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#3
02-02-2011, 08:52 PM
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Skimmer
I am still building the plumbing. At the mean time, my skimmer arrived. It's a Reef Octopus SRO-3000I (aka RO-PS-3000I). It's rated for 300g. I spent a lot of time researching skimmer because I believe a good skimmer and one that is properly size for your tank is very important.
I heard a lot of good things about reef octopus skimmers. The pump they use on most of their skimmers, the bubble blaster pump, claims to be the first of its kind that is specifically designed for skimmer usage. I didn't go for a cone version because of a couple reasons. 1. The cone one is insanely more epensive than the non-cone one. 2. I still don't believe that a cone can outperform a non-cone one with the same pump. Here are some pictures of the skimmer. It came in a nice box.  Packaging  Skimmer cup cover. Nice logo  Bubble blaster 3000...  Assembly is easy and quick. Took me less than 10 minutes to assemble the whole thing (including 5 minutes to find out where is the screw hole for the air hose holder)  Sit in the sump nicely.  Last edited by George; 02-02-2011 at 09:49 PM. 
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#5
02-02-2011, 09:44 PM
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Quote:
Last edited by George; 02-12-2011 at 10:35 PM.
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#6
02-12-2011, 10:30 PM
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Plumbing
Finally finished the plumbing. Not sure I mentioned it before but the buckhead is 1". Therefore I use all 1" pipes and fittings. Let's see some pictures...
 I decided to have only 2 holes drilled because I wanted to implement a herbie style overflow. I knew all about beananimal and its variants. For simplicity and less risk of breaking the glass, I chose herbie. After filled the tank with water and ran it for a week, I am convinced that my decision was correct. Herbie is quiet and doesn't need constant tweaking like some people say. At least I don't have to tweak the valve in 2 weeks that I run it. I will post my running herbie in a later post. Return is from the top. 2 reasons for that, 1. coast to coast overflow. 2. didn't want to risk breaking the tank by drilling an extra hole. Talking about the C2C, it's running better than I anticipated. I will have another post later.  From far to near are emergency drain, main drain and return pipe.  Bottom of the pipes. Since they are on the side, I built some support structure to support them.  You can see the section of the plumbing inside the stand. This picture was taken from the top trough the bottom tank glass. From left to right are return pipe, main drain and emergency drain. Main drain and return pipe are controlled by gate valves. You can also see refugium feed below those 3 pipes. For the "last mile" (last piece of a plumping section), I use spa-flex to have a more nature bend.  Return pump is a eheim 1262. It's quite. The only way I can hear it is to turn off all fans and pump from my other tank in the same room. Even that, it is only a slight hum.  Return is split to feed refugium section of the sump. Flow is set by a ball valve. That is all for the plumbing. Let me know if you have any questions. Last edited by George; 02-12-2011 at 10:41 PM.
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#7
03-06-2011, 05:32 PM
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Auto Top Off (ATO)
My ATO has the following components: A 29 Gallon glass tank, an aqua lifter pump, a Digital Aquatics ReefKeeper Lite (RKL) and two float switches. So far it's working great.
29 Gallon glass tank  Aqua lifter pump  Double float switches.  RKL system lab  Last edited by George; 03-06-2011 at 05:36 PM.
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Hybrid Mode
