First let me introduce myself as I am new to reef2reef. My name is Kai, aged 40 and I’m Dutch. I live with my family in Amsterdam. Yeah, just to be upfront, the only herbs I use is oregano on my pizza, some dutchman uh? About 10 years ago, before starting a family, I had a reeftank for only a short period of time and I had to leave the hobby as I moved to a small apartment in Amsterdam. It was too late and the marine aquarium thing grabbed me and never let go of me. It always stayed somewhere in the back of my mind. Now that my housing situation has improved, my daughters are out of the baby era and are starting to be a little less dependent and my life has become a bit more structured, I can’t contain myself anymore.
In March 2019 I decided it was time to give new life to the marine aquarium hobby again. After about 10 years of not having salty water, I couldn’t take it anymore and bought a little 200 liters (about 53 gallons for you non-metric people, when will you ever start making thing easy on yourselves lol…), used tank with a little sump. Just to make a humble start to the hobby again.
Tank dimensions were 68cm x 53cm x 58cm (w x d x h), that’s 27’ x 21’ x 23’ in inches!
My wife knew it was coming, but I did not notify her, so she was a bit in shock when I came home with “that thing”. Of course, I already had the whole thing planned out on where to put it, what other furniture had to be replaced and yada yada, but still it took some time to reassure my better half that everything would be fine, and I am totally in control…yeah.
So far so good, First I had to clean the tank because the previous owner wasn’t capable of cleaning it herself properly. No problem for me, I was completely stoked and ready to move a mountain… because I was going to have a marine aquarium! I was ready to get dirty! You guys must know this feeling, I can’t be the only lunatic here.
Ok, tank clean. Now I needed the basics: RODI unit, return pump, heater, skimmer, light and flow pumps. I also had to re-do the plumbing as a part of what came with the tank was crappy and the other half, I cut through to separate the tank from the stand. No problem, still ready to move a mountain, so I can do the plumbing and some minor fixes to the stand.
Tank clean, plumbing done and I came up with:
-a jecod DCS 3000 return pump
-the simplest RODI unit on the market 195 litre/24hrs (that’s about 50 gallons and I believe your planet rotates just as fast as ours, so the 24 hrs is the same, right?), but upgraded with a filmtec membrane and 2 extra DI resin cannisters. With the excellent tap water quality in the Netherlands, that should be more than sufficient. I have zero tolerance when it comes to TDS and silicate and every batch of water is tested.
-a single Maxspect Gyre XF 150 pump (which was later replaced by 2 x 230 gyre pumps, positioned vertically on either sides of the back of the tank.
-a Philips coral care unit, V1, 2016
-a Bubble Magus C3 with home made muffler
I collected these items all low-budget style, with the exception of the RODI unit, all were used and sold to me for mostly half price. So there you have it, a low-budget marine aquarium, right?
I was still determined to make this work and wanted something extra for nutrient export and biodiversity / bio load. Something with Chaetomorpha. I had to think about this as there was absolutely no more room in the small sump. I came up with an idea of an acrylic tray that could be placed on top of the overflow combs mid-back.
The pipe for the return water ran up through the overflow, normally taking a turn so the water can come out into the DT. My idea was to attach the return pipe to the bottom of the tray, so it can fill up with water and have 2 combs in the front panel of the tray for the water to drop down into the DT again on both sides, but not in the middle where the tanks’ overflow unit is. Aw crap, I think some pictures will clarify.
I started measuring and drawing and sent the final design to a company that very neatly lasered the acryl parts for me. A few days later I got my “LEGO” set in the mailbox and started gluing it together.
It fit perfectly, I designed it as a click-on system, so whenever I wanted to clean it or eventually get rid of it, I could just take it off very easily and run the tank without it. Here’s the chaetofilter filling up after a good clean:
And here’s the chaetofilter running over the combs and into the DT:
I put grow-LED strips in the lid of the cheatofilter and let it run counter to the DT light regime (the PCC):
After installing the chaetofilter and starting up the return pump for the first time, I was a bit euphoric because of how well it worked and how silently the water flowed down into the DT again. It was exactly the way I had in mind, awesome!
