My In-wall V4

[javajaws]

Well, here we are: 2024. This might be the oldest yet newest build thread in existence. You see this is v4 (or v3?) of my tank and the third build thread I’ve done for essentially the same “tank”. Well, almost - let me explain.

Back in 2006 I started my first “real” reef tank (not first reef tank, but first “real” tank with a dedicated space and a serious investment into it). That tank ran for almost 3 years until I broke it down - primarily due to an overgrowth of monti caps (red, green, AND purple) as well as a red bug infestation (makes me itch everytime I think about it!). This system was with a Glasscages tank and ran barebottom with a lot of real live rock - metal halides, calc reactor, etc.

V2 started up in 2011 and ran for a couple of years, but I had to end that one for various reasons (work/life/etc). This V2 version had a newer tank (from A.G.E) and I ran it with sand and T5s. I can realistically say it wasn’t as successful as v1 before it for various reasons.

V3, if you can call it that, was a re-envisioning of the V2 tank as a freshwater paladurium. This one never got past the initial planning/implementation phase however - it never had water. I DID however drill some holes in the bottom of the V2 A.G.E. tank. Oops!

So that brings us to 2024: V4. Same tank, new everything else. Well, everything that is except for the wall and cabinet this tank lives in. The cabinetry this tank sits in (that I built) is original from the V1 version I built back in 2006 with the exception of some trim around the tank itself which I rebuilt this year (I’ll post more about that later). I will say, if the tank had failed its initial leak test I would have rebuilt everything to have a deeper front-to-back tank. But since the tank didn’t blow up I feel somewhat obligated to use it. Getting a wider tank and rebuilding the cabinet would have added 10k to my budget easily….even doing all the woodwork myself. Inflation is THAT bad!!!

I started this V4 build back in March so I’ve been going at it a few months now and have lots of content to add, but I will note that the current status of the tank is that it does not yet have water in it. I expect that to change in the next 2-4 weeks depending on what I decide needs to be “finished” before I fill it and turn everything on.

To close out this initial post, I’ll add that my intent is to have separate posts to catch you up on my progress on different sub-systems or tasks that I have completed over the last couple months and then transition to a running monologue/dialoque as I get to real-time updates.

So here it is, my v4 in-wall tank as it sits today (with most of the “good” parts hidden!). The tank itself is slightly smaller than a normal 120g tank (47.5x23x23) and will have roughly 90g filled.

It there’s anything you want me to talk about first let me know!

 

[vandy]

Looks great! Any pics of the construction?

 

[javajaws]

Looks great! Any pics of the construction?

I have recent pics of various things I've been working on that I'll post in upcoming posts but if you mean cabinet construction pics I'll need to dig through my picture archive to see what I still have from back then.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Great looking tank! I'll be following along!

 

[javajaws]

So before I get to the build part of this thread I guess I should state the purpose of this build: SPS! So SPS lovers can rejoice - this thread is for you!

SPS are my favorites and that’s pretty much all I’ve kept in the previous versions of this tank. So everything I do will be geared toward this goal, with the possible exception of having sand. The sand serves 2 purposes for me:

1) I like the look of it (when its clean lol). Since this is an in-wall tank with high visibility how it looks is high on my list of requirements.

2) Because of the holes I have/had on the bottom of this tank the sand is needed to hide the repair.

Everything else will be pretty standard for SPS - high light, high flow, skimmer, blah, blah, blah. I’ll be going fairly high tech with a lot of dosing and monitoring (talk more about that later).

 

[javajaws]

So the first thing I had to tackle was cleaning up the tank and emptying out the cabinet of everything that didn’t belong. This is what I’d been staring at for awhile from my v3 experiment:

One of the things I cleaned out was the v2 sump I had made. I didn’t care for it too much and I wanted a new sump capable of using a fleece roller so out it went.

After cleaning everything out I also needed to improve the cabinet lighting. I had previously installed a 4’ flourescent light in the sump area but it didn’t really light anything except the sump. So I ordered some LED strip light as well as a couple motion sensitive lights for the top side cabinets (magnetic mount and removable). This gave me much better lighting to work with:

You can also see some existing infrastructure I had to work with: Multiple outlets on multiple GFCI circuits and a couple vents to vent moisture out of the cabinet. And almost hidden on the left side is a drain line that goes out the house (was previously used to drain an emergency overflow from the sump). I'll talk more about this drain later as its been replaced and re-purposed.

