300 gallon (ish) ULNS Mostly SPS Reef Build

[DanP-SD]

Greetings. Back in 2018, I posted a walk-through of the 300 gallon reef tank I had built out over the prior few years. I waited until was fully up and running because I often prefer coming across build threads that are done – like binge watching a show that already has a few seasons in the bank.

Not too long after posting that build thread, we moved and sold the tank with the house. Since my wife and I have traveled a lot in the years since, I could never seem to find the right time to get my mind around a new tank build, but the ideas have been percolating and I finally decided to bite the bullet. This time, rather than wait until the tank is up and running, I’m going to try to post as I go. I gave the build out a head start over the posts, but I’m going to catch up quickly and then post more or less in real time so I can change plans along the way if anyone less rusty in reef best practices chimes in with better ideas than my own.

Before I get into the details of the build, here’s the concept and goals: I'm using the prior build as a starting point and adjusting from there. So the display tank will be in the 300ish range and I'll include a large sump and separate large refugium. My focus will be on SPS corals but it will be mixed with some LPS and small soft corals low in the tank. Emphasis will be on color and growth of corals so I’ll be lighting accordingly and plan to incorporate robust systems to maintain ultra-low nutrient levels while still providing ample nutrition and will dose for ionic balance and coral coloration.

A primary driver of the design will be automation. The prior tank was highly automated and this one will seek to incorporate the best ideas from that experience and a few new advances from recent product offerings. I still travel quite often so I’ll invest the upfront time to ensure automation while I’m away.

Overall, that will mean that at least the following major components in addition to the display tank:

• Large sump to accommodate robust nutrient filtration
• Stand alone refugium – to provide a source of pods to feed the tank and possibly for nutrient export (if I don’t do a zeovit system – more on that below)
• Multiple dosing containers and pumps. I think the last tank used 14 channels of dosing pumps but I believe I can make this work either with 11 (calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, balling part c, vinegar, 4 Korallen Zucht 4-part coral, 2 channels for automatic low-volume water changes) or with a few less if I make it a zeovit system.
• Computer automation (Apex, Hydros or Profilux)
• Large reservoirs for RO water and saltwater
• Backup power systems
• High par lighting
• Automated feeding
• Remote monitoring
• Probably several systems I haven’t thought through yet.
  
  As I post this build, I am reminded of how helpful it has been to find all the build threads on R2R (including my own) so I’m going to try to journal this in some detail to make it useful for other reefers and the future me I picture tackling another build in 10 years and trying to remember what I used to know about doing this.
  
  So follow along and let’s see where this goes . . .

 

[DanP-SD]

Update 1: Site Prep and Basic System Design

This project started, like my last build, with a woman with unending supplies of patience who I had the good sense to marry 32 years ago. On more than a few occasions in recent years, she has reminded me she misses having a reef tank in the house. Recently, we were rearranging furniture and trying to figure out the best use for a room that had been an office. To my surprise her two suggestions were to build a wine cellar into the closet and a reef tank into the credenza behind the desk. That credenza was against a wall that backs up to the garage so it was a great spot for a tank with filtration plumbed through the wall. Here are some photos of the site where the tank will go.

This shows the old office when it was first being set up before decor:

This is how it looked right before we started this project (except the desk has already been moved in this shot):

This is from just inside the front door, so the tank will be visible from much of the downstairs:

The desk in the middle of the built-ins will be replaced with a custom stand and cabinetry to match the side units.

Because we’ll be making this room a social gathering place, it was important to keep noise and smells in the garage. So all filtration and any noisy gear will be in the garage, I’ll use a silent overflow system and, out of an abundance of caution, I installed an exhaust fan to continuously draw air from the cabinet that surrounds the tank into the garage. This fan is set slightly higher than the top of the tank and below the lights so it will vent some of the heat from the lights, create some cooling flow across the water surface and, hopefully, avoid the need for a chiller. The cabinet is being built with tight tolerances in the upper section, a gap behind the tank for air flow and cables and discrete openings in the floor of the lower cabinet just behind the doors. The idea is the fan will create negative pressure and draw air in through the bottom, up behind the tank and out to the garage. I also had an electrician add the outlets shown in the picture below – two dedicated 20 amp circuits, one in the front and one on the other side of the wall in the garage. There’s already a 15 amp circuit on both sides of the wall that doesn’t get much use so this is undoubtedly overkill but the effort to run a second circuit while pulling conduit was negligible.

