Seapora (Formerly DeapBlue) 80g Rimless Build with Custom Stand and DIY Sump

[Moe K]

So I decided to finally document my build in a thread and will also post updates on youtube once I get it wet. I will try my hardest to keep updating here but always super busy as I run 3DReefing and take care of the AI Prime Hydra Reef Group on Facebook which is up to almost 40k members now.

The build is somewhat on a budget as I have most of the equipment left over from previous set ups. I am just under $1000 for the bare bones (tank, stand, and sump) but adding a few finishing touches is putting me a little over budget.

Having most of the equipment the only thing to get was the tank, sump, and stand. The tank is a rimless Seapora 80g shallow 48x24x16. The sump is a 40g breeder with a DIY baffle kit from jaxracks.com. I was planning on building the stand myself but so time limited I decided to have a local cabinet builder make me a "budget" stand and with it painted also was not too much over the price of lumber itself so it worked out. The quality of the wood was not the best so I am adding some finishing touches to hide all the imperfections.

Some of the progress so far

40g Breeder Sump with Jax Racks Triton Refugium Baffle Kit. Wrapped the rim with white vinyl.

This is how the stand was delivered. Looks good as is but my ocd for the imperfections is driving me to come up with solutions to hide the imperfect wood. It does have a nice inset to hide the tank bottom rim. Did I mention I hate black rims on tanks?

A few touches I added to the stand afterwards. Wrapped some of the trim with stick on tile. I also wrapped the front panel with white vinyl.

I still have to finish the sides. They will have these wall tiles and I will cut a larger frame made of white acrylic to hide the edges. This was just a test photo.

Should have the tank mounted on the stand with the sump soon and will upload some more phots of that in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

 

[Jeffcb]

This is going to be a great build. Awesome job on the stand. Following.

 

[DappleReef]

So I decided to finally document my build in a thread and will also post updates on youtube once I get it wet. I will try my hardest to keep updating here but always super busy as I run 3DReefing and take care of the AI Prime Hydra Reef Group on Facebook which is up to almost 40k members now.

The build is somewhat on a budget as I have most of the equipment left over from previous set ups. I am just under $1000 for the bare bones (tank, stand, and sump) but adding a few finishing touches is putting me a little over budget.

Having most of the equipment the only thing to get was the tank, sump, and stand. The tank is a rimless Seapora 80g shallow 48x24x16. The sump is a 40g breeder with a DIY baffle kit from jaxracks.com. I was planning on building the stand myself but so time limited I decided to have a local cabinet builder make me a "budget" stand and with it painted also was not too much over the price of lumber itself so it worked out. The quality of the wood was not the best so I am adding some finishing touches to hide all the imperfections.

Some of the progress so far

40g Breeder Sump with Jax Racks Triton Refugium Baffle Kit. Wrapped the rim with white vinyl.

Im really digging this sump!

 

[adittam]

Looks great so far! I absolutely LOVE this tank, the dimensions are pretty much perfect.

You'll have to check out my build thread whenever you have time; I've got the same tank (except with a rim).

 

[Moe K]

Looks great so far! I absolutely LOVE this tank, the dimensions are pretty much perfect.

You'll have to check out my build thread whenever you have time; I've got the same tank (except with a rim).

Thanks! Love your set up too. You fish and coral pics are fantastic.

 

[Moe K]

So the stand is coming out exceptionally well. I was going to wait to post a shot of the stand with the tank and sump installed but here it is. I used my co2 laser to cut an acrylic frame around the wall panels on the sides along with RGBic lights. I only have the acrylic frames mounted with some tape temporarily and some finishing touches to do. Should have the tank mounted with sump and begin plumbing in the next few weeks. Can't wait to show a video of what these lights look like in motion. The logo is embossed on the inside so when the lights are off it is invisible.

 

[adittam]

Thanks! Love your set up too. You fish and coral pics are fantastic.

Thank you!

 

[Moe K]

Finally getting there. Tank and lights mounted. So the 40b sump is taking up quite a bit of real estate in the stand. I am going to have to figure out a solution for the electronics. I forgot to mention I have a Mastertronic and Hydros going on this tank. So much for that budget . Open to suggestions on what I should do for a side cabinet or if there is any other options I don't know about.

