Everything Custom DIY - Tidepool closed loop

[prodbot7]

Hey guys, documenting our new tide pool tank build!


Soooooooo my S.O. introduced me to reefing this past year and I’ve gotten completely hooked on the hobby. We started out with a 30gal shallow tank about 6 months ago. We packed the tank full of LPS and softies and for the most part it was going well except we always struggled getting adequate flow. The tank was only 8” tall and was intended to be viewed top down…. Because of that we avoided creating any surface agitation and didn’t want to use powerheads… the result was the return lines at the back of the tank contributing the only flow (I’ll include a picture of the old tank at the end of the post). It seemed to us that the cleanest solution would be to plumb in a closed loop system… that was the instigator from what ended up being a really fun upgrade.

We had many late-night brainstorming sessions and came up with the following goals for the new tank:

• Create a scape that had tide pools above the water surface
• Generate good flow throughout the tank while keeping glassy smooth water surface
• Design a scape that included many hiding spaces, caves, and swimming space for our fish

Here is a macro shot of the tank after being set up for 1 week. The coral is still pretty mad, but we’ve only lost a single piece (that always struggled in our old tank too) so we’re feeling cautiously optimistic.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t use live rock in our scape because it ended up taking about a week of smashing and epoxying together rocks to get a scape we were happy with. To minimize our loses we temporarily plumbed in a container containing our old live rock (bin to the left).



To build the tank itself we had glass cut and drilled, taped the edges to keep our silicone seems neat, and clamped the pieces together using small spacers between the panes. It turns out clamping glass together is a bit nerve wracking! The dimensions are 32”x32”x12”. The bottom pane is ½’ thick and the sides are 3/8” low iron glass.



Building the scape took a bit longer than anticipated…. We were initially optimistic and thought we could build the scape with 30lbs of rock in a single day…. 10 days and 90 lbs of rock later we had a scape we were happy with lol.



The man who started it all <3



Setup:

55 gal shallow tank (32”x32”x12” tall with low iron glass)
Nyos 160 skimmer
Apex head unit
Pentair 40 watt UV sterilizer
Vectra M2 return pump
SR 1500gal closed loop pump
Maxspect JUMP MJ-L 165 (3x)
Not setup yet:
Dosetronic
Alkatronic
Doors for the stand lol…supply chain should be fun


Old tank before it was taken down:

 

[prodbot7]

Livestock transferred from old tank:

We are going for a very friendly, reef safe grouping of fish with a few oddities....currently we have:
- 3x leopard wrasse - these ladies are still small, about 2-3"
- gold spotted rabbitfish - still small but growing quickly.... this little guy might be the instigator for future tank upgrades but I love him... he's gotten used to being hand fed so chases me around the tank any time I have my hand in to place coral
- green clown goby
- longnose hawkfish
- 2x glass cardinal
- 3x striped cardinal
- 2x bengai
- pistol shrimp
- peppermint shrimp
- 3x flame scallops
- 4x maxima clams
- assorted maximini and rockflower nems
- pompom crabs
- porcelain crab
- 2x tiger conch
- assorted cleanup snails and hermits


Fish Wishlist:
- Cryptic wrasse
- Yellow banded possum
- Blue star leopards
- Divided leopards
- Black leopards
- goby to bond with pistol shrimp
- school of redspots

…… yes, I’m leopard wrasse crazy

 

[prodbot7]

Taking measurements for the stand/cabinet doors and enjoying the view from the couch. So far we’re seeing the fish a lot more with this scape

 

[prodbot7]

Really hoping that all of our corals settle into the new tank... we have about 30lbs of live rock temporarily plumbed in and are testing daily to make sure water parameters stay in line but it's still nerve wracking! Here is a list of everything we moved over:

Acan lord (5ish colonies)	Neptune bounce (with a couple babies!!)
Fungai plate (yellow)	OG poleti jawbreakers (10x)
Cynarina (red)	Godspawn bounce
Button scolly (2ish…. one is seriously mad)	Yuma mushrooms (orange and green)
Blasto (merletti & red)	Rhodactis mushrooms (3ish)
Bowerbanki (clementine?)	Rainbow gumdrop mushroom (2x)
Galaxia (green)	Ricordia mushrooms (20ish)
Mummy eye chalice	Goniopora (pink, yellow/purple/ neon yellow)
Bejeweled favia	Assorted zoas
Toxic monster favia	Hammer

.....updated list coming soon because WWC had to go and have a sale

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Very very cool!!

 

[dstockwell]

Sweet !!

 

[TheDragonsReef]

Looks awesome!

 

[prodbot7]

Mushroom baby update!
Neptune bounce: the larger of the two babies is starting to color up and even get some bounce; the smaller is still pretty hidden and just looks purple.

Jaw breakers: the “mothers” are still so small but one baby is now 3!! they aren’t bright orange under whites yet but are getting some good fluorescence under blues ‍ wondering if anyone has seen pictures of these bounced… we’re considering running some UV experiments since we’re getting so many.

Not a mushroom but something I’m excited about: our plate is starting to get green speckles. This is a piece from a friend who had it a few months before having to relocate… so fun to see how different corals respond to different environments and lights

 

[McPuff]

Looks terrific so far! Really like the rock work. Curious how the flow works?

