New House and New 300 Gallon reef tank build w/ fish room

JakeSpeed · Apr 30, 2019

Thanks, I'm using the Tunze ATO and was considering the changing to the Apex ATO as I have the Apex already. I've heard mixed reviews about Apex ATO. Any thoughts?

Oberst Hajj · Apr 30, 2019

scott11106 said:
i have it plumbed into my septic. it has been up and running for over a year now and no problems so far...i had to pump my septic one time but it was because my family was putting grease down the kitchen sink but while it was open i looked inside to see if there was any residue from the salt water and saw nothing bad

Interesting. Do you know what the walls of your septic take is made from? I know lots of them have concrete walls and that salt will typically break concrete down over the years.

scott11106 · Apr 30, 2019

JakeSpeed said:
Thanks, I'm using the Tunze ATO and was considering the changing to the Apex ATO as I have the Apex already. I've heard mixed reviews about Apex ATO. Any thoughts?

i have not had any problems but i did hear that tunze is the best, but i went apex because i have all apex gear

scott11106 · Apr 30, 2019

Oberst Hajj said:
Interesting. Do you know what the walls of your septic take is made from? I know lots of them have concrete walls and that salt will typically break concrete down over the years.

mine is actually the plastic tank but i would run it through my septic either way, but that may just be me

BantyRooster97 · May 24, 2019

Man love your thread, started following along last year when you started. I'm finally planning my new house & fish room. I think the size of your is spot on. Would you add anything else? More circuits? Outlets up high? more/less cabinets?
thx!

scott11106 · May 26, 2019

BantyRooster97 said:
Man love your thread, started following along last year when you started. I'm finally planning my new house & fish room. I think the size of your is spot on. Would you add anything else? More circuits? Outlets up high? more/less cabinets?
thx!

there seems to always be something to change, here is the list but really just small items;
1. would have made the main display a bit bigger as i had space but wanted to same money
2. would have run my cables and wiring with more care and would have purchased all gear in the beginning as i have alot of wires
3. i have 3 eb8's and 3 apc's (one for each) and i would of had a dedicated circuit for each.
4. i did not think through having apc's for the eb8's and where to place them, no need for outlets high up as everything goes through apex

Brett S · May 26, 2019

Oberst Hajj said:
Since you live out in the country and have a septic system, how/where do you dump your old salt water from your AWC setup? I picked up a DOS to do this same thing, but am not sure what to do with the waste water. I don't want to plumb it to my septic system and I'm concerned about salt buildup in a single area if I just run the waste line to a location in the "yard". I'd only be doing about 6~8 gallons a week right now (60g cube), but I have plans for a 300G or 350g in wall in a couple of years.

For what it’s worth, I’ve got a 220G tank with about 300G in my system. I’m using a DOS for AWC and it changes out a bit more than 2G a day. The waste water goes into my septic system and has for the three years the tank has been set up with no septic issues at all. The tank was pumped out and inspected about a year ago (because I had no idea when the last time it was pumped before I bought the house) and they saw no issues with the tank.

Oberst Hajj · May 26, 2019

Brett S said:
For what it’s worth, I’ve got a 220G tank with about 300G in my system. I’m using a DOS for AWC and it changes out a bit more than 2G a day. The waste water goes into my septic system and has for the three years the tank has been set up with no septic issues at all. The tank was pumped out and inspected about a year ago (because I had no idea when the last time it was pumped before I bought the house) and they saw no issues with the tank.

Thanks for the info. Do you know if you have a plastic or concrete holding tank? How does your grass look around your leach field?

Brett S · May 26, 2019

Oberst Hajj said:
Thanks for the info. Do you know if you have a plastic or concrete holding tank? How does your grass look around your leach field?

I don’t know what the tank is made of. No issues with the grass.

The other thing to consider is that urine has a pretty high salt content in itself. It normal for urine to have a specific gravity of 1.015 even up to 1.030, so septic systems are designed to handle some salt.

Oberst Hajj · May 26, 2019

True. My concern is an extra 30g a week going in there. I know salt will damage concrete over time and that is what my tank is made of.

Brett S · May 26, 2019

Oberst Hajj said:
True. My concern is an extra 30g a week going in there. I know salt will damage concrete over time and that is what my tank is made of.

The other thing you could consider is a dry well... that’s what I used for my water softener discharge because it was installed on the side of the house nowhere near a drain. I just dug a hole a few feet down, lined it with some landscape fabric and some gravel, I put four 5 gallon buckets in it with a lot of holes drilled through them, I ran the discharge line from the water softener into one of them, put lids on the buckets, filled in the space between and around them with gravel, covered top with landscape fabric and then back filled 12 or 14 inches of dirt over the whole thing.

