SallyWho
Well-Known Member
I've been dreaming of and planning for a reef tank for about 8 years or so. Last year, I finally joined this forum where I'd been stalking for several years. This year, I've finally started putting it all together. It's been a long journey already, and I still have tons to learn. I'd like to start off with a huge thank you to everyone who has given me advice and helped me out of more than a few jams already- I'm really grateful! Without more experienced people telling me that I'm over- complicating something, or that there are better ways to accomplish what I'm trying to do, I wouldn't have made hardly any progress at all.
Now, to the good stuff! When I first started dreaming of a reef tank, it was a 75g. I thought that would be a decent starter size, considering the types of fish I was interested in. Then I realized that I was already planning the upgrade to a 90g, so why not just start with a 90? Yup, you guessed it. Again I began planning to go bigger before I even got off the ground with a 90. So here I am with a 120g as my first saltwater tank! I bought a lot of equipment used, and hit last year's Black Friday sales for some new stuff.
Then I began working on what I called "infrastructure." I didn't get any pictures because everything was so filthy, but a friend of mine who is super handy took me down into the hellscape of my crawl space, and we used a header, jacks, and concrete blocks to support the section of flooring under the future tank's location. The tank runs parallel to the joists, and I didn't want to risk sagging. He showed me everything every step of the way and made me do parts of it myself, so that if I need to add another header or adjust the jacks, I can do it myself. I appreciated that. I may be a single woman, but I don't like being an ignorant or helpless one!
Next: water mixing station. Got some neato barrels from Rural King (free shipping!), and took my first dive ever into PVC and plumbing. I very quickly learned that I hate doing plumbing. I would rather ride my bike bare-cheeked with a cactus-lined saddle for 20 miles than plumb another anything. But I'm super stubborn and eventually got it done, and it works very nicely. The pump (Sicce) is also my backup return pump, since it can run in-line or submerged. I set it in a drip tray I built. Simple plywood box with two coats of flex seal to make it water proof. Leak protection! At some point, I'll get actual alarmed leak detectors, but that's in the future.
Next, flooring. I just bought the house in June 2017, and apparently that spring, the previous owner replaced all the floors in the kitchen, living room, and hallway with a very nice, pretty wood laminate. But wood laminate doesn't like water. Just ask my dog. I adopted her from the local shelter in Dec. 2017, and she was sickly and heartworm positive. The antibiotics and steroids she was on made her pee all the time. She panics in the crate- even a professional trainer suggested that crating her was more trouble than it was worth- and she hops baby gates like nothing, so penning her in the kitchen wasn't an option. Short story- every morning when I came home from work, there'd be one or two puddles of urine to clean up. The poor thing couldn't help it. And it was too cold to leave a kennel cough-turned-pneumonia, heartworm positive dog outside in December, even in the garage with a warm blanket stuffed dog house. The flooring did not like the piddles. It started swelling at the seams and all that. So I had a handyman from my multisport team come by and replace that section of flooring with vinyl tiles. I'd never be able to match the wood grain patterns, so I went with a stone pattern with similar enough colors to the wood laminate. It's not a perfect look, but I can live with it. Sorry for the super blurry pics.
During this time, I was working on the stand. It took me forever (and a borrowed miter saw, since I'm still amateur enough with my circular saw to not always have straight cuts), and tons of input from folks on here to come up with a plan that would work. I wanted a stand that was longer and wider than the tank, so I would have a place to set things down, kneel during maintenance, have plenty of room underneath for equipment, etc. I ended up with a stand that is 6' long, 28" deep (was going for 30" but made a calculation error, which worked out fine since moving 28" through my front door was much easier than 30" would have been), and 36" tall. I have mixed feelings on the height. It's tall enough to be a pain to deal with already, but on the other hand, if it was much shorter, I would be super cramped underneath. And while I might be blinded by the lights (in the canopy I haven't built yet....) while sitting on the couch, at least I don't have to squat to look at the tank like I have to do with my freshwater planted tank on a much shorter stand. I do think, however, that my next build will be on a lower stand. I have a small bedroom on the other side of the wall- I could conceivably plumb through the wall to a sump in that bedroom in order to deal with the lack of space underneath.
Next up: sump. There's no Petco in my city (and thus, no dollar per gallon sales) but I just happened to be in the next big city over that did have a Petco during one of those sales, so I picked up a 40b. Had a glass shop cut me some baffles, and then performed officially the worse silicone job ever. Cut me some slack, guys; it was my first time! Actually, there were a lot of firsts getting all this stuff done.....made up some new cuss words, too. But I hated doing silicone significantly less than I hated plumbing, so that's good! It was actually kind of fun. A little (lot) more practice, and I should be churning out deliciously smooth, leak-free seams like clockwork. Here's a shot of the leak test. I did wind up having to redo the baffle on the far right, but that wasn't nearly as much of a hassle as cutting and gluing PVC. Also, moving a 40b in and out of the house by myself was not easy. The garage steps in particular made me sweat.