I am also going bare bottom but do not like the look of a black bottom so I picked up an extra large yoga mat that is somewhat a sandy color.

 

[Jackal799]

Loving it so far. Great idea with the yoga mat!!

 

[Moe K]

UPDATE :

I looked for a basic white cabinet in the size I wanted. Turned out a lot harder than it should be. Even Ikea does not have any in stock for a couple months so I got my cabinet guy on it. Should turn out great and will make the front of the cabinet glow like the sides of the tank stand. The cabinet will hold most of the electronics but mainly for the ATO reservoir and I will have the Mastertronic sit on top. I am also needing extension cables for the 4k gyres as they are ridiculously short.

Worked some on the rock scape. I got one piece partially done and will need 2 more for a total of 3 rock structure when complete. Here's what I got so far. I only had a 4.5 oz bottle of glue so I am going to need A LOT more glue.

 

[Moe K]

Almost there guys . Taking me a while to get this going but its going. Worked all week to plumb and fill it. NO LEAKS. The sump is working great as expected. Doing the best I can with all the wiring. There may or may not be a birds nest behind the little cabinet lol.

So far I have one piece of rock done which took forever. Maybe about 3 hours to make total and still have to do 2 more pieces.

Still have not hooked up the Mastertronic as its not needed yet. I do have the Hydros control running but need to recalibrate the ph probe and waiting for a wifi extender to fully run the wifi power strip.

The sump has been cleaned up with cable covers. There are also cable raceways behind the tank but it really only cleans up the front perfectly which is what matters to me.

More to come.

Lastly check this out. Picked up this 14g cube tank from Petco for $60. Did the usual vinyl wrap and have an awesome looking ATO that should go a good while before needing top off. Going to had a front cover with logo on it next week.

 

[Moe K]

Wow. I have to say the Hydros team is excellent. After searching hard online on how to program the 4k Gyres with the discontinued wifi controller to do wave motion, I was lead to believe that it was impossible to without upgrading to the wave engine controller. I made a post on their FB page with my concern and with in 5 minutes one of the team members was guiding me on how to do what I was told was impossible. Now I have the gyres set up perfectly and they can do much more than I previously thought. I highly recommend Hydros and their compatible products if you are looking for reef automation.

 

[Moe K]

Wow sorry guys for dropping the ball on the build thread but my early experimentation with this tank has caused me to name it the crap show tank lol. There is too much to talk about but I will try to sum it up.

My biggest mistake was trying to force biodiversity of the bacteria colonies. Early on I dosed biospira as I usually do to cycle the tank (never had an issue with it). All went well and cycled. Then I had the bright idea to force more bacteria diversity and every other week switched to different brand bacteria.
BAD IDEA!

1 year later and my corals were just doing ok. Coloration on the lps was ok/good, sps was bad. I regularly tested the water including icp tests. Everything has been stable as can be for nearly a year. Growth has been negligible and I was scratching my head for nearly 6 months as to what is wrong with this tank!

For the longest time my tank water was cloudy and I tried an unbelievable amount of things to try to fix it. I tried 3 different size uv sterilizers with different flow rates also. I must have been the only person on the planet where a uv sterilizer did not work. Ultimately I ended up adding 4kg more of maxspect biospheres and finally the water clarity began to improve.

Time to learn from my mistakes!

My theory based on observations is that I had some kind of severe bacteria warfare caused by experimenting with different bottled bacteria. Eventually the most aggressive type dominated. I figured this was happening several months ago so I started getting rubble rock and later live rock from established systems. It seemed the damage was done and what ever bacteria was dominant was a force that simply adding live rock and rubble was not enough to compete with.

Even after 10 years of reefing I am still learning new things. It seems to me that just because it is denitrifying bacteria doesn't necessarily mean it is beneficial to the coral. Coral consume bacteria and from the research I did it appears they consume a lot for growth. It also appears that there is specific kinds of strains that coral will consume and other strains they will not. You can not know for sure if a certain brand bottle bacteria has the good kind or not. I do have a hunch on which ones are ok and which are not but rather not throw out names without definitive proof which is hard to find.

