Nowell's Reef Savvy Pastel Peninsula/Black Widow factory

cpschult

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Absolutely beautiful stand. Love your DIY sump with ports for dosing. Is there a gap between stand/floor on left side on post#20 or is that floor crooked? Either way can't wait to follow along and see how beautiful your tank becomes!
 

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What are the dimensions on your sump?

I like the front being all refugium it's like my trigger 20c.
 
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Absolutely beautiful stand. Love your DIY sump with ports for dosing. Is there a gap between stand/floor on left side on post#20 or is that floor crooked? Either way can't wait to follow along and see how beautiful your tank becomes!

The floor is not level. Our house is on a slope and settled leaning slightly down the hill. I put in a floor jack and was unable to make much difference. I leveled the stand with layers of model aviation light plywood in many 1/32” steps to provide even distribution of weight.
 
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Nowell

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What are the dimensions on your sump?

I like the front being all refugium it's like my trigger 20c.

Sump is 18x18x15.5”
Measured capacities: 6.5g refugium, 11.5g running volume with 9” in skimmer chamber, 8.25g on top of that when return pump off.

The tank will have 15.5” depth when running due to overflow height and bottom thickness.

Given half inch glass on the tank, surface area is 41.5x23.5” for an actual tank volume of 65.4g. Refugium was designed to be 10% of actual tank volume. Each inch of water loss when the return is off will result in 4.2g entering the sump (plus water in pipes/Ghost).
 
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Nowell

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Something to keep in mind for a small peninsula like this: there is little real estate on the back panel. Things are tight with plumbing and MP40 position options are limited, but I was able to put one on each side, at mid height, as I had planned.
 
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Nowell

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4B7E6E16-452A-4DA8-957C-BEE7EC8CABC5.jpeg
Light hung smoothly with a nut on a string for a plumb bob. Plumbing nearing completion. Time to move over refugium lights. Wet soon.
 
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cpschult

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Any recommendations for reading about wood working? I had never heard of Paulk but went and googled him, debating purchasing table instructions now! My son is starting to like wood working and I’d love to learn more. A little off topic but would appreciate any info!

I’m glad you addressed your floor issue. I had the same issue in my house. I’m not sure if that’s a real wood floor but I had issues in my house, when the hardwood floor tried to expand with the season I had it rise in a spot. It is a newer floor (less than 5 years).

Did you have a stocking list yet?
 
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Nowell

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Any recommendations for reading about wood working? I had never heard of Paulk but went and googled him, debating purchasing table instructions now! My son is starting to like wood working and I’d love to learn more. A little off topic but would appreciate any info!

I’m glad you addressed your floor issue. I had the same issue in my house. I’m not sure if that’s a real wood floor but I had issues in my house, when the hardwood floor tried to expand with the season I had it rise in a spot. It is a newer floor (less than 5 years).

Did you have a stocking list yet?

I found several woodworking YouTube channels, such as popular woodworking (I believe) and absorbed the content. I researched every new skill for a week or more before I bought wood to ruin. I did this without a planer which made several aspects, such as the 5 panel doors, immensely more difficult. The planer is on my list for my next workshop purchase. I have a portable Dewalt table saw (I made a cross cut sled for cutting tenons), a simple Dewalt miter saw, a cheap Ryobi biscuit cutter, a nice pedestal drill press. I mounted my router in a piece of plywood for a router table with a maple board fence (search simple DIY router table). Add a sanding drum to that for complex curve detail (sump top, Paulk workbench skeletonization). I made an MDF jig from Popular Mechanics to drill the eurohinge pockets perfectly spaced. Also, use a feather board for the table saw.

I screwed up plenty such as gluing and clamping a door without the panel. I approached this with the philosophy that whatever another man can do I can do as well.

Edited to add big fail:
B82B2CA0-5541-40E9-9161-B65F95BAB104.jpeg


It’s going to be a predominately soft coral tank. I was inspired by the soft corals of Rainbow Reef off Taveuni. A few big pastel corals with room to grow.
 
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Nowell

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F266A642-4703-46F7-ADF0-BC95498F8669.jpeg

I think I’m going to hold one of my gel filters over the iPhone in the future. I also want to make an acrylic boat for top down shots. I dumped my cumbersome DSLR last year and now use iPhone and GoPro for everything. Miss my 50mm though....
EEF2E033-2AFB-4C67-AB9B-B3B4E1247F90.jpeg

One more:
A2232DEF-82F2-4148-8C85-70123B4AF629.jpeg
 
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Nowell

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Amazing and quiet water flow with the Deepwater Aquatics BLDC5. In fact, the full 34W setting has a bit too much flow and places too much water in the main tank for sump capacity during power failure simulation (loc-line adjusted a bit too low was also a factor). The controller is nice and allows 2W adjustments for fine tuning. I'm going to order another. I really don't mind spending the extra coin on such a perfect pump to have a backup ready to go. I'm going to readjust the loc-line to create a higher drain height so that I can run the pump at full speed if needed.

The Ghost overflow is amazing and responds nicely to fine tuning. I have a 1/4" hole drilled in the open drain and there's a little noise which I suspect is just air/water flowing through that drain pipe or entering the sump. I'll play around with it.

Had only one very slow plumbing leak (one drop per minute) which frankly amazed me given the amount of unions I used. Of course I cracked the threaded bulkhead when I tried to tighten the MPT PVC adapter. I swung by Savko Plastics before work to grab some spares and hopefully will be up and running again tonight.
 
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A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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