my newest donation to the power company...

Surferlopez · #1 10/19/2007, 09:27 AM

Here are some quick pics of my newest money pit, trying to do mostly sps on this one, with a few exceptions...
enjoy...

65 gallon tank

Filtration

plumbing

aquascape

Before the water

livestock

twon8 · #2 10/19/2007, 11:36 AM

looks good, what type of timeframe were these pics taken over?

Zooguy · #3 10/19/2007, 12:18 PM

Awsome superman monti. That must have cost a pretty penny. Great tank.

reeferoo · #4 10/19/2007, 12:28 PM

did you do all the plumbing yourself?
very nice sump- almost identical setup to what mine will be
is chiller pump in sump (or maybe is diff kind of chiller?)

I have a 60 gallon and my setup is sooo much messier than this :-)
but hey it's my first tank!

I hope to someday have an anenome species tank with clownfish about this big with nice and neat setup like this.

Did you buy all the parts separately? Already had them? Stand come with tank? Sorry for the 20 questions :-)

Surferlopez · #5 10/19/2007, 01:35 PM

twon8, it took me about a month from when I first set up the tank, to what you see now, I originally started with a 2x150w set up, it's now running a 2x250w halide set up with a 96w pc for actinic, other than that, tank has been doing well...
so far so good, lol

zooguy, monti actually was not that bad...
let's just say I got connections, lol

Reereroo, Yes I did all the plumbing myself, one of my favorite things to do is plumb systems, I think that's why I keep upgrading, lol
I like simplicity, the whole system is run only by the one pump and the power heads, aside from most of my wattage on lighting, I wanted to design a system that would not kill me too much on the power bill, pumps run 24/7 staying with a low watt pump like a mag-drive and low watt power heads helps me achieve that. The mag 12 runs about 500 gph through the chiller back into the sump, about 500gph returned to the tank, and about 50 into the phosban reactor, most of my flow is in the tank, provided by two koralias 3.
I have been in this hobby for about 12 years, couldn't really tell you how many tanks I have plumbed, but it gets better with practice...sometimes you sit there and say "I'll do this different in my next tank "and you do and it works...
keep it up, i'm sure you will do ok

Danny

reefkoi · #6 10/21/2007, 10:35 AM

Very clean nice looking setup, you have some good looking corals in there!
Chris

nismo driver · #7 10/21/2007, 02:00 PM

that is some very nice plumbing work there!!

Surferlopez · #8 10/21/2007, 03:06 PM

thanks everyone... I guess practice helps...

s3aL · #9 10/21/2007, 06:16 PM

Looks good.. what size koralia pump are you running?

Paulairduck · #10 10/21/2007, 08:00 PM

are you having any micro bubble issues with the suction being in the same chamber as the skimmer? I reallt like the euro reef sumps, great start

jman77 · #11 10/21/2007, 09:01 PM

Nice setup...

2 things that stick out to me though

...

1) that's alot of GFO you used for that sized tank

2) you should never regulate the flow from the return at the pump like you are doing with the ball valve as it will big up pressure that is not healthy for the pump. If you didn't have to close it much that should be ok, but for next time T off on the return having it go back to the sump and put a ball valve there. If you need less flow you just open the ball valve to the sump and you get less flow with no added presure to the pump.

JetCat USA · #12 10/21/2007, 09:26 PM

Originally posted by jman77

1) that's alot of GFO you used for that sized tank

not IMO, on my 75s i run 2 cups of GFO in the reactor, that's a good 1/3 more then is in the above pic.

2) you should never regulate the flow from the return at the pump like you are doing with the ball valve

that's the best place to regulate it at.

Surferlopez · #13 10/22/2007, 02:53 AM

s3al , thanks, I'm running koralias 3, It's going to be a sps dominated tank so I wanted a lot of flow...

Paulairduck, Thank you. as far as the microbubbles, no microbubbles, I opted to use a foam block as a bubble trap right in front of my pump intake, the sump unfortunately is not a "Euro-Reef" pump, it is made by a local acrylic shop, the Euro-Reef sticker came with the skimmer.

Jman77:

1) There really isn't such a thing as too much GFO. One of my best friends is a chemical engineer for the company that manufactures the product called phosban for Two Little Fishes.
He provided me with all the information regarding the GFO, their firm actually invented and patented that perticular GFO to be used in arsenic removal from tap water systems. Let's just say I have a unlimited supply of phosban at my fingertips and as he explained it, there is no such thing as using too much, as long as water is able to pass through the chamber and the reactor chamber is not jam packed, the GFO will be functional in every way and form.
2) If you follow the plumbing returning water to my tank you will see that the line actually feeds the chiller (which returns water to the sump), feeds the phosban reactor (which returns water to the sump) and then it finally returns back to the aquarium, notice how the feed line to the chiller is wide open, If I throttle the ball valve at the end to reduce the flow going back to the aquarium, there will be more water directed through my chiller and then back into the sump, the pump will never see a "load increase" because the water is just being diverted back into the sump, I guess a better picture of the whole system would of helped, but thanks for heads up anyways, I totally agree with you on not wanting to cut my pumps life short.

notice the chiller return pipe behind the ball valves and then dumping back into the sump right next to the flexible drain hose coming down from the aquarium...

conorwynne · #14 10/22/2007, 06:50 AM

Watch the flow through the phosban reactor -- if its too high then the media will grind up and end up in your sump / display. it happened to me and it was a hell of a mess to clean up.