Here is what seems to be turning things around - AF Life Source Mud. I figured it can not get more natural than mud picked directly from healthy coral reef in Fiji. So far the results have been fantastic.

Its messy as you dose straight muddy water into your tank but you get all the diversity from a natural mature reef in one shot. The next day my water was absolutely crystal clear and every coral was fluffed and happy. Even the fish appear to be enjoying life more. It has only been several days but I am already seeing richer sps color. Usually you can not tell improvements in a few days but as pale as some pieces were they are definitely turning around.

Again this is all based on my observation and theory but does seem to be the case as I can not explain it any other way and open to suggestion or thoughts.

Here is the tank today. I also plan on adding sand and never going bare bottom on another tank. I have had frag tanks with only racks, no sand, a little bit of biomedia and they did not have the issues I witnessed with this tank. I thought this bare bottom method would be easier to maintain but it just flat out looks terrible in my eyes and is a super pita to keep scraped and clean.

 

[Moe K]

Update on the equipment. As you can see from the photos some things have changed around.

I replaced the Mastertronic with a Neptune Trident. The Mastertronic was ok but the po4 and nitrate testing was a gimmick imo. I am super happy with the Trident as it is much more hands off and convenient. I had to replace the hydros controllers with Apex to run the trident. Honestly I like the Hydros controller better but it is what it is and they pretty much do the same thing.

Switched the Hydras for radions and designed new shades. I also ran AI blade which was great and designed the first acrylic mounts for them. The mounts worked so well I decided to get Orphek Blue Plus bars to also design far. Ultimately the set up is now The Orpheks and the 2 XR15's. The combo is fantastic and more than enough.

Currently I dose All for Reef in the day and kalkwasser through an Avast Kalk reactor at night.

 

[Moe K]

Finally starting to see some improvements on SPS. The AF lifesource seems to be some fantastic stuff. I also decided to start a zeovit reactor. With my battle with bacteria I think I am on the right track. No more random bottled bacteria and only sticking to zeobak for the zeo reactor.

One of the biggest improvememnts I have seen is on my bubble gum digi. Previously it was pretty much all orange and did not have that nice neon green yellow tips. Now it does with also signs of growth.

Yesterday I through in a few budget acros just as testers to see if I can finally grow them in this system.

 

[Moe K]

Been at war with bubble algae. I always had a few spots in older tanks but this one has had a full on outbreak. It even began to smother some coral and that is when I took action.

I bought 4 emerald crabs from reefcleaners. They nipped at the stuff but there was so much there was no way they could keep up. After about a month they also seemed to have lost interest in it.

I looked into remedies. Products like Brightwell Razor and Vibrant (never will I touch this stuff off of principle) have many praises for treating bubbles but the more you read the more it seems that about 50% of the users had some kind of coral mortality. My ultimate choice was reef flux (fluconazole).

I have had great success in treating hair algae in the past with Reef Flux. I learned the trick is to keep the tank dirty as you want what ever nuisance algae you have to continue to grow so it can uptake the medication. It has been a long 3.5 weeks and it has knocked the bubble algae in half. I used a 4x dose as recommended by others for bubble algae. I noticed the effects have begun to wear off as more algae was building up on the glass again. I spoke to my friends at the LFS and they told me to hit it again. It might sound crazy but they also told me they have done a test with 20x the recommended dose in a nano tank and reported no coral loss. Im not going to go that far lol but it is comforting if true.

I am also happy to report there were absolutely no coral deaths. The odd thing is my Alk spiked during treatment and I was told that was normal. I adjusted dosers as needed. It is almost as if the coral completely halt in growth yet their coloration still stayed healthy.

Here are a few photos of the results. I will be running my skimmer for 2 days again and bag of carbon. Then I will hit it with another 4x dose. No water change yet.

Results 1 - 3 weeks apart

Different area photos -

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Been at war with bubble algae. I always had a few spots in older tanks but this one has had a full on outbreak. It even began to smother some coral and that is when I took action.

