it.

Also I ran some tracks for the cord management. we'll see how well this works out

there is still lots of work to be done with the cords. I'm in the process of making an extension to the float switch for the Varios return pump. also bought extensions for the actual return pump itself.

Highly disappointed in Reef Octopus, the cords that come on their "top of the line" equipment are rather short, they should be longer for larger pumps as larger pumps are likely to be used on bigger tank. then they charge a high price for an extension cord that again isn't very long, their connectors wont fit in most standard cord management tracts, and you cant make your own cord because they use a connection that has no industry standard so you will never be sure if the connector your buying will fit with theirs.... end rant.

 

[dputt88]

i got my overpriced extension cord for the varios pump so it was just long enough that i could run it through the cord management track.

also, i bought the connectors that are used on the float swatch along with some appliance wire of the same rating to make an extension cord for the float switch. however, i could not get the darn things to solder, so i ended up cutting the wire to the float switch and soldering in an extra length of wire.

so, now i just have to figure out what I'm going to do about the cord for the heater. my thought is that since heater have a pretty limited lifespan i would just cut it and tie in an extra length as well. but i have to look into what kind of warranty i would be voiding, not something i was too concerned about when i did the same thing for a $20 float switch.

And finally, I added a string of waterproof LEDs under the stand to light things up a bit. they are plugged into the apex and are turned on and off through fusion right now. soon i will make it so there is a switch nearby, or maybe even have them turn on automatically when the door to the fish room is open.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Nice build. You just give me an idea cus I might upgrade my tank to a 75g and use the 40g breeder for the sump. I see how you plugged the holes in you sump that way I can make a sump out the 40g.

 

[dputt88]

I tried to make a post a couple of days ago but something went wrong and it wouldn't post so here's a long overdue update.

A few weeks ago we added 12 chromis they have all been doing well. im not sure why but Liveaquaria shipped on chromis by itself and now that one just hides in the back all alone while the other school together.

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Yesterday we started added some other fish. we got a pair of bangai cardinals, a orange spot goby with a pistol shrimp, a longspine urchin.


also we weren't really intending on adding tangs just yet but got a pretty good deal on a naso tang and a sailfin tang, so i guess tang day came early. we also got a yellow tang.

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[dputt88]

so we got quite a few algae frags in this week. i dont remember them all but we got a few cool ones like dragons breath, blue hypnea (which i pretty sure i got sent blue ochtodes....), red razor, and a purple cactus gorgonian (photosynthetic). too many to remember all of the names. one thing i noticed is that i clearly favor red algae as i didn't order a single green alga... gotta save something for later i guess.

also we have a small GHA outbreak in the 60 cube, not in the 240 however. the sailfin tang and the yellow tang are constantly picking at the rock work so they might have something to do with that.

 

[dputt88]

I was able to get some work done on the macro algae cube this weekend. I hung a reefbreeders fixture tht i had laying around. i couldnt use it on the 240 because it has a different layout. still looking for a couple reefbreeders with standard layouts to add on the 240.

then i set up some things for out new seahorses to hang on while we wait for the algae to grow out.

then here are some pics for the seahorses. unfortunately since we added them a bit of cyano has popped up, probably to to it being warmer in the house. i added a koralia 425 to help with flow but in reality this is too under-powered to do much for the cyano. today i am going to take an old 1000 gph submersible pump, add that to the sump and run a soft line to the cube, then likely remove the 425. this should add enough flow and still be manageable for the seahorses. it has to be a flow issue because its on the same system as the 240 which has no cyano. also were going to get a better clean up crew in there today.

Thanks PamelaR1 for the seahorses!

Heres a shot of the 240, nothing new other than the addition of a conch.

 

[dputt88]

I got around to doing some of the trim work over the weekend. one step closer to adding the cabinet doors. I'm starting to think i may just have someone make the doors. but we will see. still have to paint all of the new trim.

 

[larryl]

Looking great, nice job on the build.

 

[joseserrano]

Nice build.

 

[dputt88]

added a few fish lately. we added a yellow wrasse and a fairy wrasse, a trio of komahara blennies, a mandarin goby, a court jester goby, a red scooter blenny, one spot fox face.

unfortunately I haven't seen my orange spot goby and pistol shrimp in awhile but i haven't counted them out yet.





now its time to focus on new lights and coral!

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Awesome build. Don't worry about the orange goby and the pistol shrimp, they are together on the bottom of a rock like mine and came out once a week or maybe at night.

 

[dputt88]

well its been a little while since i have updated this so here it goes.

turns out its not a good thing to have the refugium light up against the side glass. algae grew on the glass blocking the light to the cheato cause all of the cheato to die off. we did lose a couple fish right after this accident so no more court jester goby... as well as our 3 komahara blennies, which were begging to turn on each other anyways. last time i buy a trio of anything from live aquaria. anyways things are getting back to normal. the cyano outbreak in the 60 gal is gone, however now we have cyano in the 240. I'm going to chalk this up to cycling... for now.

we also had issues with out lights. the channels started burning out one by one so to keep our corals happy we had to employ our old t5 fixture ... which looks ugly but in hindsight were are dang lucky this worked out. when we took the old fixture out of the garage it wouldn't work.. i opened it up to find out that a mouse had gotten in there and chewed through many wires. i was able to solder them back together and BAM the lights work again. we are hoping to buy some new LEDs during the black Friday sales later this week. so the terrible look of a tank that is lit by t5 on one side and LED on the other is temporary.

Finally i got around to building the frame for the cabinet doors. I was under the impression that custom sizes of cabinet doors was not a big deal... turns out it is, so i may have to make my own... but for now, some pictures of the tank.

 

[don_chuwish]

I just love the display refugium window. Great idea.