blueoverbrown
Community Member
I feel that after 2 and 1/2 years with my secondhand 55 gallon long tank, I've outgrown it. I'm planning to upgrade to a Eshopps Mariner 180 due to what appears to be bulletproof construction. I'm designing the system to be as low maintenance and reliable as I can, as I often leave town for several days at a time for work.
In preparation, I'm building an outdoor RODI mixing station in 55 gallon barrels. The plumbing will run 8 feet up into my attic and then 30 feet horizontally and into the sump. I will use this pipe for removing saltwater from the tank, then for bringing the water into the sump, which I will chill/heat before pumping into the tank.
I am seeing that with a tank this size, I will need a lot of top off water. I am going to hard plumb an RO water line to an RO reservoir, running right alongside my salt water pipe in my attic. I really enjoy designing automation and plumbing, so I'm very much looking forward to this part. This system will have quadruple redundancy to ensure no leaks occur. The line in the attic will be one continuous run without fittings and with bend braces to avoid pinching. Entering the cabinet, it will be plumbed to an apex SV-1 Solenoid valve. This will only open a few times per day to fill the reservoir as needed, to avoid TDS creep. The RO reservoir will sit in a plastic tub. Any overfilling will spill over into the tub tripping both the apex leak sensor and mechanical RO leak protection valve. If the apex sensor detects a leak, it will shut off the apex solenoid. The mechanical leak protection valve acts as a failsafe.
I'm preparation, I've built the aquascape from marco rock. I have three large flat bottomed foundation rock "islands" and the main structures have acrylic pegs on the bottom, so I can easily remove the rocks. This will be a mixed reef, with a lot of acropora up top and LPS below soni wanted a lot of elevation change. I'm currently cycling it in a trash can, dosing ammonia weekly to it to get a nice bacteria culture going. Nitrates in the trashcan are somewhere north of 100, so I'd say the cycle is complete.
If anyone can forsee any hard lessons I'm about to learn from a bad experience, please let me know! The tank will arrive in mid December. For now I'm going to focus on the mixing station and plumbing I mentioned
Equipment List
-Eshopps Mariner 180
-Ecotech Marine Vectra L2
-Ecotech Marine MP40 powehead x 2
- ATI Straton X lights x3
- 2x Apex DOS dosers
- Red Sea Reefmat 1200
- Reef Octopus Regal 200 SSS
- Ice Cap 27 watt in sump UV
- BRS 150w heaters x2
- Baoshishin 1/10 HP chiller
- Inkbird Controller
- Apex A3 Pro controller
- Apex MXM
- Apex ATK
- Apex SV-1
In preparation, I'm building an outdoor RODI mixing station in 55 gallon barrels. The plumbing will run 8 feet up into my attic and then 30 feet horizontally and into the sump. I will use this pipe for removing saltwater from the tank, then for bringing the water into the sump, which I will chill/heat before pumping into the tank.
I am seeing that with a tank this size, I will need a lot of top off water. I am going to hard plumb an RO water line to an RO reservoir, running right alongside my salt water pipe in my attic. I really enjoy designing automation and plumbing, so I'm very much looking forward to this part. This system will have quadruple redundancy to ensure no leaks occur. The line in the attic will be one continuous run without fittings and with bend braces to avoid pinching. Entering the cabinet, it will be plumbed to an apex SV-1 Solenoid valve. This will only open a few times per day to fill the reservoir as needed, to avoid TDS creep. The RO reservoir will sit in a plastic tub. Any overfilling will spill over into the tub tripping both the apex leak sensor and mechanical RO leak protection valve. If the apex sensor detects a leak, it will shut off the apex solenoid. The mechanical leak protection valve acts as a failsafe.
I'm preparation, I've built the aquascape from marco rock. I have three large flat bottomed foundation rock "islands" and the main structures have acrylic pegs on the bottom, so I can easily remove the rocks. This will be a mixed reef, with a lot of acropora up top and LPS below soni wanted a lot of elevation change. I'm currently cycling it in a trash can, dosing ammonia weekly to it to get a nice bacteria culture going. Nitrates in the trashcan are somewhere north of 100, so I'd say the cycle is complete.
If anyone can forsee any hard lessons I'm about to learn from a bad experience, please let me know! The tank will arrive in mid December. For now I'm going to focus on the mixing station and plumbing I mentioned
Equipment List
-Eshopps Mariner 180
-Ecotech Marine Vectra L2
-Ecotech Marine MP40 powehead x 2
- ATI Straton X lights x3
- 2x Apex DOS dosers
- Red Sea Reefmat 1200
- Reef Octopus Regal 200 SSS
- Ice Cap 27 watt in sump UV
- BRS 150w heaters x2
- Baoshishin 1/10 HP chiller
- Inkbird Controller
- Apex A3 Pro controller
- Apex MXM
- Apex ATK
- Apex SV-1