I looked for months in local classifieds (FB, Craigslist) for a 120 in the 4x4x2 dimensions that I wanted. No luck, so I ordered a new one through my small LFS. Drilling it for a bean animal overflow was terrifying, but not as difficult as I feared.
I picked up a Modular Marine ghost style overflow, and I gotta say, it's heckin' sleek. I've had no problems with it. I ordered one size larger than I thought I needed, because I heard the exterior box could be a bit tight to work in, and I'm glad I did. I should have asked them to size down the bulkheads a bit though. The plumbing is an ugly story. It was a nightmare and a half- plumbing the water mixing station was cake compared to this. I hated every second of it. When I upgrade, I will pay somebody else to do it! But I persevered and it finally got done. Leaks were addressed, leaks were rediscovered, leaks were addressed, more leaks were discovered....currently I have a small salt trail on the back of the tank from one corner of the exterior box of the overflow (I think the salt creep sealed it off), and a super slow leak from one joint between pipe and union on the 2° drain. I tried turning that drain line off with the ball valve I put on there, and reapplying PVC glue in an attempt to get it to seal itself. 24hrs later, turned it on and it still has a slow drip. I'm just going to silicone the dang thing. Anyway, here's what the back of the tank looks like. Had to switch out some rigid PVC for flex- there's a section with a curve/lean down by the return pump that I simply couldn't resolve well enough.
After the plumbing and leak testing bit was done, I drained the tank, scooted it closer to the wall, and refilled it. Got the pump going, mixed up some salt, and started the cycle! Finally! Glory be! I'd been cycling some QT tanks and I was ready to go get a few snails and a fish or two, so they'd be ready to go by the time the display finished cycling. My "fish room" has three QT tanks: a 20L, and two 10g. One 10g will be medication free- no copper, no CP, no prazi. It'll be for cuc, small sensitive fish, and keeping a little population of pods. I can keep live rock and a little tupperware container of sand in there. I'll probably put corals in there, too as part of a quarantine. For a while, both 10g were on separate end tables that I picked up at garage sales, but curbside shopping scored me this low dresser so the two 10gs can sit at the same height. It's just a cleaner look to me. And the drawers are good for storing stuff!
To be continued....apparently I can only attach so many pictures in one message!
Now, to the good stuff! When I first started dreaming of a reef tank, it was a 75g. I thought that would be a decent starter size, considering the types of fish I was interested in. Then I realized that I was already planning the upgrade to a 90g, so why not just start with a 90? Yup, you guessed it. Again I began planning to go bigger before I even got off the ground with a 90. So here I am with a 120g as my first saltwater tank! I bought a lot of equipment used, and hit last year's Black Friday sales for some new stuff.
Then I began working on what I called "infrastructure." I didn't get any pictures because everything was so filthy, but a friend of mine who is super handy took me down into the hellscape of my crawl space, and we used a header, jacks, and concrete blocks to support the section of flooring under the future tank's location. The tank runs parallel to the joists, and I didn't want to risk sagging. He showed me everything every step of the way and made me do parts of it myself, so that if I need to add another header or adjust the jacks, I can do it myself. I appreciated that. I may be a single woman, but I don't like being an ignorant or helpless one!
Next: water mixing station. Got some neato barrels from Rural King (free shipping!), and took my first dive ever into PVC and plumbing. I very quickly learned that I hate doing plumbing. I would rather ride my bike bare-cheeked with a cactus-lined saddle for 20 miles than plumb another anything. But I'm super stubborn and eventually got it done, and it works very nicely. The pump (Sicce) is also my backup return pump, since it can run in-line or submerged. I set it in a drip tray I built. Simple plywood box with two coats of flex seal to make it water proof. Leak protection! At some point, I'll get actual alarmed leak detectors, but that's in the future.
