Krazie's Driftwood 90

[Krazie4Acans]

Nice job!

Thanks Rev!

 

[Krazie4Acans]

You all know what comes after Tank, stand, sump, plumbing, rock, sand, water and lights, Right? Oh how I wish uploading photos wasn't blocked here.

I guess that just means you all have to wait until my next update from home.

 

[Krazie4Acans]

I bet you thought I was going to post pictures of some stuff inside the tank, right? Naw It's still cycling. So instead I'll got to a couple of other DIY bits that I made for the sump.

First I needed a probe holder for my apex probes. I thought I had pictures of the process but all I got was the final product.

Then I needed some more control over what was going on in my sump. I needed some adjustable float mounts and some float switches. I have three of them. One is for sump high, one is for sump low, and the last is for dirty socks. Yes! I said dirty socks! So with the way I designed my sock holder, when the socks get dirty the water level in the first chamber level rises and if left the water will spill over through some emergency holes in the baffle. So I put a float switch in this chamber to alert me before the level gets anywhere near that high. The other two will be used for ato and Auto water change.

I bought some solid acrylic rod and used some scrap 1" thick Acrylic that I had from another project. Then I drilled a hole for the rod to slide through and another for the lock screw that got threaded. Once I got all of these made I decided on the locations I wanted to mount them and glued the adjustment blocks onto the eurobracing on my sump. Once the Weld-on cured completely I removed the lock screws and drilled the holes through the eurobracing so the rods could be put through from below and then locked into place. I also made the float holder portion out of 1/4" acrylic that I drilled two holes in. One for the float switch and one for the acrylic rod. Then I used weld-on to secure the rod into the float mount. and let it cure. Then assembled them all.

Here is a blurry pic of the adjustment block off of the rod before it was mounted to the sump.

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Then my cycle still wasn't done so I picked another DIY project to build while I waited. This one won't be used for quite a while but I wanted to build one to see if the idea I had would work.

So I took a regular 10" BRS carbon/GFO reactor and Made a few modifications to it. So first I had to add a couple of new ports to the top cap to feed the reactor and drip the water back into the sump. I also needed to turn the original in and out ports into a recirculating feed for the reactor. So here is what I came up with.

So CPVC just happens to fit into the intake side of a MJ1200 pump and the john guest/murlock connector that comes on the BRS reactor just happens to fit perfectly over the output spout of the pump. This makes a very clean and compact recirculation path for the reactor.

Here is everything assembled for the recirculation path and the two new ports added to the top cover.

When the CPVC pipe goes into the intake of the MJ1200 pump it nearly fit perfectly and that includes how it fits on the center hub that holds the impeller. This makes it so that the flow would be almost none. So I needed to fix that.

So I tapered the inside of the pipe to thin the walls of the pipe and open up the flow area around the center hub.

Here is the beveled piece next to a original piece. You can see how much I thinned the wall.

Here is how it looks once inserted into the pump volute. You can clearly see how much room there is for water to flow now.

Then I glued everything up and finished assembling the entire reactor. I actually built two of them as a friend wanted one as well. Here are the two tops almost completely assembled.

I drilled some holes in the mounting bracket for the top ports to allow the reactor to still be hung with the original bracket.

I'm trying not to give away what these reactors are but I wanted to show the completed assembly and that might give it away.

Then I needed to add the feed lines and control valve to the top ports.

Here they are completely assembled and ready to start working. Any guesses as to what they are now? Let's hear your guesses before I spill the beans!

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Time to get some cool stuff into the tank right?

Ok, Ok. Fine. The Coral beauty, Bangai and two purple fire fish came out of my 28 cube and were the first inhabitants of the new tank. A few of the frags that I wanted to keep from that tank as well. If you look close you can still see the mesh bag I used to hold the raw shrimp that I used to cycle the tank. I left it in until the shrimp were completely dissolved to ensure a good solid cycle.

There How is that? Enough? What? You want more? Kinda bossy aren't you? Sheesh! Fine.

Scared you thinking I was just gonna post the same picture again didn't I? The mesh bag and rock it was zip tied to were removed and replaced with a really nice war coral colony.

Here is a little closer shot or my war coral.

A little Jack-o-lantern lepto frag, some grandis Palys, Blastomusa Melettis, and an unknown acro that as completely encrusted the plug and rock but just never branched in my 28gallon.

Then It started to get loaded up. This was a few months later of course and a really crappy shot on purpose. I can't give away the entire tank and how amazing it looks all at once. That would just be boring.

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Hmm, I wonder what time I need to post these updates to get people to look at them and comment?

 

[mckinleyw]

Im lost as to what the reactors are for... why recirculate? What are u putting in them? Cant wait to find out tank looks awesome btw.

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Im lost as to what the reactors are for... why recirculate? What are u putting in them? Cant wait to find out tank looks awesome btw.

Thanks it has come a long way. I'm glad that for at least one person the pictures didn't give it away. I'll update what it is a little bit later when I add some more pictures and start the next update on the tank.

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Is this one better on the tank?

 

[Krazie4Acans]

@mckinleyw the mystery reactor is a Sulfur Bio-denitrator. It requires a slow feed water speed but needs internal recirculation to make sure the water passes by the sulfur media more often to allow for the bacteria to reduce the Nitrates. The yellow media inside the reactor is the sulfur pellets from Seachem called LSM (Live Sulfur Media).

 

[mckinleyw]

@mckinleyw the mystery reactor is a Sulfur Bio-denitrator. It requires a slow feed water speed but needs internal recirculation to make sure the water passes by the sulfur media more often to allow for the bacteria to reduce the Nitrates. The yellow media inside the reactor is the sulfur pellets from Seachem called LSM (Live Sulfur Media).

Awesome, thank you for that info. That is a new one to me. Really cool.

 

[mckinleyw]

Tank looks good

 

[Krazie4Acans]

I've got some more updates to throw on here but I'm slammed and will need a few days to catch up and get back to it. So hold on while we have a few days of less pictures and more just Q&A. Feel free to ask any questions.

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Oh man it's been a week. I should really get some new stuff posted on here.

 

[nanosteve]

Great job Krazie! Where did you get the acrylic for the probe holders?

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Great job Krazie! Where did you get the acrylic for the probe holders?

It was a scrap piece of 3/4" that I picked up for a few bucks at the local plastics shop. I used a few pieces of it for the float switch adjustment blocks as well.

 

[revhtree]

Looking good!

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Looking good!

Thanks @revhtree!

 

[Krazie4Acans]

Wow, It's been a while since I updated this thread. I think @revhtree must have scared everyone away from my thread because he commented on it so often. I guess I'll put together some updates to add here and see if I can catch this thread up.