MRBH22’s 310 peninsula with fish room build

[mrbh22]

One of the last big purchases is finally here. I will be aquascaping tomorrow so I can start plumbing this thing and hopefully get to the cycle by the end of June. In comparison the smaller skimmer is a vertex 150. Lol.

 

[DH78]

Loving it so far. Looks great. Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

[mrbh22]

Got the basics of the aquascape done. Now I just have to use the Marco cement to cover the cracks where the rocks meet to make it look like each piece was one rock. Should have time this weekend to get that done and possibly drill for the closed loop.

 

[mrbh22]

Got the rock in the tank. Now I’m working on finishing the flooring in the rest of the basement. Then I will get to drilling for the closed loop. I think I’m going to run 2 vectra L2s as the closed loop and use the abyzz for the return and the skimmer.

 

[mrbh22]

got 90% of the flooring down. I purchased a drill bit at Home Depot that should be good for the closed loop holes. Bulk reef says a 42mm Drill bit is what they use but the only 42mm drill bits are for glass. my bottom is ABS so i need to use a regular hole saw. i think the bit i got is a 44mm hole so i will cut a test hole in some wood or a piece of the ABS sheet i have laying around and test the bulkhead to see if its good for the bulkhead or if i need to find something that is 42mm exactly. there is a forstener bit that is 42mm but im not sure i want to use it on the ABS. i also bought the rest of the wire that i will use to secure the lights. i thought that the way i had them would be good. but i was messing around in the tank and the reflector spun around and fell out into the tank. so i got everything to secure them on all 4 sides. if that doesnt work i will have to fall back and punt and buy some rigid mounting setup. sorry no pics this time i will update soon.

 

[Hydrored]

@mrbh22 Any updates?

 

[mrbh22]

Not a whole lot. Been working lots of overtime at work. (24hour shifts). I did get us a couch and a 85” tv. So that’s progress. But as far as fish tank related I haven’t completed anything except getting a 24” reef brite xho for the front of the tank. Trying to get the courage to drill the closed loop. I have to pick up the last L2 from the LFS and I should have everything I can think of to get it wet.

 

[mrbh22]

finally got some real progress done here. i buckled down yesterday and got all the plumbing done. i mocked up the closed loop and all the returns and drains. I have done hard pvc for all my tanks and i know that when you mock up the pvc dry the pipe never completely goes all the way in (TWSS). so you end up a little short once its all glued. So the mockup was done so that if the pipe was short when i got to the last pipe all i had to do was measure one piece and go cut it to fit. all in all i spent 3 days about 4-6 hours per day. I wasn't ready to go through 2 full cans of pvc glue lol. somehow i dont have the picture of the fish room completed, but i will take one tomorrow when i get off work. the closed loops turned out awesome. im super excited to get this thing wet. i will add pics from my phone asap.

 

[mrbh22]

Pics

 

[mrbh22]

 

[mrbh22]

It’s happening!

 

[DH78]

It’s happening!

Are you going to leak test the plumbing with salt water or fill it up with tap water first in case you need to drain anything to fix it?

 

[mrbh22]

Are you going to leak test the plumbing with salt water or fill it up with tap water first in case you need to drain anything to fix it?

Im pretty confident in my plumbing skills. So I’m risking it and filling with salt water. I didn’t want to fill with tap water because I would have to pull the rock out. So risk it for the biscuit I assume.

 

[mrbh22]

Oh and the finished fish room plumbing.

 

[mrbh22]

It’s alive! I did have 2 pita leaks. And it was 100% negligence on me. The intakes for the closed loops were threaded onto the bulkhead and when I installed them I put Teflon tape on them like you are supposed to. But I made 2 mistakes.
mistake 1 I only wrapped the pipe maybe 2 full revolutions.
mistake 2. Was when I was checking everything before I glued the closed loop plumbing I couldn’t remember if i taped the threads so I backed it out and verified that I did. I am going to assume that doing this broke down the seal that was there and ultimately caused my issue.
The fix I thought was to go get some of the jbweld for pvc that can be used in wet conditions. Note to all that stuff would probably work under a sink where u cross threaded something. But there is no chance that stuff will stop a leak in “pressurized “ piping. So I drained the tank to below the lever of the intakes for the closed loops and went for it. I unscrewed the intake side and hoped to the big guy that the seal on the bottom of the intake pipe inside the tank was good. I still had about 100 gallons of water in the tank and if the seal was bad on the bottom of the intake side I was fixing to dump 100 gallons of fresh saltwater on my brand new floors.
Happy news that the seal was good and when I removed the pipe It was obvious that the amount of Teflon tape was beyond sub par. So I wrapped that pipe like it was going to be mummified. Then I repeated the same operation on the other side.
Then the nervous 40 mins waiting to make more water and let the level of the water get above the intake pipe. And success!!!! So that was the worst of it during the addition of water.

The abyzz pump is the real deal it’s only at 50% And that thang is movin some water. It took 35% to overcome the head pressure to get water out of the sea swirls on the far end of the tank.
Now I will probably sleep in the basement tonight just to keep an ear out for random noises.

If u made it this far THANKS FOR READING! It’s now 243am. So off to bed.

 

[mrbh22]

Got some starter fish in the tank. I went with the LFS recommendation of the fritz turbo start and a small fish load to get it up and running. The first group of fish is 3 chalk bass. One orange spot goby and a Midas blenny. The chalk bass and the goby are eating already and the Midas blenny has decided to hide all day today.

 

[mrbh22]

Update on the fish. The chalk bass are awesome. They eat pellets and frozen. The orange spot only eats frozen. And the Midas blenny is MIA.

update elsewhere

the halides are functional. I fired 3 of the 4 and they worked great. I didn’t start the 4th one. Last night I made a mounting board for the ballasts. I hope to get all the wiring tidied up and start working on the canopy and doors for the stand.
The one thing I’m not particularly happy with rite now is the overflow. The return pump can not be turned up higher than 65% or it will overpower the wier. Yes I know the Abyzz a200 is a powerful pump but I would have assumed that it wouldn’t over power a 20” overflow at 65%. For rite now I’m going to assume it’s something I have not figured out and blame myself for the issue but I’m going to have to tweak something a little to be able to get it to work the way I want it to.

 

[mrbh22]

Got the apex going on the big tank. I need to get the probes all moved over and figure out how to get the heater plugged in. I need an extension cord but I it’s hard to trust an extension cord for a 500 watt heater.

 

[mrbh22]

Got the skimmer up and running and got the apex all hooked up. That skimmer is pretty serious. And surprisingly not all that loud. It’s still going through the Break-in so it’s connected back into the sump for now. Next on the list is getting the canopy and stand doors measured and made


thanks for looking!

 

[mrbh22]

Little update I moved my biocube into the fish room to become the qt( observation tank) I got 2 purple firefish and a royal gramma. I’m looking for a small group of lyretail anthias or something similar. Then it’s time to suck it up and buy the tang gang. With current fish prices I’m not looking forward to that day! also cleaned the skimmer for the first time. I think it still needs some breaking in. I haven’t quite got it dialed in yet. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to glue the “stack” that is on the output but I’m thinking I should because to raise the water level I’m supposed to close down the gate valve on the output side and that will raise the water level to above that particular connection. Guess I will turn off the skimmer for a day and drain some of the water out so that when I glue that joint it doesn’t let the glue get into the water column.