Kristen's Dream Peninsula Build -- 18 Yrs in the Making

InTentsReef

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Hello R2R -

At long last, it's happening. After 18 years in this hobby I'm jumping in to build the tank I've always wanted: a peninsula reef room divider.

Background: I first started keeping marine fish when I was a poor college student working at a small aquarium shop in Blacksburg, Virginia. I was a student at Virginia Tech and had a 10 gallon nano reef that I kept in my dorm room. Every Christmas and summer break, I'd load the tank into the back of my car and drive it 6 hours to Atlanta, which was home. My dad had kept marine tanks during my childhood, and I remember flipping through J. Sprung's texts for "light reading" on the topic of reef keeping. At the pet shop I started as the freshwater manager, but quickly evolved into overseeing the marine section. I remember telling customers things like "you need 10 watts of compact florescent bulb per gallon of water"... boy how far we've come. In the years since I have kept dozens of marine tanks and have experimented with the gambit of methods for reef keeping, ranging from elaborate algae reactors to full ZeoVit on a nano reef. I'd like to think I've learned some valuable lessons along the way -- though this hobby likes to humble us (see my thread from a year ago where I couldn't figure out what was going on with my salt mix.... sigh). Anyway, this build will be the culmination of my experiences thus far --- all in a tank format I've long lusted to employ --- the peninsula room divider.

The Tank: We spent the last year renovating a new house in Maryland, and I spent many hours of that renovation thinking about the future fish tank. To the point that I even had our electrical contractor install a separate GFCI circuit independent of our other outlets to power this tank! The ideal aquarium was going to slide in between the living room and dining area, right below a drop down in the ceiling that holds our HVAC ducts and directly above a steel structural beam. After extensive research, comparing Red Sea, Waterbox and Cade's offerings in the ~100 gallon peninsula lineup, I opted for the Waterbox 4820. My rationale for selecting this tank was based on the overall dimensions, the aluminum frame stand, and the price point. While Cade was arguably the better built tank, the dimensions were a touch large for the space. Waterbox customer service also was a major contributor -- I dealt with their agents several times for inventory information, tank specs, and a simple warranty claim, and they were prompt and professional each time.

Build Philosophy: Like anyone who has been in this hobby for more than 5 minutes, I've had my share of painful lessons. Failed return pumps. Cracked heaters. Disease outbreaks that wipe out the entire tank. Every pest known to mankind. Gear that leaks, floods, breaks, etc. While I cannot hope to avoid every possible failure in this build, I will be taking precautions to minimize the risk of problems. To that end, my philosophy is simple enough: Trust what works. I have had a long history of success with powerful protein skimming, and so heavy skimming will be a core feature of this build. Likewise, I have had success with algae refugiums as a means of nutrient control. Finally, my dosing and additives will be targeted and focused -- no more "mystery juice" (*cough* Vibrant). With one exception, everything I'm doing in this tank is something I've done before, that I feel comfortable employing for a successful tank, and that straight up makes biological sense. That one exception? This tank will be my first time dabbling with ozone.... eventually.

Equipment List:
  • Waterbox 4820 Peninsula tank
  • Abyzz A100 return pump
  • Kessil A360X Tuna Blue light fixtures in custom DIY pendant
  • Royal Exclusiv protein skimmer
  • EcoTech MP-40QD pumps
  • Neptune Apex
  • Neptune Trident
  • Neptune DOS and DDR
  • Neptune GRO refugium light
  • Ozotech ozone generator
  • BRS bulk 2 part
Current FTS (1 January 2024):
IMG_5079.jpeg


Past FTS (1 December 2023):

53370311550_6bba4eeca2_k.jpg


Table of Contents:
 
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InTentsReef

InTentsReef

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Chapter I: Tank Delivery and Stand Construction

My Waterbox 4820 was delivered a few weeks ago via FedEx freight. For a small "tip" the driver was willing to put it right outside our front door. The tank was packaged really well, with no damage to the tank, accessories, or stand. There was a slight mix-up with a part missing from the stand kit, but Waterbox was quick to remedy the situation.

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I was able to quickly assemble the Waterbox stand and move the tank inside, but found that the stand had a lot of empty space above the sump that wasn't well utilized. And thus began my first DIY project...

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Notice all that dead space above the sump -- ideal for holding extra equipment...