Next, flooring. I just bought the house in June 2017, and apparently that spring, the previous owner replaced all the floors in the kitchen, living room, and hallway with a very nice, pretty wood laminate. But wood laminate doesn't like water. Just ask my dog. I adopted her from the local shelter in Dec. 2017, and she was sickly and heartworm positive. The antibiotics and steroids she was on made her pee all the time. She panics in the crate- even a professional trainer suggested that crating her was more trouble than it was worth- and she hops baby gates like nothing, so penning her in the kitchen wasn't an option. Short story- every morning when I came home from work, there'd be one or two puddles of urine to clean up. The poor thing couldn't help it. And it was too cold to leave a kennel cough-turned-pneumonia, heartworm positive dog outside in December, even in the garage with a warm blanket stuffed dog house. The flooring did not like the piddles. It started swelling at the seams and all that. So I had a handyman from my multisport team come by and replace that section of flooring with vinyl tiles. I'd never be able to match the wood grain patterns, so I went with a stone pattern with similar enough colors to the wood laminate. It's not a perfect look, but I can live with it. Sorry for the super blurry pics.
During this time, I was working on the stand. It took me forever (and a borrowed miter saw, since I'm still amateur enough with my circular saw to not always have straight cuts), and tons of input from folks on here to come up with a plan that would work. I wanted a stand that was longer and wider than the tank, so I would have a place to set things down, kneel during maintenance, have plenty of room underneath for equipment, etc. I ended up with a stand that is 6' long, 28" deep (was going for 30" but made a calculation error, which worked out fine since moving 28" through my front door was much easier than 30" would have been), and 36" tall. I have mixed feelings on the height. It's tall enough to be a pain to deal with already, but on the other hand, if it was much shorter, I would be super cramped underneath. And while I might be blinded by the lights (in the canopy I haven't built yet....) while sitting on the couch, at least I don't have to squat to look at the tank like I have to do with my freshwater planted tank on a much shorter stand. I do think, however, that my next build will be on a lower stand. I have a small bedroom on the other side of the wall- I could conceivably plumb through the wall to a sump in that bedroom in order to deal with the lack of space underneath.
Next up: sump. There's no Petco in my city (and thus, no dollar per gallon sales) but I just happened to be in the next big city over that did have a Petco during one of those sales, so I picked up a 40b. Had a glass shop cut me some baffles, and then performed officially the worse silicone job ever. Cut me some slack, guys; it was my first time! Actually, there were a lot of firsts getting all this stuff done.....made up some new cuss words, too. But I hated doing silicone significantly less than I hated plumbing, so that's good! It was actually kind of fun. A little (lot) more practice, and I should be churning out deliciously smooth, leak-free seams like clockwork. Here's a shot of the leak test. I did wind up having to redo the baffle on the far right, but that wasn't nearly as much of a hassle as cutting and gluing PVC. Also, moving a 40b in and out of the house by myself was not easy. The garage steps in particular made me sweat.
I looked for months in local classifieds (FB, Craigslist) for a 120 in the 4x4x2 dimensions that I wanted. No luck, so I ordered a new one through my small LFS. Drilling it for a bean animal overflow was terrifying, but not as difficult as I feared.
I picked up a Modular Marine ghost style overflow, and I gotta say, it's heckin' sleek. I've had no problems with it. I ordered one size larger than I thought I needed, because I heard the exterior box could be a bit tight to work in, and I'm glad I did. I should have asked them to size down the bulkheads a bit though. The plumbing is an ugly story. It was a nightmare and a half- plumbing the water mixing station was cake compared to this. I hated every second of it. When I upgrade, I will pay somebody else to do it! But I persevered and it finally got done. Leaks were addressed, leaks were rediscovered, leaks were addressed, more leaks were discovered....currently I have a small salt trail on the back of the tank from one corner of the exterior box of the overflow (I think the salt creep sealed it off), and a super slow leak from one joint between pipe and union on the 2° drain. I tried turning that drain line off with the ball valve I put on there, and reapplying PVC glue in an attempt to get it to seal itself. 24hrs later, turned it on and it still has a slow drip. I'm just going to silicone the dang thing. Anyway, here's what the back of the tank looks like. Had to switch out some rigid PVC for flex- there's a section with a curve/lean down by the return pump that I simply couldn't resolve well enough.
After the plumbing and leak testing bit was done, I drained the tank, scooted it closer to the wall, and refilled it. Got the pump going, mixed up some salt, and started the cycle! Finally! Glory be! I'd been cycling some QT tanks and I was ready to go get a few snails and a fish or two, so they'd be ready to go by the time the display finished cycling. My "fish room" has three QT tanks: a 20L, and two 10g. One 10g will be medication free- no copper, no CP, no prazi. It'll be for cuc, small sensitive fish, and keeping a little population of pods. I can keep live rock and a little tupperware container of sand in there. I'll probably put corals in there, too as part of a quarantine. For a while, both 10g were on separate end tables that I picked up at garage sales, but curbside shopping scored me this low dresser so the two 10gs can sit at the same height. It's just a cleaner look to me. And the drawers are good for storing stuff!
To be continued....apparently I can only attach so many pictures in one message!
