SkiCat's Dream Build: [Saving The] Planet 180 - The Making Of An Epic Aquacultured Mixed Reef

SkiCatTX · Mar 9, 2020

Most of this weekend went to working on the yard, lots of stuff I've been neglecting before summer and it gets too hot to go outside...

Today though was mostly about gluing pipe.

Amazing how stiff 1.5" PVC is. Two of these pieces had to be redone, as once they were glued they were 1/4" off. No way to just fudge it though, and just make it work, as it would put too much pressure on the overflow and sump, so I had to redo them. Short one piece now, will have to wait a week to finish that.

Started on return, with backflow prevention on each side, and a bracket to hold the UV tube. I will also have to make a support to hold the weight of it as well, as that bracket can't hold the weight of the UV tube and all the pipes full of water, but it will hold it in place as least.

Quite a complicated piece with UV and bypass on each return pump, plus a flow sensor for each direction to measure flow through the UV, and flow around it. The sum of those is the total flow for that pump. Valves are to adjust flow, and to turn off both the top and bottom to remove the UV tube while still running that return.

In order to fit it all behind the tank, I had to glue everything close together. That's a pain if I have to adjust anything, but at least there are a crazy number of unions, so lots of parts to adjust and remove. And I suppose lots of sources for leaks...

This is for the right side (viewed from the front), the matching one for the left side is next, it will be nearly the same, but slightly different as it will also have a manifold for a chiller, and I'll have to route the return from the pump over to the other side of the tank, over the skimmer, and through the drain pipes.

SkiCatTX · Mar 11, 2020

What do y'all think of this scape?

Saw it on YouTube from J's REEFs, here.

I like the open areas and several separate rock islands, with plenty of room for coral growth and mounting. Anyway, just thinking ahead...

SkiCatTX · Mar 14, 2020

Well, just when I thought the plumbing was going well, I messed up one of the sections, several times...

Fortunately, as I mentioned, since there are so many unions as part of the various ball valves and flow sensors, I just had to redo this one tee pipe.

Once I mounted the finished fixture on the right side of the tank, I realized that the wire on the UV tube would stick up above the back of the tank. I can't have that...it would drive me nuts...total OCD issues...so, I would have to invert the whole thing, which would work, but would require cutting the already glued check valve, raising it, and regluing one of the tees. Great.

So, this perfectly glued and awesome piece, completely worthless...

So I set off to make a replacement, glued it all together, has the different union on one side and everything...

Except that, as you can see by the color, the two grey unions are for the wrong fixture, the separate union (like on the left), rather than the Cepex valves (below darker color), which are not compatible...so back to the drawing board again...and another $30 in fixtures...darnit...

Fortunately, I have lots of extras I can pull from what was going to be the other side of the tank and the second return, so I grabbed some more, this time making extra certain I actually had the right parts, and made a third one.

This one was all good. So great! Finally!

I also had to cut and reglue the check valve higher, so I cut that and used it on the second redo above, and used one connection from the other side return to build this:

Interesting that you can see some air bubbles in the clear PVC glue, however, I checked it out and it's solid all the way around the bottom where the blue pipe is, so I think I'm good...

SkiCatTX · Mar 14, 2020

Here's the final contraption for the right side (as viewed from the front) return, with modifications.

I actually think this will work better, at least in terms of accessing the valves.

One thing I don't like about it is that, when I want to remove the UV tube at some point for cleaning, I can't drain it all the way. There will always be some water in the bottom part below the ball valve in the center. I'll either have to lift the whole thing up with about a gallon of water inside, or I will need to put a bowl or something under it and bleed the water from a loose union connection first. Ah well, hopefully, this will be a rare thing...fingers crossed.

Here it is from the side. I haven't finished connecting it to the rear pump. I'm going to wait on that until I finish the drain pipes, and get some work done on the other side return. I'm still not sure if I want to try to connect the two pumps in such a way that I can run both returns off one pump in the event of a bad pump or cleaning. I would need to fit three more ball valves right in this spot, which would be a tight fit.