All of the velcro on the right side was from the old Apex setup not yet pulled off. It is still a TODO today to mount the Apex's replacement: a new Hydros system!

One thing to note from the above pic is that there is no trim around the aquarium. It got broke a few years back when someone knocked it off and it fell and broke apart. So on my TODO list was to make a new frame for the front. On the back I had never actually built trim to go around the back before so I decided I would go ahead and make that now at this time (you can see both in the first post). Both face frames are now built with french cleats to attach them to the cabinet and I can just lift them up to take them off. I got lucky and had enough leftover cherry from the original build that had already aged so the color matched the other existing trim perfectly.

I'll add one more comment to the above picture: The vertical support directly below the tank is purely cosmetic to cover the gap between the 2 main sump doors. It is friction fit in place and can be removed at any time for access/maintenance.

Another TODO item was to put on a new coat of spar urethane on the inside of the cabinet now that the lighting was fixed (the outside is finished with a satin lacquer).

With the cabinet now prepped for new work I turned my attention to fixing the holes in the tank I had drilled for the paladurium (these were going to be for waterfalls - there were 4 total holes to patch):

Since the bottom of the tank is PVC it was a simple matter to get some 3/8” sheet PVC and make some circles to put over the holes (just glued in place with standard PVC glue). Then a few days later the first part of the water test:

This was lit with the pre-existing T5 lights, but I've since decided to go with a hybrid LED/T5 setup.

 

[javajaws]

Snuck in a bit of time in sketchup during work today to help me decide what tanks I need to order for RODI storage as well as for a saltwater mixing tank and a kalk tank. This is a preliminary design just to get the sizes of the tanks right so no plumbing mapped out yet or anything like that. This will eventually go in my laundry room which is about 15' away and I'll run lines through the attic for AWC and topoff (I'll run an extra line for dirty water to drain into the washing machine drain).

The 2 containers on top will be for RODI which I'll gravity drain down into either the SW mix tank or the kalk tank. Not bad for a roughly 20x40 footprint with 70g RODI, 35g salt, and 35g kalk. I might eventually use one of the square ones for RO only water for the house (they are 35g each to match the round mix tanks on bottom (I didn't have the height or space to use 3 or 4 round tanks). I have some scrap metal in the garage I'll weld together for the frame (free!).

 

[javajaws]

OK, gonna try to get a few updates in over the next day or so....just been busy with work, life, and making progress on the tank!

Next up: Overflow and CO2 scrubber. These 2 simply because these were some of the first things I tackled after cleaning everything out.

So this tank has an external overflow made of acrylic on one (short) end of the tank. The overflow has 4 holes - 2 for the overflow and 2 for returns. The 2 overflow bulkheads are sized for 1.5" sched 80 bulkheads and while I do have 1.5" bulkheads in there I'm reducing down to 1" to go to the sump. The return bulkheads are for 1" sched 80 and I have them reduced down to 3/4". Both returns join into a T and are fed from the return pump on the right side of the sump.

Note: the metal hose clamps shown here have since been replaced - these were all I had on hand when I went to water test the tank the first time.


Have I mentioned yet how much I hate threaded fittings? Do they even make slip/slip sched 80 bulkheads? I've never seen any.

Luckily I was able to re-use the gate valve from before - dang those have gotten expensive!

This is the top of the overflow when covered up. Remove the wood and that exposes an acrylic lid which can also then be removed to get to the overflow plumbing:

The emergency overflow standpipe is just friction fit in there with some teflon so it can be easily removed and cleaned if needed (or adjusted).

You can't really see it from these pics, but inside the overflow is a piece of acrylic behind the weir that can be adjusted up/down to adjust the water level.

 

[javajaws]

I got one of those jumbo CO2 scrubbers from BRS. I run outside air through a hole in the wall, then through a mini filter that will hold some carbon (for pesticides, etc that might get sucked in), then into the CO2 scrubber. This will eventually be plumbed into the air inlet of the Skimmer. Pretty simple setup and its tucked into the back of the cabinet out of the way from things but still easily accessible.