Regards
Conor

Surferlopez · #15 10/22/2007, 07:02 AM

Conor is correct, you don't want to pulverize the media by adding too much flow, about 50gph would be ideal running through a phosban reactor

plyle02 · #16 10/22/2007, 11:48 AM

Surferlopez,
Very nice setup you got there! Clean, organized, nice equipment, well thought out=success..... Your tank is going to look awesome when you get more grow out, cannot wait to see some updated pics in the future. Good stuff bro!

Surferlopez · #17 10/22/2007, 01:21 PM

plyle02, thanks man! always learned that a little planning goes a long way, I cant wait for the corals to start growing either, will definitely keep everyone posted with pics in the future.

plyle02 · #18 10/22/2007, 01:26 PM

btw,
Are you running a CA reactor, didn't see one in the pic, just curious.......

Surferlopez · #19 10/22/2007, 01:53 PM

plyle02, still doing the research on calcium reactors, they seem as a little complicated, it seems as if every one who start uses one, all of the sudden need a kalk reactor as well, there is just not enough room for the extra equipment around the tank so i'm not so sure as of yet, i'll keep dosing B-Ionic for now and see how that does, I'm sure I wont get the fast growth, but afterall it's only a 65 gallon tank, not sure I want corals growing too fast and running out of real state so soon, what do you think?

Danny

plyle02 · #20 10/22/2007, 02:05 PM

I got a schuran pico, and set it up dialed in in one day. I have tested every day for over 2 weeks now, and I get the exact same reading on Alk/ 8.0dkh, and CA/ 410. I use zeo-mag in my reactor for magnesium support, and honestly think it is much easier than every one makes it out to be. Sure I had a few questions, but now I have zero complaints. The corals do seem to be growing much quicker with stable params. John at FAOIS uses a larger schuran jet stream reactor, he gave me some real good advice on them. With the reactor and auto top off, it really keeps things stable IMO. BTW, I do dose kalkwasser to help keep my ph up, no ill effect on alk. Just my thoughts......

Surferlopez · #21 10/22/2007, 06:37 PM

from my understanding, you dose co2 into the reactor to compensate for calcium uptake by the corals, the more the corals take, the lower your calcium levels are and to compensate you adjust the co2 amount in order to provide enough available calcium carbonate to replenish depleting levels, in turn your co2 lowers your pH values so to compensate that you are dosing kalkwasser...
does that sound about right?

plyle02 · #22 10/22/2007, 07:12 PM

Yep, right on the money. I have a ph value of 8.1 daytime, and 7.9-8.0 night time on ph meter. I also use a rdsb fuge lit 24/7 and drop 75ml of kalkwasser every hour into the system. I am probably going to ramp that up a bit as I have seen no ill effect on alkalinity. Of course, we live in FL, and I don't know about you, but I am not going to cool down the neighborhood by opening doors and windows, not yet of course....lol

Purple Haze · #23 10/22/2007, 07:14 PM

Clean sump setup.

chris4869 · #24 10/22/2007, 07:28 PM

I love your plumbings.

You only need to keep the PH inside the CA reactor between 6.5 - 6.7 to dissolve the CA media. You add enough C02 to stay in that range.

I have a 90 gallon, and the effluent (water from my CA reactor) drips verrrryyyyy slowly into my sump (40/42 drips a minute). It's not enough to lower my PH in my tank, so I really don't need a kalk reactor or dose it with kalkwasser. My PH is between 8.1 (night) - 8.3 (day).

Surferlopez · #25 10/23/2007, 06:03 AM

plyle02, I'm there with you on the whole opening windows deal, lol. One of my previous systems I had an outside sump, and the pH values were a lot higher than with any other tank I have ever owned, definetly the way to go IMO, what kind of room are you needing for your CA reactor? you mentioned that you are dumping your kalk, I thought you were only supposed to drip that stuff slowly? Sorry for the 20 questions but inquiring minds would like to know, lol...
you can check out my old system here:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...5&pagenumber=1

Purple Haze, Hmmm Purple Haze from Texas, brings back old memories, lol j/k, Thanks man

Chris4869, Thank You, Are you using a pH Controller? how do those things exactly work?