The tank is cycling right now, so I figured its a good time to go over what I've done so far and catch the thread up to be real-time.

This tank has been in the works for a long time.  My house needed a lot of preparation before it was ready for a tank.  Since I was upgrading tanks and wanted to keep my existing fish, I needed to have both tanks up and running at the same time.

Step 1 was to move the old tank out of the way.  It was surprisingly easy to move compared to most tanks.  I doesn't have a sump, and has a relatively shallow sand bed so after draining the water and removing the rock is wasn't all that heavy.  It only took two of us to lift it.  I was able to drain the water into buckets and a 25 gallon rubbermaid tub, put the rocks and fish into the rubbermaid, move the tank about 20 feet to its new location, and then move the water, rocks, and fish back into the tank.  I was a little worried as I wasn't able to catch either of the yellow tail damsels.  And when I removed the last rock I realized they weren't anywhere in the tank! But then they showed up in the tank just fine after it was moved.  They must have hitched a ride inside one of the rocks.  Sneaky little guys...  The move only took maybe a hour or less, so I wasn't real concerned about adding a heater or bubbler to the rubbermaid tub.

I had a number of house projects I wanted to complete that the old tank had been preventing.  With it out of the way and before a new one went it, I could knock those out.

I painted the entire living and dining room.

Ripped out all the carpet, put down self leveling cement, and laid hard wood flooring.

Changed the outlet where the new tank will sit to be a GFI.

There is a small coat closet directly behind where the new tank sits, so I decided that would be like my mini fish room.  I ripped out the existing single shelf, patched the holes and repainted the walls.  The I built 4 new shelves, stained them, and installed them in the closet.

These are the shelves being stained.

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I cut two holes in the wall between the closet and the tank.  I installed outlet boxes that let wires run right through to the other side.  I was planning to use 1 hole for electrical and the other for plumbing.

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Next I had to get electrical to this closet.  I ran new romex cable from the master bedroom that shares the closets right wall.  I installed 1 outlet from this breaker.  I ran another set of romex to an additional outlet on the left side of the closet, from the living room breaker.

Now I had a space to store ballasts for my lights, auto-top off container, 2-part dosing containers, all the controllers, and various other supplies.  Not to mention outlets from two separate breakers switches to allow for enough power without tripping a breaker.

Now that I had the wall, floor, and fish closet prepped I was ready to buy a tank.  After browsing a number of fish stores (and being devastated when I realized Bird World had closed!) I decided to order a stand through aquatic dreams.  I asked for a dark walnut stand and canopy with a canopy 4 inches taller than standard.  To my surprise they actually quoted me $200 less for a custom build than if I bought one they had in stock!   :)

After about 2 weeks they gave me a call and said the new stand was ready for me to come pick it up.  I would recommend buying through them for anyone looking for a custom stand.  The price was very reasonable and the work by DriftWood Aquariums is beautiful.  I could not have asked for a better looking stand.  My old stand was super flimsy and might collapse if you bumped into it by accident.  This one is super sturdy and really high quality.

I ordered a 36 gallon ruby model sump by trigger systems from BulkReefSupply.com.  I shopped around for a while and it seemed like a good option for me.  Its a little more expensive than buying a 35 gallon tank at petco and building the baffles yourself, but for the convenience factor and built in probe and filter sock holders, it was worth it.

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I shopped around trying to find a tank that had an overflow with 3 holes pre-drilled.  After going to every fish store in northern utah, I gave up looking for one.  I was hoping to use a herbie overflow and have the third hole to bring the return up inside the tank, but without drilling the tank myself or building the overflow from scratch it seemed I would never find a 3-holed tank.  I'm sure I could have drilled it myself, but the stock overflows aren't quite big enough to allow for 3 bulkheads.  So rather than custom building it myself, I decided to go with a standard 2 hole'd tank.  I ordered a 90 gallon MarineLand tank from Live Rock'N Reef.  They don't usually sell tanks so they had to order it, but they gave me a price $100 less than everywhere else I looked.

Here is a shot of the setup:

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I'll add more tomorrow, pictures included!

Next I cut a piece of thin rubber (from a roll of sound proofing material I had laying around) to size to fit under the stand.  I wanted some protection between the wood and the stand since my wood scratches easily.

