First tank - 150 peninsula from crystal dynamic
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danreefman
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Mine is similar. CD 190. Mine sits about 15inches below where we eat. I'd love to get rid of my railing to. My little guys and most of the time myself, will be tumbling if it wasn't there.
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mrcole76
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I think it’s going to be so cool having it pretty much right next to the kitchen table. I think I’m going to just remove the part of the railing that’s directly in front of the tank so things are still generally safe. But you can probably tell that my wrought iron is hardly ‘code’. They’re pretty much a giant strangulation hazard. ;Dead I would need to put some acrylic against it to make it safe. Luckily my kids are older so I don’t have to stress that.
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mrcole76
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First design error. I bet countless reefers have had this happen to them. I did not appreciate how tall or wide my skimmer was. I have the reef octopus 202-s. I’d like to say I planned this perfectly but we will all know the truth. The cup just BARELY fit between the framing of the cabinet by sheer, random chance. And it also forced my sump position to go right in the front of the cabinet. I’m happy with how it worked out but WOW, that was close. ;Facepalm
Since the clearance is so tight, I put some sticky roofing material to protect against cup overflow and make it easy to wipe up.
Since the clearance is so tight, I put some sticky roofing material to protect against cup overflow and make it easy to wipe up.
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mrcole76
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Here’s version 1 of the return plumbing. I went 1” the whole run at least up to the top of the aquarium and then transitioned to 1/2” the rest of the way. I also have a flow monitor on the run so I can tell how much water I’m actually pushing. My goal is 500ish gph. There are four bulkheads dropping down through the bracing into the tank. Not sure I’ll use all four but way easier to put a plug in a couple of them instead of adding 2 later.
I thought I was being super clever with the siphon break being a reversed check valve with an elbow pointing into the tank. I really did come to that idea on my own but then realized later that Marc Levenson and others do the same sort of thing. Oh well, I was still proud of myself for thinking of that.
Last thing, there’s a strange looking fitting coming out an angle towards the bottom right of the pic. That’s just wedged under the plumbing for support.
I thought I was being super clever with the siphon break being a reversed check valve with an elbow pointing into the tank. I really did come to that idea on my own but then realized later that Marc Levenson and others do the same sort of thing. Oh well, I was still proud of myself for thinking of that.
Last thing, there’s a strange looking fitting coming out an angle towards the bottom right of the pic. That’s just wedged under the plumbing for support.
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mrcole76
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Some pics of the return and drain plumbing. You can see the 1” flow monitor in one of the pics.
For the drain, you can see I reduce down to 1” right away but I do leave enough room to cut it off and go back to full 1.5 if I need to. I can’t imagine I’ll need to do that, though.
For the drain, you can see I reduce down to 1” right away but I do leave enough room to cut it off and go back to full 1.5 if I need to. I can’t imagine I’ll need to do that, though.
Nice build... love the trim work on the stand. I second the idea of taking out the iron work. I think it’ll be beautiful to see from that kitchen area.
Do you already have lights or other equipment picked out yet?
Do you already have lights or other equipment picked out yet?
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mrcole76
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Good idea @Righteous Equipment list time! I basically have everything finalized now:
- Synergy ghost overflow
- Trigger systems sapphire 39
- Trigger 10gal top off reservoir
- Tunze ato
- 48” aquatic life t5/led hybrid. (Open box from BRS - sweet!)
- 3 kessil a360 (mounted only 6” from edge of AL fixture for even distro across 60” tank)
- Reef octopus 202s skimmer
- Reef octopus varios 6 return (I run it at 3/5 power and get 500 gph. Love it)
- Apex w/ fmk
- Maxspect xf250 gyre. (No apex interface yet. I’m undecided how important that is)
- Brs dosers for 2part
- “Ac infinity” fan for canopy (if you haven’t seen these yet, look em up!)
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Nice! I’m now a huge fan of Kessil after it survived my tank dunk!
