My new lagoon

[graveyardworm]

Well I've been a little hesitant to start this my first new tank thread and I'm a little nervous not really sure why. I'll start with a description 100 gallon stock tank sump, 100 gallon (dimensions 72"x18"x18") 4-5 inch sand bed for seagrass and seagrass/lagoon inhabitants no lighting yet considering T5, 30 gallon breeder for clownfish and anemone, 35 gallon fuge for cheato and possible partiton for caulerpa as well if cheato is enough I'll keep only that. Some suggestions appreciated on macro type. Currently I have a 90 gal mixed reef eventually this will be connected, and alittle further down the road I would like to split the soft and stony coral by connecting a 200 + gallon tank for sps. Here are some pics of my setup so far.


Here's the 100 gallon and the 30 gallon no water yet.


Looking the other way you can see the sump ( plumbing not done yet ) and the skimmer.


Abetter shot of the skimmer a Lifereef VS3 72".


Looking down at the sump you can see a divider I installed to seperate drain/skimmer intake from return.

[Shoestring Reefer]

I'm new to planted tanks but I think it looks like a good start.

[graveyardworm]

For the substrate I had two 5 gallon buckets of stuff left over from a prevous setup this was a mix of caribsea reef grade, and crushed coral. I probably wouldnt have used it in a reef setup but given that this will have seagrass I thought the extra nutrients would be beneficial. On top of that I placed 2 5 gallon buckets of southdown from a previous setup, this stuff was well rinsed. On top of that I poured in 3 or 4 fresh bags of southdown. In the 30 gallon breeder I have a couple bags of southdown. The refugium is not set up yet as you can see space is tight in this room, and I still need to get top off and change water barrels, and eventually at least temporarily my 90 gallon tank. The details for fuge will be worked out this week I havent decided on whether or not to place a sand bed in there as I do not plan to feed this tank with anything other than phyto. Heres a shot with salt and substrate in.


Man thats cloudy next time substrate goes in first. I turned my return pump off and used powerheads to circulate individual tanks to reduce silt in sump as well as adding hang on filters to each tank to reduce silt. Once the tanks started to clear I turned on return pump and started wet skimming. The tanks are still alittle cloudy but I suspect that once the bacteria kick in it will quickly clear up. I just tested ammonia and its at .25 so the wait begins.

[bluenassarius]

looks great! keep us updated

[Samala]

Your skimmer is taller than I am! Where are the beautiful lights?

>Sarah

[graveyardworm]

See the clamp on light fixture I hear that the newest rage so I thought I would give it a shot now I only need 99 more. Sorry no lights yet Another member pointed me towards some inexpesive T5 fixtures so I'm going to try them. Right now I've spent all of my allowance so maybe by the end of the week I'll have them ordered. I myself am vertically challenged as well and the skimmer is taller than me too.Yesterday morning I awoke to crystal clear water kinda looks like a lunar landscape in there right now. The upper tank draining into the lower tank has been creating some major bubbles and spray so I've been working on a solution. I did a little searching hear on RC and so far what I've done has reduced the bubbles by about 90%. I need to get the refuge tank hooked up then I can tweak the drains and hopefully eliminate all of the bubbles.

Hey Blue is your avatar Jenna from survivor. I think it is, my kid disagrees.

[Seahorsewisprer]

Wow! This is going to be very TotM!

[graveyardworm]

TOTM wow sounds very prestigious Probably years away if ever I cant imagine my tank ever comparing to what I've seen there.

[thumb]

I like everything looks great! But I love that skimmer, oh how I love that skimmer!

[graveyardworm]

Skimmer is awesome I've never seen more bubbles in my entire life. I just checked some params.

Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Silicate 0

This doesnt seem possible -scratching my head- Only 2 days in and after 2 5 gal buckets of old sand bed which had sat wet for almost a month without rinsing. Could the age of test kits be a factor? Nitrate kit is at least a year old, Ammonia kit about a year old, Silicate kit about 8 months old, Phosphate kit about a month old. Ammonia read .25 a couple days ago so I dont know. I thought the cycle would get going from old sand maybe I should drop something in to rot? Any suggestions?

[graveyardworm]

Well I woke up this morning and the skimmer cup had gone from maybe a half pint of skimmate last night to almost 2 quarts and man did it stink. I emptied it stirred the silt in the big tank and now at lunch another 2 quarts of smelly skimmate. So I turned the skimmer down a bit to hopefully dry it out a little.

[eleodes]

graveyardworm-

I can also ask around the equipment forum for this, but if you have a minute maybe you can consider some questions. I am curious about your plumbing:

1. How big are those bulkhead fittings--what diameter holes did you need in the tanks and what diameter PVC do they match?