I also cut a piece of pvc sheeting to place as a waterproof barrier under the sump.  I stapled this to the bottom of the stand and set the sump on it.  Originally I was thinking I wanted a waterproof basin that could hold a couple inches of water in the case of a leak, but this proved to hard to set up as my stand has angled corners inside.  In the end I just went with a flat waterproof sheet to make and drips and spills easier to clean up.

One thing I will say that I don't love about the sump is that it does not have a rim around the bottom like a normal tank.  The acrylic sits directly on the stand.  This makes it really important that the surface be absolutely clean and free of dust when you put it in place.  I found multiple times I thought it was clean but there was a single grain of sand pushing against the acrylic that I had to remove.

I brought everything into the house, carried it up the stairs with the help of my brother in law (I live in a second floor condo), and set everything up.  Now I was ready to plumb the system.

I ordered red PVC from BulkReefSupply and mapped out all the fittings, unions, gate valves, etc.  Of course I had to re-order multiple times as it seems impossible to map these things out perfectly on the first try...

I added as many unions as I could so that I could easily take the system apart and clean every piece.  I placed a gate valve on the primary overflow and one on the return line.  I also added a check valve on the return line.  Here are some pictures of the final result.

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In hindsight I should have painted the back of the tank black to hide wires and plumbing.  But since I didn't do that I decided all of my wiring and plumbing needed to be hidden behind the overflow.  I routed the return line up right behind the overflow and have it coming over the back of the tank and into the overflow.  From there the loc-line extends out into the display.

I am really pleased with how the return line turned out.  I had just enough room in the overflow to have the 2 standpipes and the return fit without bumping into each other.

For the return pump I went with the Reef Octopus Varios 6.  It has more than enough GPH and can easily handle the 5 or so feet of head pressure on my system.  It also comes with a controller that allows for 5 speeds.  It has a hookup for the included float switch to shut the pump off should it run out of water.  And its apex ready.  I am considering an apex controller so this was important to me.  I have liked the pump a lot so far, its dead quiet and the controller works great and is easy to use.

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I also made a mistake on the return pump.  Although I have a check valve for power outages, that is really more of a backup plan for me.  As i've heard check valves often fail.  My main safety precaution on the return line was going to be a hole drilled in the return line just below the water line.  I made a mistake where I chose to put this hole.

I drilled the hole in the return line about a foot before it exits the loc-line, while its in the overflow compartment.  My thinking was "the water level is a little lower in here, so I can drill the hole here above the water line and that will work as an immediate siphon break when the power shuts off."

That didn't go quite as planned.  It turns out that hole is below the loc-line.  So what happens when I pull that plug on the return line is the check valve stops flow immediately (as expected) but the water continues to drain backwards through the last foot of the return line, from the display into the overflow compartment through the small hole.  The water drains until the siphon breaks when the loc-line starts sucking air.  So basically the tank will drain to whatever point the loc line return line is in the tank, albeit very slowly through the tiny hole (which is exactly what i wanted to avoid).

I have not implemented a solution to this yet, as my loc lines are currently just under the surface and not a problem for the sump when you turn the power off.  I think the solution is to drill another hole in the loc line itself, just under the water line in the actual display tank this time.  That should solve the display tank draining issue.

I may try and patch the first hole i drilled in the return line, as it is not helping anything at the moment, if i can figure out a good way to patch it.  Any suggestions here would be great!  The picture below shows where the current hole is drilled, so you can better understand the issue i'm dealing with.

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My other regret is not ordering enough red pvc pipe, and being unwilling to wait for another shipment to arrive.  As you can see the standpipes in the overflow compartment don't match the rest of the system.  This is just me being too picky, but still, its been bugging me everytime I look at it! lol

Sooo,

Looks great.  I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Aloha,

Mark  

Okay, here is what I see. Please take it for what it's worth, my 2 cents.

Those round holes in the stand will make it very difficult to work on the bulkheads. There will come a time when you will wish you had cut one large hole so that a wrench can be positioned to loosen and tighten the bulkheads. It will save hours upon hours of painstaking labor spent trying to loosen and tighten a bulkhead. Assuming that this is a plastic frame glass tank, the hole can be cut very large because the tank sit's only on the plastic frame, not on that board. FYI, on some setups I have been able to enlarge these holes without removing the tank.

That is correct. The answer to this will make you go "Doh!" The answer also eliminates the need for a check valve or a siphon break hole. The solution does one more thing, something that is extremely important for animal health. 

The simple solution is to position the end of the Lock-line at the same level as the drain teeth. The siphon will break when it sucks air. 

