New Tank Build

[Zero Gravitas]

This is my new temporary tank while I redo the main system. Here are some progress photos.
Started with the stand. Decided to add some root barrier material to the wall to keep the moisture off the sheer walling. I had it laying around.
I've had these two 200 gallon tanks that I got from people on this forum. One will be for live rock only.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Started on the top part. Used wood I've had laying around including some clear-coated shelving my Father in-law provided.
Been drying this wood for about a year. Home Depot flavor...
Coated everything with wood sealer, and used wood glue for all connections.
My garage is a disaster.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Decided to put her extra tall. The top is over 6 feet. I'm sure I'll regret that..
Using flex line and barbs (3/4) for the pressurized side.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Using this cabinet to house the sump. Finally found a way to use this wonky roller mat. It's an older model, but it checks out.
These Theiling roller mats are not without their flaws. One of the main problems is that they bow out, and then the rollers get misaligned.
I tried to solve this by putting a collar brace around the whole thing to keep it squared. We will see.
Also we will see how long I can purchase the actual roller media. But I've had this thing sitting around for years, and it was time.
the protein skimmer tank is small, but I installed an old Chech check valve to keep the UV from draining back.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Installed the UV sterilizer, and tried to make a top for the skimmer housing. It took many holes, and it's not that easy to take off.
Next I will install my auto top off system, and the Kalkwasser stirrer.
Just ran the water test last night, and there were no leaks other than bulkhead needing to be tightened. So that was nice.
I've collected two MP 60s, and two MP 40's that will go on the back. Unfortunately there is no room on the sides.
I've added foam insulation to the return pump lines in order to keep algae from growing, we will see how that pans out.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

I have an old Geo calcium reactor, but I am saving that for the main system. This will be run off two-part, and Kalkwasser.
The lighting will be three Kessil AP700s and some T-5s.
That's where I stand now, updates to come.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Added clear PVC to have a view of water restriction on the return.
Started putting the live rock together. It's about a year old now. Got it through Facebook Marketplace.
THe last picture is my return on the tank side. pretty small for a 200 gallon tank but it can handle my pump maxed it seems.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Found a piece of wood to hang my lights on, also added some spare crown molding to make it look a bit better.
Sealed to plank and hung to the rafters, and added two of the lights so far.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Got the lights up. THree AP 700s I bought used, and 4 24" Aquaticlife T4s. Recently used the club PAR meter, and its about 400 at the top 175 on the bottom.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

This is a bit later, all these pictures are about 7 months old now. The closets a bit crowded, and I have yet to install the calcium reactor in this picture. I ran on two-part for the first 4 months or so. I was having major precipitation issues, so I switched over to the calcium reactor before I really needed it, and that seemed to fix the problem. Bing it did cause it was a solidification of much of my sand. Couple months after this picture I vacuumed out all the sand that was not solid, and now I have a kind of highbred bare bottom. Pictures later in the journal. Ive also added a kalk stirrer here, to battle my low PH. This all changed when I added Macro algae to the refugium, and pretty much only use now, automatically with apex, if the PH drops below 8. Pictures of that much later.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

I cobbled together a RODI system thanks to people here on BAR mostly. Are used to sediment filters, two carbon filters, two reverse osmosis filters, and two DI resin filters. I also have four probes in various areas to give me an idea of what's happening as far as the TDS is concerned. I'll stay Rainbird battery powered timer on it to automatically turn it off and on, and have also used it on vacation as an automatic top off. And I do that by just measuring how much water evaporates in a day and have the Rainbird go off for that amount of minutes each day. Haven't flooded my garage because of this exact thing yet somehow.. Also, re-purposed some root barrier plastic, to cover my walls behind the RODI unit, and my sump, and my refugium. Both of the maintenance closets are completely backed in this 1/8 inch plastic sheeting that my father in law gave to me.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

This is the sand before it became solidified, and I removed it, I also mixed in some old, reborn media, and with it. This seemed to be a big mistake, as much of the detritus got blown into, and trapped in, the porous cavities the media left. I a lot of my problems seemed to lessen when I removed the sand, I don't think it ever matured completely.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