2. How many GPH can your overflows return?

3. Is there any particular advantage to having those (DIY?) overflow boxes over just using screens on bulkheads?

4. If you made those overflow boxes, how did you cut the slots?

[Triterium]

looking good! keep posting pics

[graveyardworm]

Originally posted by eleodes
graveyardworm-

I can also ask around the equipment forum for this, but if you have a minute maybe you can consider some questions. I am curious about your plumbing:

1. How big are those bulkhead fittings--what diameter holes did you need in the tanks and what diameter PVC do they match?

They are 1 inch bulkheads, I'm not sure how large the drilled hole was maybe 1 3/4 inch hole.

2. How many GPH can your overflows return?

Not sure I think 600 - 700 gph each probably should've gone larger, but I'm not counting on my overflows for flow. I'll be adding closed loops.

3. Is there any particular advantage to having those (DIY?) overflow boxes over just using screens on bulkheads?

The overflow boxes help to take in more surface water (which is where proteins collect) , and it adds extra protection from bulkhead blockage.

4. If you made those overflow boxes, how did you cut the slots?

I experimented, first I used my tablesaw by pushing the piece in and out of the blade (this worked but wasnt very clean), so I made a template from a piece of acrylic and used my router with a special bit this worked very well and now I still have the template for future use.

[graveyardworm]

Sorry nothing really new yet, waiting on lights, I have LR from old setup cooking. I did perform my first water change 30 gals. Oh and I added some bristle worms and amphipods that I picked from another tank. I've also been dropping in food for worms and pods occasionally. The rock is probably ready and I may add some by the end of the week. Really I've been concentrating on my 90 gal display trying to erradicate bubble algae prior to hooking into this system. I need to move my 90 so that home renovation can continue, and I'm planning on hooking in first so that the water will match prior to temporarily moving livestock into this while the 90 is moved and set back up, but I do have some sensative coral so I wanted to wait for tank to completely cycle, and mature a little to minimize stress. Plus the fuge part isnt set up yet and I wanted some macro to compete with possible bubble algae prior as well.

[eleodes]

thanks very much for your thorough response.

wow i'm surprised that 1" inch bulkheads could return that much. i had kind of a dissapointing experiance with 3/4". i had a tank drilled with just one hole and found that the 3/4" was overwhelmed with just ~75 gph. i had to replace the small submersible pump that was lifting water to the higher tank with an even smaller one. it didn't really matter too much for the system but i was surprised how little flow it could take.

are those bulkheads available at HD? i have only ever gotten them from F&S?

what will your intake for closed loop be like? will you just drop a screened pipe into each tank?

i am curious about this because I am pondering a set up somewhat like what you have (sans the great big tank and the great big skimmer) with two benchtop 30 gallon tanks.

[derrikd]

keep the updates comming

[graveyardworm]

OK just went to the overflow calc here's what I got.

I bought BH's from LFS, I havent seen them at HD.

Closed loop intake will be over the top set up like on melevsreef.com

[graveyardworm]

Right now I have a throttled back Dolphin 2000 GPH sending water up to the 30 breeder which drains into the 100 then down to the sump.

[eleodes]

excellent, thanks again

you know i entered "100" into that calculator and got drain pipe diameter of .4. i think that the problem with my bulkhead might be that the slip barb fitting goes with 3/4" vinyl tubing, but has inside diameter of only ~1/2".

[eleodes]

just to be on safe side i think i might go with one 1 1/2" of these.......

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...&N=2004+113786

.....in one corner of each tank.

does that sound OK?

[graveyardworm]

Sure each drain will handle like 1200 GPH no worries there. Amazing how much more or less flow you get with just small change in pipe diameter. What size tank/sump are you planning? Part of my reason for going with 1" BH's was the LFS where my tanks were drilled didnt have a larger drill.

[biomekanic]

Something that hasn't been addressed yet, but the only reason I can think to do a refugium would be for plankton output. The chaeto would be competing with your seagrass for nutrients.

[crrichey]

That is very true. In fact, the cheato is better at using nutrients that seagrasses do, so you may want to either skip the refugium or plan on adding fertilizers (or more fish).

[Samala]

Really? In my tank there is way more Seagrass and Caulerpa than Chaetomorpha. In the very very very beginning, yes, Chaeto was a better nutrient sink. But now, sheesh, its just barely there. Definitely not growing much, but still serving its purpose as a nice habitat for pods and the local grass shrimp hangout. The larvae hide in there too.

In a tank like this I would expect to have a pretty decent bioload and possibly some nutrient additions to keep up with all the plants needs. So, still have competition (ie. Caulerpa over Chaeto, or seagrass over Chaeto) but all the plants can coexist - or at least they have so far.

>Sarah