I see a "Y" has been installed on the lock-line. One of the ends sucking air will break the siphon even though the other end may be deeper in the water. This high end can be goose-necked so that it shoots a jet of water along the surface at a slightly down angle to keep water from splashing. The larger water disturbance caused by the jet and the surface water it pulls along with it, is a very good vehicle for gas exchange.

Of course, the running water level in the sump must still be low enough to contain the draining water during power off status.

Aloha,

Mark  

You are right that its a plastic rimmed tank where all the weight is on the edges, so drilling giant holes doesn't hurt anything. But luckily my holes are big enough to work the wrench up there.

When you suggest using a wider drain line, do you mean for the backup, or the main overflow? Or both? I find i have to use the gate value to tone the overflow down a bit to keep full siphon going. I have my return line fully open and the pump set to 3 out of 5 on its controller speed setting. Maybe if I cranked it up to 5 and removed the loc-line fittings I would need a 1.5 inch drain, but it seems 1-inch is already plenty large enough isn't it?

Ill add more later, gotta run to a family birthday party! Happy reefing.

I considered the idea of building a bit of a waterproof basin around the sump.  But when I started building this it was proving to look rather ugly and I didn't think I could make the sides sturdy enough to hold more than an inch of water without adding some wood on the front and back of the base of the stand, something I could staple the liner to.  I ultimately decided to just do a flat piece to act as a waterproof floor below the sump.

Regarding a few of the other ideas though, I will have to respectfully disagree.  Not because your idea wouldn't work, but because I considered that option and planned to take my build in a different direction.

You suggested removing the loc-line fan adapters, and the Y bend to increase flow.  I agree with you that flow is very important, however, my return line is only providing a tiny amount of the overall flow in the tank. I have two Jabeo wavemaker pumps and 1 mp-10. The jabeo's are crazy strong.  Strong enough to splash water out of the tank if I turn the wave makers all the way up.  I haven't gotten to that part of the build yet so you didn't have any way of knowing that, so its understandable you suggested getting increased flow through my return line.

You also mentioned going without a siphon break and check valve, and instead keeping the return line very high in the water.  I also agree that surface agitation is quite important to keeping the water well oxygenated.  I do plan to keep the return line very high in the water so they agitate the surface.  I also point my powerheads slightly to add even more surface movement.  The siphon break and the check valve are both backups in case the return line were to get bumped down lower than usual.  The check valve I bought is the type that easily unscrews to be cleaned, it also came with 2 extra gaskets and plungers in case the first one starts to wear out and disintegrate (as rubber always does in salt water).  I agree that a check valve should never be the main means of preventing your sump from overflowing, however I decided to add it as an additional backup plan.  With the intention of cleaning it often.  As for the added head pressure it causes on the return pump - I mitigated this problem by buying a pump that is quite a bit more powerful than I need, so it should be able to handle the added head pressure without any problems.  I'm only running it at half power at the moment.

Your suggestion not to use unions is very interesting.  I have heard they are very reliable and don't often leak if attached correctly.  I have a bag of extra gaskets.  If these are prone to leaking after time like you say, it sounds like I should be inspecting them regularly and replacing any damaged or disintegrating gaskets.  I'm disappointed to hear the leak often.  They make plumbing a system SO much easier, as you don't have to glue elbow joints in the perfect direction.  Being able to turn the union to line up your plumbing is an important feature to me.  I have seen quite a few other fellow reefers use these.  Have many of you run into problems with them leaking like Mark has?

Your final suggestion of shortening the overflow pipes that feed the filter bags sounds like a good idea too.  I think i'll do that.  I have noticed it is quite difficult to change the filter socks with them being that long (especially when my skimmer is right in front of them blocking my path).  My thinking in cutting them that long in the first place was "If these are too long I can always cut them in the future, but if they are too short i'm SOL."  That and I wanted to get them low enough in the water that I didn't have any splashing adding to the ever growing salt creep.

I meant just the main drain standpipe, but never mind. I was mistakenly thinking of a different drain system. As you said, it works fine like that. The water level in the overflow chamber is controlled by the gate valve so the drain opening is completely submerged and siphons a lot of water very fast. In this situation it's the overflow teeth that restrict draining capacity. Higher flow at the return pump backs up more water in the display, creating the need for more sump capacity during power OFF. It's a balancing act, as I'm confident you recognize.