Waterbox builds their new stands out of 30mm (2020) T-slot aluminum. If you've ever worked with 8020 aluminum, this is the same basic concept, except they use metric sizing. Thankfully it's possible to get metric T-slot and accessories from Amazon. Although Waterbox didn't want to share the specifications for exactly what parts would be compatible (claiming at one point that it was "proprietary"), a little measuring and I quickly sleuthed out the parts needed to add some shelving to the existing aluminum framework. Below are links to the exact parts purchased from Amazon to facilitate this -- I believe those parts would work with any Waterbox stand that advertises it's made with 30mm aluminum framing.

2020 T-Slot Aluminum from Amazon
Drop-In Hammer Nuts from Amazon
2020 Corner Brackets from Amazon

Using a combination of the drop-in nuts and the slide in nuts that come from the above part kits, I was able to build two shelves spanning the length of the stand. Note that I did not need to do this before the stand was built -- anyone can add this aluminum to their stand even if the tank is in place by using the drop-in nuts.
53368958467_33bbd78ef3_k.jpg


It took many hours with mini wrenches and a few precise cuts with a miter saw, but I soon had shelves under the stand to hold my accessories.

Here are some pics of the shelves under construction -- leave me a comment if any of this isn't clear.

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With the shelves built, I needed a panel that could run the length of them and serve as the actual shelf -- and Ikea offered the perfect solution. An inexpensive and resin-coated pegboard! I purchased three and cut them down to size to fit the space.

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In chapter II I will provide an overview of how I chopped up an Adaptive Reef control board to make an electrical control box and installed the life support into the stand. Stay tuned!
 

OTReefer

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Chapter I: Tank Delivery and Stand Construction

My Waterbox 4820 was delivered a few weeks ago via FedEx freight. For a small "tip" the driver was willing to put it right outside our front door. The tank was packaged really well, with no damage to the tank, accessories, or stand. There was a slight mix-up with a part missing from the stand kit, but Waterbox was quick to remedy the situation.

53370311270_390676c7c6_h.jpg

53370311330_3203578441_h.jpg

53370311335_bd277511c6_h.jpg


I was able to quickly assemble the Waterbox stand and move the tank inside, but found that the stand had a lot of empty space above the sump that wasn't well utilized. And thus began my first DIY project...

53370172604_ed5488660a_h.jpg

Notice all that dead space above the sump -- ideal for holding extra equipment...

Waterbox builds their new stands out of 30mm (2020) T-slot aluminum. If you've ever worked with 8020 aluminum, this is the same basic concept, except they use metric sizing. Thankfully it's possible to get metric T-slot and accessories from Amazon. Although Waterbox didn't want to share the specifications for exactly what parts would be compatible (claiming at one point that it was "proprietary"), a little measuring and I quickly sleuthed out the parts needed to add some shelving to the existing aluminum framework. Below are links to the exact parts purchased from Amazon to facilitate this -- I believe those parts would work with any Waterbox stand that advertises it's made with 30mm aluminum framing.

2020 T-Slot Aluminum from Amazon
Drop-In Hammer Nuts from Amazon
2020 Corner Brackets from Amazon

Using a combination of the drop-in nuts and the slide in nuts that come from the above part kits, I was able to build two shelves spanning the length of the stand. Note that I did not need to do this before the stand was built -- anyone can add this aluminum to their stand even if the tank is in place by using the drop-in nuts.
53368958467_33bbd78ef3_k.jpg


It took many hours with mini wrenches and a few precise cuts with a miter saw, but I soon had shelves under the stand to hold my accessories.

Here are some pics of the shelves under construction -- leave me a comment if any of this isn't clear.

53368958562_30934973ca_k.jpg

53370311365_1ad3dd6155_k.jpg


53370050268_7c5c568785_k.jpg


With the shelves built, I needed a panel that could run the length of them and serve as the actual shelf -- and Ikea offered the perfect solution. An inexpensive and resin-coated pegboard! I purchased three and cut them down to size to fit the space.

53368958627_2f706ca6ec_h.jpg

53369858376_a899d02938_h.jpg


In chapter II I will provide an overview of how I chopped up an Adaptive Reef control board to make an electrical control box and installed the life support into the stand. Stay tuned!
Gosh! This is amazing. I’m speechless. Will be following!
 