My wife and I soon were not very amused by the stray light that got into the living room. So back to the drawing board again to build a simple hood that had to fit around the tank, light and chaetofilter.
Here’s a pic of the tank at the start of it’s cycle. I used some PVC piping and real reef rocks to create these 2 pillars, which I “sort of” still have in use in my current tank:
In March 2019 I decided it was time to give new life to the marine aquarium hobby again. After about 10 years of not having salty water, I couldn’t take it anymore and bought a little 200 liters (about 53 gallons for you non-metric people, when will you ever start making thing easy on yourselves lol…), used tank with a little sump. Just to make a humble start to the hobby again.
Tank dimensions were 68cm x 53cm x 58cm (w x d x h), that’s 27’ x 21’ x 23’ in inches!
My wife knew it was coming, but I did not notify her, so she was a bit in shock when I came home with “that thing”. Of course, I already had the whole thing planned out on where to put it, what other furniture had to be replaced and yada yada, but still it took some time to reassure my better half that everything would be fine, and I am totally in control…yeah.
So far so good, First I had to clean the tank because the previous owner wasn’t capable of cleaning it herself properly. No problem for me, I was completely stoked and ready to move a mountain… because I was going to have a marine aquarium! I was ready to get dirty! You guys must know this feeling, I can’t be the only lunatic here.
Ok, tank clean. Now I needed the basics: RODI unit, return pump, heater, skimmer, light and flow pumps. I also had to re-do the plumbing as a part of what came with the tank was crappy and the other half, I cut through to separate the tank from the stand. No problem, still ready to move a mountain, so I can do the plumbing and some minor fixes to the stand.
Tank clean, plumbing done and I came up with:
-a jecod DCS 3000 return pump
-the simplest RODI unit on the market 195 litre/24hrs (that’s about 50 gallons and I believe your planet rotates just as fast as ours, so the 24 hrs is the same, right?), but upgraded with a filmtec membrane and 2 extra DI resin cannisters. With the excellent tap water quality in the Netherlands, that should be more than sufficient. I have zero tolerance when it comes to TDS and silicate and every batch of water is tested.
-a single Maxspect Gyre XF 150 pump (which was later replaced by 2 x 230 gyre pumps, positioned vertically on either sides of the back of the tank.
-a Philips coral care unit, V1, 2016
-a Bubble Magus C3 with home made muffler
I collected these items all low-budget style, with the exception of the RODI unit, all were used and sold to me for mostly half price. So there you have it, a low-budget marine aquarium, right?
I was still determined to make this work and wanted something extra for nutrient export and biodiversity / bio load. Something with Chaetomorpha. I had to think about this as there was absolutely no more room in the small sump. I came up with an idea of an acrylic tray that could be placed on top of the overflow combs mid-back.
The pipe for the return water ran up through the overflow, normally taking a turn so the water can come out into the DT. My idea was to attach the return pipe to the bottom of the tray, so it can fill up with water and have 2 combs in the front panel of the tray for the water to drop down into the DT again on both sides, but not in the middle where the tanks’ overflow unit is. Aw crap, I think some pictures will clarify.
I started measuring and drawing and sent the final design to a company that very neatly lasered the acryl parts for me. A few days later I got my “LEGO” set in the mailbox and started gluing it together.
It fit perfectly, I designed it as a click-on system, so whenever I wanted to clean it or eventually get rid of it, I could just take it off very easily and run the tank without it. Here’s the chaetofilter filling up after a good clean:
And here’s the chaetofilter running over the combs and into the DT:
I put grow-LED strips in the lid of the cheatofilter and let it run counter to the DT light regime (the PCC):
After installing the chaetofilter and starting up the return pump for the first time, I was a bit euphoric because of how well it worked and how silently the water flowed down into the DT again. It was exactly the way I had in mind, awesome!
My wife and I soon were not very amused by the stray light that got into the living room. So back to the drawing board again to build a simple hood that had to fit around the tank, light and chaetofilter.
Here’s a pic of the tank at the start of it’s cycle. I used some PVC piping and real reef rocks to create these 2 pillars, which I “sort of” still have in use in my current tank: