Gilroy 425g Build Thread (All Apex, all the time)

[Terence]

Well yesterday my son hauled down 14 of the 18 cinderblocks to the fish cave along with my sheet of 3/4" hardwood plywood and now we have a 16" high stand for the sump. Worked out very well. Now I can more easily reach into it, there is 16" less of head pressure, and I can store at least four totes of fish "stuff" underneath.

Today we are running the electric over to the tank. Two separate circuits. Each will have a GFCI and be in a dual gang box with weatherproof covers.

Meanwhile I am still reaching out for ideas on the drains.

Hopefully this week I might be able to get the muscle coordinated and get the tank over from my warehouse over to the house and up on the stand. Crossing fingers...

 

[Terence]

OK, due to some help from the awesome Mr. Russ (well known from the Neptune Community Forum) I was able to get all the electrical installed yesterday. I now have two separate circuits in the Fish Cave . One circuit will service just the Apex, and the other will service anything else I want to run in the Fish Cave without endangering blowing a breaker on the aquarium.

So, I have water, power, sump - what's left. Oh, that's right, the aquarium. Well maybe this week will be the week to bring it over.

In the meantime I am going to fit up a board with a bunch of standard Apex gear to get started. Don't get too excited, it will be nothing fancy like some of the stuff out there. At least not for now. Once I have everything dialed in, I will likely put it in one or two AttaBoxes for safe keeping.

Still working out the details on what to do with the drain. Randy at Oceans Edge (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oceans-Edge) is the sage of SLC when it comes to this stuff so he is giving me a good go-forward plan for it right now.

 

[Terence]

Things just got very real for the missus!

I just started the prep for the plumbing route and my wife Nancy started to freak out a little bit. She wants this aquarium more than anyone, but seeing her nice wall get a hole cut into it was a bit shocking for her.

Additionally, since this wall is a load bearing wall and on a serious beam under the house (a good thing), I cannot go straight down through the base plate. I need to go to the other side of the wall which is inside one of her kitchen cabinets, and then down to below the house. This will require a slight modification to one of her slide outs shelves in this cabinet, but it should not be an issue.

Getting closer. Still no tank on the stand, but crossing fingers that I can muster all the troops this week to make that happen.

 

[Terence]

The day has finally come. We have glass! Go www.ReefSavvy.com! Thanks Jimmy and Steve from www.neptuneaquatics.com, we couldn't have done it without you.

 

[Terence]

In addition I would also like to give a shout out to all the helping hands that made getting this in and on the stand possible. . . Mainly the Lee family who really deserve the most credit. Wow. Thanks guys!

 

[KlynnUK]

Watching this with intrest..a very handsome looking Tank..

 

[Mandee]

Wow this is an amazing and beautiful build. Congratulations to all the hard work you have put in an yet to come!

 

[dmort]

very cool build - have you given thought to skimmers, reactors, etc?

 

[Terence]

Watching this with intrest..a very handsome looking Tank..

Thanks!

Wow this is an amazing and beautiful build. Congratulations to all the hard work you have put in an yet to come!

Thank you.

very cool build - have you given thought to skimmers, reactors, etc?

Everything will be as internal as it can be to conserve watts (use to heat tank). Skimmer choices look to be either BK, SRO, or maybe something else...

I will likely run a biopellet reactor of some sort as well.

While I am a huge fan of Calcium Reactors, I will likely start out by dosing C-Balance with the DŌS and then move to a calcium reactor down the road when it is more necessary. Besides I need new projects to always keep me busy!

 

[iReef86]

Thanks!
... Besides I need new projects to always keep me busy!

If only my wife saw me eye to eye on this!!!

She says, "You keep changing things, why cant you just leave it alone? I liked it better the other way. Are you sure that's a good idea? How much was it and why do you need it? I thought xyz did that? Why did you need another one? This is the last tank you are setting up for 10 years!"

Ive been doing this since 1995, 20 years now. I just laugh and keep on swimming! Plus, at the end of the day, all she cares about is the health of fish and coral, me too!

Tagging along. Curious to see how this stand pans out! I love carpentry!