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mrcole76
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Since there’s no easy for me to route plumbing for a permanently connected ato, I went with a large 10 gallon top off container. I’m in Phoenix so I’m expecting a lot of evaporation. But between that and the sump, it pretty much took up all the space under the cabinet. Where am I going to put all the electronics and the ensuing madness of cords?
The answer, duh, is an extension of the cabinet to use as an electronics enclosure! These are some nice shots because without the paint you can see how I framed things up with the pocket screws.
The answer, duh, is an extension of the cabinet to use as an electronics enclosure! These are some nice shots because without the paint you can see how I framed things up with the pocket screws.
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mrcole76
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Oh yes I did. I did some serious sleuthing and I was unable to find a single other reefer who has done this. Have you ever seen those coffee tables where the top lifts up and toward you? Wouldn’t that be sweet for a canopy top?! The hinges are readily available on Amazon. Heavy duty ones, too. What do you think? Have you seen this idea in action before?
Miles Williams
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Beautiful work, following along with this one for sure!
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mrcole76
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Finding good plastic tanks for rodi and saltwater mixing is hard. Sure, there are the standard brute cans out there or even a 55 gal drum (which would be sweet!). The selection at tractor supply was OK but just didn’t quite fit my needs. I had a tiny wedge of real estate to work with in my laundry room / fish room. So I found this cool local place called www.tanknbarrel.com. They had some 25 gal norwesco tanks in stock that would work great. They were 18” dia by 29” tall. Perfect! I think I paid around 70 each with no shipping. Score!
I read a lot of posts and watched a bunch of videos on mixing stations. I plumbed my system so the only connection between the two tanks is to dump rodi into the bottom tank for mixing. I didn’t want to take the chance and accidentally send saltwater into the rodi tank or something like that. The saltwater output has a quick connect on it for pumping water to the tank. I’ll use that same hose for draining but just via siphon into a utility sink in the same room. When I fill, I’ll first pump a couple gallons into the sink to flush out the hose. I hope that will be good enough.
The tanks came with preinstalled bulkheads on the side but I drilled the bottoms instead. The side bulkheads would always leave at least an inch of water in the tanks and I didn’t want that. Ok - picture time...
I read a lot of posts and watched a bunch of videos on mixing stations. I plumbed my system so the only connection between the two tanks is to dump rodi into the bottom tank for mixing. I didn’t want to take the chance and accidentally send saltwater into the rodi tank or something like that. The saltwater output has a quick connect on it for pumping water to the tank. I’ll use that same hose for draining but just via siphon into a utility sink in the same room. When I fill, I’ll first pump a couple gallons into the sink to flush out the hose. I hope that will be good enough.
The tanks came with preinstalled bulkheads on the side but I drilled the bottoms instead. The side bulkheads would always leave at least an inch of water in the tanks and I didn’t want that. Ok - picture time...
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mrcole76
Community Member
Holy cow, I knew Phoenix had hard water but this surprised me. Starting up my water production, even after going through the breaking in period and flushing the membranes, I was still registering 13 TDS after RO but before DI. What the heck?! So I flushed longer, etc, but nothing worked. I guess I’ll just burn through a bunch of DI. Still curious, though, I picked up a handheld TDS meter and I registered 592! And that’s after going through a water softener. Sheesh. It is what is, I guess.
The math checks out. The rejection rate is supposed to be 97-99% so a 592 TDS and 13 tds product water works out to 98% rejection. That’s close enough so I know I’m at least in the right ballpark.
The math checks out. The rejection rate is supposed to be 97-99% so a 592 TDS and 13 tds product water works out to 98% rejection. That’s close enough so I know I’m at least in the right ballpark.
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mrcole76
Community Member
Everything painted and ready to go! I ended up putting a cutout on the narrow side of the canopy for a small door that I’ll use for daily tasks like feeding, fishing out the dang flipper, etc. It’s kind of interesting as I look back at my original drawings and see how things have changed. My original plan was to have some sort of crown-like treatment around the top of the canopy. But my wife loved the sleek look of the canopy as-is with just a slight bead around the top which doubles as the top cover which is secured with some easy to remove furniture screws for major maintenance.
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