Water storage and water change system for first reef tank

Mjm1121 · Aug 7, 2024

Hey team,

New here, and after years of dancing around it, I taking the plunge into the saltwater/reef game. I’ve kept and bred freshwater for years, including wild discus and other delicate species.

As far as the tank, leaning towards a Red Sea reefer or something similarly equipped with sump, in the 30-40g range. At this point I’m just trying to get a handle on the logistics of water storage and transport to my display. The tank will be in my living room on the main floor of the house, and storage will have to be in my basement utility room. So just curious how some of you with similar setups move water from a lower floor to an upper floor, short of the obvious snaking a huge length of hose with a high powered pump to refill your tanks.

And what would you recommend as far as total water volume on hand? RO and saltwater volume.

Thanks in advance!

Formulator · Aug 7, 2024

Welcome to R2R! A lot of folks use 55 gallon brute trash barrels for mixing and water storage. They have food grade ones, but most folks just use the standard gray ones. To get water up from the basement you will need a big pump. I use an iwaki external pump to accomplish this with my basement sump, but there are lots of options. Just look for ones rated for 15-20 ft head pressure. PVC is great for plumbing and you can play around with it dry-fit like legos until you are satisfied, then cement everything.

I keep 40 gallons of saltwater on-hand in case of emergency. I keep fresh RODI water in a 5 gallon bucket for top-off, but don’t keep a large volume on hand. Some people do and brute can is a great option for that too.

Since you have the utility room, and are going to plumb for your mixing station, you might also want to consider putting your sump down there and plumbing it up to the display. This keeps the mess and noise out of your living space and gives you a lot more room to play. Then you do all your water change work in the basement too. Here is my setup in my basement utility room for inspiration

In this one, you can see my brute can for salt water mixing/storage over in the back corner.

Mjm1121 · Aug 7, 2024

Formulator said:
Welcome to R2R! A lot of folks use 55 gallon brute trash barrels for mixing and water storage. They have food grade ones, but most folks just use the standard gray ones. To get water up from the basement you will need a big pump. I use an iwaki external pump to accomplish this with my basement sump, but there are lots of options. Just look for ones rated for 15-20 ft head pressure. PVC is great for plumbing and you can play around with it dry-fit like legos until you are satisfied, then cement everything.

I keep 40 gallons of saltwater on-hand in case of emergency. I keep fresh RODI water in a 5 gallon bucket for top-off, but don’t keep a large volume on hand. Some people do and brute can is a great option for that too.

Since you have the utility room, and are going to plumb for your mixing station, you might also want to consider putting your sump down there and plumbing it up to the display. This keeps the mess and noise out of your living space and gives you a lot more room to play. Then you do all your water change work in the basement too. Here is my setup in my basement utility room for inspiration

In this one, you can see my brute can for salt water mixing/storage over in the back corner.

So sick! So you’ve got through wall plumbing to and from your display? If so do you have any photos of what it looks like leading to your display? Not sure my wife would want me drilling a bunch of holes in the house unfortunately lol. Especially since the tank will be on the smaller end.

DanP-SD · Aug 7, 2024

Is the display tank a straight shot above the basement? If so, I would second the above suggestion to put your sump in the basement. Keep it directly below the tank or close to minimize bends in the pipes connecting them and get a big sump. When your return pump is off, a decent volume of water from the display tank and plumbing will flow back down to the sump so you need to leave enough headroom to avoid an overflow.

For that size tank, you can get away with something smaller than a 55 gallon brute can for mixing. Check the build link in my signature for links to 20-gallon roto-milled tanks from amazon that would work well. If you have a tap water pipe or hose bib and a drain in the basement, it could be a really nice setup. You can put an RO/DI unit on the water line to fill one reservoir with freshwater, plumb in a pump to transfer that to a second reservoir where you mix saltwater, and run an off-the shelf ATO from the fresh reservoir to the sump to keep your level topped off.

