Nico's new 4ft Reef

N

Nico Kortenbout

Joined
30 Jun 2010
Posts
210
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3
Location
Waldwick, New Jersey, USA
Hi there everyone... I know I have been scarce from Masa for the last year. There is a sad story behind the absence but it is one that rears its ugly head from time to time in this hobby. To get you up to speed, I used to have a AquaH20 250 litre system with 100 lt sump. It was a nice system and was jsut maturing at about a year old when I arrived home to find the front pane had cracked from top right corner to bottom left. There was only about 5cm of water left in the tank. I lost all my corals, but the nennie, the shrimp, the fox face and the coral beauty survived thanks to some wonderful people who took them in at very short notice.

And there the story has remained for 10 months. 2 months ago, for my birthday, my wonderful wife managed to reaquire the Boyu nano that I had when i first started out in this hobby. I got the tank up and running after some TLC and we were finally able to get some of the livestock back :) However it was way too small for the nennie which has now grown HUGE so that was donated to guys who were looking after the fish. Currently I have a foxface, dragon wrasse, sergent major, hammer coral, soft orange coral (not sure of ID) and a clam.

Now as a pleasent surprise, our LFS had a tank for sale which included hardware. But since I still had my old hardware, in perfect working order, from the old tank, I queried the price sance equipment... and hay, now I have a great 1220(l)x450(w)x400(h) that I am now putting together. It came with a 100x350x350 partitioned sump.

The last 2 weeks have been planning how things are going to work. I am planning on keeping a mixed reef of softies and lps. I have planned a DIY light hood using aluminium and pine plywood, the design I will put up in the lighting forum once it is complete. However I will most likely be running 4x2ft T5 (2 white, 2 blue), 4x4ft T5 (2 white, 2 blue), 1x2ft T8 (actinic). I am not planning to keep sps and if in future I decide to go with another nennie I will look at perhaps a MH. But that will not be for a long time yet....

As for the sump, I am planning to run my Tunze comline Doc skimmer, small DSB (5kg aragonite), liverock/refugium, my DIY carbon reactor, 0.5 HP Halea chiller, and a 2500lph return. I will be fitting a 20watt standard energy saver light over the refugium. I have about 10kg live rock for the refugium.

As for the display.... I have chosen to go with Aragonite (a long and arduous internal debate as to the truth about sand releasing silicates and leading to phospate problems). I will have about 15kg in the display. I also have about 60 kg of live rock that I will be using for the scaping. The scaping design is still in the processes of being thought about.... and I was wondering about using egg crate to design a skeleton onto which I could fix liverock. (comments please ;)). For flow I have a Seio 550lph powerhead and a sunsun 12000 lph powerhead. There is also the return pump. I may add another sunsun.

I will post pics for you photo hungry buggers as soon as I get around to taking some. Any suggestions and comments are most welcome!! It is really the most exciting time to be back in this hobby!!
 
good to see you are getting back in the game cant wait to see it. are you planing any macro alge or ats? need to see you at the club aswell:)
 
I have some chaeto if you need - should need to do a harvest when I get back from my next bots trip. When do you think you will be filling it
 
Hopefully soon. Need to sell some stuff to raise the funds for the new light fittings, and still need to finish varnishing the plywood for under the tank. Going to setup some vertical glass panes to hold the light units. They are going to be 4 x 2foot T5 doubles. Hopefully will be able to do some filling this weekend or perhaps next week.
 
welcome back man! Take pics of your progress :)
 
mupwi said:
Well give me a shout if you need a hand this weekend otherwise I'm back in bots next week
Click to expand...

Thats boet, will give you a shout later in the week or see you at the club on thursday. :peroni::peroni::peroni::peroni::peroni::1:

Tremayn said:
welcome back man! Take pics of your progress :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Tremayn.... hopefully will get some pics up tonight. :thumbup:
 
So progress has been a bit slow with trying to plan everything out properly. With the help of a mate who is an electrical engineer, I got a new set of wall plugs up on their own dedicated 16amp circuit breaker on the main DB. These will be for the tanks only. I plan to mount the plugs and swtiches for the equipment on the inside of the cabinet that I still need to build (this week as well :arghhhh:). I need to plan carefully as we have the little one arriving in this wonderful world in December and I need to make sure that little fingers cannot find their way into nasty situations....