The water softener drains into the empty space inside the 5 gallon buckets and takes however long it needs to soak into the ground before the next time it runs.

This has been set up this way for more than two years and I haven’t had any issues with it. And again, no issues with the grass around it either.

Oberst Hajj · May 26, 2019

Brett S said:
The other thing you could consider is a dry well... that’s what I used for my water softener discharge because it was installed on the side of the house nowhere near a drain. I just dug a hole a few feet down, lined it with some landscape fabric and some gravel, I put four 5 gallon buckets in it with a lot of holes drilled through them, I ran the discharge line from the water softener into one of them, put lids on the buckets, filled in the space between and around them with gravel, covered top with landscape fabric and then back filled 12 or 14 inches of dirt over the whole thing.

The water softener drains into the empty space inside the 5 gallon buckets and takes however long it needs to soak into the ground before the next time it runs.

This has been set up this way for more than two years and I haven’t had any issues with it. And again, no issues with the grass around it either.

Thanks, I've been thinking of something similar. I have a sump pump that runs all the time and I've thought about tapping into the exit line from the pump so that my salt water gets mixed with this clean ground water and sent out to a french drain type of area. It would not be too hard for me to tap into sump pump's exit line in a way where the salt water could not go back to the pump.

Janci · May 28, 2019

scott11106 said:

Just went through the complete thread and I have to say, you did a great job Scott.
I admire your planning and how you managed to get to this built.
Everybody will have things to do otherwise, but if now you only have a couple of small remarks, it must be called a success.

Your tank is looking great and it continues to do so.

I believe a calcium reactor can become handy when your tank is consuming about 1 dKH per day.
The reactors nowadays are set-and-forget and even more with the KH monitors that are now available.
I will not run a tank without calcium reactor.

Oberst Hajj · May 28, 2019

@scott11106 I went back and skimmed through the thread again and could not find this info, but who built your tank and what CAD software did you use to layout your plumbing and such?

scott11106 · May 28, 2019

Oberst Hajj said:
@scott11106 I went back and skimmed through the thread again and could not find this info, but who built your tank and what CAD software did you use to layout your plumbing and such?

planet aqurium built the tank and so far so good, i used autocad to draw everything up but my skills are below average and did not take the time to do a 3d piping or wiring diagram which would had come in handy when figuring my wiring mess. i tried to ask some manufacturers for cad drawings or specification and it was hard to get and most did not have a set of blocks so everything had to be created. it all worked out good and the important thing is the tank is stable and pretty much self supportive so i do not have to work on it much except adding salt once a week, clean the glass and skimmer cup and feed them frozen food daily, thats it...

AiKkz · May 28, 2019

I could stare at the back of the tank all day!! Work of art!!

scott11106 · May 28, 2019

Janci said:
Just went through the complete thread and I have to say, you did a great job Scott.
I admire your planning and how you managed to get to this built.
Everybody will have things to do otherwise, but if now you only have a couple of small remarks, it must be called a success.

Your tank is looking great and it continues to do so.

I believe a calcium reactor can become handy when your tank is consuming about 1 dKH per day.
The reactors nowadays are set-and-forget and even more with the KH monitors that are now available.
I will not run a tank without calcium reactor.

i purchased a calcium reactor and all of the gear so i will have to find some time to set that up. thank you on the comments about the build and yes i do believe it was a great success as the tank is doing really well and growth is continual with minimal die off (sometimes a frag or two dont make the first month or two but if they make it through that they do well)

thanks again,

Oberst Hajj · May 28, 2019

scott11106 said:
planet aqurium built the tank and so far so good, i used autocad to draw everything up but my skills are below average and did not take the time to do a 3d piping or wiring diagram which would had come in handy when figuring my wiring mess. i tried to ask some manufacturers for cad drawings or specification and it was hard to get and most did not have a set of blocks so everything had to be created. it all worked out good and the important thing is the tank is stable and pretty much self supportive so i do not have to work on it much except adding salt once a week, clean the glass and skimmer cup and feed them frozen food daily, thats it...

Thanks. I'm talking with Planet right now about building my tank. I do have a few questions about your tank if you don't mind. Did you get any of their upgrades like reinforced seams or PVC bottom? Did you use one of their "Tideline" overflows and if so, how do you like it? Would you add a second one if you could do it again to get better surface skimming?

I'd like to do the plumbing diagram like what you did, but I've got no AutoCAD skills. I've not even looked at that program in 20+ years

I was poking around the net for blocks that had the gate valves and such, but did not really find much out there.