 

Mark you mentioned "just friction fit the tubes into the bulkheads."  I used fittings that adapt friction to screw on.  I glued the pipe to the fitting on the friction side.  So am I able to unscrew the pipe and remove these if needed.

I did a similar thing on the main bulkheads attached to the tank.  The standpipe in the overflow compartment is glued to the bulkhead and a 2 inch pipe coming out of the bottom of the bulk head is glued too.  The 2-inch pipe is then glued to a fitting that adapts the pipe to accept screw in fittings.  I used a dremel to trim the outside of the fitting down a little bit so that the bulkhead nut fits over the fitting.

The result is that I have a fully glued bulkhead like I wanted, but I am still able to remove it.  To remove it I unscrew the first union which allows the above pipe to spin.  Then I unscrew the small section of pipe that has union on 1 side and screw in fitting on the other side.  Once this piece is removed the bulkhead nut can be unscrewed and slide all the way down over the attached pipe and fitting.

What method do other reefers use for this?  I feel like there should be an easier way.  Does anyone use the screw in type bulkheads instead?

I bought about 100 pounds of reefsaver dry rock from Bird World (before it closed down recently), and 20 pounds of pukani rock from BulkReefSupply.  I built the aquascape directly on the glass to ensure it was stable should any critters try to rearrange the sand below.  I glued each rock together using superglue gel and the quick drying spray.  That spray is amazing, it saves days of time waiting for glue to dry.  The final result wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but i'm sticking with it.  I tried to make it relatively open with a sort of stairway affect leaving different levels for various corals.  After finishing the rock work I poured in about 50 pounds of sand or so.  I am thinking of adding more, as its only 1 to 2 inches thick at the moment.

Here is the end result:

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The sand I used was from a previously built thank that never made it past the cycling period and never had any life in it.  The sand has been stored wet for about 2 years in 5 gallon buckets outside on my patio in the sun.  I wasn't sure what to expect with the sand after being stored that long, through snow and sun for 2 years.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the sand perfectly clean with no mold or smell.  I imagine some anaerobic bacteria had made the sand their home, but I don't believe there is anything in there that could nuke the tank.  And even if there was some problem bacteria living in there, giving it a full 3 months to cycle and I assume the "good" bacteria will have taken over by then.

The sand, having had very minimal life and then killed in the sun and freeze for two years, in my opinion is just like brand new sand. I would not wait 3 months. There would be no need. As you know I don't cycle a reef aquarium. The tank can be set up with coral and fish in a week, while preserving the nice aquascaping and actually helping the display colonize with a lot of life within a month or two. If this sounds interesting, I'd be happy to discuss the method.

Spaflex is semi flexible so it naturally absorbs vibration. A short length of vinyl tubing at the pump is unnecessary. The curl can be removed by leaving the pipe on the car dashboard on a sunny day with the windows rolled up or by warming in a kitchen oven. 

I prefer Spaflex over rigid PVC because when working in the sump area I might bump into the plumbing. The last thing I want is to force, by leverage up the pipe, the bulkhead to push off axis and start leaking. Or worse, to break the bulkhead. Even worse is to crack the glass at the bulkhead. 

I have been there, done that, so I try to be careful. I have also over-tightened bulkhead nuts and threaded fittings which breaks/cracks the (relatively) soft vinyl bulkhead, rendering it useless.

Hope this helps.

Aloha,

Mark  

I considered using more spaflex, and possibly even the entire return line.  I eventually decided against it mainly because I like the look of a fully hard plumbed system a bit better.

I agree with you that avoiding 90 degree angles and opting for multiple 45's instead would increase flow.  I actually used this method on a previous build that had an external return pump.  I opted to use 90's this time instead because I had read on a few other forums that the loss of flow was not significant, and using 90's makes measuring, cutting, and gluing the plumbing a little less complicated.

It would be interesting to test how much each 90 degree fitting reduces flow.  I might have to do some googling for someones experiment on that.  There are some flow monitoring devices that can be connected to controllers.  I bet someone has already done the work for us out there.

I have ten 90 degree fittings, two 45's, a check valve, and about 5 feet of vertical lift from the sump to the top of the tank.  I'm sure that adds a decent amount of head pressure.  Here is the graph of my return pumps output:

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I don't have a flow meter, and with my tank already being full its a bit hard to see how much its pumping at a time.  But using the old fashioned eye ball test it appears to be getting a pretty good amount of flow through into the tank. 

