Bignose's 95G reef

[bignose]

Hi everyone. This will be my first attempt on a tank with a sump. I decided to start a thread so everyone could witness the good and the bad. Please ask some questions and make comments. Some of the stuff you might see on this thread will make you snicker but I did this all myself with almost no help. But you can still laugh if you like

I've been in the salt water hobby for about a year now so I'm still learning as I go. My fisrt tank is a 10G nano reef. I started with something small to see if I could handle a SW tank. Once I got a hang of everything it was time to convince my girlfriend for a bigger tank. Slowly I found equipment locally mostly here on Canreef. It took about 6 months but here I am now.

My setup consists of:
95G eurobraced tank with center overflow 1" returns 1.5" drain and emergency drain.
Big als stand that I reinforced.
48" 6x54 Tek5
Euro-Reef RS135 skimmer
Quiet one 5000 return pump
2-Koralia 4 powerheads
2 jager heaters
approx. 85-90 pnds LR
100 pnds LS

Here are some pictures

Tank

Just turn your head sideways and ignore the other tank and light.

Overflow


Reinforced stand I made deeper and boxed in the back


I'll update more soon.

[mark]

Looks good to me. Using uni-seals on the side on the overflow for your returns?

Assuming Herbie, if you have a short stub on the primary, cuts down on the noise from the water dropping into the chamber (less drop)

[mseepman]

Looking good. Glad to see another reefer jumping in with both feet.

Have you considered what you are going to keep in the tank? In looking at your equipment right now, your only flow is the return plumbing.

If you get the Teklight, have you thought about your bulb mix? There are some great people on here for asking about how to get the most out of your T5HO fixture so I would be looking for their help.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I agree with Mark that if your doing a herbie, go with some kind of pipe on the main drain. It will keep the noise down and also if fish get into your overflow, they don't get sucked down the drain really fast and hard. I did mine about half way up the overflow so that less water drains to the sump when the return pump goes off. Just something to think about. Looks good so far though!

[bignose]

The seals on the return are the ones that it came with. The bulkheads I had some trouble with because I ended up buying the wrong type. I also had to use a ball valve instead of a gate valve for the return line. I'm regretting this now because it's very hard to get the level in the overflow where I want it. I hope the valve loosens over time becuase it's hard to fine tune.

Other than that for my first plumbing job I'm very pleased.

Here is a picture of the sump area.

I hope I plumbed right considering there is almost zero room in there.

[bignose]

Oops I for got to list that I have 2 Koralia 4 powerheads so I updated.

[mark]

Don't have siphon breaks myself (room in the sump) but wondering if you're running them?

[Tangman]

Two things that I noticed from the pics. and from Mark said, as there is no check valve in the return plumbing, I would suggest a siphon break, a drilled hole just above or right at the water line in the main tank on the return line and i would relocate the electrical power bar away from the top of your skimmer, because if your skimmer were to over flow ( and they do ) it looks like the power bar would get very wet.

[bignose]

I was thinking about drilling the return but I haven't yet. I going to eventually I hope the power dosen't go out What size holes would you drill?

[mark]

Will your sump flood if the power goes off (draining back from the tank), if it does, you need to do something. If your sump has the volume, no worries.