Hugo_Fish

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I love the stand. I have used that stuff in the past for other applications... but I didn't think about using it when setting up my tank XD....
 
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InTentsReef

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Thank you both for the kind words -- I have also used T-slot before in other applications (the "InTents" part of my user name comes from my other crazy hobby.... overland jeeps aka InTents Adventures) to build structures for inside my Jeep, so I was excited when I saw Waterbox used a form of T-slot for their stand.
 
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Chapter II: Electronics & Life Support Systems

With the shelving built in the stand, the next order of business was to install the life support systems and wire up all the electronics. I have many pet peeves, but one of them is a mess of wires all dangling and knotted up. I believe in the mantra that clean is safe and safe is clean.

I also didn't want to have a separate cabinet next to the stand that held my other equipment. The aquarium is an art fixture -- and part of the art installation needed to be a clean stand that hid all of the equipment from view.

So with those two things in mind, I set about trying to figure out how to fit everything under the stand. As it works out, the two shelves became a nice way to segregate equipment: top shelf holds the electronics and "not water safe" stuff and the lower shelf is the "wet" side.

For the top shelf, I wanted a way to setup a few pieces of key equipment so that they were readily accessible (Apex controller, heater controller, pump controller, etc) and then hide the stuff that isn't accessed as frequently. But I still need a way to access that stuff if and when I have to. The solution I came up with was to hack up one of the control boards sold by Adaptive Reef. Their control boards are very easy to work with and I was able to carve up a control box that holds the non-apex surge protector, power bricks, and excess wiring.

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The control box built atop the peg board from Ikea.

In what I may say was a particular stroke of genius, I was able to also build it in such a way that the panels facing the center of the tank can be removed in about 20 seconds, allowing me unrestricted access to all of the electrical components inside the box. As a result, whenever I may need to change out a piece of equipment or modify a plug, it's still very accessible.

53368958652_0ed9646e7d_h.jpg


Inserted into the stand and secured down, with access from all sides (albeit the back side is the tightest fit, but I can still get my arm in there because I swapped the main drain and emergency drain location, getting that gate valve out of the way of access).
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Then came the fun part, and I mean that! I love a good puzzle and figuring out how to route all the wiring is a part of the build I genuinely enjoy. I spent the better part of two full days on this -- trying different configurations and layouts until I settled on the solution you see here. While I worked I had a series of zip tie loops that I ran cables through as raceways and eventually cinched them all up when the wiring was complete. Pics of the process and then the final outcome below.

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You'll notice the LED rope light along the top of the stand -- these are $6 LED lights with a simple USB connection that I got from Ikea. I love how many Ikea items can be re-purposed for aquarium use! :cool:

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At this point the life support is all setup and ready for water, barring a few minor details. Those details -- which include setup of the Trident, adding dissicant to the air dryer for the ozone, and connecting the 2 part dosing -- are all low priorities as they aren't applicable for the first few weeks of a new tank.

My to-do list before water can go into the tank:
- Mount cabinet doors
- Mount the light fixture (more on this soon!)
- Make a crap load of RODI water

In the next updates I'll share how I did the aquascape, the DIY light pendant that houses my Kessil A360X pucks, and hopefully some water will be going in soon. Thanks for following along.
 
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Chapter III: DIY Light Pendant Build

If you are reading this thread, you're going to discover a lot of my pet peeves. Yet another one is the lack of aesthetically pleasing light mounting options on the market. I don't mind the look of a single pendant over a small tank, but when you get lots of pendants over a tank and all the wiring for them, I think it gets distracting. I want a light fixture that is not distracting from the tank (maybe even complimentary!?) and that helps to hide the otherwise unsightly gear.

I've seen all sorts of clever solutions to this lighting problem, including some folks who have put their pendants inside of lamp shades or hoods to hide them. My solution adopts from the idea of having a hood over the tank, but avoids the heat and moisture build up. I also hope that it will help shield the light from shining directly into our eyes when we sit on the couch next to the tank.

I again reached into the bag of T-slot aluminum, though this time I opted to use standard US 8020 sizing. I designed a frame that currently holds two Kessil A360X Tuna Blue fixtures, though I could always add a third later if I thought that more light was needed. Since I plan to stock the tank as a mixed reef with only a few higher demand corals near the surface, I think the two pucks will suffice, but hard to really know until I can get water in the tank and a PAR meter in there.