With a 90 gallon display and a 36 gallon sump, i'm guessing I have about 100 gallons of water total.  The sump runs about half full due to the baffle placement, and the rock and sand displacement in the display I would guess is about 10 gallons of water.  Leaving me with 80 in the display and 18 in the sump.  There is also some water in the plumbing and in the reactors.  So i'm guessing I've got right around 100 gallons.

If that is correct, then this pump is capable of turning over all the water in the system about 10 times an hour.  If the elbows and check valve are doubling the head pressure of the return line, then the pump would still be turning the water over 5 times an hour.  I think anything between 5 and 10 times an hour is acceptable right?

Maybe I went on to much about elbows and piping. In retrospect though, I need to say that the volume of a powerful pump can simply be turned up to push water past the obstacles, but the drain is different. Drain efficiency can be severely compromised by fittings and changes in direction. The resulting drag can create flow and noise issues. Gravity and the pressure gradient of a display that is 5 feet above the sump is all the power we have to make water flow down. To avoid some of the problem, the drain line should be the straightest shot possible. I may be able to add a pic to show this. Watch for it.

Aloha,

Mark  

Anyway, I have a few more updates to add today. I've been continuing to work on the tank in all my free hours after work.  I received some exciting deliveries.  Pictures are below!

New Radion Pro Gen 4's

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The mounting kits for the radions.

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New ReefLink for the radions and an MP10

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8 more filter socks (I've got 11 now, hoping this is enough so that I can make it a month or more without washing any).

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A new reactor to run GFO and Carbon

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2 of these wave makers (the tank will have 2 of these and 1 MP10)

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I'm hopeful it will remove coraline algae from the front and side glass, fingers crossed!

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These reviews of the new apex are pretty bad.  About half of them on BulkReefSupply are similar to this.  Do you have the new one or one of the previous versions like the classic?

I have heard great things about the apex junior.  Maybe I should go with one of the older models.  I was just having a really hard time getting the apex and extra modules for 800-1500 bucks (when you include a bunch of modules), when the ReefLink was only $100 and had great reviews.

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As you run it along you can feel it scrapping the algae. Minute spots of Coralline Algae that have just landed on the glass and started to grow are scrapped off before they are even visible. 

BTW, Two 45's used to make a turn is more drag than just one 90. Have you ever felt inside of a PVC joint? Where the pipe goes in it makes a ledge all the way around. That ledge creates drag. As you can probably tell, I have put a lot of thought into the mechanics of flow. As I said above, the drain line is where it really matters because we don't have the luxury of turning a knob or pushing a button to increase the flow. I agree, colored pipe and fittings looks really cool, but under the display tank is where things need to be completely functional.

The drain line I see in this pic has at least 18 (eighteen) of those ledges, 

makes four 90 degree turns and

flow is futher impeded by a foot of horizontal travel.

speyside712 wrote: Go ahead Mark, let me have it! My goal here is to build a reef with as many redundancies as possible so as to not flood my house or kill the inhabitants. I'd love to hear your recommendations, even if they involve tearing it down and starting over

I recommend removing that "Rube Goldberg" contraption and replacing it with this:

This drain line comes straight out of the bulkhead almost straight in to the Refugium.  Only two ledges and zero turns. The emergency drain beside it does the same thing. 

Something else. Remember in a previous post where I said it would be unnecessary to wait the 3 months you said you would wait before stocking this tank?  And you were so pleased to show off a pic of filter bags that were going to need washing. In the pic above, is there a filter bag? That's because this tank which has been running more than 10 years has no filter bags, in fact no messy mechanical filtration whatsoever. Would you like to see a pic of that tank and to learn how it's done?

Aloha,

Mark  

Oh ok thats good to know. I think I would like to upgrade here pretty soon.  I have a number of other pieces of equipment that are all apex ready that I would like to be able to control.

I would agree with you that your overflows are much less restricted and probably have more flow through the same diameter pipe.

My question then becomes, is my flow really being restricted enough to consider re-designing it, or would opening up my gate valve a little farther than you open yours make ours equal?  I'm not sure if you are running a full siphon on the example above or if you are using more of a durso type design, that would also affect the speed the water is moving (is it being sucked in like a vacuum, or falling gracefully ).