You're right, the rabbit will definitely make you want a bigger tank. They grow quite fast! I had one that went from 3" to almost a foot in 9 months.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Mushroom baby update!
Neptune bounce: the larger of the two babies is starting to color up and even get some bounce; the smaller is still pretty hidden and just looks purple.

Jaw breakers: the “mothers” are still so small but one baby is now 3!! they aren’t bright orange under whites yet but are getting some good fluorescence under blues ‍ wondering if anyone has seen pictures of these bounced… we’re considering running some UV experiments since we’re getting so many.

Not a mushroom but something I’m excited about: our plate is starting to get green speckles. This is a piece from a friend who had it a few months before having to relocate… so fun to see how different corals respond to different environments and lights

That plate!!

 

[prodbot7]

Looks terrific so far! Really like the rock work. Curious how the flow works?

You're right, the rabbit will definitely make you want a bigger tank. They grow quite fast! I had one that went from 3" to almost a foot in 9 months.

Wow that’s amazing growth on your rabbit fish! I love ours, he’s such a little puppy dog and follows my hand around the tank any time I’m placing coral, cleaning, or doing water changes. We originally got him to help with some algae… but turns out he’s a dud for algae control… c’est la vie. Luckily we have friends with large tanks who we know will happily rehome him when he outgrows this tank.



For the flow, in addition to the typical sump/return setup, we plumbed in a closed loop system on a different pump. This gives us really great control over how much water is pushing through the sump, uv sterilizer, carbon reactor, and past the skimmer for good efficiency because most of our tank flow is determined by the closed loop system, not the return pump.



The closed loop has 4 “returns”, 3 in corners and one in the middle tide pool area (marked with red circles); the flow for each of these is modulated via ball valve; we have the 1500 gal pump set to 10% so about 150 gal are being circulated via the closed loop…. we’ll probably increase that as time goes on. The loop is fed by an intake in the back right corner (marked with red arrow) which we built a removable acrylic box around which houses sponges to keep sand out of the closed loop pump. For the tide pool return we made the large rock structure hallow with various caves and arches for the fish which allowed us to run lockline up past the surface of the water to feed the tide pools. (Excuse the algae, we’re officially in the uglies). We’re hoping that coralline will grow anywhere water is consistently trickling out of the tidepools… you can see a couple spots of the main tide pool that are brown where we’re hoping that will happen.

Here’s a picture of the underside where the close loop feeds through the holes drilled in the bottom of the tank.

 

[Kerber13]

While @prodbot7 was tirelessly working on figuring out the plumbing for the closed loop during the tank switch, I was working on extending and reusing as much of the old plumbing as I could. Needless to say, she had the harder task.

 

[Kerber13]

I was doing some regularly scheduled maintenance (testing and dosing) and I noticed that our clams seemed to be looking extra nice today. @prodbot7 and I love all sorts of different critters. Shrimp, crabs, scallops, macro, clams, etc. You name it and we’ll give it a try!

 

[ABQ_CHRIS]

Wow! Y'all aren't messing around. Tremendous work.

 

[Funlad3]

I was doing some regularly scheduled maintenance (testing and dosing) and I noticed that our clams seemed to be looking extra nice today. @prodbot7 and I love all sorts of different critters. Shrimp, crabs, scallops, macro, clams, etc. You name it and we’ll give it a try!

Nice clams

 

[ReefRondo]

Love it!

 

[Kerber13]

Our little bubble blower, fatty mcfat fat, algae eating boy: monti. This fish will nibble on our fingers and eat algae right out of our hand. @prodbot7 ‘s favorite fish and little puppy dog.

 

[Kerber13]

Can anyone venture a guess or help me troubleshoot some skimmer issues we are having. I checked the pump and it’s fine, none of the airvents are closed or clogged, it has been running 2 weeks so it’s broken in. I can not figure it out. Any guesses would be awesome!

 

[h20cyclone]

Super cool setup! Can't wait to see how this one progresses.

 

[AceShadow_Reefer]

Can anyone venture a guess or help me troubleshoot some skimmer issues we are having. I checked the pump and it’s fine, none of the airvents are closed or clogged, it has been running 2 weeks so it’s broken in. I can not figure it out. Any guesses would be awesome!

I have the slightly larger version of this skimmer and from what I've found, after it's been broken in, it needs further adjustment to get the levels right! After that final adjustment, it's set it and forget it. I love my Nyos!

Before I get into how I adjust my skimmer, I would like to point out that I keep my water level in the skimmer chamber at the level of the N in QUANTUM. Yours looks pretty dang low which would lead to the problem you're having! I suggest raising the water level first and seeing if that fixes the issue. Regardless, adjusting is always a good idea so...

Start with everything fully open. In case you didn't know (I didn't back when I first got it) the actual pipe itself with the adjustment dial on it can twist. There is a hole at the bottom that will line up facing the pump when fully open. Once everything is open, first start by twisting that pipe so the hole begins to face away from the pump. Do this until you see the water level rise to about a half-inch below the skimmer cup. Then you can start closing the adjustment dial for a much finer adjustment. This will raise the water level to precisely where you want it to be. You should be all set after this!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I absolutely love this build! Will be following Good luck and happy reefing!