12 Foot - 450G Office Build

[jsker]

Now to get water to the tank... Was thinking of building a mixing station in the men's bathroom near by - about 20' straight shot - or about 40' of rounding a hose around.

At first I was thinking about doing a hard plumb from station to tank - but I keep worrying about a PVC pipe leak along the way - especially if I want to try to get fancy and drop it between the drywalls of two offices - yikes!

Leaning towards a hose - would something like this be ok?
Camco
TastePURE 50 ft., Drinking Water Hose, 5/8 in. ID

Didn't know if metals are no Bueno

I would suggest this
Kuriyama PVC Discharge Food and Beverage Hose - Clearbraid K3150 Series RF Standard Wall Link

 

[jsker]

How practical is this fish list for a 12' tank?

Longnose Butterflyfish 1
Copperband Butterflyfish 1
Pearlscale Butterflyfish 1
Longfin Bannerfish 1
Spotfin Butterflyfish 1
Raccoon Butterflyfish 1
Pennant Butterflyfish 1

Clownfish ? (Babies from home... once my pair starts spawning)

Moorish Idol 1

Kole (yellow eye) Tang 1
Yellow Tang 3
Hippo Tang 1
Puple Tang 1
Achilles Tang 1

Potter's Angelfish 1
Flame Angelfish 1

You have a lot of room, great selection

 

[LeonThePeon]

Anybody recommend any order of introduction for that list of fish? I was thinking of starting with the butterfly fishes first and work my way down the list in that order.

 

[LeonThePeon]

Debating on whether I want to do a 55G observation tank or two 20G? I've got counterspace for two 20G - but I'd have to figure out something for the 55G.

Going to do TTM with 5G buckets and/or 10G tanks (have extras from home I'll bring up for use)

Thought the 55G would be nice for the tangs to swim back and forth during observation time - and be able to have them together (so I can see how they interact) with some room for them to go to their corners if need be. But water changes will be a pain I think.

 

[LeonThePeon]

Courtesy of A.G.E.! So exciting!! ;Drool;Wideyed;Woot

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Simply wow! What is the plan for those holes in the back?

 

[LeonThePeon]

Simply wow! What is the plan for those holes in the back?

The two that are close to each other are for the ghost overflow. The other two that are spaced apart are for the returns I'm hoping that I can use the returns to take care of some dead spots - while I'll be having several gyres and pumps for flow to push it towards the overflow

 

[LeonThePeon]

The overflows are going to go straight down into the sump and the return portion of the sump should be towards the middle of the tank and I can split it from there.

Speaking of overflows... John at Advanced Acrylics is getting ready to send my sump over!

Courtesy of John:

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Holy smokes, that's the same skimmer I had been sketching out myself! What are the dimensions? Something along the lines of 60 x 20 x 18? Looks amazing.

 

[LeonThePeon]

Ordered my 80/20 T slots - but boy does shipping suck! That's where it gets expensive for that route

 

[LeonThePeon]

No turning back now - running pipings for saltwater mix in and out

 

[LeonThePeon]

Big day! The tank has arrived! Great guys from Acrylic & Glass Exhibits! I'm curious how my GoPros captured the time-lapse

Next on my list - get all the equipment in; finish remote mixing station; order dry rock.

Been lurking over at "cycling" topics - Trying to see if I can pace out getting the tank cycled; getting some corals in there; and THEN maybe start QT (TTM) on fishes. Thinking by the time fishes are done with TTM and QT, any diseases lurking in the corals should be nullified.

I kind of don't want to do QT on corals anymore - I just lost a good amount of $$$ on an extreme torch and hammer to BJD - never even made it to my DT at home :mad:

 

[jsker]

Progressing forward

 

[revhtree]

Dude awesome!

 

[LeonThePeon]

Question/Thoughts:

Was watching @Bulk Reef Supply ULM build and they had talked about backup return pumps. Makes sense - and as this is an office build, I may not always be around to make sure it's working right and to fix it immediately.

I was planning to have two submersible pumps already (a Vectra L1 and M1). The L1 was going to be strictly for the two return nozzles to the tank; and the M1 was going to power accessories - like the Cooler, UV, reactors if I want to use them, etc.

Then started thinking whether there's a way to also use the M1 as a backup pump in the event of the L1 failing? (A bit concerned after the L1's production/sales hiatus for a few months).


(Credit to Reef.Com - I took their picture regarding plumbing and hacked it up to look a little more like my tank just for simplicity)

I guess there's a chance that if the L1 fails - the M1 may just push water back through the L1 in reverse instead of up into the two returns in the tank (will a Check Valve work to counter that?)

Thoughts?

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Thoughts?

This is gonna be AWESOME!

 

[this is me]

Excellent!
I love John's acrylic work.

 

[Clayton Jessup]

This looks like a tank build !! What a tank and sump ! I am following along on this one ! Can’t wait for it to get going !

 

[LeonThePeon]

dang! Been neglecting my tank for so long!!!! I wanted to do something awesome for the middle - but can't find the materials for what I want to do. I guess I can always add more later.

Then just got busy (and/or lazy).

So I'm forcing myself to do at least one thing per one/two days at work. (i.e. take a gyre out of the box and put it on one side; then the other, etc)

I think I'm ready to add water and the plan is to just get the tank filled up and while that's cycling - I can work below the tank at a decent pace... That's the plan anyways. 100G of water ready tomorrow

 

[LeonThePeon]

So here we are... Cycled, kind of - nitrite went down to 0, I added ammonium chloride to get 2ppm and it's taken 3 days so far and not quite down to 0 nitrite again.

And came the thought of doing a partial water change once cycling is done. Then I came to realize that the way I had planned, though convenient, may not have been the most efficient.

Blue arrow shows the drain pipe (behind skimmer) that pours in water from my remote mixing station. Red arrow is the M1 that was set for drain and future accessories (you can see the T)

The idea was that I could pump water in and water out at the same flow rate - not disturbing the sump levels. No buckets/bins/siphons/mess - especially for the office.

Now I'm thinking that if I pump water in, would I just be pumping the fresh water back out? (Not ounce for ounce of course - but that'd make my planned 10% WC session for the tank become more like an effective WC for the sump instead).

Thoughts?

I guess I could alternate a little at a time (i.e. 10G in, turn off and let return pump flow for a minute or two, drain 10G, drain off, repeat)

Thinking out loud now... I wonder if EcoTech has something I could program to do that...