At the moment I have the gate valve restricted a decent amount, in order to tune the system to stay perfectly level in the overflow box.  If I wanted more flow, I could turn my return pump up from setting 3 (where it currently is) to 4 or 5 and open the gate valve a bit more.

I guess what I'm thinking here is that I'm already not running my return pump at full power on purpose, and making this type of change would require me to run it at a higher setting.  I do this to mainly to reduce the total amount of water in the system.  As i'm sure you know, running a pump at a higher speed, even with more flow coming through the overflow, still requires more water in the system because more of it ends up in the display tank waiting to go through the overflow box teeth.  As you mentioned before, the limiting factor becomes the teeth at the top of the overflow box.  They only allow so much through at a time.  The teeth in my overflow box currently rise about an inch above the water's surface, so I have some room to go before its technically full.  However I really like having less water in the system for the unlikely scenario that a team of turbo snails decides to clog all the overflows at the same time.  When this happens its nice to have as much extra room in the display as possible (especially considering I have an auto-top off that will kick on for 15 seconds or so in this scenario) so that your return pump will run out of water (and shut off in my setup due to a float switch) before the display overflows.

The wave makers in the display also make this situation a little scary, as the water is rocking back and worth in the tank, so it doesn't have to be completely full to spill out.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am ok with running my return pump at half power and having my overflow pull water more slowly out of the tank if it means I can keep less water in the system.

Mark - To answer your filter sock question.

What exactly is the goal of running a system without using filter socks or any type of mechanical filtration?  All I am trying to use them for is to polish the water and make it more visibly appealing to the human eye.  I would agree that they are not necessary for coral or fish to thrive, but I feel like the water looks cleaner and clearer to me when using them.

They can become nitrate factories and restrict flow if not cleaned/replaced regularly.  But if they are properly maintained I think they provide a nice visual enhancement to the reef.

I would love to hear about your setup that doesn't use them though.  Do you have a link to another post?

My sump also has some filter floss type blocks that sit in the bubble trap.  I find they work more for reducing bubbles rather than catching detritus, but they do a little of both.

Speaking of bubble traps, does any one else find they actually make more bubbles then they trap.... I've had this issue with my last two tank setups.  I assume the problem is that I am not keeping the water level high enough in the return pump section of the sump, however I want that section as low as possible, to reduce the water volume in the tank and prevent a display overflow in the event of clogged overflows.

When water flows over the first section of the bubble trap it splashes into the final section, creating bubbles.  A few of those get sucked up the return pump and into the display.

The pic I posted above is of an aquarium using a Herbie style drain. Durso Style drains do not use a gate valve nor do they typically use an emergency drain. Below I will address other points of our discussion.

My answer:

Hope this helps a little.

Aloha,

Mark  

I agree that my overflow doesn't follow the "keep it simple stupid" concept   But I promise there is a method to my madness.

I might not have mentioned, but I'm planning on moving in about 2 years or so.  So I tried to build the tank in a way that it can be taken down and taken apart without too much effort.  It will still be an entire day of work to move it, but at least now its possible without cutting pipe and re-gluing it.

I agree with you that having a filter sock on the overflow will remove some of the "good stuff."  However, I am ok with that.  I have the expectation that this tank will have less of the "good stuff" than most tanks we see in the hobby due to the way I'm starting this tank.

I started this reef with all dry rock.  I didn't use any live rock, live sand, or anything from another tank.  I have been very careful not to use any tools or equipment on this tank that have been in contact with my other tank.

Basically, this thing is sterile at the moment, with the exception of the bacteria I'm working on growing during the cycling period.  I had a pest problem in my last tank: the small brown flatworms that kill your LPS and sit on your softies stealing all their light, tons of tiny white pest starfish, a variety of pest snails including box snails, limpets, and pyramid snails) and I'm trying very hard to avoid that this time around.  In my previous tank I did not have a quarantine system set up for fish, nor did I fresh water dip or treat corals prior to putting them in my tank.  I am lucky I have never killed any fish when I brought home new ones that could have been infected with a variety of problems, however, I wasn't so lucky in the coral pest department when buying frags.

The new tank I'm setting up will have no "good stuff" that usually comes from buying live rock.  I plan to dip all my corals and quarantine things extensively prior to letting them enter my new tank.  So if all goes to plan, the only life in my tank should be that which I introduce on purpose.

Now I know we all try to keep pests out of our tank, but that doesn't always happen.  I'm sure its possible bad or good creatures other than the one i'm paying for could possible tag along for the ride and enter the tank.  However, I do think my startup method will drastically reduce the level of life in my tank, especially in the early months.