This is under the tank. Return PVC was 1 inch pipes that I joined together. In retrospect I should have had them join into a 1 1/4 pipe, but I have not had any flow restriction problems even using a 15000 Jabao pump exclusively to this tank return. Oh,I added brackets to about every joining in my stand, but no wood glue in case I need to take it apart, so far so good. The last two pictures are of the plumbing to my refugium, I have about 80% of the water going through my refugium, and about 20% going through my fleece roller, and then to my protein, skimmer and so forth. Water exiting the refugium goes straight to the return pump, and into the main tank, with no mechanical filtration at all, seems to be working.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

This is my closet area trying to become less cluttered, as I remove the two-part infrastructure, and implement a calcium reactor in the next closet over. I got the GEO reactor on marketplace for pretty cheap, also the CO2 cylinders I got for free through the forum. I also used an old free calcium reactor I got on the forum, from the same person that gave me the display tank, and use it as a second reaction chamber to hopefully raise the pH before the effluent hits the display tank. Here are some hopeful, first pictures of some corals, a PC rainbow, and a tricolor. Unfortunately, I got acro spiders shortly after this pic, that wiped out this PC rainbow completely, the tricolor lived and is thriving though. The acro spiders are their own story, I have some pictures I was able to take of them I will add. Eventually they disappeared. I theorized that they got out competed by many of the other organisms that eventually establish themselves, but because of this, I do not offer any thing from my tank to anybody else. I don't want to take any chances. I also had a secondary skimmer in the refugium that I eventually removed.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

I found someone selling some super cured live rock that looked really clean, so I added it to the refugium. Here is another progression picture of the main tank, as it was starting to get hair-algae, and Briopsis. I used Reef, RX, and it completely wiped all of the algae out. It was Algae free for almost 6 months, then I started getting hair algae again recently, but the Briopsis seems to have been permanently stopped. A wonderful product really.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Took out the 57 W aqua UV that I had in the maintenance closet, as it was super crowded, and moved it below the display tank. I have a pump in the refugium circulating water through the UV, and into an old-school sea-swirl that feeds the water directly in to my clump of Chaeto. I am currently pulling out about a 5 gallon bucket full every week, excess nutrients maybe? Here is also a picture of my skimmer. After I added a CO2 scrubber media chamber to it, and it did raise my pH somewhat. The Beach bum lived through the aqua spiders, I guess they only like acro's, and is still thriving today. These are pictures I added to show what my hybrid bare bottom looks like now. The sand that solidified through my kalk overdose now has coralline algae completely covering it on the base, making it look like a natural rock structure, that I cut the bottom off of. Oh, I got real lucky there, as without that sand, none of the structures would be stable. Now it is all basically fused together in one piece. Although I can take most of the big top pieces off as they fit in slots, I made in the bigger base pieces. I sometimes remove them and manually scrub…
I've bought the powder blue tang from saltwater.com, it was the first time I used that company, because I got a free Nasso Tang with the purchase. I hate don't recommend, Nasso Tang came emaciated, just coincidentally, living pass the refund credit period. Not would've mattered because it was a free add-on offer, and when I called, they explain to me I would get a $10 credit. I only bought the powder blue because the other fish was free, I felt that was pretty dishonest. Anyhow, the powder blue was doing fine until he got into a fight with my scope us, and the Scopas put a spine right into his eye. He lived in my sump for another month, his eye healed, but he refused to eat, and eventually I had to put him down. in retrospect I realize I have a pretty peaceful tank, in which whose balance can be completely changed with the addition of a semi aggressive fish. He had everybody on edge all the time, and even tried to oust my, almost full grown, hippo tang from his favorite spot. I actually took him out of the tank, wrapped him up in a towel and removed the spine from the side of his eye, apparently going right into his little brain. That was the last time I will ever address fish trauma hands on...

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Baseball size piece of Chaeto, and now it is a monster, occupying at least a 60 gallon space in a very dense bush. In fact, my current problem is figuring out if growing all this Cheato is stripping my tank of nutrients. For my corals look unaffected, but my pH buffering effect from all this Algae seems to be diminishing as it over crowds my refugium. That Scarlet urchin just sits there eating it all day every day, but it grows too fast for him to keep it under control, I have thought about adding a couple more. I have noticed an explosion of pods, the tank is covered with them at night on every surface.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

That’s a very cool urchin

 

[PjFish]

Nice update on your tank!! Pacifica seems to draw big tanks out there maybe because of the views lol

 

[popper]

Wow. Those are really clean chaeto. What's the secret to keeping them from unwanted pests and such?