The exhaust fan is this unit: AIRTITAN T8, Crawl Space and Basement Ventilator Fan, WiFi-Integrated Controls, IP-55 Rated, Exhaust - AC Infinity.

Here are a few shots of the other side of the wall where the sump and filtration equipment will go:

Gear shown in this picture include two roto-mold 20 gallon reservoirs for RO water and saltwater (Den Hartog Ace Roto-Mold 20 Gallon Upright Rectangle Flat Bottom Tank SP0020-OM: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific). I may replace these in time with larger reservoirs but these worked well in the old 300g. The runner on the floor is also from Amazon (Amazon.com: American Floor Mats - Diamond Plate Runner Mats - Durable, Abrasion Resistant Vinyl Mats, Rolls Black, Yellow Edge 3/16" Thick x 2' x 10' : Automotive). I'll post more detail on the sump in a separate update.

The water filter in the corner is a whole-house filter that won’t be used for the aquarium. The spigot shown is straight municipal tap water and will supply my RO unit directly. Our municipal water is pretty clean and should be pretty easy on the RO unit. I considered tapping into the filtered line but the pressure drop from the whole house unit is considerable and the existing hose big gives me ample pressure for efficient RO filtration, so I’m going to work with that.

I plan to install two shelves directly above the whole house filter. The lower one will hold a refugium. It may seem like an odd location for a refugium but I want to gravity feed from the fuge to the display tank so that any pods don’t go through a return pump and it also keeps refugium populations out of the sump. I like to keep sumps as clean as I can and an in-sump fuge doesn’t help with that. Above the refugium will be a second shelf to hold two 10 gallon ATO reservoirs that will be plumbed to form a dump bucket system for automated higher-volume water changes with a lot of redundancy designed in.

In terms of tank design, the space dictated the dimensions to a degree. I went with a final design of 72” x 28” x 30” and ordered a Eurobraced tank with a starphire front. Technically, I have enough room to do a 78" tank between the bookcases but, like I did in my prior build, I've designed in a hidden compartment on each side of the tank behind the face of the wood surround (with a concealed-hinge door) where I can mount magnets. This serves as a great place to conceal powerhead magnets and keep gear like scrapers out of sight.

To get the final design right, I came up with the draft and got input from the manufacturer before finalizing it. Here’s the schematic I gave them:

The only change the manufacturer made from this is a slight move of the hole in the back right corner because the glass bracing is double thickness in the corner.

The overflow box shown is designed to accommodate a bean animal silent overflow, plus two return lines and a spare hole for an add-on drain or return line if needed.

The overall circulation will be that water flows from the tank to the sump, gets filtered in the sump, then one return pump returns water straight to the display tank and a second return pump will split flow into two lines – one to the display and one to the refugium. From the refugium, an overflow drain will flow water by gravity through the wall and into the display tank. It’ll enter the display tank through the ½” bulkhead in the back right corner of the top bracing and I’ll install a vertical ½” pipe of schedule 80 pvc with slots to return the refugium water and pods deeper into the tank (to keep them from flowing straight into the overflow).

 

[DanP-SD]

Update 2: While the tank is being built

While waiting for the tank, I’ve been finalizing many of the other systems that support it. The key component to the filtration was the sump. There are a lot of good options out there. In hindsight, I wish I had seen the sumps Advanced Acrylics is putting out before I ordered from Synergy Reef. To be clear, the Synergy Reef sump I went with (SK-60 with Clarissa 5000 option) is fantastic. Build quality is impeccable and they were highly responsive throughout the process. I have no complaints and would highly recommend them. My only reason to prefer Advanced Acrylics is that John at AA has been every bit as responsive on the dosing container and QT he's building for me (more on those in later posts) and they're in SoCal, so I could pick them up and avoid the considerable cost of freight on a large sump. So, if you're in the west, I'd recommend Advanced Acrylics, but Synergy Reef has been great on the sump I got from them and I can whole-heartedly recommend them, especially if you're close enough to Tennessee to minimize freight costs.

Here are some closer shots of the Synergy Reef sump. The attention to detail on this product is impressive:

I don’t plan to plumb any of the primary circulation (drains and return lines) until the tank is in, but here’s a photo of some of the key pieces coming into place and set where I can rough out a lot of the plumbing and electrical.

At the outset, this photo shows only rough placement and no attention to cable management. I plan to install some sort of custom cabinet above the sump and reservoirs to allow for mounting of electronics on the surface with cables managed inside and out of view. Once that's in, I'll clean up all the cable mess for a neat install.