As you get more into the hobby, you can expand that setup easily to do things like auto water changes. Having the sump in the basement also lets you access all your filtration much easier than under the tank and gives you room for expansion as you add on reactors and other reef gadgets.

If you do put the sump directly below the tank, or not too far laterally, you can also use a Bean Animal drain system. You'll appreciate how silent and failsafe it is -- especially if your display tank is in a location where noisy drains would be a problem.

If plumbing through your floor is not an option, the options aren't great. If you have room, you can put a small RO water reservoir under the tank for your ATO. You would still need to fill it manually unless you have a place nearby to setup an RO filter and plumb it to the reservoir. (If you do that, be sure to read the many posts on R2R about the right way to do this. You don't want to have your ATO essentially be a bottomless supply of freshwater to the tank and you should avoid the RO filter cycling on and off too often.)

Other than that, you're looking at containers you're comfortable carrying to the display tank for water changes. It's a chore that a lot of reefers work really hard to engineer around. If you need to do it, I suggest getting containers with secure lids to avoid spills along the way.

Formulator · Aug 7, 2024

I went through the floor under the tank. I have a couple extra pieces of our hardwood I can use to patch when we sell the house. In the basement I just cut out a rectangle and kept the piece of drywall to patch similarly. There is a horizontal run of pipe to get to the utility room and it just hides behind part of the ceiling that comes down for ductwork in the finished area of the basement. Not ideal, but nobody can see it and my basement is more of a kids playroom these days rather than an adult entertainment area.

Under the tank:

In the basement:

DanP-SD · Aug 7, 2024

Mjm1121 said:
So sick! So you’ve got through wall plumbing to and from your display? If so do you have any photos of what it looks like leading to your display? Not sure my wife would want me drilling a bunch of holes in the house unfortunately lol. Especially since the tank will be on the smaller end.

The FIRST tank is on the smaller end. Your second will be 100+ gallons and in a few years you'll be posting pictures of the scuba gear you use to clean the third tank.

Hrosik123 · Aug 7, 2024

Fire marshal will need to see some fire caulking between the floors

Formulator · Aug 7, 2024

Hrosik123 said:
Fire marshal will need to see some fire caulking between the floors

Good thing I own my home and live in the good ol’ USA. I do what I want LOL. It will be back up to code when I sell it.

exnisstech · Aug 7, 2024

If you have a basement I would go custom on the tank and have a sump in the basement. Unfinished basement with a sump crock is even better. I had a 150 and a 180 plumbed to a 125g as a sump in the basement. It was so nice being able to stand up and do water changes and all other maintenance. I run barebottom so I don't really need to vacuum the display. I recently upgraded (?) to a waterbox and now pump water up using a brute and a pond pump for changes. I have a bad hip and knee and the stairs were just getting to be too much to climb all the time. Now I'm crawling around instead so

Hrosik123 said:
Fire marshal will need to see some fire caulking between the floors

Why would a fire marshal be in your home? Just asking, I live in a rural area and no one uninvited comes into our home.

Hrosik123 · Aug 7, 2024

I was kidding. The goofy face emoji didn’t get in there.

jabberwock · Aug 7, 2024

For a small tank, two of these, and buy premixed water from LFS. I even buy RODI from LFS for my ATO.

Mjm1121 · Aug 7, 2024

Thanks so much for the responses. A lot to think about! I just realized that where I want to put the tank is directly above my utility room . I suppose it wouldn’t be a terrible project to plumb through either the floor or wall. Getting that involved might make me want to go for a bigger tank though

Mjm1121 · Aug 12, 2024

Hey so an update, I got a steal on a 6 month old octo lux t90 48 gallons. Under tank sump is about 25 gallons. I still want to plumb up from my utility room, but not sure where to start. I’d like to have some sort of valve controlled water change situation, and being that the ATO on this is only 1.5 gallons, I’d like to be able to supplement from the water storage downstairs. Thinking I’d go with the dual brute can build so not sure if I’d be able to run something from that to the tank upstairs? Here’s a couple photos of the tank: