If I was to ever build another tank from scratch, I'd just cement everything together so it was "rock" solid. The whole make a jig saw puzzle sounds good in theory but IME it's always a constant battle of parts not going back together properly. Whether some support breaks or you move stuff around for whatever reason, it just gets f'd up. Pretty sure if my rocks couldn't move I'd have more hair and less broken objects in the tank vicinity :redface:

Ahhh thats ok every specie is beautiful in its own way, I dont think no one loses
I love hammer and one of the few I have to get my hands on is the orange one but they come with a nice price tag:lol:

Thanks Steve. I want to rock to be very solid, hence the base & post structure I am dreaming up. It's more the coral that I wanted to be able to remove for trimming. Or are you suggesting even moving the coral is a bad idea?

Cheers,
Scott

I'm just saying from my experience once you remove rocks from the structure they don't go back in quite the same and any plastic rod system will probably eventually deform or break during the R/R process or the rock will crack/break around the drilled holes (it only takes one piece to screw the whole puzzle). Ultimately you end up with several rocks you've removed with established coral that won't go back in the structure in the same way they came out. Removing them is certainly ideal for trimming coral, cleaning or whatever but to me it's more trouble than it's worth. Better just to trim it in the tank but that's just me.

Gotcha. I was more concerned that I would put a coral frag in a poor location and have to move it. But I guess it wouldn't have encrusted into place by then anyways.

Thanks Steve!

Sleepy plug is tired....

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-68bNPX8-L.jpg

Now it just needs it's friend to show up!

Say hello to sleepy plugs little friend! Big shout out to Jean-francois at Marinetech Inc., Michael at AquaDigital and Colby at Bayside Corals for bringing it all together!

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-K7B6Wpv-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-sP99mcc-L.jpg

And some more goodies showed up today!

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-QKJJv5q-L.jpg

There is a crap load of sensors and wiring to do now! I am fighting with one little hiccup. One of my overflow return pipes is ~11/32" too low and ~1/8" too short. I can't just move the sump closer since the second line is in a perfect location already. I will either: a) cut out the 45 elbow and move it back ~1/2" to gain the 11/32" in height, then add the 11/32" PLUS the 1/8" I am already short OR b) cut out a couple inch section along the middle and use a soft silicone hose to join the two, hoping the hose will allow for the variation.

Any suggestions?

Cheers!

Big shout out to Jean-francois at Marinetech Innovations Inc., Michael at AquaDigital and Colby at Bayside Corals for bringing it all together!

The first post locked in a couple minutes after posting it so I had to put my edited post here :)

Nice looking gear bud. If you need to extend your piping a bit why not use a rubber coupling?

http://s3.pexsupply.com/images/produ.../4560606-1.jpg

I was hoping to avoid it for the simple reason I don't think it looks nice haahaa! I am afraid that even if I cut up what I currently have and try to get it perfect the connections will still be the tiniest bit off and have to use a coupler anyways. I guess it's just personal preference, but I don't want to hum and haw over a simple return pipe either!

loving lego man.

He can't wait for his first swim!

Here is the plumbing and miscellaneous work I had completed before leaving for work.

I envision the Mitras ballast top left, the Vortech controllers and battery backup mid-left, and have room to spare centre and right side.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-v5GN9xs-L.jpg

The stacked sumps. You can see the returns from the overflow going into the sump top left. I hand tightened them and still had a couple leaks. My LFS told me to use a wrench and give them all quarter turn and low and behold they are all good! You can see the abyzz A200 in the primary return chamber.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-s5CZjkv-L.jpg

The lower sump's return manifold is done. The three bulkheads on the bottom sump are for draining the chambers and one is an open emergency drain (far left).

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-CJF8QpD-L.jpg

You may be able to just make out the lower drain plumbing. The centre and right bulkheads are on ball valves while the left is a safety to prevent overflowing in a worst case scenario.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-ZWxFN9M-L.jpg

I need to clean the 1/2" plywood up a bit more, a little white caulking, etc., but the plywood is in place to allow me to affix electronics, powerhead controls, wiring looms, power bars, really anything I want to... to the wall. The space on the right is for the reactor shelf, dosing containers, profilux, etc.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-4G5w3CS-L.jpg

Does anyone have personal experience with the RK2 ozone generators? I am looking at buying their 300mg/hr unit. Also, would you be content using the Profilux system to control and monitor the ORP or would you buy the RK2 monitor controller? I personally feel that the Profilux should do the job just fine, but am open to everyones suggestions!

Cheers,
Scott

Very nice build. You've got a pretty sweet skimmer. You won't need to run ozone with it. IMO.

I'm running ozone for water clarity, something the skimmer won't really effect (as far as I know).

It has begun! Damn is my RODI slow! I have the 100psi booster on there and it's still painfully slow.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-LzFVVk4-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-XBsnvkw-L.jpg

Return plumbing is 90% done. I just have to paint the 90's black and glue them in!

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-Lh2DvTV-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-7T6rvHN-L.jpg

nice accessible sump off to the side. i loved that about my fish room too. i had always planned to add the fridge but you beat me to it lol. looks great!

Great job on the plumbing, did that silicone hose come with the pump?

Thanks Steve. I had to order the silicone connector kit from Abyzz. The clamps are pretty badass though!