There are also a few plan changes reflected in this photo. First, the skimmer is sitting in the refugium section of the sump. The reason for this is that I’ve completed my research on the zeovit system and decided to use it for this tank, so I'm reserving the skimmer section for the zeovit reactor (which should be downstream from the skimmer). I've confirmed while leak testing the sump that the water level in the refugium and skimmer run at the same depth so the baffle to set depth in the skimmer section will also work in the refugium section, so I don't see any issue with the skimmer here, but I believe I can squeeze it and the zeovit reactor together in the skimmer section if necessary.

The zeovit tanks I’ve seen are undoubtedly some of the most stunning sps tanks around and I’ve used every other approach to nutrient management (denitrifiers, plenums, biopellets, carbon dosing). Zeovit feels like a final frontier.

One major reservation I’ve had about this system is the need for significant daily attention. I enjoy tinkering with my tanks daily so, ordinarily, it won’t be an issue, but I travel a lot and it’s important to design a system that can be highly automated. When I travel, there is typically someone home who can do daily routines, but I like to keep that to minimal foolproof tasks. Zeovit, on the surface, does not look particularly amenable to this approach but I’ve broken down all the tasks and dosing routines and believe it can be automated to a large extent.

I'll post more detailed write ups of automation systems in subsequent updates but, for now, I’ve lined up an automatic zeovit reactor being shipped from Japan. I plan to install a small refrigerator and plumb a closed circuit line through it into which I’ll dose bacterial and amino supplements. If I use any supplements that need to be shaken, I’ll install a magnetic stirrer. Ultimately, I’m not sure I can automate everything – and when I’m not traveling, I would prefer to keep an eye on things by manually managing most of the tank – but I think I can get it to a point where I’m comfortable leaving the tank under a family member’s care.

So, zeovit it is. In addition to moving the skimmer into the refugium section to allow the zeovit reactor to be placed downstream from the skimmer, I also upgraded the RO and saltwater reservoirs from 20 gallons to 80. The zeovit system requires consistent water changes and this will allow me to do about three weeks worth of automatic water changes without having to mix up a new batch of saltwater.

One change not yet visible in this picture is upgrading the RO system. My last tank was slightly larger than this one and ran fine on the Aquatic Life twist in shown above, but with the 80 gallon reservoirs, I need a faster output rate. So I’ve ordered the AquaFX Whale Shark 7-stage 200 gpd RO/DI unit and will replace the aquatic life unit with that.

Links for the devices in this pic:

Sump: Synergy SK-600 (this is the Clarisea 500 version but the fleece rollers are not yet installed).

Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 250-INT. In the final install, this will include a neck cleaner and collection cup. I may add a neck extension and/or skimmer stand as well as I fine tune the skimmer.

Reservoir Filler: I was pretty bummed to learn that Avast Marine discontinued their barrel tender. I had used both the original and version 2 in the past and found them to be great and dependable. This go around, I’m trying out the Hi-Lo system from Buckeye Hydro. It consists of these components:

Hi - Lo Tank Level Controller - Buckeye Hydro

https://www.buckeyehydro.com/shut-off-solenoid-valve-1-4/

https://www.buckeyehydro.com/transformer-for-aquatec-6800/

The idea with these units is to automatically turn on the RO unit when the RO reservoir is low, and turn it off when it’s full. Doing this instead of having it come on frequently every time the level drops helps avoid concentrating the solids that reach the effluent side of the RO membrane due to TDS creep when the RO Unit cycles on and off frequently. I'm currently testing this setup on my RO reservoir and will post impressions later. One thing I did note off the top is that the solenoid in this kit vibrates significantly and will need to be mounted with that in mind.

RO and Saltwater Reservoirs: Den Hertog 80 gallon rectangular utility tank from The Tank Source in Alpine, CA.

Backup Battery: On the last tank, I daisy-chained a couple of the Vortech Backup Battery units to ensure flow in the display tank in the event of a power outage. At the time, short of installing a generator, this was about the best option. Today, that’s not the case. The batteries in the Vortech unit are lead acid and a modest 18ah of capacity. Due to the nature of lead acid batteries, it’s likely that no matter how carefully the charge is maintained, they will be dead or greatly diminished in a few years.

