ReeferRedSox
New Member
Hi Reef Community,
Below are some photos of my new setup and some ramblings on my plans. Appreciate any feedback to help make this successful. I’m about to add water and fire it up! I’m going to take this slow and looking at Fish Only until I’ve built some expertise and confidence and then hopefully up my game to coral.
Tank: It’s a repurposed 40 gal acrylic from my freshwater days.
Cabinet: I built the cabinet using a repurposed kitchen island counter and a dolly from Harbor Freight. Added some shelves and will put a door on the front and on one side and a removable panel on the back. I don't know how noisy the pump and water flow will be but thinking of adding foam to the interior walls and doors to dampen the noise – anyone seen the need or have experience with this ?
Sump: Repurposed an old 10 gal. Added baffles for inflow, fuge/treatment, and outflow chambers.
Treatment: Repurposing (sensing a theme here?) my freshwater power filter with activated carbon and foam filter. Added a HOB Bubble Magus protein skimmer since with a 10 gal sump, real estate is at a premium. Not sure if this will work out because the water level needed in the sump to intake to the HOB is quite high, and I’m getting the willies thinking about possibly overflowing the sump if I can’t keep it at that level. I had to increase the height of the baffle by fabricating some plexy and adding slots and screws to make it adjustable. Two heaters with an Ink Bird.
Aquascape: I decided to forego live rock but use some live sand and Fritz Turbo, hoping to minimize pests and cost. Used every ounce of a 40-pound box of CarribSea dry rock with just a few scraps left over for fuge rubble. “Rule of Thirds” for the configuration. Superglue and activator worked fine. Added some mortar at the joints but from my old civil engineering days I’m thinking that the time spent may not have been worth it since mortar (and concrete) are great for compression strength but not so good for shear or tension forces, which would be the most likely failure mechanism.
Sand wash or no wash. There are too many contradictory posts out there on this. I mixed 20# of dry CarribSea and 20# of Nature’s Ocean live sand. After looking at how clean the dry sand looked in the bag I put half of it in the tank unwashed, reread a bunch of posts and the bag instructions, and decided to pull it out and wash it. Wow, the wash water was like milk. I washed it all in 2-pound batches 4x each and could have continued doing so indefinitely. I put the live sand in along with the juices as instructed.
Fuge. I’ll add Chaeto and pods after I get it filled up. The Chaeto before-or-after nutrient removal issue was rendered moot after I realized I didn’t have luxury of space, so the HOB carbon filter and HOB protein skimmer will be in the same chamber as the Chaeto.
Plumbing. Drilled holes in the plexy for the FujiCube overflow and return baffle, which was not hard with the included diamond bit and a step bit. When drilling a hole in the sump glass for an ATO float valve I pushed too hard on a diamond bit and broke the glass. Repaired it with a slab of plexy. First time working with PVC pipe and it was kinda fun. I painted each pipe and fitting but even after copious sanding and acetone the paint didn’t stick easily and needed multiple coats. I used an entire spray can. If I were to do it again I would definitely use primer. Connected a Sicce 2.0 with a braded tube. Selected the pump size just by eyeballing it and hope it is enough. I’ll be fabricating an ATO tank from plexy to fit into the cabinet.
Flow? From my freshwater days my filter was fine for circulating water but that appears to not be the case for saltwater tanks so I’ll probably need to add a powerhead. Not sure if I’ll need that for Fish Only – appreciate any feedback here.
Light? I’m looking at the AI Blade Grow 30-inch because it looks relatively affordable ($260 for a light?) and doesn’t need a fixture. For the fuge, I couldn’t see spending hundreds to give light to algae so I got a $25 grow light off Amazon.
Now What? After getting all the water in I plan to add Fritz Turbo and coralline algae, get a CUC Team from a LFS and monitor the cycle. Then get a couple clowns and slowly add a few others. Maybe take the coral plunge this summer (after my dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef).
It cost how much?? Yeah, I guess I should get that. Oh and that, too. $80 bucks here and $80 bucks there and it just keeps adding up even with all my repurposing and I haven’t even added a light yet (yikes).
Do you have to spend so much time on that? Cutting and painting the pipe, glueing the rocks, getting the sump configured – jeez I’ve already sunk a tun of time into this and don’t even have a single fish yet. If I didn’t have a lot of tools in my garage and experience working with my hands it would have been a heckofa lot more time and effort. No wonder the retailers sell packaged systems at huge prices.
How am I doing? Trying to balance what’s needed without breaking the bank. Appreciate any constructive comments!
