Planet Aquarium 60X20X21
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Looking good so far! What are your impressions of the planet aquarium quality?
tang_man_montreal
Community Member
Will be watching this one closely... I just acquired a very similar sized tank!
Build thread here
Build thread here
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So far, I'm pleased. The glass is amazing compared to my other tanks. The clarity is great, the beveled edges look great and the vertical silicone seams are flawless. There is a little rough silicone work on the inside front bottom, but it should not be visible once the sand is in.
The craftsmanship of the stand is grade A! The only thing that has caused me heartburn with the stand so is the door hinges. Since my DT is only 20" deep, space inside the stand is a premium. The soft close hinges they user protrude about over an inch inside the stand, which made it impossible to install my oversized sump. I replaced those with lower profile hinges, problem solved. There are no leveling feet on the stand, but I knew that going in. Few shims here and there and its all good.
The Crystalline Reef does not come with leveling mat for under the DT, so make sure you account for that. I will say that the top of the stand was perfectly flat and smooth, so no concerns there.
What I don't like are the bulkheads, drain and return pipes. The package came without them and my LFS included 2x Aqueon MegaFlow Overflow Accessory Kits. First off, I'm hard plumbing my sump, so the bulkheads the kit included were useless since they were barbed fittings. Took these back to LFS and got store credit, then replaced them with threaded version, no worries. The pipe included for the return lines is ever so slightly larger than 3/4", so fitting to 3/4" fittings is near impossible! I replaced the pipe and included a check valve on both inside the overflow. On the drain pipes, I will say that the ability to adjust them is nice, but they do not seat well into my new bulkheads. That causes 2 major issues....1, if you touch them while there's water in the overflow, they come loose and float out of the fitting and 2, both full siphon and emergency drain suck air and cause excessive noise in the sump. Needless to say, I will be building my own today. I didn't care for the off-white color of that plumbing anyway!
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Filled it last night and proud to announce that not a single one of my plumbing connections leaked! I feel like that is a major accomplishment and is a product of many hours of research before getting into this. I should give a shout out to Bulk Reef Supply and particularly this video, the content was spot on and extremely helpful. I was meticulous in my measurements and in the pipe prep before gluing, specifically around the chamfering both inside and out of both ends. It all went together very smoothly and no leaks, so I feel very accomplished!
Now, for the fails...there are only 3. 1 & 2 were both the AquaMaxx reactors. Both reactors have the same issue with water leakout out of the inlet pipe where it meets the top. The only leak protection for this portion is a rubber o-ring on the underside. The o-ring seems a bit undersized in my opinion, but I don't know, maybe I was just unlucky and got 2 duds! I'll take some pics tonight and replace the o-rings with a little thicker and probably a little aquarium silicone for good measure. I do find it odd that both reactors leaked in the exact same spot, so I'll investigate that further tonight also. The 3rd fail was more of an air leak than a water leak. I tried to use the Aqueon MegaFlow Overflow Accessory Kit that came with the tank, but I should have know that wasn't going to work out for my custom build. The adjustability is nice, but the color doesn't match and they don't seat well in my bulkheads. Its a simple solution to build new ones and I should have just done that in the first place.
Since the 2 reactors were leaking and the drains were loud and bubbly, I wasn't able to get a full test completed. I'm a little concerned that my M2 pump is too powerful, but it's too soon to make that judgement until I get the drains figured out. I spent far too much time trying to quieten the drains last night, only to figure out that the problem was the Aqueon kit.
I think I will have this all solved and running tonight and will be ready to run a wide open test.
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Replaced the main siphon and emergency drain pipe, cleared up almost all of the noise. Still a few bubbles coming from the drain in the sump, so gotta fiddle with that later. It's silent up top now and really close to silent down below, but I'm going for perfection here!
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Got the drain silent, level set in the sump and finally got the leaking to stop on the media reactors. Huge thanks to @Broadfield for the assist on getting the right o-rings in the right spot!
The entire system is up and running and leak free in the garage. I'll leave it that way for a few more days, just to make sure it doesn't need any further tweaking before the move inside. The only thing left to do is mount the dosing pump & containers. Seems simple, but in an already packed stand, it's gonna take some thinking!
The entire system is up and running and leak free in the garage. I'll leave it that way for a few more days, just to make sure it doesn't need any further tweaking before the move inside. The only thing left to do is mount the dosing pump & containers. Seems simple, but in an already packed stand, it's gonna take some thinking!
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Forgot to mention, one of my MP40s wasn't happy. I initially had them both sent to 10% to allow them to break-in during the leak test, but the left side kept spinning on the glass. I stopped the pump, reposition the wet side and restarted it at least 10 times. Each time, it would run perfect for a few mins then start spinning again. Called @EcoTech and they suggested turning it all the way down for a few days, then ramping it up a little each day after. 1% worked for about 20 minutes before the spinning started again. Chatted with @EcoTech again and they decided it must be bad and are sending a replacement. Great customer service along the way...glad I went with their products!
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Now that’s a thing of beauty! The CoralBox is mounted and lines ran. Since I’ll be using Fritz Alk, Calc & Mag, their bottles worked perfectly for containers. Built a little holder so the bottles are velcro’d nice and tight. It worked out well, everything is out of the way! Little bit of cable management left and the tank will be on test autopilot probably until next weekend.
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I left the dosing tubes in a bowl last night to test and make sure they weren't siphoning since the bottles are higher than the sump. Good thing I did...all three had a slow drip. I'll be swapping out the 4mm ID tubes with 2.5mm ID tubes as soon as they get delivered. I put zip ties around the current tubes to seal them off and the dripping stopped.
Very nice!Made a lid for the overflow yesterday.
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So....my scape that I thought looked amazing outside of the tank doesn't work in the tank! I didn't account for enough room for the internal weir or the MP40s. Back to the drawing board!Initial deisgn of the aquascape is done. I still need to shore up a few of the pieces, but I think it's pretty close. Fingers crossed I don't need to change it after it gets in the tank!
Front view:
Top view:
Right side view:
Left side view:
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Video of the redesigned scape. Please give me your thoughts, this is the first time I am doing a scape on this scale. Will be a mixed reef and hoping to have a solid mix of LPS & SPS.
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Going to follow this thread! Great work so far! I have the same stand, same sump, same skimmer.. everything looks great!!! Keep up the good work! Also, one bit about the scape, make one section in the middle taller, will break up the linear look to the scape! Good luck as the build continues!!
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I did change the scape some, pics after the water clears up!
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