On the outside I made a little PVC do-dad to keep large bugs from crawling up the pipe - that larger white PVC chamber can fit some filter pad, etc. to keep smaller bugs out without blocking the airflow. I still need to caulk around the hole in the wall! And actually, these pictures are a little dated as I have since drilled 2 additional holes alongside this existing one - one for a skimmer drain and another for...whatever.

 

[javajaws]

One little bonus post for now - I mentioned previously that the frames around the front and back of the tank are installed with french cleats. Here's what those look like (these are from the back side). These let me just simply lift either frame up about 1.5" and then they come right off.

 

[javajaws]

I lied...one more. My RODI, salt, and kalk tanks came in today. Gonna be a busy weekend welding a stand together if the weather is nice:

 

[javajaws]

Well, I got stuck making progress on the frame for the water tanks - turns out my welding gas tank was empty and the welding supply is closed on the weekends. I cut some metal and drilled some holes for the feet, but that was about it. Probably for the best though so I can do a little more planning in sketchup before I cut and weld the frame pieces. Won't take long to build though - probably a day and another to paint it.

I found some time this week to dig through old photos and found some of what this wall looked like before I put the cabinets in as well as a couple almost finished pics. These date back to 2004ish:

This was the original glasscages tank - it had a bunch of holes for a closed loop (yeah, those were a pain to drill):

 

[javajaws]

So last weekend I actually made a lot of progress - I got the rock work glued together and I also filled the tank with tap water so I could leak test all of the plumbing. The first leak test was just the aquarium and the overflow plumbing into a bucket. This time it was the full sump setup with everything except the skimmer running. I had 0 leaks this time!

So I guess this is as good a time as any to show the sump setup (basically everything else except the electronics.

First up - sitting next to the overflow I found was a perfect location for an ATS. The cabinet is tall enough to lift the grow mat out without anything getting in the way. And I was able to fit the plumbing down through the same existing cutout in the cabinet down to the sump. The ATS itself is from Hmahli - it was a bit of an impulse buy when I found it 30% off from BRS. Seems decent enough. I thought it odd it came packed in a cardboard box but inside the box on each side was a full sheet of black 1/4" plexi! So now I've got a bunch of scrap 1/4" plexi for some future DIY project(s).

Here's what the return plumbing looks like. This one in a not-quite done state. The left 2 are the tank returns and then the 3rd on the left (plus the 1/2" clear tube) are from the ATS.

Here's the completed sump setup after the leak test. The sump is the 48" Hmahli platinum with a couple minor mods like the lid over the middle chamber and the media shelf before the return chamber. I also opted not to use the return bulkheads on the right because it just didn't work with my plumbing arrangement. But otherwise this sump (also bought 30% off!) was a good fit for my cabinet. I was originally going to build my own as well as my own fleece roller...but I decided I had enough other stuff to do so canned that sub-project when I saw this one on sale.

The return pump (VarioS 4) goes through the 25w UV and splits into the 2 3/4" lines to the overflow returns. The UV itself is also mounted with some french cleats I made with some leftover 1" thick cutting board material I had. So after undoing the unions it just lifts off the wall for maintenance.

The feed to the ATS is directly behind the vertical piece of wood there - so you can barely see it. The ATS pump and the return pump are identical so if the primary fails I can move over the one from the ATS by just undoing the 2 unions and swapping them.

The skimmer (UKS-200 dc)...is probably too big for this tank. We'll see. I might have to sell it and buy a smaller one later. I still need to run the line to the CO2 scrubber as well as another line for the skimmate drain...minor stuff I can do later while it's cycling, etc.

I decided on a single BRS filter with a dedicated pump for when I need it - phosphate remover, whatever.

(The sticky was to mark where I wanted the water line for the right skimmer level).

That's pretty much it for the sump and filter setup other than the probes and water level sensors, etc.

