ELOS 120 build thread

[Areseebee]

Decided to make a build thread for my new ELOS 120. I'm hoping to use this as a sounding board for decisions and problem solving. So please feel free to drop whatever advice in this thread!

I bought a used ELOS 120 (measures about 46x22x20, probably 90ish gallons. I wanted something wider than the typical 75/90 so this is where I ended up. It's an older tank, it's been resealed "by a professional" which is fine but it's definitely lost the clean, unassuming seams of the original. Oh also there's a hole in the side of the stand and the doors don't fully close.

It also has the original ELOS drain which I've heard nothing but bad things about and it doesn't seem to have a real emergency drain. There's two return holes, one big drain and a mystery hole on top. All the piping is kind of hard wired into this overflow. The mystery hole goes straight through and I have no idea of its purpose.

I plumbed the thing to a fijicube 36 v2 sump. The drain line was reduced to 3/4" by the previous owner and I kind of just kept that idea although I'm not sure I would have done it that way. The return pump is currently a Jebao 4000. The protein skimmer is a Skimz monzter... I don't know the model. It was sold to me as 257 but I think it's the smaller one. Either way, the skimmer is probably too big and I might swap it out for something smaller relatively quickly.

So far that is the equipment. I need to think about lights and flow. I am planning to mount as much as I can on the right and back wall just because they are naturally less useful.

 

[Areseebee]

I had never aquascaped a reef tank with dry rock before. I've always used live rock that I frantically pile and hope it is stable. So this time I bought like 150lbs of random old rock from a local reefer.

I followed the BRS guidelines for bleaching and then clearing the rock of bleach. However it still smells vaguely like bleach so I'm going to let it dry. However, in the meantime I started working on the structure. Here it is as it currently sits.

Oddly enough looking at these pictures I don't like it, but looking up from my computer at it I do. I'm not sure if it just is weird angles or not translating well or what, but I think it's pretty good. A ton of interconnected caves and stuff. Anyways, I'm going to let it dry at least another day.

Currently still filling the tank with RODI to test the plumbing and cleaning out the basement for a water change station.

 

[Areseebee]

Ok well liverock is in the tank. It's shorter than I expected (somehow). Considering building up the left side a little with thinner runs. Then again maybe it's just nice to have the upper space free for swimming.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Ok well liverock is in the tank. It's shorter than I expected (somehow). Considering building up the left side a little with thinner runs. Then again maybe it's just nice to have the upper space free for swimming.

Great looking aquascape! Gives your fish plenty of room to swim around in and hide in.

 

[Areseebee]

I added a little bit more to the rockwork. The two structured Are now connected. I added caribsea argonite sand. About 60 lbs in total, had 3 bags left over but sure if I should add more. It looks cloudy because I added 1/2 a bag today to fill it out just a bit more.

The tank was a little unlevel with the front being lower than the back by roughly 1/4 inch. I shimmed it up with some home Depot shims and now it's mostly level.

Added a gyre style pump, hooked up the return and got an inkbird going with 2x300w finnex heaters.

Been busy. Going to start fishless cycle tonight. Oh and the drain indeed sucks. The only way I've found to quiet it a little is to close the drain line a little but that's slightly terrifying since there's no emergency drain.

 

[Areseebee]

Ok. The tank is cycling. Day 2: sitting at something like 2-4 ppm ammonia, no signs of nitrite yet.

I decided I'm going to redo the drain, it really is unbelievably loud and horrible. Most of the threads I can find with people running it "quietly" seem to be basically tuning it such that the drain backed up so the water isn't falling down the open drain as far, and is roughly a syphon that is precisely balanced with the return. Without an emergency drain, this is a terrifying thought. So I'm going to replumb this. I guess it will be a Herbie. I will pull a 1/2 inch return pipe through the mystery hole. In principle I could make this larger but I don't think it needs to be. I will keep the original drain, which is 1-1/2 inches (throttled down to 3/4" below) as an open emergency drain... a standpipe without the standpipe I guess. My goal is to have as little water as possible going down this. I'm slightly worried that the return that will serve as the siphon drain isn't far enough below the large drain, though. I may have to plug up the upper return, I may have to angle the siphon intake down? I'm not sure. I feel very uncertain about this approach.

I've also thought about maybe if I can create a durso style "muffler" for the main drain it would at least help with the noise. The problem is that there's only very little space between the hold you see in the bottom picture and a grating that goes infront of it that blocks it. You can see it below. So I drew up a 3D printed part that I thought might help. The cylinder part would insert into the drain and then lead to a small box that is open on the bottom, this is where water would enter the drain from. The box is small enough that it fits between the drain hold and the grating infront of it. There's a small hole on the top to let in air. I THINK this would help for the same reason dursos have the u-shape near the top rather than running open. However, I went to print it last night and turns out our printer is broken so not sure when I can actually make it.

 

[Areseebee]

Well I'm still vacillating on the drain situation, but in the meantime the tank is doing the fishless cycle thing. I started with Fritzyme 9 and bottled ammonia. Maybe 5 days in at this point and no dent in the ammonia which I'm surprised about. Maybe I stalled it with too much ammonia. I'm in no rush.

Although this lady is getting impatient.

 

[Areseebee]

Cardinal transferred over and he's got a pair of clowns to befriend. Bought the clowns individually but they seem to have taken to each other. They were both in different tanks with 3 others so I took the largest of the naked clowns and the smallest of the other set. So far so good. Not sure what that blue reflection is; TV maybe.

On the hardware side. I got the auto-topoff working (Tunze 3155) turns out I had a dead pump. So I wired up a new pump and moved the reservoir across the room. Now I'm pretty much just waiting on lights. I have two of the A8se II Max from Ali.