So, a brief intro.  Been reefing since around 2002 (125gal reef/90gal aggressive), but in 2015 my company moved me to Northern California. There I had a 20 gallon tank in an apartment for two years.  Well, we moved back!

Time to play!

This will more than likely be a very slow build, but that's okay! Here is the start:

Here is the room that we decided to use.

I did not want the tank on the carpet, so decided to tile.  Notice on the upper left, I had the tile setter cut out a piece of tile so I can plumb down to the basement for the sump, etc.

Here we are ready for some tank action.

I bought the tank and stand used from Jerry @ Reef On.  If you've been to the store, you've seen my tank. lol  I then got ahold of Chad with Upgrade Your Reef to give me a hand (like a lot of hands) to move the tank to our home.

 

Talking about the fun to begin!

And here it is, just needs to be set up!

So, this is just the beginning.  I do have some of the equipment from before like my Apex, MP40s, AI Sol Blues, etc. but things have really taken off technology wise so I'm open to suggestions.  I need to figure out a return pump that is easy on the electric bill, but is suitable for a basement sump as well as lighting; I only have 2 of the Sol Blues and this is a 6' tank.

More to come!

Thanks for looking and I'm glad to be this close to being back!

As far as the Abyss DC's, not thinking I want to spend that kind of money...maybe back to the Iwaki style...gotta do some more research indeed!

Minor update.  Holes have been drilled and the plumbing is somewhat in progress.  Bought a Reeflo Dart/Snapper Hybrid. The tank came with 1" bulkheads.  I measured the holes and found that I can upgrade to 1.25 bulkheads.  So, the plan is to now plumb with 1.25 spa flex and I'm going to replace the Durso system with Herbie.  Still need to frame the basement, so moved my air compressor down and borrowed a nail gun, just need to find a few hours! :)

Holes!

Reeflo Dart/Snapper

Parts is parts

I'm ready?

So, it has been awhile since I have updated.  At this point, I decided to not use the "reef ready" durso and go with a quasi bean animal.  I have finished all of the electrical and basement support for the tank, drilled two 65mm for a Synergy Shadow Box, two 45mm holes for returns.  I have also decided to  utilize one of the 1" holes (from the "reef ready" setup) to be a tank drain.  Since the sump and all are in the basement, I do not want to have to use buckets...this drain will have it's own separate line.  Today, I went to IFA and bought two 65 gallon vertical water storage tanks that will make up my water change station.  Slowly but surely this project is coming together. I'll post some pics tomorrow, just wanted to post up and update!

Support in the basement done with electrical installed:

Drilling the drain holes for the Synergy Reef Shadow Box:

New day. Drilling the returns:

Capped drain holes:

Installed:

Love black backgrounds!

Initial leak test, passed BTW:

Who needs a truck?!  Yeah, this guy!

Leak test for the 65 gallon storage tanks...also passed! More to come!

Not finished with the plumbing, but here is what the mixing station is gearing up to look like

The only way to cut pipe! lol (not really, but was a huge time saver!)

Was going to use conduit strapping

Then decided not to...I like this stuff much better! 

All glued up

Meanwhile, downstairs.

Gotta love hole saws.  had to go through 2 2x4 headers...not fun.

grin and bear the pain

so done with that noise

Medusa...what more to say.

Getting all wet!

If I had to do it again, I would have gone with straight pipe and not flex.  Flex has some give, it is so hard to deal with!  Tonight I will try to get sump plumbed and get a full system wet test going.

In my haste, I forgot to do before pics, but you'll get the idea:

The wye that I bought was too long for a simple cut and fit, so I had to run to Lowe's to buy a new 3" 45.  I also had a rubber coupler with hose clamps to help out.  So, I cut out the 3" straight pipe and the 45 and went all new.

For redundancy I added another ball valve downstairs.

The result was that I was able to drain off half of the tank in ~10 mins.  I plan on having different pipes upstairs to equal how much water I'd like to drain.  Very happy with the results and, so far, all is high and dry. 