I may consider removing the filter socks once the tank is more established and the refugium is up and fully functioning.  But at the moment they have been very useful.  I chose not to rinse my sand before putting it in.  The filter socks cleaned up that mess in a matter of hours.

Your method of an as-natural-as-can-be reef is pretty cool and does support lots of tank life, I just don't think its my cup of tea.

Back to the bubble trap question I had.  You mention "avoid waterfalls in the sump."  I agree 100% that this waterfall is creating the bubbles.  However, the only way to avoid a waterfall to your return pump is to put more water in the system..... I want to have the least water possible..... Hmmm, there has got to be a way to get the best of both worlds here.  I am going to try putting some more filter floss in the bubble trap to lessen the distance the water has to fall before it hits something.  My goal here being to have the return pump only barely submerged by maybe an inch of water above the intake (which forces a waterfall), but still no bubbles.  I think I can make this work...

Mark  

P.S.

Thank you for finding humor in my responses. Are you familiar with the old cartoon of the OSHA Horse?

Where you picked my brain, was that the MWRF where, for the Aquascaping Contest, I did the Avatar Tank? 

The tank has been progressing slowly.  I have been adding equipment slowly (clearly I bought too much stuff!).  I mounted a BRS dual reactor in the cabinet and loaded it up with GFO and Carbon.  I bought a larger pump to run the reactor instead of the MaxiJet it came with.  I tried out the MaxiJet and it wasn't strong enough, even with the ball valve completely open the flow was really weak.  I couldnt get the GFO to tumble at all.  There was no visible movement in the GFO at all and I feared it would become a solid rock after a week of that.  The pump has to lift the water about 2.5 feet, so that must have just been too much head pressure for the original pump.

The new one didn't exactly fit the 1/2 bendable pvc that BRS supplied with the reactor.  To fix this I snipped 2 inches of rubber tubing off the end of a water change syphon kit.  This fit perfectly over both the pumps output and the 1/2 pvc and doesnt leak (it sits in the sump anyway, so a tiny leak wouldn't matter anyway).  The result worked out pretty well, the GFO is tumbling ever so slightly to prevent it from turning to stone.

At this point I was ready to build a mounting board.  I bought some wood at lowes and was able to put it together pretty quick.  I built the board to sit on a shelf in the closet behind the tank.  It has 4 legs, with the back 2 being longer than the front 2 so it sits slanted toward the front.  All the wires get concealed under the mounting board and on top of the shelf.  I mounted the following so far:

2 energy bar 8's

2 jabeo powerhead controllers

1 Tunze Osmilator controller

1 Reef Octopus return pump controller

1 Apex Classic

1 Apex Display module

1 Apex WXM module

1 Apex ALD Leak Detection module

1 Apex PM2 Salinity module

Here is a picture of the mounting board.

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I was planning to use a spare Google Nexus 10 tablet as a full time tank controlling device and leave it on the shelf in the closet, but i'm finding that the Apex Fusion app doesn't work at all on android, the home screen doesn't have any buttons and is basically a frozen screenshot.  Due to this I have to navigate to the website and log in every time in order to control anything.  I might as well just use my phone to do this so i'm not standing in front of the closet for long periods of time.  Its much easier to control from the couch on my phone. 

I have yet to calibrate my probes and get those working, but I do have my fusion account set up and the energy bar 8's configured.  Since I dont have the probes working yet I have a few items set to "always on." That is the next item on my list to fix.

Now to the exciting stuff - As the whole project is being done to upgrade an existing tank, I have 5 fish waiting to move into their new home.  Now that the tank has been cycling for nearly 4 months it should be good and ready to start adding life slowly.

The fish waiting to be moved in are 1 orange/white ocellaris clown, 2 yellowtail blue damsels, 1 flame angel, and 1 yellow tang.  I have had all 5 fish for about 6 years, so they are at least that old (not sure how old they were when I bought them).

I am trying to put the fish in in the perfect order to reduce aggression.  Three days ago I added a new bubble tip anemone, a new juvenile black and white ocellaris clown, and my larger female orange and white ocellaris clown.  All went well and they are now both hosting in the same anemone together.  Here is a shot of them together.

http://s29.photobucket.com/user/speyside712/media/20170928_162851_018_zpsdolitdtj.jpg.html" rel="nofollow">

I had one algae bloom of diatoms near the end of the cycle, when I first started turning on the lights.  It all died off after 3 days.  I don't have any coralline growth yet because I started with all dry rock and dry sand, so I'll need to introduce some into the tank at some point.

