Finally my tank arrived ! and my DIY reactor and skimmer

[Chin_Lee]

Well its been a long seven months since I had first ordered my first tank from IA, and a long three months since my second tank and I finally received the tank on June 29th. I had sold the first tank because the couch didn't fit between the tank and the stairway and it needed to be 3 inches shorter. This was what it was like for the past three months after I had built that stand for the first tank:


The tank arrived, I cut the stand, put the tank on top and voila:

Couch fits beside the tank. I put up the banister yesterday behind the couch which made my wife very happy because my little one can't jump/fall from the kitchen down the couch and into the family room.
The overflow at the end of the tank is plumbed down to my basement where I have a 180 sump/refugium under the stairs.

On top of the sump is my chiller that used to be for a lobster tank. The coils used to be long and oval but I had carefully bent the pipes to be able to fit in my sump. Its a pretty heavy duty chiller since its was used to chill room temp water cold enough for lobsters/crabs. The sump had just finished filling with RO/DI water (notice how blue the RO/DI water is)and I'm filling the actual tank now.

Here's my little one playing inside the tank:


So with my free time while I had been waiting for the tank, I built myself a DJ88 calcium reactor:

This design is very simple and very enjoyable to make. I haven't started using it so I can't elaborate on its effectiveness but it gets GREAT reviews on RC.

After I had finished the DJ88 reactor, I still had more time so I decided to make a BIG skimmer. I had a whole bunch these parts cut for me

about a year ago in a CNC machine shop when I was really keen about making these things but I suddenly lost interest so they've been sitting in my garage for the past year. But I decided since I have the parts, why not make a big skimmer just for fun. So I played around with the table saw and router for a few hours and made these:

I put them together and its about 4 feet tall. I also put two holes for dual injectors in case I decided to upgrade later on. I glued the smaller riser just a little crooked so I am naming this skimmer the Leaning Skimmer of Pisa. It shouldn't really affect the skimming any. One thing I did on this skimmer is that I used a 1/4" round corner router bit on the inside of the bottom of both tubes to create a smooth edge; I'm hoping it will help with the rising of the bubbles by eliminating the sharp edges. Here's the skimmer beside my niece and my distressed son.

I'll post pics later once the skimmer is in operation. I've been waiting patiently for two days for my sump to get filled and I'm expecting another two days for my tank to get filled. Once thats done, then it will be time to add the salt and the fun begins!!!!