I upgraded my tank recently and thought this time it would be best to share what has been going on 
I had been looking for a new tank for a while as my 70x45x45 was starting to get a little small. I moved house a while back and the smaller tank was just kinda looking out of place. When @shaunn put this tank up for sale with all the added extra's is was pretty much a no brainer. For once I was looking at the for sale forum at the right time and managed to get a dibs in early
I collected the tank and must thank Shaunn for all the help and for lending me a 220L drum to transport some of the water that had been cycling for around 6 weeks.
With a lot of help from family and friends we got the tank in place and the water and live rock into the tank. When we moved recently I promised myself that I would never move a tank again and that was a small tank, I feel for the guys that have had to move large tanks or do this for a a living, what a PITA
The setup originally had a DSB and I have never been a DSB kinda guy. I left the DSB behind which meant I was missing a fair amount of water. During this move I realized that making 150L's of RO water is a pretty long process so decided it was time to have some kind of RO storage.
On my smaller tank I had also never bothered with an ATO as the top ups were pretty small and manageable. With the larger setup the top ups were going to be bigger and seeing as I was setting up an RO drum I thought I may as well incorporate some kind of top up. Thanks to @shaunn and @Quintin for the idea behind this and @Quintin for helping me out with the float valves as Puritech was closed. I now have my RO on running permanently filling the RO drum with an auto shut off via one float valve and a pipe running from the RO drum to my sump controlled by a second float valve, all of this is done mechanically with no electronics or pumps involved. I have been monitoring this VERY closely for the last few days and it seems to be working well
Luckily my RO drum is on the wall that backs my tank so it's close for the top up. I also deliberately placed the pipe feeding the ATO quite high on the RO drum so the pressure isn't too high for the float valve and if it was to fail the worst case would be around 25L's of RO going into my sump which should not be too much of an issue.
The setup came with a large amount of LR. My thought for this tank is to keep the DT fairly open. I haven't set my mind on the scaping yet but have put something together along the lines of what I have in my mind. The setup came with a play sand as the substrate and this is something I'm not really keen on, I haven't made my mind up yet but think I will probably go for fiji pink substrate even though I might have to sell a limb
At the moment my filtration is going to be my Reef Octo 160xs, Orca NitraGuard Cubes and a fair amount of LR. I will probably add Orca PhosGuard in a reactor when I move my LS across in a few weeks.
Lighting was a bit of an issue as I have two Solaramax FlexiLED's on my current system and want to move them over when I move my LS. I eventually came across a unit that I can use for now and can incorporate with my current lighting when I move everything over. Thanks to @lifestyle pets for the great deal on the unit. I took a 39w unit at first which didn't quite fit and they took it back no questions asked and swapped it for the 54w unit I am using now. I am really happy with the unit and for the price it was a REAL bargain, will most likely change the bulbs soon for a mix of Reeftek and Geissman bulbs.
Tired of typing now so time for some pics
Full shot
Initial scaping
I have a 2 year old son so closing everything off was one of the top priorities
Skimmer at work
LR in sump. I have added a small flow pump in this chamber to make sure there is not too much settlement
Float Switch in sump
Odyssea 4x54w + moonlights
Moonlights on
RO drum with white line feeding ATO
Float switch in RO drum
I had been looking for a new tank for a while as my 70x45x45 was starting to get a little small. I moved house a while back and the smaller tank was just kinda looking out of place. When @shaunn put this tank up for sale with all the added extra's is was pretty much a no brainer. For once I was looking at the for sale forum at the right time and managed to get a dibs in early
I collected the tank and must thank Shaunn for all the help and for lending me a 220L drum to transport some of the water that had been cycling for around 6 weeks.
With a lot of help from family and friends we got the tank in place and the water and live rock into the tank. When we moved recently I promised myself that I would never move a tank again and that was a small tank, I feel for the guys that have had to move large tanks or do this for a a living, what a PITA
The setup originally had a DSB and I have never been a DSB kinda guy. I left the DSB behind which meant I was missing a fair amount of water. During this move I realized that making 150L's of RO water is a pretty long process so decided it was time to have some kind of RO storage.
On my smaller tank I had also never bothered with an ATO as the top ups were pretty small and manageable. With the larger setup the top ups were going to be bigger and seeing as I was setting up an RO drum I thought I may as well incorporate some kind of top up. Thanks to @shaunn and @Quintin for the idea behind this and @Quintin for helping me out with the float valves as Puritech was closed. I now have my RO on running permanently filling the RO drum with an auto shut off via one float valve and a pipe running from the RO drum to my sump controlled by a second float valve, all of this is done mechanically with no electronics or pumps involved. I have been monitoring this VERY closely for the last few days and it seems to be working well
Luckily my RO drum is on the wall that backs my tank so it's close for the top up. I also deliberately placed the pipe feeding the ATO quite high on the RO drum so the pressure isn't too high for the float valve and if it was to fail the worst case would be around 25L's of RO going into my sump which should not be too much of an issue.The setup came with a large amount of LR. My thought for this tank is to keep the DT fairly open. I haven't set my mind on the scaping yet but have put something together along the lines of what I have in my mind. The setup came with a play sand as the substrate and this is something I'm not really keen on, I haven't made my mind up yet but think I will probably go for fiji pink substrate even though I might have to sell a limb
At the moment my filtration is going to be my Reef Octo 160xs, Orca NitraGuard Cubes and a fair amount of LR. I will probably add Orca PhosGuard in a reactor when I move my LS across in a few weeks.
Lighting was a bit of an issue as I have two Solaramax FlexiLED's on my current system and want to move them over when I move my LS. I eventually came across a unit that I can use for now and can incorporate with my current lighting when I move everything over. Thanks to @lifestyle pets for the great deal on the unit. I took a 39w unit at first which didn't quite fit and they took it back no questions asked and swapped it for the 54w unit I am using now. I am really happy with the unit and for the price it was a REAL bargain, will most likely change the bulbs soon for a mix of Reeftek and Geissman bulbs.
Tired of typing now so time for some pics
Full shot
Initial scaping
I have a 2 year old son so closing everything off was one of the top priorities
Skimmer at work
LR in sump. I have added a small flow pump in this chamber to make sure there is not too much settlement
Float Switch in sump
Odyssea 4x54w + moonlights
Moonlights on
RO drum with white line feeding ATO
Float switch in RO drum
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