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To give the frame a more pleasing look, I purchased a few hobby boards from the local hardware store. These are poplar wood, and I picked some with nice grain lines. The tank is next to my TV stand that is made from a beautiful spalted maple, and I wanted the pendant to mirror the warmth and feel of that wood, without paying spalted maple pricing.

53370172754_b625dd7827_h.jpg


After cutting the wood to size, I stained it and applied several heavy coats of varnish, using a 2000 grit sand paper to smooth out the final finish. The varnish should prevent warping around the humidity of the tank.

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I haven't hung the pendant yet (needed one more part!) but it'll be attached to the ceiling with some heavy anchors and then a black hanging wire kit. While the pendant isn't exactly lightweight, I think having the weight suspended across a few hanging points should reduce any risk of falling. I also need to check if there's a stud or joist in the ceiling that I could drill into, because that would be a best-case scenario.

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I have the Kessil wifi dongle on one of the lights and am using a cable to connect the other light to it so that both can be controlled via the app. I also have cable tie holders inside the pendant that will be used to secure the wiring for the lights inside the pendant.

This fixture is smaller than the tank dimensions (it's only 12" wide an 36" long), so I also have some flexibility to get into the tank and move around below the light without having to worry about immediately bumping into it.
 
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Chapter IV: Thoughts on a Return Pump

You hear that grinding sound? That's the sound of me dragging my big a** soap box out of the closet for today's update, which is all about the return pump.

I hate when people cheap and skimp out on the return pump.

Your return pump is like your heart, literally. If it fails, fluids stop moving between the systems responsible for providing life and filtration to the system. For that reason, a rock solid return pump is one of the things that I strongly advocate to buy properly. Cutting corners will backfire on you. Maybe not immediately, but eventually you'll come home to a crisis.

When I've had return pumps fail (and I've had failures from many of the "big name" pumps on the market), it's most commonly when the pump restarts after an outage, like a power flicker. That said, I've also had pumps randomly stop working overnight. You cannot predict it. And while I'm not an obsessive maintainer of pumps, I have always taken good care of my gear and cleaned them regularly. They will still fail.

In my opinion, you have two options: 1) Buy one really high quality pump that you can trust and will never second guess; or 2) Buy at least two mid-level pumps and hope that when one breaks, you're home to swap them out. Yes, you need to have a pump sitting on the shelf ready to swap in. My most recent return pump failure, which involved an EcoTech Vectra pump, happened on a day when the LFS was closed. Thankfully I was friendly with the owner and he was willing to meet me at the shop to let me purchase an emergency replacement. I learned my lesson. Have a pump you can trust at all times, or assume yours will break on a holiday / night / vacation when you cannot easily deal with the situation.

53370311535_8196b520f5_h.jpg


After going through countless return pumps, I've opted for option #1 --- to get a pump so dang dependable that I never have to give the pump a second thought. For me, that's Abyzz. Any company that is willing to warranty a pump.... that will run 24/7/365... for TEN YEARS has my vote. Their reputation for building pumps that are virtually indestructible speaks for itself. Many people will tell you that a company will only warranty a product for as long as they expect it to last. If my Abyzz return pump lasts the 10 years it's warrantied for -- that's 88,000+ hours of dependable life support and service. I'll take it.

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Do you need to buy an Abyzz pump? No. I'm not advocating as much. But I see new reefers spend so much money buying miracle tonics and gear that really isn't needed, and I would argue that the money spent on those things would be better spent on a more reliable return pump (or a second backup). Do you need a rollermat? No. Do you need a wifi enabled thingamagig? Nope. Do you need your return pump to start back up when the power flickers this winter? Yep. Your animals depend on it.
 

MartinM

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Chapter IV: Thoughts on a Return Pump

You hear that grinding sound? That's the sound of me dragging my big a** soap box out of the closet for today's update, which is all about the return pump.

I hate when people cheap and skimp out on the return pump.

Your return pump is like your heart, literally. If it fails, fluids stop moving between the systems responsible for providing life and filtration to the system. For that reason, a rock solid return pump is one of the things that I strongly advocate to buy properly. Cutting corners will backfire on you. Maybe not immediately, but eventually you'll come home to a crisis.

