Greybeard's Wide, Shallow Peninsula

[Greybeard]

Not much fun yet, but progressing... slowly.

Picked up a sheet of 3/4" ply for the top of the stand, cut to size, primed, and 2 coats white marine epoxy. It's never going to be seen... but gives me a hard, smooth, waterproof base to continue building on. I'm going to run a 1.5" x 1/2" solid oak border around it, rising 1/4" above the surface of the ply, and a 1/4" square 'border' around the tank itself. Have the 'shelf' painted with a coral garden design, and use pour on bar epoxy to fill the 1/4" space. Should give me a tough, easily maintained, waterproof surface.

Also wired a new set of GFCI outlets in the closet where the sump is going. I got lucky on this one, there was an old 1970's intercom system controller in this closet, when I removed it, I found that the power run to that unit was on it's very own 20a circuit breaker :) Couple of 20a GFCI outlets, should be golden on power. Note the cedar closet... it's got a couple coats of poly over it. As long as I don't let it get overly humid in there, and I don't plan to allow that to happen... should hold up well.

 

[Greybeard]

Status Update: Tank is due Thursday. All of my plumbing parts are here. I'm going to be using a 55g aquarium as a sump... safe me a few bucks, plus, I can set it up any way I want it... which, in this case, is basically going to be the Triton recommended design.

I've decided to go full Triton system with this tank, adding in some NoPox dosing, in the beginning, at least. No telling how it's going to work out, but I'm going to give it a shot. First time I've tried Triton, but I've been reading everything I can get my hands on for the last month or so, and want to see if I can make it work. The whole 'No water change' thing is very attractive to me. We'll see.

Bought a CoralBox wifi doser. Recommended on this forum, seemed a good balance between features and value. We'll see.

 

[Janci]

Cannot wait to see how this will turn out. I am not familiar with Triton but many tanks show wonderful results. It means you will be running refugium as well?

 

[Greybeard]

Cannot wait to see how this will turn out. I am not familiar with Triton but many tanks show wonderful results. It means you will be running refugium as well?

Yeah, Triton has a recommended layout, I'm following it. Roughly half of the 55g tank will be refugeum. I haven't bought it yet, but a Kessel H80 light seems likely.

 

[Husker]

The tanks with a large refugium tend to be successful. Part of that is probably because tanks with a large refugium tend to have a lot of other equipment and husbandry characteristics in common, but I think the fuge provides so much more than nutrient export. The plankton production by large refugia is certain to be a beneficial food source for coral and food.

I bet your excited to get the tank. Everything will be running shortly.

 

[Greybeard]

I bet your excited to get the tank.

You have no idea.

I started thinking about this upgrade last July. Decided to move forward with it in December. Tore down my old cube first of May.

God gave me a limited amount of patience, and raising 4 daughters robbed me of what little I started with.

Add in the struggles I had in finding a vendor that could build what I wanted at a cost I could afford, and then the fact that the LFS I purchased the tank through (Planet Aquarium doesn't deal with the public) has gone out of business since I ordered the glass... Yeah. I've been pulling my hair out, and my alcohol consumption has gone through the roof :p

NOTE: Planet Aquariums did not go out of business... the LFS I ordered through did.

 

[Husker]

Planet Aquariums went out of business? That is who I got my tank from just a couple months ago.

 

[Greybeard]

...tanks with a large refugium tend to have a lot of other equipment and husbandry characteristics in common, but I think the fuge provides so much more than nutrient export. The plankton production by large refugia is certain to be a beneficial food source for coral and food.

This ^^^ is the foundational principal that the Triton method is build upon. Add in accurate (well, depending on your definition of accurate) wide range testing, and their 4 bottle 2 part Calc/Alk dosing system... that's about all the Triton system is.

 

[Greybeard]

Planet Aquariums went out of business? That is who I got my tank from just a couple months ago.

NO! Don't get that rumor started...

The local fish store I purchased my Planet Aquariums tank through went out of business. (Fish FinAtics, Springfield MO)

Planet Aquariums is doing well, as far as I know. Problem is, they don't sell direct to the public. That's why I had to order through a LFS.

 

[Husker]

Oh, okay. That makes more sense. Yes, I ordered through a LFS too. My tank looks pretty nice. They didn't follow the directions I provided on a couple things, but I ended up just dealing with it (they didn't drill the return hole I asked for, and they didn't drill the overflow off center, like I asked, to give room for powerheads on the side of the aquarium against the wall).

 

[Greybeard]

They didn't follow the directions I provided on a couple things, but I ended up just dealing with it (they didn't drill the return hole I asked for, and they didn't drill the overflow off center, like I asked, to give room for powerheads on the side of the aquarium against the wall).

I really don't want to hear that... Did you speak with Planet Aquarium directly? Perhaps the instructions got lost in the translation... I provided a detailed, dimensioned layout, and forced the issue on speaking to them directly. I would not pay until I saw documentation with _exactly_ what I wanted, in detail, with dimensions, on the quote sheet from Planet Aquariums. I need 4 holes, and provided center points for each from the top edge, and the panel centerline, along with hole diameters. I suppose I'll know in a couple of days if they got it right or not.

 

[Husker]

I suspect issues were perhaps on the LFS end. I never really got any information from him, I just provided the instructions in a Facebook message and he said "OK." They don't ship until you pay, so I did. When t came he offered to drill the return hole himself, but said he can't "move the drilled holes." Also, the tank was supposed to be euro braced, and it came euro braced AND black trim. I didn't specifically say no black trim, so I chalked that one up to my fault. The LFS and the owner are generally good and very helpful, so I didn't want them to take the hit. I'm pathologically nice, I guess.

 

[Greybeard]

New glass :)

 

[Greybeard]

Test fit Overflow and Returns

 

[Ponraj A]

Very nice, may I know what is the overflow (inside) named ? its so tidy and clean.

 

[Husker]

Very cool overflow idea. Glass looks nice and clean.

 

[Greybeard]

Overflows and Returns came from CustomAquarium.com... H2Overflow and Siphon Stopper. I like the H2Overflow, nice and clean. You can turn them and run them straight into the tank, but the image above is exactly my plan. Not so sure about the Returns though. You can return deep into the tank without worry of siphoning out half the water on a power outage, but... they're kinds big. Really should have a 90 elbow right where the loc-line screws in, it'd give you more flexibility. I may add one... in fact, I may not use them at all, just depends.

I have to say, they weren't cheap, for what you're getting. Most of the components are just black Schedule 40 plumbing parts. There's a few custom cast PCV parts, but _just_ a few.

 

[Greybeard]

Coralbox wifi doser: Received it yesterday. Haven't had a lot of time to mess with it, but I really like it so far. Aluminum case, doesn't feel cheap... very compact, easy to mount, took me all of 30 seconds to download the app and have my phone connecting to it. Able to manually turn on/off the pump heads no more than 5 minutes after opening the box.

One issue so far, I run an unsecured wifi network, and this device doesn't appear to want to connect without a password. Since I'm out in the stix, a secure wifi network just doesn't make much sense...

Aside from that very minor issue, looks like a great product, at a reasonable price.

 

[Ponraj A]

Please let us know after the installation of Coral box doser. Pictures would be great. Thanks in advance for your update.

 

[gacolt]

Looks great so far!!!