I was looking for a more reliable system over the long-run and a lot more capacity. We live in San Diego where our biggest blackout risk is from wildfires. In the event of a fire in the area, it’s entirely foreseeable for SDG&E to shut off power for a few days. I got a bid on installing a small 10kw natural gas generator with a transfer switch and it came in at $10,000!! Not what I was looking to spend. So I looked into LiFePo4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries as a good middle option that can greatly enhance the capacity and reliability of a lead system at a fraction of the cost of a generator. I have a small Bluetti LiFePo4 battery and ran a test. Using a cheap adapter from Amazon, I connected the DC output of the battery to the backup battery ports of a Vortech MP40, got the pump running on AC power and then disconnected the AC. The pump instantly switched to DC power and automatically reduced flow to what I gauge is enough to keep the tank oxygenated in a power outage.

While the battery I had on hand could do the trick, it didn’t have the capacity I wanted and has a very noisy charger with a high-speed fan. So I put together a DIY system of the following components:

Optima D400+ Charger (top left of the last picture above, mounted on wall)

12V 100ah LiFePo4 Battery (hiding in the bottom left corner behind the whole house filter)

3.5mm x 1.35mm Barrel Plugs (not shown yet) – these are the same plugs the Ecotech Battery Backup uses. I’ll splice ring terminals to the bare ends of these to connect them to the battery once I mount the vortech controllers and can measure the length of wire I need.

The setup will be simple: connect the terminal rings of the charger to the battery and connect the terminal rings of the barrel plugs to the battery. Plug the barrel into the small port on a couple MP40s. Done. The charger will condition and maintain the battery (LiFePo4 batteries last for many years). When power goes out, this setup will power two MP40s a long time. Each pump draws about 4.5 watts in backup mode and the battery provides 1200 watt hours at 12 volts load. So with two pumps running, I should get about 133 hours of run time.

While two MP40s in the display tank are sufficient to keep water oxygenated during an outage, I would like stronger flow and am considering adding a second 200 ah battery to back up one of the return pumps. Doing so with my Royal Exclusiv pumps would void the warranty which I’m not inclined to do on such an expensive pump so I may plumb in a lower cost DC pump to handle the flow line that goes from the sump through the refugium to the display and connecting it to a 200ah battery so that I’ll have flow through the tank in the event of a power failure. This could be a fun project once the tank is up and running and is one of the reasons I added an extra drain line to the tank. If I set up battery backup power for a return line, having an extra drain line would allow setting up the plumbing so that the overflow remains silent even when running on only one pump. More on that later.

 

[ColonelCrow]

Eat the rich! Just kidding love all the detail can't wait to see more!

 

[cilyjr]

It is hard to tell from that picture, but did you tap your RO filter before your softener? The reason I ask is I can see what looks like a prv right below the tap. You will get significantly longer life out of your ro membrane if you tap post water softener.

This is why the big commercial treatment plants are softening the water before they push it through their ro membranes.

 

[DanP-SD]

It is hard to tell from that picture, but did you tap your RO filter before your softener? The reason I ask is I can see what looks like a prv right below the tap. You will get significantly longer life out of your ro membrane if you tap post water softener.

This is why the big commercial treatment plants are softening the water before they push it through their ro membranes.

Good question and an issue I’ve been torn on. Currently, it’s tapped into direct municipal water before the whole house filter. I did that because: 1) that’s where the hose bib is and 2) it’s better pressure. I’m considering tapping the post-filter water but it’s not a water softener. It’s a scale reducing system that uses Template Assisted Crystallization (TAC) to crystallize hardness minerals so they remain suspended in water and don’t form scale. I’ve been unable to find good info on whether this type of water would be better or worse for an RO/DI system.

Since the picture, I’ve updated the RO system to a more robust one and installed TDS meters. It looks like my tap water is typically below 100ppm tds and I’m getting zero TDS after the RO membranes, so I think my resin should last quite a while.

If anyone has any experience or insight into whether TAC treated water would be good for RO, I’d love to hear it.

 

[cilyjr]

It’s a scale reducing system that uses Template Assisted Crystallization (TAC) to crystallize hardness minerals so they remain suspended in water and don’t form scale

Oh,
We have been pulling these things out left and right over the past couple of years and replacing them with standard softeners.

When I read into them a few years ago, what I read was this method was scientifically viable but that it needs to be changed pretty regularly every year to year and a half. I don't think these systems are designed to replace the media. Maybe I'm wrong.

We cut one open once and it was literally an empty tube not even baffles. That was a halo brand that the customer had bought directly from the home show. Maybe somebody accidentally sold them a empty show unit, I do not know.

