I'm back after 20 years... let's REEF!!!

[Gino]

It's been a while (20 years plus) since I turn down my 200 gal tank. Looking for some day come back to the hobby. The time just arrived, not as I use to set, because space issues, but I'm really excited and ready. By the way... "my wife encourage me to build a tank".

Well, my new approach will be with a Nano Tank in a small space at the living room. After looking for an alternative concerning the space available, one day my wife came up to the idea of rescue the tank that my brother in law have in his garage for several years. So we arrange with him to pick it up.

JBJ 28 Pro

Well... now I got a Tank for the space available for me. And the best of all freebie... 8)
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My new concern now it's the filtration for it. So I decide to look for a viable alternative taking in consideration the lack of space in the cabinet. As I was used to use sumps with a tricker system back in the day's but the messures inside the cabinet throw me into a DIY sump. I was looking for a skimming section, a refugium and a return to dose, ato, reactors, ect...
I decide to do some drawings to acomodate my needs.

At the end I came up with a linear 3 chambers sump in a 10 gal aquarium.

So I made it.

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Ok... "I got the Tank and the sump, I need and overflow". :-/ Looking for ideas found different alternative. (drilling the back wall, buying a hang on back overflow box, or like in the old day's a PVC pipe overflow). Drilling the back wall wasn't the alternative for me, buying a hang on back its no fun, so I decide to do my own PVC overflow.

Problem solve...
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My next concern was the return...
Not a big deal but, How I'm going to return all that water?
The tank came with a back chambers for the original mecanical kind of biological filtration system. But the question was... Did that space will handle that amount of water? Well, thinking that it came with two 266glh powerheads controled by a wave maker that alternate each other and definetly I want to use it. But that definetly won't be enough.
I could use those holes and eliminate the powerheads, but I will have to place them inside the tank and won't look cool. So I dicide to keep it as it was and drill two new holes for my returns in the plastic wall that divide the internal filtration of the tank.

So far, so good... all the plumbing problems are solve.

By the way my wife got to love me a lot... buajajaja

Something is missing the sofa...
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Well, what about the aquascape?
Thats it something that concern and preocupate all of us. It got to look good, it need plenty of area to place our frags and all in between (crevices for fish to hide, enough pieces for bio to grow and support the system, ect, ect).
I was planning to buying dry rocks from a supplier but it will be expensive and probably the rocks that came in wouldn't be of my like. But because I live in Florida that wasn't an issue. My back yard it's full of dead reef rock's that I could collect and clean.
After completing the recollection and cleaning, its time to try some build-up... after few attempts I came with this preliminary design.

Well, all of you might ask... Why he got eggcrate in the back wall???
Back in the days I used to have the back wall bare glass and it was sometimes a pain to clean; live it for coraline to grow!!! Mmmm... that is something that doesn't look nice until its complete cover and most of the time doesn't look nice. "Besides, my wife will complain and her support will be retired". Buajajaja... Anyway, is in my living room in a all around sight view and I want it to be a focal piece. So I decided a DIY foam background. That will look like real rocks and by time pass by, hopefully it will be covered with coraline algae. After all if I don't like how its looks I could take it out easy. And at this moment I still working on it.

Well... by now this is how it's coming up my Tank after twenty years plus been out of the hobby. As soon as I do something else I will update this post, so everyone could enjoy with me this passion that we all carry for Reekeping.
I will appreciate any suggestion or idea and let's have fun.
KEEP ON REEFING...

 

[cameronh]

Interesting! Good luck with the build! And welcome back

 

[Salty1962]

Nice build. Let us know how your wall works out.

 

[revhtree]

Welcome back!

 

[aaron23]

Welcome!

 

[Gino]

Hi everyone: so far so good. The background came pretty nice after my first attempt of covering with fiberglass resin, that didn't came out to good because I didn't add enough harderner and after few days still gummy , so I deside to make a new batch of resin with plenty of hardener and re cover it again and add more sand.
My only concern now it's the smell still not disappear . What I'm planning to do is to run the tank just with water and vinegar for several days and make several water change to see what happens, before adding the rock work, the life sand and start the cycle. Probably will do also several runs with activated carbon also, lets see. So wish me lock.

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Related to fitration... I found a good deal on a new D&D Typhoon. It's a HOB Skimmer rated for up to 125gal (sometimes the bigger the better ) in case its too much, I could always run it just for several hours a day intervals to keep the water chemistry as I remember I used to run it back in the days, with small traces of nitrate and phosphates less than perseptive to do some nuisance harm :mad:. Been a HOB I make some mod to make it fit inside the sump and it came better than expected. The cool featured about this skimmer is that doesn't have a collection cub that I will have to clean every day or two, only the tremester clean up as all of them.
The way it works, it's by draining the slush directly to a reservoir (an empty Soda or Water bottle) and all what I will have to do is, to take it out and dumped in the trash can and replaced with a new one. (That's not a problem because we are addicted to sodas ). So less maintaining more enjoyment.

Well... this is by now. Any suggestions I will appreciate specifically concerning the curing processes of the background.
KEEP ON REEFING

 

[Gino]

It's been a while since my last update, not to much going on. But finally is cycling. I spend several weeks curing the back ground I made and it came up great. So I aquascape and start cycling.
Here are some pictures of how it came after all. Any suggestions are welcome, but it seems to be nice.

 

[Gino]

Hello everyone:
It's been awhile since I begun this build, but it wasn't until now that I could continue with it, and finally is up and running.

Lot's of stuff happens since my last update. For example, I spend several days curing the background that I made with vinegar then with backing soda, and finally with just water several changes, but it came along pretty well. During that time one of the old power head that my brother in law gave me with the tank, the ceramic shaft broke :mad: so I look around and make myself one of stainless steel. The magnet will burn before the shaft will break again.
So after that, I begun building the aquascape and add the live sand to start cycling.
Here are some pictures of what I came with, any suggestions are welcome.

Finally with sand and running.

I set the salinity at 1.024 and start monitoring the temperature to achieve a 76° F, but with the heat of the pumps and the lights, the temperature never drop from 79°- 81°F and keep fluctuating between those temperature .
So I came with this idea because the tank is under the living room AC outlet, and the Air Conditioner never been turn off, so is on 24/7.

What I did was from scraps of clear acrylic from the sump build, I made a wind deflection piece to stream down cold air to the top and back of the tank were part of the sump is exposed. So I start twicking the AC temperature until I found a room temperature that keep my tank temperature at a steady 76°F day and night . So far so good.
Any suggestions are welcome.
KEEP ON REEFING

 

[Gino]

Bumb

 

[b3ja]

Welcome back sir!

 

[Gino]

Here got some aditional pictures of the tank up and running, this time the sump.
The protein skimmer finally break in, still need some adjustments, the refugium got a 4" sand bed and few rocks, later this week will add some cheato and some coopodes. Also got an LED lamp with 48 leds in opposite light cycles from DT.
In the bufflers, in the first one I place a black filter mesh to help prevent pieces of algae get to the return pump, in the next buffer I got a Marine Pure bio plate for aditional bacteria grow, beside the rocks, DSB in swamp. Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I like to over stock... so in this case more is better.
Tomorrow I might add the first fishes. (My wife already decided wish one are coming in first she don't want to tell me, but I could figure out). So, let see if I could convince her to choose a designer one, but she don't like them... she said they don't look that the real deal... Buajajaja .

Well this is by now.