Then I am off to collect the first of the new light units. I have left the DIY plan as I found some really great light units. I am now planning to start the 2 x 2foot double T5 units, then increase this to 4 x 2foot T5 units as cash flow allows. This will give me 8 globes to play with colour and intensity.

Does anyone know how well pratley putty works for scaping rocks? I have been checking out the scaping forum and other members threads and there are some wicked ideas. Some look impossible without some form of bonding, and I would rather not use cement in the tank.
 
So finally a few pics for all you pic hungry buggers.... ;)

Firstly, this is the new sump. To fit the Tunze Comline Doc Skimmer, I have to remove the first pane on the right (inflow compartment).
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This is the box of my new light units. 2 Foot doubles (2 x 24W T5, one blue, one white). The plan is to add another 2 later. You can just see the skimmer in the top right.
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This is my new tank. You can see the corner overflow on the right at the back.
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These are the new light units
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This is the tank with the lights on.....
33884eb054daa8985.jpg
 
I am planning to mount 2 strip plugs on the inside of the back panel of the cabinet at the top. These will be connected to the dedicated plug point via a small extension cord. My question is this....
What is the best way to protect/insulate these plugs and switches? I have thought of using 2 2lt coke bottles cut in half. Using the top ends (with neck) to form a join that can be sealed with silicone to protect the plugs of the extension cords.... Any advice on this would be great.....
 
ok so quick update..... today I got a external spotlight that uses a 15W energy saver globe. This is going to be the lighting over the DSB and live rock/refuge compartment on the sump. It takes a few minutes to get going but once going the reflector makes it good and strong. Still trying to decide on whether to go small ATS or rather chaeto in DSB compartment of the sump. I finished the wiring up of the light and another coat of varnish on the panels for the cabinet. Man.... I have to get an orbital sander. Sanding 1220x650 sheets of ply by hand makes one sweat!! :013: But its good for removing the hard earned beer gut ;):peroni: I will post some more pics tomorrow of the lighting. I am trying to finish the design of the plumbing. I am going to include a stop valve on the overflow pipe so I can stop the flow when switching off the power. I am also going to T-off the overflow to make a point where I can easily drain water for water changes. This too will be controlled with a stop valve.

There is a 15oo lph pump that will send water through my DIY carbon canister. I will be making another DIY canister for phosphate remover. The return pump will send the water through the chiller and then return to the DT.

I am thinking of having the return in the centre of the tank but not sure yet.... any comments on this? Is it a good idea or a bad idea?

Then I want to build a little box in the DT that will be hidden with rock. In this box will be a Seio powerhead sending flow through the rocks.

Still working on scaping designs. And all this must be completed in 2 WEEKS :eek:

Will post more pics tomorrow if I get a chance!!
 
I think the chamber for your DSB is too small but Im quite new to Marines so could be wrong
 
Yip, your DSB is too small.
I would combine the DSB and refuge and even the baffles you got.
 
Ok so here is the update for today..... The sump has been remodelled.... Thanks @mupwi for the help today. I have decided to keep the separate compartment for the refuge, I have read so much on combining the DSB and fuge and decided I wanted to keep the separate compartment. I have removed some baffels and made the section for the DSB bigger and the DSB can now be 15 to 20 cm deep. The cabinet is complete and ready for assembly. I am busy assembling the power points on the back board of the cabinet. I am also mounting the sump light here.

I have added some extensions to the bracing at the top of the tank to accommodate the length of the lighting units.

I am currently redesigning the return system. I have plumbed the return pump (Hailea 1750 lph) to the chiller. Now to finish the section from the chiller to the DT. Then, I am going run a very simple overflow to the sump. But in time the plan is to step up from 32mm to 50mm overflow with a ball valve.

Things are shaping up to start filling on Monday!! I am SO EXCITED about that!!! :yeahdude: Cannot wait to see this puppy in action!!!!!!!!!!!! Pics to follow soon.
 
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