The freezer is awesome! All the fish food is on it's own and I'm not leaving the little foil squares from the PE Mysis in the people food freezer. I am looking forward to working on the tank once it's up and running. I am still being cautious not to crowd equipment in and still don't have everything 100% figured out as to where I want it. For example, I have 3 x 300w EJ heaters that I don't know where I am going to put. Sure they can fit in plenty of places but where is the best lol!?

man, you kids and your fancy schmancy fish rooms. So jelly right now!!

I like putting heaters in overflow boxes, good amount of turnaround and wasted space otherwise. You'd probably want at least one in the bottom sump as well though, if you drain it for water changes or maintenance you'll probably want to preheat the water before turning it back on, unless you have a heated storage bin for that.

Locline returns!

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-rdJVRj9-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-cgWCtkG-L.jpg

I am hoping to have a ~40g mixing tank that will have a pump and heater. The profilux will run that pump with a sensor to perform water changes.

I just noticed your skimmer has a different base than what i've seen before. What skimmer is that? I thought it was an AlphaCone. Am I mistaken?

You're right, you are mistaken :)

It's a bubble king double cone 250. Very similar beasts, but you can see there are some differences. I also have the rd3 speedy pump running it.

Cheers!

Will that lock line be exposed now with the way you did it? I thought the plan was to thread the lock line straight into the reducer with only a couple pieces and a nozzle to just pierce the water surface.

There was no way to put valves on that way. This way they are all controllable to a degree. Also, now that I have the black vinyl background on you can't see them unless you really look for them.

I am having issues with bubbles from the weir at the end of the frag section flowing into the pump chamber… mass bubbles which are getting sucked into the return pump. I think the solution is a little section of foam held in an acrylic basket to help disperse the water. When I just held the foam ~1" under the water where the stream flows in it completely dissipated the bubbles. Also, I need to slip some risers in the overflow box. The water is falling into the bad and is quite noisy. This will also control how much water flows out of the tank if we have a power outage.

Any other ideas on fixes Steve?

This is super exiting, this stage rocks Im sure you can hardly sleep thinking of all the things to do. what beauty!!!!!

I am still missing the lower sump pump so I can't really get things running in a balanced fashion. That's the frustrating part haahaa! Right now I want to get that sorted out so I can get her salted and ready to throw some fish into :)

I just went over this thread again and I have to say Scott.....this is one of the nicest builds I've seen. Amazing job. The planning is incredible....and that fish room, wow.

Did you get that baffle issue sorted yet?

Nope, ACL reconstruction was today. Tank will have to wait for a bit now. I have to add some risers in the overflow box to keep the tank from draining down to the bottom of the weir teeth. That overloads the sumps. Way too much water goes down the emergency drain. I think raising the overflow box level should fix that. What do you think Steve?

As for the baffle situation, I am hoping that the lower sump return pump adds enough volume to the pump chamber to reduce the distance the water drops from the frag section to the pump chamber. Maybe that will alleviate the bubbles, yes no? If not I tried holding some fluval foam just under the water level in the pump chamber and it dissipated the bubbles before they entered the chamber. If that's the way to go I need to make some sort of a foam holder that hangs on to the baffle edge.

I really won't know until I get my other pump running and see if the increase in pump chamber water height solves the bubbles.

What do you guys/gals think?

I appreciate it Darryll! Your system is one of the beauties I am modelling my tank on :)

A couple kinks to still work out there for sure. Sounds like that pump sure pushes a lot of water, I know when I ran the two wavelines I had to cut out the weir teeth to handle the flow properly, but at the time concept was cutting pretty narrow teeth. You can add risers in the overflow but they shouldn't prevent the the tank from draining to overflow weir height, only prevent the overflow box from draining and control the overflow box water level to prevent trickling noise. If the teeth is holding back that much water they may be too restrictive. Basically you should try and limit the tank to 1" water level drop during shut down. Usually 2" is actually my go by number but with large tanks and small sumps that's not usually possible. With 1" you need space for 3456 cubic inches in the sump which means if the sump is 48" x 16" you need 4.5" of extra space above running water level. Now if you're seeing a 2" that's 9.5" in the sump needed which isn't going to happen.

I don't see a check valve on the return, that's potentially a way of reducing some back flow if it's draining lower than weir height, if not then not worth while.

The problem with the baffle is it really shouldn't be a baffle to be honest, one of those things that got lost in translation, not shown on drawing. I'm use to building these myself out of acrylic so most of the time all the details aren't shown. The baffle should be more of a screen, just to protect the pump, like mine:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...559F9E5222.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...55A67284F7.jpg

So going forward my suggestion is fix the baffle first, you could lower it or raise the overflow height but it's not ideal. The baffle should be replaced with some form of screen. I can help you out here, build you a replacement and send it your way.

If you're unable to reduce the water drop from the display to something your sump can handle as is then I suggest you ditch the built in refugium and remove it's divider, use that space to extend the return pump section which should add quite a bit of empty running volume.

I'd really appreciate it Steve! Could you design something to replace the baffle? I could cut out the one that is there right now easily enough.

When I get mobile I will go and check the total drainage when the power goes out. I don't think it drained anything below the teeth so I don't think a check valve is the answer.

Thanks for the help!

Yeah no problem, can you send me the current baffle dimensions?

11.5" wide x 10" tall. And I'd like to be able to flow ~2000-2500 GPH through it :)