And so the reef room madness started

friendlyAlien · #1 01/17/2006, 10:40 AM

Ok, after my 90 gallon reef exploded with Corals and I don't know where to put the frags anymore ... and the noise of the protein skimmer and the circulation pump is going on my nerves ... I decided to start the reef room madness in the basement.

Oh yes, you heard right. On Saturday I bought a 300 gallon sump / refugium (other people use it to feed cows and sheep I think) and a 75 gallon grow out tank bucket.

After pushing them into the corner of the basement I framed a room around them .... (the buckets don't fit through the door so there is no way they are coming back out again.)

And so the reef room madness started ...

If there is interest I will post pictures of how the system evolves over the coming months ...

Cheers,
Carsten

P.S.: I would rather not hear Jarek or Steve saying: I told you so! So don't you dare

P.P.S: Anyone in the Ithaca area having some bags of aragonite gravel for a deep sand bed or liverock they don't need anymore?

P.P.P.S.: The Ithaca subgroup should plan on local a get together again. I have some corals frags I need to move out of my system and I am not sure the reef room madness will be ready in time before they kill each other. Also, it has been a while, or?

alozano · #2 01/17/2006, 11:01 AM

Hi!

A meeting of the Ithaca subgroup sounds like a good idea. I've actually only met Jarek (and zanclus in Grotton).

friendlyAlien, what frags do you have available? I would be interested since I missed the recent frag meet, sadly.

Alvaro

friendlyAlien · #3 01/17/2006, 11:07 AM

Form looking at your current tanks you are using vho, right?

Let's see, I have several big SPS in brown green coloration. Some of them do well under VHO.

I have several devil finger, zoos, and PLENTY of xenia. After growing over the backwall that stuff is trying to take over the rest of the tank.

friendlyAlien · #4 01/17/2006, 11:08 AM

... several big SPS frags ....

alozano · #5 01/17/2006, 11:13 AM

Vho's? me? nope, just two 65 watt.

What kind/color of zoos?

I also have looots of xenia, dunno what to do with it!

Alvaro

Kent E · #6 01/17/2006, 01:04 PM

Post the pics. Sounds like a fun adventure.

SteveL · #7 01/18/2006, 10:51 PM

Carsten:

Good to see you posting again and congrats on converting the house into one huge aquarium .... and no I'm not going to say what you know I'd like to say.

Jarek and I have both been flat out busy with reef related stuff. I see Jarek on a regular basis but he asks me to tell him about anything on RC that he should read because he simply doesn't have time to get on here.

I will be shooting for a frag swap in the spring at my place. Probably May/June time frame. Would like to make sure winter is firmly behind us .... not that 50F January days in Ithaca should be considered as winter.

Meantime though we should get together to catch up and have the Ithaca crowd do something of a cabin fever reef-therapy session. I'll talk with jarek and see what we can come up with over the next 2 or 3 weekends.

SteveL

cknowlto · #8 01/18/2006, 11:22 PM

Steve, please include me in any meet information. I would love to see your setup again and see how it's changed from a year ago.

friendlyAlien · #9 01/19/2006, 08:24 AM

Ok, here the first photos after three days of work.
The room is big enough to hold more aquarium in the future if we want to but I am thinking that going from 90 gallon to about 480 gallon should be enough to keep me entertained for a while.

The big bucket will be a sump / refugium with a true deep sand bed. I have plans for a plenum that I can vacuum out at the bottom.

The bucket on the table will be a coral frag center / grow out center.

Hopefully next weekend I can get electricity (8 gfci outlets) and drywall hooked up. (I also have to redo two framing 2x4's as you can see in one picture).

The week after that I hope to drill the hole to get the return pipes from the living room aquarium into the new sump and officially start using the system.
(Most likely this time line is WAAAAAYYYYY off - but what would life be without dreams?)

Anyway, Steve, thanks for not saying it

. I like the idea of making the whole house into an aquarium. In retrospect it might have been easier to waterproof the basement walls and just fill it up with saltwater...

AS for having had to slow down - well - yes. I don't know why but work has a tendency to get busy when my life gets busy. And ... having the first baby made my life real busy. He is 7 months old now ... and ... loves aquaria ...

Hopefully I have more time in the future to post more instead of just sporadically read as I did lately.

friendlyAlien · #10 01/19/2006, 08:24 AM

Before I forget, when and where shall we get together? Frag swap sounds fun too ... I agree with the post winter idea though.

scaz · #11 01/19/2006, 08:33 AM

keep the pictures comeing!!

parkavenuereef · #12 01/19/2006, 08:36 AM

Pm sent friendly

piscivorous · #13 01/19/2006, 11:37 AM

Hey guys, Please keep me posted with the rest of the Ithaca subgroup. I am still in the process of setting up my tank, but I would love to come to any local get-togethers/frag meets and I would love to see SteveL's tank setups. I just met Zanclus the other day...turns out he lives about 3 blocks from me over in Groton. Hopefully I'll have my 55 up and running in the next couple of months. I would love to get a frag of SteveLs Heteroxenia in my tank eventually...I love how active it is.

friendlyAlien · #14 01/29/2006, 06:43 PM

As I mentioned things are going slower then expected.
Here an update though. The framing is finished and half the drywall is up.

Electricity is layed out and there are all in all 15 new outlets and light of which 13 are GFCI's outlets.

Next I have my work checked and then close the walls up ....
Then the fun part starts - piping

Anyways, you hear again from me when I get some time to spend on it

alphaferret · #15 01/30/2006, 12:01 PM

very nice!

how much were the tubs for fuge?

4 u people w/ the big set ups-w/ this amount of water are water changes fewer? if not what do you use for making ro/di water- I never seem to have enough for even my small set up-thx

friendlyAlien · #16 01/31/2006, 12:49 PM

Those tubs are like 50$ ... they are used for farm animals.

As for water changes ... ask me again when it is running - so far I only have 90 gallons

alphaferret · #17 02/01/2006, 10:22 AM

what will be your plan

i am lazy i do a big one every month

some do small ones weekly

will you automate top off?

will you have dsb in the fuge or tank?

thx

friendlyAlien · #18 02/01/2006, 11:57 AM

I am hoping to do auto topoff, yes. and also play with some designs for automatic water change (1 gal a day) but that will definitely be a far out in the future project and not done immediately.

The DSB will go into the fuge ... but I also have one in my main display tank and am a back fan of them. DSB with plenum that is.

friendlyAlien · #19 07/15/2006, 07:24 PM

It has been a while since the last update ... It has been a much longer project then anticipated. The closed loop to the living room is installed, lights are working and today we did the first water test ... well ... what should I say ... I found a few leaks around the pump and I forgot to put ballvalves before and after the pump to allow quick cleaning. So back to doing a few fine adjustments ... one or two more weekends and I fill in the salt water

Else, the system worked amazingly well!!!

Anways ... updated pics:

Blugobi · #20 07/15/2006, 08:30 PM

Looks great.....! Like the grow out "tank", should work nicley.

Geo

jstraka1 · #21 07/16/2006, 11:26 AM

Very nice, this thread gives me the itch to build something.
Good work!!!

bosborn1 · #22 07/16/2006, 05:13 PM

Makes me want to start to system too. I have a 300 gallon Rubbermaid but I never plumbed it in. I was going to use it to create a Mangrove Lagoon like the one John Rice had but I never got around to it. I need to do something like your setup. Once things get up and going would you mind if I stop over to get some ideas?

Thanks
Scott

Dr.Maybe · #23 07/17/2006, 03:40 PM

Great idea once my main tank gets established I will definitely set up a grow tank. Do you think it wise to plumb your grow tank to your display tank?