That said, I tend towards skepticism.

I have a very good friend that lives in the northwest section of San Diego and my mother-in-law lives in Ramona. I don't know what area you're in but it can get pretty warm out there if all of your stuff is in the garage are you going to cool it with a chiller?

 

[DanP-SD]

I’m a bit skeptical about it too. I’ve reached out to the manufacturer for more info but am leaning toward pulling it out.

We’re pretty coastal and are a lot cooler than Ramona but a chiller is a distinct possibility. I’ve planned out too potential places to put one but neither is ideal. Last tank stayed cool with just fans so I’m hoping I can do the same this go around but, as you noted, I have a decent amount of water flowing through the garage this time.

I installed a high-volume exhaust fan in the garage a few years ago and it does a pretty good job keeping it cool but I’m prepared to add a chiller if it’s not enough.

 

[cilyjr]

installed a high-volume exhaust fan in the garage a few years ago and it does a pretty good job keeping it cool

You may be ok. I am in Pismo Beach. All of my equipment is in a shed. My advantage is I'm only a mile from the beach so it's never that hot in the summer and never that cold in the winter.
Most of the summer I can just open the shed doors and it's fine. I do have a central air conditioning system though the really hot days I button everything up and use that. The shed is not air-conditioned but the display tank which is 320 gallons is.

 

[DanP-SD]

Update 3: Tank Install, Plumbing, Filtration and Computer Control

It's been a while since my last update and quite a bit has shaped up since then. The tank is in and I have it mostly plumbed. Getting the tank delivered and installed took quite a while so, in the meantime, I've completed just about everything I could on the back side where the sump and most of the gear is. Details below.

The Tank: The tank came in and was a beast to handle and install. With 1/2" tempered glass all around, it weighs well over 400 lbs.



Getting this delivered and installed took four men. My hands were too full to film it but we used furniture straps to move it onto the dollies (both at Aqua SD, where I took delivery) and at the house, rolled it to right in front of the stand, used the straps to move it onto a scissor table lift (with a wood base between the tank and the table lift to spread the weight and take strain off the glass bottom), then lifted it with the table lift. Once it was at the height of the stand, we used strong suction cups to move it onto the stand. Then came the hard part. The four of us had to lift it and hold it in place while my wife slid a sheet of foam (from the tank mfr.) under the tank and then we had to lower it exactly in the right spot on the stand.



The foam was slightly larger than the tank but easily cut to size with a box cutter.



While the tank was sitting on the dollies, I took the opportunity to measure, dry fit, cut and glue up the internal plumbing. The overflow has six holes in the bottom. Three are for a standard Bean Animal Overflow. Two are for return lines. The last is an extra drain pipe. My plan for this one is to initially plumb it as an extra emergency drain (basically duplicating the third pipe in the Bean Animal design but making it slightly taller). In the event I decide later to put one of the two return pumps onto a battery backup, I may modify this fourth pipe to be a second full siphon drain. The idea is that, in normal operation, two full siphons (each with a flow reduced by partially closing the gate valve) would handle most of the flow with one being much lower in the tank than the other. The lower tank would be set to handle just slightly less than the flow rate of just the pump connected to the backup battery when in backup mode. So this siphon would be fairly low flow in normal operation with most of the flow handled by the other full siphon pipe, but when power is out and the flow reduces down to just what the backup mode on the battery fed pump handles, the system would continue to run silently. For now, this is just aspirational and I have it plumbed as a backup emergency drain so it should be dry in normal operation.

Here are a few shots of the plumbing installed, one from above and one from below:



In the shot from above, the lowermost pipe is the primary emergency drain. The next up (with the John Guest fitting and black RO tubing) is the open channel that turns into a siphon if the water level exceeds the inlet to the RO line. The next one (which is lower than the rest) is the full siphon channel. Above that is the secondary emergency drain that might some day be used as a secondary full (but limited) siphon. The two lines at the top are return lines.

While waiting for the tank, I also added a hole in the wall just above the overflow box so that I can view and work on the overflow from behind the tank.

I've cut a piece of Kaizen foam to pressure fit inside the hole when not in use, which you can see in the sump side photos below.

Also made quite a bit of progress on setting up the sump and plumbing the tank to the sump. In this shot, you can see the full setup with most systems in and all plumbing connections between the tank and sump completed. This also shows the cabinets for installation of controllers and management of cables inside the cabinets.