So had a major setback; I miscalculated the pump I needed!  The Reeflo Dart/Snapper did not have enough to go 11' up.  Ordered a Reeflo SunTail. In the mean time, Bruce @ AquaticTranquility let me borrow his Barracuda and that got me up and running.  The next major setback was that even though everything passed the leak test after switching everything on and trying to tune the Synergy Reef Shadow Box, I discovered a leak.  Turned out to be a fracture on the Shadow Box.  I contacted Synergy and they are not sending me a new one...great customer service! Here are some pictures.

The pump that couldn't:

Big ol' 'cuda; the pump that could!

Enlarging my sump drain holes:

Just add sand!

Installed the Reeflo  SunTail pump (what a monster!) and flipped the switch! Clearing up nicely...no, this has not been aquascaped yet. :)

Still need to figure out lighting and do more plumbing for my water changing station. Feels great to have a tank up and running again!

Set up a 20 gallon QT tank.  I will be setting up a 40 gallon QT tank later.  I decided that I am going to try some bacteria in a bottle and see what happens, but will be doing it fishless.  More on this later, but I'm using the 20 gal QT tank as the guinea pig to see how many ml per gallon of ammonia I need to get to ~3-4 ppm.

So, here is the ammonia level and the Fritz bacteria-in-a-bottle behind. haha

Reading the bottle states that the tank will be cloudy and have an "earthy smell".  Umm, earthy? No, smelled like poo. At least their cloudy description was accurate.  Oh, just in case you wanna try this...turn off your skimmer, ozone, UV, and remove your filter socks!  Also, raise your temp to at least 80 degrees.

After 24 hours, I tested the Ammonia and Nitrites.  Prior to dosing, they were both 0.  Now my ammonia is ~3 ppm and my nitrites are ~2 ppm.  It's working!  Not worried about nitrates yet.  I'll keep y'all posted, but very excited at this point.

So after a bunch of research, I discovered that my freshwater upbringing was clouding my saltwater experience.  Nitrites for saltwater fish, unlike freshwater fish, is not harmful at low readings.  So, with ammonia a 0 ppm and nitrites at .25 ppm my nitrates were ~ 100 ppm I did about a 35% water change and went fishing.

I got the following:

1 Clown Tang

1 female Leopard Wrasse

3 Banggai cardinals

1 blue Unicorn Tang

1 Bi Color Angel

I found a used ATI PowerModule hybrid that is on its way...this has 8 80W + LED, but wanted lights now, so I rigged up my old AI Sols and it actually looks pretty nice for a FOWLR to be a mixed reef later!

You can tell I only have two Sols...three would be better.  This was before I got them both synced up using the Apex:

Here is a night shot with them synced up:

 

As of this morning, my reading are:

Ammonia 0 ppm

Nitrites 0 ppm

Nitrates 10 ppm (more than one water change was performed)

Tanks (sic) for reading and more to follow!

For some crazy and unknown reason, all of the fish that I mentioned above, except for the unicorn tang died.  I really thought that I was faced with Marine Velvet.. it sure was not ick! I was seriously considering pulling  the unicorn out and going fallow, but wait...the unicorn tang is fine. If it was truly Marine Velvet, I would think the tang would have died as well, but he showed no sign of any issues.  That being said, I decided to  add a Poseidon O3 to my skimmer.  Since then, I have added two bullet clowns, a blue jaw trigger, two fire fish a Desjardini sailfin, and a huge naso tang.  All are alive and well.  Not too sure what the heck the issue was, but so happy it is over, knock on wood.  I have added various zoanthids, a torch, a hammer, several montiopras, and now started with some acros.  All in all, I'm pretty happy for this being a 3 month old tank!  

Current tank params:

Ca- 425

Alk- 8.1

Mg- 1400

No3- .2

Po4 - .06

Still working on the rockscape, it keeps changing, but here are some pictures I took a couple of days ago.

 

Hope all had a Merry Christmas and have a great New Year!