 

[Terence]

Well I was able to pick up one of my needed two 100 gallon water storage tanks from Tractor Supply in Watsonville. Now I either need to wait until the Gilroy store gets them back in stock or drive to Los Banos or some other location to get the other one.

I will be using one for fresh water storage and one for saltwater storage. I will not flip-flop between the two or even pump water between them. I will simply use one to store my RO for ATO to have on hand if I ever need it for a true disaster emergency for the family to have water, or if I need to make up another 100g of saltwater quickly after using the 100g in the other tank I can quickly pump it over.

I will have solenoids on the RO line that will automatically fill the the saltwater tank after a water change and then go back to the ATO tank once it is full. It will be part of a "make saltwater" virtual outlet program so I basically just add a pre-measured amount of salt to the empty tank and then hit a button on my phone.

 

[915MANG]

Its the guy from, kessil

 

[Tank2379]

Nice build can't wait to se it filled with water

 

[SeaMonkeys]

Great build! Following along to see how this turns out.

 

[Terence]

I just mounted the ghost overflows into the glass tonight. What a great fit. These things are nice and wide too! The best part though is how skinny and low profile they are inside the tank. Take a look for yourself.

 

[Terence]

Little by little each weekend. This weekend I continued to get the FishCave in order. First up was to level more dirt and create a cinderblock foundation for a platform to hold my water containers. This was my exercise for Saturday getting it level, moving around the blocks, etc. I decided to help the environment and recycle the Reef Savvy crate to help build out my FishCave. The base of the crate was used as the platform for the water tanks. I reinforced it a bit more, but it was already very stout. Next up was one of the crate ends that I used to mount up all my fresh water making gear. Last, I used one of the nine foot sides for the back wall behind the tank where I will be hanging up Apex Gear and many other things for the tank filtration and what not.

After all the wood was put in place I mounted up my two raffle winnings. One from MACNA last year - a SeaChem 4-stage RO/DI filter. The second I won at the SWFMAS raffle a few months back - A 2-stage Spectrapure Dechlorinator filter. I purposely put 10 tickets in this one and I think there were only 20 in there when it was pulled. I think everyone thought it was useless but my plan all along was to turn my SeaChem one into a 4-Stage RO and convert that 2-stage dechlorinator into 2-stages of DI making a 6-stage overall.

I got everything set up, flushed the pre-filters, flushed the RO, and now I am making water!

I need to get one more of the 100-gallon water storage tanks when they come back in stock.

The plan is to test with RO/DI and if everything is good, pour in the salt and kick it off!

Next weekend is the beginning of the tank plumbing. It will take two weekends at least I think. It will be a total of about 160' of 2" and 80' of 1".

 

[dragonfish]

looks good

 

[butrflynlambie]

I am looking forward to seeing the fish room plumbing and how you use solenoids and control them for salt making/water changing. Is there a frag setup going somewhere?!

Looks like it has the start of a wonderful tank.

 

[revhtree]

Loving this build! Beautiful tank! Let me know if you need any help programming your Apex.

 

[Terence]

I am looking forward to seeing the fish room plumbing and how you use solenoids and control them for salt making/water changing. Is there a frag setup going somewhere?!

Looks like it has the start of a wonderful tank.

Thanks! The plumbing for the aquarium in the beginning will be pretty simple and straightforward. The plan is for the RO/DI unit to basically basically top up the RO/DI reservoir once every couple of days. The saltwater storage will be done such that I will be doing a 24/7 ongoing water change using the Neptune Systems DŌS. When the saltwater runs low, it will stop and then alert me. It will then activate/deactivate the solenoids to divert the water from the RO/DI reservoir to the saltwater reservoir. When it gets 3/4 full it will alert me and then it will start up a powerhead inside the reservoir. I will go down and toss in the pre-measured salt and walk away. It will then mix the salt and after a set amount of time the RO/DI will be diverted back and the ongoing water change resumed. Some of this will be automatic and some semi-automatic (requires me to push a button or switch a virtual outlet)

Loving this build! Beautiful tank! Let me know if you need any help programming your Apex.

You're a funny guy!