Below is a closeup of the sump and plumbing. It's a bit hard to see but the back return line (the higher of the two horizontal red 1" pvc runs) is capped on the left end. This is where the plumbing to the eventual refugium will be added in the future. The two return lines turn into the wall through the black brush passthrough channel and run to the tank. The lower line in the passthrough is the secondary emergency drain line.

On the left are the three main drain lines. The red PVC line is the full siphon. The two clear vinyl lines are the open channel and emergency drain. I like to see flow through those.


Below is a closer shot of the controllers I've mounted so far. The top box is a two-light Adaptive Reef indicator that I'll program in Apex to illuminate green when I have enough salt water for a water change and red when I don't. On the far right of the door is a breakout box with buttons that will be programmed so that, when it's all set up, as soon as the saltwater level runs low, the red light will go on and automatic water changes will be suspended and it'll remain in that state until I press a button on the break out box letting the system know that I've mixed up a new batch of saltwater. Also on the door are the Apex head unit, one EB8 and the heater controller. On the side panel are two return pump controllers and the skimmer controller.


That's all for this update. I also picked up my quarantine tank and have it mostly set up, so that'll be in the next update.

 

[crazyfishmom]

Loving all the detail and super clean build. Following along!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[lubeck]

Excellent build. Following along

 

[lbacha]

Very nice setup, I’m in the final stages of my 300g build and I have 2 of the 20g rotomold tanks. I may have to see if I can get some of those 80’s as that looks like a nice size.

What skimmer is that by the way?

 

[revenant]

Looks like a reef octopus skimmer of some flavor.. maybe a regal?

That sump is some hot stuff though for sure. It’s got all the goodies and they’re all neatly packed into it!

 

[DanP-SD]

Very nice setup, I’m in the final stages of my 300g build and I have 2 of the 20g rotomold tanks. I may have to see if I can get some of those 80’s as that looks like a nice size.

What skimmer is that by the way?

Sorry for the slow response. Been tied up getting the tank filled and the biology and chemistry of the water dialed in. The skimmer is the Reef Octo Regal 250-INT.

Working up some additional updates this weekend!

 

[DanP-SD]

I absolutely should not be surprised by this but I've been making this project much more complex than it needs to be. I guess that's what makes it a hobby, but it also makes it unwieldy to do updates of the whole system in one shot. So I'm going to start posting shorter updates focusing on one system at a time. Tonight it's the quarantine tank.

Since last time I set up a tank, it seems like the availability of fully-quarantined fish has come a long way. So my plan A is to buy fully-treated fish and use the QT for observation to make sure the fish are healthy and eating before going into the QT, but I want to make sure the tank is robust enough for longer term treatment if needed. I also plan to stock some pretty big fish and active swimmers like Tangs and larger angelfish -- so it needs to be appropriately sized.

I went with a custom all-in-one from Advanced Acrylics. I have a heavy duty shelving unit in the garage and wanted the tank to fit the shelf right where it would have good support under all edges. The final QT is 36 x 24 x 16, so about 60 gallons. Here's a shot of the front as I'm filling it and one of the back:





The filtration basket on the right is something I fabricated from a sheet of acrylic and some egg crate (details below). In the middle chamber is a Tunze Docline skimmer, IM Helios Heater (two heat elements) and the fill tube from a Tunze Osmolator. The RO reservoir is to the right of the tank in the first picture. The lights were cheap amazon LEDs just to be able to see the fish when needed -- although I expect I'll usually acclimate them under ambient light only.

This is all pretty basic, but the filter basket was a bit of a challenge. After trying to find something off the shelf that would fit well, I ended up making my own. I ordered some sheets of acrylic from Amazon. These worked great. Folding them was the tricky part. It took a few tries but the process was: Mark where the folds need to go; clamp the sheet between two 2x6's to a workbench with the fold line just beyond the edge of the 2x6's; heat both sides with a heat gun (but more the side that will be the outside of the fold; when it starts to bend on its own, use a third plank of wood to fold the sheet to a clean 90-degree bend. Here's a shot of the folded acrylic:



Once the acrylic was bent into shape, using wire cutters, it was pretty easy to cut out two side supports and three shelves and pull it all together with cable ties. Drilling a few holes in the acrylic allowed cable ties to hold the basket to the acrylic.