When I've had return pumps fail (and I've had failures from many of the "big name" pumps on the market), it's most commonly when the pump restarts after an outage, like a power flicker. That said, I've also had pumps randomly stop working overnight. You cannot predict it. And while I'm not an obsessive maintainer of pumps, I have always taken good care of my gear and cleaned them regularly. They will still fail.

In my opinion, you have two options: 1) Buy one really high quality pump that you can trust and will never second guess; or 2) Buy at least two mid-level pumps and hope that when one breaks, you're home to swap them out. Yes, you need to have a pump sitting on the shelf ready to swap in. My most recent return pump failure, which involved an EcoTech Vectra pump, happened on a day when the LFS was closed. Thankfully I was friendly with the owner and he was willing to meet me at the shop to let me purchase an emergency replacement. I learned my lesson. Have a pump you can trust at all times, or assume yours will break on a holiday / night / vacation when you cannot easily deal with the situation.

53370311535_8196b520f5_h.jpg


After going through countless return pumps, I've opted for option #1 --- to get a pump so dang dependable that I never have to give the pump a second thought. For me, that's Abyzz. Any company that is willing to warranty a pump.... that will run 24/7/365... for TEN YEARS has my vote. Their reputation for building pumps that are virtually indestructible speaks for itself. Many people will tell you that a company will only warranty a product for as long as they expect it to last. If my Abyzz return pump lasts the 10 years it's warrantied for -- that's 88,000+ hours of dependable life support and service. I'll take it.

53370050388_056fb2b1fb_h.jpg


Do you need to buy an Abyzz pump? No. I'm not advocating as much. But I see new reefers spend so much money buying miracle tonics and gear that really isn't needed, and I would argue that the money spent on those things would be better spent on a more reliable return pump (or a second backup). Do you need a rollermat? No. Do you need a wifi enabled thingamagig? Nope. Do you need your return pump to start back up when the power flickers this winter? Yep. Your animals depend on it.
Second only to Iwaki. Amen!
 
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InTentsReef

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Following along! Although I've never lost a return pump.. I might be just lucky.

Don't jinx yourself! I had a good streak for about 5 years, and then I started to reliably loose them. Sometimes it'd be a swollen impeller, sometimes it was just dead dead. Fingers crossed you fair better than I have!

Wow, I can already tell this is going to be an amazing build, that aluminum stand is super slick! Following .

Thank you! Love the user name ... my other love is my Jeep ("Lola").

This is so cool! I will definitely follow along as I hope to do this one day as well with a large peninsula room divider.

I think a well done peninsula is such a classic tank. Now the trick is executing the "well done" part!

You've got a really great build thread rolling on this one. Loving the stand all by itself.

Thank you so much.

Second only to Iwaki. Amen!

Never owned an Iwaki, but heard good things about them. Hopefully I'm not in the return pump market for a long time...

Following along! This is gonna be a sweet looking build.

Thank you! Appreciate you following along
 
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Chapter V: Water, Water Everywhere

Before I can get the tank cycling, I need to source about 100gallons of fresh RO/DI water. I have never had the fortune of having a space dedicated to storing and mixing water previously; my houses overseas were too small and the RO unit was "on demand" 5 gallons at a time. In the US, I haven't had a basement, garage, or other spot suitable for a RO mixing station. But our house that we purchased last year (and spent all of 2023 renovating) has a large unfinished basement with a space directly below the tank on the main floor where I could setup my first water mixing station.

Since this is directly below the tank, I hope to eventually run some lines through the floor and setup either an automatic water change using Neptune DOS or just a pumping system so I don't have to haul buckets. I have spent hours researching and looking at other build threads for inspiration, but my challenge is that until the tank is running, I don't feel like I know what I need or want. And unlike keeping reef tanks, I don't have much personal experience to guide my build. So for now I'm starting simple -- a 32 gallon Brute trash can with my RO unit where I can make and store bulk RO/DI. When it's time for a water change, I can drain some of that water into a bucket and mix a batch of salt water. It's not as glorious as I hope it will one day be, but for now, it's better than anything I've had in the past. And it give me a project to revisit once I have the tank dialed in.

One of the benefits of doing a massive home renovation is that you get to know the inside and out of every facet of your house. The other is the volume of bulk "raw" building materials you are left with.... since we did the renovation largely by ourselves, there is no shortage of leftover lumber and hardware available to me.