SkiCatTX · Mar 14, 2020

And then there's the partially built one for the other side.

SkiCatTX · Mar 15, 2020

Switched over to sanding and painting primer today. First side on all pieces cut so far:

Primer on the bottom and around the bottom edges of the stand:

SkiCatTX · Mar 15, 2020

I'm running out of room to work, so temporarily put all the plumbing inside the tank.

SkiCatTX · Mar 15, 2020

And the Sump is hidden off to the side.

seldon · Mar 16, 2020

Looking good. I'm currently planning a new build and will be taking notes. Don't you hate how all the union & union valve fitting look so similar, but aren't. I had that same problem in my current tank.

AJsReef · Mar 16, 2020

Sweet looking build, love the obsession with white. It will look awesome when completed!

SkiCatTX · Mar 17, 2020

seldon said:
Looking good. I'm currently planning a new build and will be taking notes. Don't you hate how all the union & union valve fitting look so similar, but aren't. I had that same problem in my current tank.

I do! And Thx!

They are in fact slightly different colors of grey...which is actually annoying in itself, as I'd like a consistent color scheme, but then they are not different enough to tell apart. Also, they can't agree on a consistent connector design, so that they cannot be interchanged. In this case, the o-rings are on the opposite side between the Spears and Cepex.

SkiCatTX · Mar 17, 2020

AJsReef said:
Sweet looking build, love the obsession with white. It will look awesome when completed!

Thank you! Obsession, yes...Looking at all the tanks out there, it's just not done, so I figured let's see what happens. I will have to keep it super clean though, so that's my main worry. If I start to neglect it, it may end up that I go back to black...or maybe blue...we'll see.

AJsReef · Mar 17, 2020

SkiCatTX said:
Thank you! Obsession, yes...Looking at all the tanks out there, it's just not done, so I figured let's see what happens. I will have to keep it super clean though, so that's my main worry. If I start to neglect it, it may end up that I go back to black...or maybe blue...we'll see.

Maybe one the the automated glass scrubber solutions would be worthwhile

SkiCatTX · Mar 18, 2020

AJsReef said:
Maybe one the the automated glass scrubber solutions would be worthwhile

Huh, you mean like a glass Roomba? Wouldn't that be awesome!

SkiCatTX · Mar 20, 2020

Got some new toys:

Can't really use them for a couple of months, but figured I should get a couple just in case they end up on backorder through the rest of the year like some other items...

Ultimately, I'll probably use 5 on the 60" x 30" tank, along with the 4x T5s from the DX18 hybrid fixture, but I can add more as I need them. I like the XR-15s since they are half the price of the XR-30s, so you can just get twice as many and spread them out even more.

AJsReef · Mar 20, 2020

With the spread on the new Radions not sure you’d need T5 unless it’s something you really want. I have 3x XR30s and at 70% getting 300 PAR essentially everywhere in the tank. Only thing I may change long term is add a 4th one day if my frags become large colonies and shadowing is an issue

SkiCatTX · Mar 20, 2020

AJsReef said:
With the spread on the new Radions not sure you’d need T5 unless it’s something you really want. I have 3x XR30s and at 70% getting 300 PAR essentially everywhere in the tank. Only thing I may change long term is add a 4th one day if my frags become large colonies and shadowing is an issue

Yeah, you may be right, but I already bought the Aquatic Life DX18 before the Gen5 Blues came out...so I will probably go ahead and use it, we'll see. I could sell it if I don't end up needing the T5s.

The DX18 is dimmable so maybe I'll run the T5s at lower power. I have heard that running them at like 80% power can make them keep their color longer.

Alternatively, maybe I'll just use 2 or 3 XR15s, who knows.

SkiCatTX · Mar 21, 2020

Got some LED strips for inside the stand, with two magnetic switches to turn on each set when the door is opened.

SkiCatTX · Mar 22, 2020

Sanded and cleaned all the primed wood and stand. Also, I finished the other return/UV assembly and built supports to hold their weight with water in them.