I load the top shelf with filter pads, the middle with carbon and the bottom with bio-beads (in a bag). The entire basket goes into the first chamber of the return with the open side toward the front of the tank. The entire thing is a little lower than the tank height to avoid causing an overflow and the basket leaves a little room behind it so that, if I forget to change the filter floss and it backs up, it only overflows within the filter chamber and my return pump is at no risk of running dry.

I've had this up and running a few weeks and have quarantined one fish through it with plenty of food. It seems to be doing the job.

 

[DanP-SD]

Update: Plumbing and Filling the Tank

Once I got the tank on the stand, it was time to plumb, leak test and fill it.

For the drain system, I went with a Bean Animal Overflow, but with an extra backup drain for possible future use. The overflow box plumbing was shown in an earlier post. Here's a shot of the under-tank plumbing:


In the shot above, the two red pipes furthest to the left are the return lines. The third red pipe (with the white sweep elbow) is the fourth drain pipe -- the backup emergency drain pipe that might be repurposed in the future. The three white 90-degree sweeps to the right are the drain pipes and go through the wall into the garage and straight to the crash box on the left end of the sump:


This drain system works very well and is about as close to dead silent as possible. The only noise I hear is the water from the tank flowing into the overflow box. That was a bit noisy at first but, with the Bean Animal system, the second pipe (the open channel that converts to a siphon if the air tube is submerged) controls the water level inside the overflow box, so I just removed that pipe and made it a bit longer to set the water level higher. (Important consideration for anyone putting in a BA drain system: consider using threaded adapters to connect the standpipes to the bulkheads so that you can remove them to adjust pipe lengths).

In the second picture, the red pipe to the rear is the full siphon drain. That's a gate valve at the bottom. I used clear vinyl for the open channel (middle tube) and emergency drain (closest tube) so I can see water flow. The sweet spot for this system is a constant trickle of water in the middle pipe and no flow in the drain closest to the camera. The clear vinyl makes it easy to see the flow rate and adjust the gate valve in the siphon line to get it dialed in.

One surprise in this setup is the choke point the Clarisea fleece rollers represent. They are each fed by a slotted pvc pipe from the crash box into the roller bay. This is the weakest link in terms of flow rate. I plumbed this sump with two Royal Exclusive Red Dragon Eco 5 130 watt pumps. The plumbing design can easily handle 100% output of both pumps running full. The Clariseas could handle the flow of one of the pumps running close to full (but with part of the flow diverted to feed the ZeoVit reactor), but as soon as I turned on the second pump, I had to reduce the flow rate on both pumps dramatically (30% on one and 41% on the other) to stay within the restraints of the fleece rollers. I haven't decided what to do about that. I may leave it as is, swap out to filter socks so I can use more of the pump flow, or pull out one of the Red Dragons and replace it with a smaller pump, saving the removed pump as a backup. I like how the Clariseas are performing for mechanical filtration and easy maintenance but the flow restriction is an issue that bugs me.

As a side note, after some experimentation, I decided to control the flow rate of the Red Dragon pumps with 10v inputs from the Apex. The control box with the Red Dragons is a major disappointment at this price. It often doesn't respond to commands, and I was unable to tune the pumps to the levels I needed. With the 10v input, it's as simple as putting a percentage in the Apex Variable Speed output and it works as expected.

With the plumbing in, it was time to fill and leak test:



In 25 years of reefing, I've never said this out loud but I never had a leaky pvc slip connection. Now I do. Once the tank was up and running, one of the 45 degree elbows on the full siphon drain was leaking. It was super slow -- like a drop per minute or less -- and it leaked only above the sump so it was not going anywhere other than to the sump. I thought about ignoring it but pictured months of salt creep on my clean, red pipes and thought it could get a lot worse if the leak was a sign of a weak joint, so I decided to replumb it. Unfortunately, it was in the worst possible spot, with no easy way to fix it without changing the angles and approach of the drain. To avoid that, I had to pull out that pipe all the way back through the wall, make the wall opening in the drywall under the tank wider to accommodate a coupling and replumb the line from under the tank to the sump. In doing so, I took a good look at the faulty joint and I'm pretty sure that what happened is I forgot to solvent weld it but some solvent from an adjacent joint got onto my dry fit, which convinced me I had glued it up fully. It's all been fixed now and running well.

One thing I did different on this tank than before is I filled the water first, then rock and then sand. I did this because I was expecting a shipment of live rock from TB Saltwater and wanted to make use of the time while I was waiting. That shipment was rescheduled to August so I put in some cycled artificial live rock from the LFS and then added sand. I'll need to do some rearranging once the TB live rock comes in but this let me get the tank cycled while waiting.