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Before: Lots of piles of reef keeping crap, none of which was well organized. When we renovated the kitchen, I saved some of the upper cabinets to re-purpose for storage later. Note you can see the steel beam in the upper left that is supporting the reef tank directly above it. The outlet that the extension cord is plugged into was also added specifically to support the reef tank and is on its own GFCI independent circuit.

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Using some 2x4"s and plywood sub floor, I built a stand for the Brute trash can that is substantially over built. This thing could easily hold 5x the weight that it will hold right now. I also leveraged the old kitchen cabinet uppers that were torn out of our old kitchen to serve as storage, allowing me to stash some of the random reef keeping crap that anyone in this hobby manages to acquire.

I am waiting on BRS to deliver some uniseals so that I can plumb the Brute can with a spigot. I also apparently needed more DI resin, but both of those things should be arriving later this week and the water cookin' party can commence. Not exactly looking forward to hauling ~20x 5 gallon buckets of water up the stairs for the initial fill of the tank, but it's a one-time pain.

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After: While it's not "done" and the connections to the water supply with the RO unit still need to be made, we made great progress in setting up a mixing station and organizing the pile of "fish crap" that was in the corner of the basement.

I know some folks build really pretty mixing stations, but this isn't one of them. It's functional, and it's hidden. I want people to admire the tank, and they don't need to know how the magic upstairs is facilitated by the insanity downstairs. Eventually I may expand this area to include a small station for fish / coral QT and the aforementioned auto water change, but for now, I'm happy.

In unrelated news, I got all the hardware to hang the light pendant and discovered there is a stud in the perfect place in the ceiling to help hold the weight. I was worried I would be relying entirely on drywall anchors in the ceiling, but will sleep better knowing that 1 of the 3 mounting points will be directly into a stud. Hopefully we'll be able to hang the light in the coming days.

With some upcoming travel, it's possible I might not get water into the tank until around Christmas, but I'll keep posting updates as progress is made. Thanks to everyone who is tagging along.
 
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Not a terribly sexy update, but progress is being made. I was waiting for a DI resin refill to arrive before I could start cooking up new tank water, which meant I had a week to stare at a glass box with nothing to do.

Alas, resin arrived and I got to mixing the first Brute containers.

IMG_4291.jpeg


Since I don’t yet have a means to transfer water from the basement up the stairs, there was a lot of bucket brigade action today. My right arm feels substantially stronger then my left after 2,471 trips (numbers approximate).

While my 150 GPD unit is normally sufficient for my needs, the slowness of it certainly shows when you are trying to make 100+ gallons of RO. By the end of the night I had filled the display totally and the sump is about 2/3rds full.

IMG_4299.jpeg


I imagine the main pump will be running tomorrow once I get the rest of the water mixed up. In the interim, I have the MP40s on to keep the display circulating.

A keen observer may notice that the sand bed slopes towards the rear; it’ll be a true DSB in the back of the tank and gradually get shallower. I saw a tank that did this years ago and it had a neat perspective effect when you looked down the length of the tank. I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks once I can see into the tank!

More to follow… thanks for tagging along!
 

Reign1

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Nice clean setup and nice organizational skills w/ "control" station .. I was wondering if you had looked into just getting hollow core PVC prior to just sacrificing the AR board? I am still debating whether to make a wood control station or PVC board or repurposed Ikea cabinet.
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InTentsReef

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Nice clean setup and nice organizational skills w/ "control" station .. I was wondering if you had looked into just getting hollow core PVC prior to just sacrificing the AR board? I am still debating whether to make a wood control station or PVC board or repurposed Ikea cabinet.
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I did look at a hollow core board / PVC type board material. The reason I ended up going with the AR board is because I was able to buy it “used” (someone else purchased and realized it didn’t suit their needs, but it was unopened). If it wasn’t for that, I’d probably have done more of a DIY solution
 
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FD1D2577-E2F4-409D-8C98-C47473DBC028.jpeg


It’s been 24 hours since I started the main pumps and so far so good. Got the gate valve on the drain dialed in for a nice silent operation. Still a little cloudy in the tank, but we are making headway. Keeping the tank dark for a few weeks, so not much to look at….
 
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