I've been monitoring my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels and so far so good.  My bio-load is extremely small at the moment, so I don't forsee having any problems with that as long as I keep going slow and only add fish every few weeks.

Here is a FTS taken today.

http://s29.photobucket.com/user/speyside712/media/20170928_162832_zpsxf3veagy.jpg.html" rel="nofollow">

I have another thread going in the General Discussion section about the trouble i'm having with my apex probes.  But last night I got 4 of 5 probes working as intended.  The 2 ph probes and 2 temperature probes are now working well.  two are in the filter sock/skimmer section, and two are in the return pump section.  I've got the temperature set to bounce between 77.7 and 77.8, it never seems to be more than .1 degree off, and the ph probes are currently fluctuating between 8.1 in the day time and 7.9 at night.

The PH had previously been a lot lower, but I think that was due to the cycle finishing.  The 2-part i've started dosing daily has helped too.  I'm dosing a small amount of 2-part daily until I can get my Calcium to 450 and my Alk to 9.  I was at 400 and 7 when i checked 4 days ago.

Once I get them up to this point I have a feeling I won't have to dose hardly anything since I have almost no coral at this point, and no stony corals.  Once i start adding corals i'll keep checking my parameters and adjust the 2part as necessary.


I was given a big piece of chaeto from a fellow reefer in Kaysville.  I already had a little bit in my tank but was really after the amphipods and all the live that comes along with it.

I inspected the 2 zoa frags I got from The Fish Tank last week, making sure I didnt get any pests I didn't want.  After using no live rock to start it and all the hassle that comes with, I should probably be pretty careful what I put in there.  The frags had a little dark red coraline algae and two tiny feather duster worms.  The kind that everyone has in their tank that grow on everything.  I don't particularly mind the worms so I left em on there.

I'm still toying with the idea of throwing my "dry rock only, no pests" idea out the window and buying a piece or two of live rock to seed it with more life.  I feel like i'm missing out on some of the good stuff.

Not a bad idea to give it some time, and if you don't see the feather dusters, various harmless worms, and/or sponges that we mostly like, you can always carefully seed at a later time.

We must have a different type of bristle worm.  mine never seem to get longer than 2 inches, occasionally youll see a big one thats 3 inches long, but thats about the max.  Mine dont hurt me, fish, coral.  They really just eat anything that dies in the tank, or i've seen them dine on my tangs... well... excrement... to put it nicely.  Either way, they seem useful to me.  Further speeding up the nitrogen cycle and reducing waste.

I have heard of big ones that eat coral though, maybe you ended up with the bad kind....

I once worked at a place where LR was transshipped in. It came direct from the ocean without going through a distributor. As it was placed in the "curing vats" (no light, huge skimmer) to "clean it up". I would sort through to find the most unique fist size or double fist sized pieces that had tons of sponge, algae and any other animals. The company didn't mind me buying the small pieces that couldn't be used or would have been considered rubble in a client aquarium. Sure, this LR had stuff on it that was dead and decomposing, but when placed in a mature aquarium the mature biofiltration handled the dead stuff while providing excellent water conditions for recovery of anything still alive. Every couple of months I would take a few pieces home and place them into my established reef. I cannot describe all the cool things that began to grow in my system from that uncured LR straight from the ocean. New things often emerged many months after introduction.

Why do distributors "cure" LR? My take on it is that aquarium maintenance companies don't have the time to carefully watch the aquariums they maintain and most hobbyists don't have the experience. desire or time to deal with new creatures, or don't have experienced fishy friends like here in the WMAS to help them understand and deal with strange new creatures.

Why this current trend among hobbyists to use dry, dead LR? It's a bit of a mystery to me.

That said, When getting LR from a fellow hobbyist or advertised here or on ksl.com, I'm still very choosy about what I take. I pass up a lot more LR than I accept.

Just today I was moving some rock around and felt a large soft and squishy something on what had been a small piece of LR. The rock had basically grown into a ball of live Sponge.  This is the kind of animals I give away, yes give away, to people that come to me for LR to help start their new tank. 

"Keep your arms and hands inside the tank and enjoy the ride." - L.A.Goon