The water was definitely cloudier from this approach than when I've added water last but it cleared within a few days. If I had to do it again, I'd add the sand first.

That's it for the plumbing and filling. I'll provide more detail on cycling and inhabitants in an update to follow.

 

[DanP-SD]

Over the weekend, I tackled one of the more complex automation tasks I plan for this build -- designing an automatic water change system with a lot of failsafe measures. Since it's more general interest than the build and I could not find a thread with the programming I needed, I posted it separately and am just linking it here for those following the build. You can find it here.

On a separate note, the tank is fully up and running. I've had water in it now for 17 days. It's fully cycled and parameters all look good. I have my first SPS corals and a few LPS in. I'm trying to get some not-so-blue pics of them, which will mean breaking out a real camera. I'll post an update (hopefully later today) on the process of getting the biological filtration established and dialing in water chemistry, as well as pics of the first inhabitants.

 

[DanP-SD]

Update: Tank Cycling, Live Rock and Adding Corals

This is the first tank on which I've run the full ZeoVit system. On prior tanks, I've used the KZ Coral 1,2,3,4 supplements alongside other nutrient export systems like a refugium, carbon dosing or pellet reactor but this time I decided to go all in on the Zeovit system.

I followed the 14-day program (https://www.korallen-zucht.de/en/Initial-cycle-just-14-days/) to cycle the tank and found it very effective. I saw a fairly small ammonia spike that had fully resolved by Day 10. I've been able to steadily increase feeding and slowly increase stocking and the biology seems to fully keep up with no ammonia, or nitrite detected. Nutrient levels are low. Phosphates peaked in week two at 0.05 ppm (Hanna Ultra Low Range Checker) and have come down to 0.03. Nitrates have consistently been below 1ppm (Hanna low range). Livestock seems to be thriving with full polyp extension on the initial inhabitants. Nuisance algae has been well under control. I've had some minor brown algae on the sand bed and some brown then green on the glass, but it has been minimal and has not required a lot of frequent cleaning despite my lights being on full for 11 hours a day.

So, while it's still early and there undoubtedly will be bumps in the road, early signs are very promising for the zeovit approach.

I had to deviate somewhat from the exact approach recommended by KZ. I was reluctant to order live rock from TB Saltwater before I had leak tested the tank, and getting the stand built and tank installed was behind schedule. So once the tank was up and ready for water and rock, I had missed the cutoff for a July shipment and had to roll to August. Rather than lose a month, I went ahead and started the tank with 75 lbs of cycled manmade live rock from the LFS (they run a fishless system with inverts, food and bacteria supplementation to cycle the rock). When the live rock from TBS arrives, it'll be air cargo so hopefully die off will be minimal. I'll make sure it gets in the tank quickly and will likely need to cut back on feeding, up some KZ dosing and keep an eye on the rock and my skimmer for a few days to make sure it's a smooth transition for the bacterial filtration.

One benefit to the KZ system is that, within two weeks, it was able to establish really strong water parameters for even the most demanding corals. The low Phosphate and Nitrate levels are despite some pretty significant feeding of the inverts in the tank. In addition to an Avast Plank dosing plankton all day, I typically add about the equivalent of 2 cubes of frozen food a day with a lot of target feeding of the few corals (and my one fish). I've kept a close eye on flow patterns to make sure uneaten food is moving into the filtration, have kept the sand bed stirred and closely monitor nutrient levels but the system seems to handle this feed level quite easily.

Seeing these levels stabilize so quickly gave me confidence to start stocking the tank. First corals went in on day 9 and another batch on day 15.

Here are two videos with a quick tour of the initial inhabitants:



So far, I'm seeing great polyp extension on most of the corals. It's too early to get a handle on growth and coloration, and my lights are not all in yet (still need to add two blue LED units to get better color), but this is certainly the earliest I've ever added SPS corals to a tank and I've been impressed to see that, in addition to the testing suggesting they'd thrive, they're showing good early signs.

My parameters at this stage are as follows (all measured on Hanna Checkers):

Alkalinity: 7.0 (gradually raising this a bit)
Calcium: 485 (working on lowering this a touch)
Magnesium: 1310
Phosphate: 0.03
Potassium: 350 (supplementing to raise this)
Nitrate: 0.5
Salinity (specific gravity at 79 degrees): 1.025-1.026