I bought 4 emerald crabs from reefcleaners. They nipped at the stuff but there was so much there was no way they could keep up. After about a month they also seemed to have lost interest in it.

I looked into remedies. Products like Brightwell Razor and Vibrant (never will I touch this stuff off of principle) have many praises for treating bubbles but the more you read the more it seems that about 50% of the users had some kind of coral mortality. My ultimate choice was reef flux (fluconazole).

I have had great success in treating hair algae in the past with Reef Flux. I learned the trick is to keep the tank dirty as you want what ever nuisance algae you have to continue to grow so it can uptake the medication. It has been a long 3.5 weeks and it has knocked the bubble algae in half. I used a 4x dose as recommended by others for bubble algae. I noticed the effects have begun to wear off as more algae was building up on the glass again. I spoke to my friends at the LFS and they told me to hit it again. It might sound crazy but they also told me they have done a test with 20x the recommended dose in a nano tank and reported no coral loss. Im not going to go that far lol but it is comforting if true.

I am also happy to report there were absolutely no coral deaths. The odd thing is my Alk spiked during treatment and I was told that was normal. I adjusted dosers as needed. It is almost as if the coral completely halt in growth yet their coloration still stayed healthy.

Here are a few photos of the results. I will be running my skimmer for 2 days again and bag of carbon. Then I will hit it with another 4x dose. No water change yet.

Results 1 - 3 weeks apart

Different area photos -

Glad to see the coral is still doing great!

 

[Moe K]

Glad to report that Reef Flux was a success at defeating bubble algae. It took 7 weeks. It was tough as the coral growth seemed to stagnate the entire time.

Another thing to note is that I found out my salinity calibration fluid was wrong after an ATI icp analysis. It appears I was low salinity around 1.021. I am wondering if this contributed to the insane bubble algae outbreak as I have never seen that before. Now I figure its just better to zero my refractometer on rodi water which actually set my salinity reading in line with what the icp test said. I do believe the icp test was correct as I was scratching my head why my new batches of saltwater kept reading low in alk and calcium.

Pics of the areas that were previously covered in BA.

P.S. I am now attacking aiptasia. Got a pack of bergias in there. It never ends.

 

[Moe K]

Well this is embarrassing but I guess it's how this show goes. The bubble algae is back and did not take too long. Guess I spoke too soon about reef flux being a great solution to that issue (ITS NOT!). 7 weeks of treatment down the drain.

A week or so ago I could not find one bubble algae on my rock work or the power heads. A couple days ago I noticed some small shiny spots and today I noticed its coming back with a vengeance. 4 emerald crabs are not doing their job much at all. I am starting to think my only option is to nuke the tank with algae fix or Vibrant (same stuff). Just poison it all.

Also my bergia nudis I got over 2 weeks ago have disappeared. I placed them on the rock and watched them go into the crevices. Not sure if they will ever re-appear or possible my emerald crabs have taken them out.

I am running out of options on these reef problems.

Here is a photo from today of the rock with a wonderful mix of aiptaisia and bubble algae Yaaaay!

 

[Moe K]

The Aquabiomics tests have come back positive for sponge on that torch coral.

The tests show 43% to be Mycale sanguinea. Class Demospongiae (Sponges)

I was told by a friend that mycale sanguinea sponge is nasty stuff. It seems this tank has been collecting nasties like a kid collected Pokémon cards.

It has been a couple months and thankfully I have seen no new corals being attacked. I took a drastic measure and dumped all my live rock I had in the tank and added sand. Kind of a mini reset.

There is more good news than bad. I got more burghia nudis and they are getting to work on the aiptaisia. I also introduced 2 pytho crabs and I will say they are faaaaar superior than emerald crabs as they are keeping all the bubble algae in check so it is not much of a worry anymore.

I have also created what I believe to be the first 3d printed frag scape system. It is more like a reef scape system than frag racks. It has overhangs, arches, and can fit biospheres inside them. It is something I have been thinking of doing for a few years now and finally had a reason to complete. It is working so well I am in the process of filing a provisional patent.

Hopefully only good things and progress from this point.