68 Gallon Rimless Reef Build

[zhasan]

Most of my equipment will be dipped in Vinegar water tonight and cleaned tomorrow! I'm hoping to have the tank up on the stand by tomorrow afternoon!

Still debating whether to put a foam insulation sheet under the tank or not..

The stand top is made out of MDF.. its pretty stable as it is.. What the community's opinion on that?

[daplatapus]

No pics well, can't see them anyway...

[zhasan]

Oh my bad... I posted here and then went on to organize my photobucket albums. is there anyway for me to edit my posts?

[zhasan]

I guess I'll just re-post it all for it to make sense!

Originally Posted by zhasan

Alright folks so I finally got some time to post an update!

My build took a big halt by the end of October because I went down to Mexico just before I started my new job. Came back from vacation and started work right after and didn't step foot in my garage for about 3 weeks.

But then I finally got caught up with things and slowly started painting the stand. Finally its all done!! well atleast enough for me to move on with other things.

Here are some pics... I have a LOT of questions in my mind at the moment that I'll be posting after the pics.. I hoping to come up with some solutions this weekend so I can get going right after new years!!

Here is the stand in its final resting place!


Side view!


RO/DI Water mixing station




0 TDS!

Originally Posted by zhasan

I'm also a little perplexed about my sump design.

I'm thinking of a 3 chamber sump. First for Drain and Skimmer, second for return and third for fuge.

However, I only have 36" to play with.

First section will be 16" next for return will be 8" and that leaves me with 12 inches for fuge. Is that ample size for fuge and return chamber?

Here is a pic of the "to be" sump!

[zhasan]

Hey Guys, looking to get some feedback on my sump design.

Here is what I'm thinking of doing.



I want to know if 10" height for the baffels good or should I decrease it to prevent potential overflowing.

Also, is it better to have a sand bed in the fuge or LR rubble?

I'll be using a phosphate reactor on my tank, will a fuge with chatoe be redundant?

[Skimmerking]

i would leave the refuge the height like 10.5 and the the baffles have like 3 under over and under keep them around 8" y9ou want ot have somewhat a drain off too like you stated.

However its going to depend on how much water drains off after the pumps shuts down. you can always have a small hole drilled into the return line. Just above the water line so the siphon breaks the water there.

[zhasan]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

i would leave the refuge the height like 10.5 and the the baffles have like 3 under over and under keep them around 8" y9ou want ot have somewhat a drain off too like you stated.

However its going to depend on how much water drains off after the pumps shuts down. you can always have a small hole drilled into the return line. Just above the water line so the siphon breaks the water there.

The drain in my tank has a little whole at the top with a plastic tube sticking out of it. So I don't think there will be much water draining down as soon as the power goes off. I guess I'll have to check the depth of the drain and the water level I'll keep to calculate the amount of water that might drain down.

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by zhasan

or should I decrease it to prevent potential overflowing

Are you referring to baffle overflows, or total volume flooding ?

Depending on what your gph over the baffle will be, you potentially could go almost right to the trim
A 12" wide baffle can handle around 800gph and have a film of less than 1/2" of water

My baffles are almost 18" wide
I only left myself 1/4" from my highest baffle to the underside of the plastic trim
When my el-cheapo socks plugged up, the baffle still handled the flow from both my Eheim 1262 return pump (8-900gph), Compact 2000 (225gph) and 2 MJ600s through reactors

[gregzz4]

If I misunderstood, and you are worried about overflowing of total system volume during power off, I'd go with a bigger return area as that's where all the extra water is going to end up
Your current design only allows for about 3.6g (if it's a 12" wide tank)