Below are some photos of my new setup and some ramblings on my plans. Appreciate any feedback to help make this successful. I’m about to add water and fire it up! I’m going to take this slow and looking at Fish Only until I’ve built some expertise and confidence and then hopefully up my game to coral.
Tank: It’s a repurposed 40 gal acrylic from my freshwater days.
Cabinet: I built the cabinet using a repurposed kitchen island counter and a dolly from Harbor Freight. Added some shelves and will put a door on the front and on one side and a removable panel on the back. I don't know how noisy the pump and water flow will be but thinking of adding foam to the interior walls and doors to dampen the noise – anyone seen the need or have experience with this ?
Sump: Repurposed an old 10 gal. Added baffles for inflow, fuge/treatment, and outflow chambers.
Treatment: Repurposing (sensing a theme here?) my freshwater power filter with activated carbon and foam filter. Added a HOB Bubble Magus protein skimmer since with a 10 gal sump, real estate is at a premium. Not sure if this will work out because the water level needed in the sump to intake to the HOB is quite high, and I’m getting the willies thinking about possibly overflowing the sump if I can’t keep it at that level. I had to increase the height of the baffle by fabricating some plexy and adding slots and screws to make it adjustable. Two heaters with an Ink Bird.
Aquascape: I decided to forego live rock but use some live sand and Fritz Turbo, hoping to minimize pests and cost. Used every ounce of a 40-pound box of CarribSea dry rock with just a few scraps left over for fuge rubble. “Rule of Thirds” for the configuration. Superglue and activator worked fine. Added some mortar at the joints but from my old civil engineering days I’m thinking that the time spent may not have been worth it since mortar (and concrete) are great for compression strength but not so good for shear or tension forces, which would be the most likely failure mechanism.
Sand wash or no wash. There are too many contradictory posts out there on this. I mixed 20# of dry CarribSea and 20# of Nature’s Ocean live sand. After looking at how clean the dry sand looked in the bag I put half of it in the tank unwashed, reread a bunch of posts and the bag instructions, and decided to pull it out and wash it. Wow, the wash water was like milk. I washed it all in 2-pound batches 4x each and could have continued doing so indefinitely. I put the live sand in along with the juices as instructed.
Fuge. I’ll add Chaeto and pods after I get it filled up. The Chaeto before-or-after nutrient removal issue was rendered moot after I realized I didn’t have luxury of space, so the HOB carbon filter and HOB protein skimmer will be in the same chamber as the Chaeto.
Plumbing. Drilled holes in the plexy for the FujiCube overflow and return baffle, which was not hard with the included diamond bit and a step bit. When drilling a hole in the sump glass for an ATO float valve I pushed too hard on a diamond bit and broke the glass. Repaired it with a slab of plexy. First time working with PVC pipe and it was kinda fun. I painted each pipe and fitting but even after copious sanding and acetone the paint didn’t stick easily and needed multiple coats. I used an entire spray can. If I were to do it again I would definitely use primer. Connected a Sicce 2.0 with a braded tube. Selected the pump size just by eyeballing it and hope it is enough. I’ll be fabricating an ATO tank from plexy to fit into the cabinet.
Flow? From my freshwater days my filter was fine for circulating water but that appears to not be the case for saltwater tanks so I’ll probably need to add a powerhead. Not sure if I’ll need that for Fish Only – appreciate any feedback here.
Light? I’m looking at the AI Blade Grow 30-inch because it looks relatively affordable ($260 for a light?) and doesn’t need a fixture. For the fuge, I couldn’t see spending hundreds to give light to algae so I got a $25 grow light off Amazon.
Now What? After getting all the water in I plan to add Fritz Turbo and coralline algae, get a CUC Team from a LFS and monitor the cycle. Then get a couple clowns and slowly add a few others. Maybe take the coral plunge this summer (after my dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef).
It cost how much?? Yeah, I guess I should get that. Oh and that, too. $80 bucks here and $80 bucks there and it just keeps adding up even with all my repurposing and I haven’t even added a light yet (yikes).
Do you have to spend so much time on that? Cutting and painting the pipe, glueing the rocks, getting the sump configured – jeez I’ve already sunk a tun of time into this and don’t even have a single fish yet. If I didn’t have a lot of tools in my garage and experience working with my hands it would have been a heckofa lot more time and effort. No wonder the retailers sell packaged systems at huge prices.
How am I doing? Trying to balance what’s needed without breaking the bank. Appreciate any constructive comments!