 

[javajaws]

Well since I couldn't weld anything today I got up early before it got too hot and ran the RO, kalk, AWC and a couple extra RO tubing lines from the sump area, through the attic and over to the laundry room about 15 ft away. I ran a combo of 1/4" and 3/8". I also ran a hydros command cable so I could put a controller in the laundry room in the same collective. The only thing left to do is clean up the RO lines and hook up and tidy all the electrical cables. I need to warm up the label maker as well lol. I still need to get some dosing containers and hook those up as well but those can wait a bit.

 

[rc8t6353]

Nice! I always liked the in wall tanks. Following along... As long as you keep the updates and pics coming lol jk

 

[javajaws]

...and this is why you water test everything: One of the Tamco tanks I was sent has a leak (midway up the side at the corner where they weld them together). Hopefully US Plastics doesn't make me jump through hoops to get this replaced.

 

[javajaws]

OK, I know - no updates for a month! But I've been busy! Mostly on the RODI setup, so here are some updates and pics on that:

First up - built the RODI/fill station stand built. I used some 1.5" metal I had sitting around the garage and the whole process took the better part of a weekend to make:

Next up was wiring up some float switches for the RODI container(s) itself. Although I have 2 RODI containers (I couldn't find a single one to fit the space) both tanks are plumbed together as 1 (pics on that later).

I like to use redundant float switches for both full and empty. I'll set an alarm in Hydros if the high alarm or low alarm floats trigger - indicating one of the primary full/empty switches have failed. I also have a mechanical float switch at the top where the water enters as a final safety in addition to time limit + runtime alarm in Hydros.

For the float switches themselves I like to install them inside pvc pipe and seal them. I drill a hole in some endcaps and after screwing them in place I seal them up with silicone from the inside. Then PVC cement everything together.

 

[javajaws]

And here's everything almost put together. I'm working this weekend on programming the Hydros and leak testing the RODI. Then I'll get the RODI hooked up to one of the lines to fill the tank. I'll probably wait to use the AWC and Kalk containers until Hydros comes out with their new dosing pumps. Won't need the Kalk for awhile anyway. Can do without the AWC for awhile as well so should be good to wait. I'll use the Minnow for evap replacement for the time being (still need to find out how to connect that to RODI tubing!).

rodi9

So in the last pic you can see the two RODI containers plumbed together. There is no auto-fill of the Salt or Kalk tanks (so no float control on those currently). All I have to do to fill is open the top of either one, insert the drain hose from the RODI and then turn the ball valve. And yes - I mounted the XP8 upside down on purpose so the cord would reach without an extension!

You can't see in the above pics, but I also have a water on floor sensor tucked back there as well as a final safety.

And yeah - I purposefully made the bottom shelf high enough to fit buckets of salt underneath. I currently have 4 buckets of Nyos salt tucked down there.

Couple notes on plumbing: For the RODI drain I have it angled slightly to keep from getting snagged (tight quarters in the laundry room!). I did something slightly different on the Salt/Kalk drains - I mounted the ball valves backwards to keep them from accidentally being opened. I also opted to have the bulkheads off-center so that they are closer to the stand and so that the tank numbering was facing straight forward.

TODO for this weekend is start programming the Hydros (I finished setting up the collective last night - 8 Hydros devices in total). If that goes well I'll startup/test the RODI and then possibly fill the tank and get the cycle started this weekend.

In addition to the tank I need to program the pump, UV, heaters, skimmer, ATS, and sump float switches to control the evap doser. Should be easy after doing the RODI.

Also done, but not shown is the rock aquascape in the tank. I'll try to get some better in-tank pics and do a post of that later this weekend before/after filling. I really like the way it turned out! I just hope I don't run into too many problems since I used dry rock. My most successful tank previously used live Fiji so this will be an adjustment and test of patience I think! Hopefully the UV and ATS will help.

 

[javajaws]

Not shown in any of that was the work I had to do to the laundry room itself - added some baseboards, replaced the vent fan, and had to patch a wall from a roof leak a couple years ago, paint, etc. All of that stuff takes time but isn't that impressive unfortunately! I still owe the wife a new washer and dryer as a sort of quid pro quo!

 

[vandy]

Wow great idea with the PVC and float valves.. Never thought to encase the wires in the tube. Definitely stealing that!