Chris' 90g build

[Chris2009]

I am upgrading my 30 gallon tank that i started with to a very nice 90 Gallon Oceanic Tech series tank with stainless steel trim. The stand has smoked glass doors on the front and the two sides giving me plenty of access to the sump. I've had the tank for a couple of weeks, and have been slowly acquiring the various parts for it.

Here it is when i first picked it up, quite dirty!

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I got it all cleaned up and moved my 30 gallon out of the way. I replaced all the old door hardware as it was rusting pretty bad, and that made the stand look brand new. I got excited and filled it before i remembered to take more pics. lol

Its going between the fireplace and the TV, so i can enjoy it from the living room and the kitchen will have a view of it as well.

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I have all my livestock in that little tiny 10gallon tank next to it for now. I will be doing a couple of water changes and watching it closely over this next week as i let the new tank settle in.

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It was missing some pieces on one of the returns, so i just went ahead and made some new ones out of pvc, which was simple. I used 120lbs of new CaribSea Ocean Direct sand and I've added about 30lbs of crushed coral. The sand bed right now is still a little over 4 inches, but it hasn't fully settled yet. As the water gets clearer, I'm starting to wonder if i should have replaced one of my bags of sand with another bag of crushed coral, as i want a jaw-fish eventually. So i may add some more later on after the water is clear enough for me to really see how much i have in there. i put the majority of my live rock in it, which really isn't much, as i only had a 30 gallon before, so i will be adding more later on.

I still need to finish the plumbing, here's what my table looks like at the moment:

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I will be using an Eshopps PSK 150 Skimmer, Eheim return pump, a SCWD device on the return, 1x Seio 1500 prop, 2x Koralia 1's, 2x 250w DE MH pendants, 2x heaters, and an Aqualight digital power center to time the lights. I also picked up a standard computer battery backup to run my Seio and Koralia's in case of a power outage. I read on another thread somewhere about placing a Koralia so that it will pull in air from the surface when the water level drops when the return pump is off, and that sounds like a good idea, so i will be doing that.

I still have to order the glass panels i'm going to use to convert my old 30g tank into a sump. I also need to pick up a light for the sump. I'll update again later when i start plumbing and setting everything up under the tank.

 

[Wes]

those are very nice tanks, good luck with it! hope that lil clown and your other stuff do ok in the lil 10 gallon too, keep us posted!

 

[chappy]

your doing god [smilie=clapping.gif]
when your tank is ready [smilie=rock.gif]
i would gladly provide you a frag of something cool like [smilie=emo.gif] yeah that was cool
anywho buzz me when the tme is right my man

 

[Chris2009]

Thanks Wes, I'm watching my clown and seahorses pretty closely. I'm doing a 2.5g water change every other day or so and the temp is stable. I also have a HOB old-school filter i'm using to break the surface of the water and a Koralia 1 that is providing plenty of circulation. What i'm most worried about is getting the corals back under a real light. I have a couple of softies, but i also have 2 little SPS frags and a Monti. Cap. that i don't want to loose. One option is to hang my old 175w MH up high over that tank..... but I'm worried it might be a bit too much light for a 10 gallon...

Ha ha, thanks Chappy, those are some awesome smilies, and i would indeed like something cool when the time is right! [smilie=clapping.gif]

I got the sump all put together last night, and finished the returns. Now I just gotta wait for the silicone to dry, place the sump under the tank and finish plumbing it. I can't wait to get it finished so i can sit back and start enjoying it! And start looking for more live rock. I'm really thinking about ordering some of that man made stuff they make over on the GARF webtsite, with all the cool interesting caves and such, i dunno yet tho. I'll post some pics of the sump build later on.

 

[Chris2009]

All right, as promised, here are some build pics of the sump. As i said earlier, i am converting my old 30 gallon into a sump. In this first pic, i am siliconing the baffles in place. I used the piece of foam packaging that was exactly 1" thick as the bottom spacer for the center baffle on the skimmer side. I originally thought about using squares or building jigs out of wood and all manner of complicated things to square up the baffles and hold the glass in place, luckily sense came to me and i just used a couple of pieces of tape to mark the measurements on both sides of the tank and then a couple of pieces at the tops of the panes held them just fine.

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I let the center baffle sit and cure for about 2 hours before removing the foam packaging material and siliconing the final pane in place. Even though it felt like it was holding just fine, i didn't want it to sag over night, so i used yet more masking tape and an old piece of pvc to hold it up.

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And here it is all finished with my return pump in the center and skimmer on the right. The skimmer section doesn't have a lot of room, but it will suffice. The skimmer directions say to place it in 8" of water, however i made this section 10" deep to allow me to play around with it or change skimmers in the future, i will just raise this skimmer up 2" for now. The refugium section is on the left, and is 14" tall. the return is in the middle, and I'm not sure how deep that will be yet, but surely not more than about 7".

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and here it is under the tank

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And here is a close up of the SCWD and the beginnings of the plumbing. I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to continue plumbing this with PVC or just go with plastic tubing. I originally planned this complicated plumbing system with ball valves and junctions, but there's not a whole lot of room under there right now...

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And... here's MJ waiting on me to finish lunch... lol

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[Chris2009]

Ok, here's another update. I've finished plumbing the sump. At $50 per drain hose from the LFS, i decided to go ahead and plumb the drains with PVC instead! I did use some unions to make future maint. easier.

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I'm so excited, i get to start up my sump tomorrow! Gonna finally have water pumping through my pipes and I'm gonna get to see the SCWD in action!

And here the tank is after i stirred the sand up again moving rocks around. I picked up a couple of really nice looking Tonga branches today, not that you can see them in this pic....

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I have a quick question concerning my refugium, i originally planned on putting my old sand in the refugium section of my sump, however, now that i think about it, i'm not sure i want sand in there. I plan of course to have some cheato or calerpa(sp?) in there, but would i be fine to just have some live rock in there with the macro algae, and not sand since i have 4+ inches in my display? My fear is that the drain going into the refugium section would keep the sand stirred up, keeping my water cloudly like it is now... What do u guys think?

 

[Zojro]

Looking good!
I would do the sand in the fuge, and it looks like you have 2 options that I can think of from what I see in the pics.
1) Put a ball valve in line from the drain feeding it and adjust the flow as necessary. Looks like the drain to your fuge has enough space and pipe to add one. Only add one if your drains can handle the reduced flow. We don't want your tank filling faster than it drains [smilie=surprised.gif] . I noticed you are using an Eheim return pump but I did not see the size.
2) This may be a better and safer option in my opinion. Have you considered doing a tee off of your return line with a ball valve feeding your fuge. Then relocate the fuge drain to feed your skimmer.

Maybe the resident plumbing experts will chime in with some other options.

 

[btieu]

Looks good!! I like how you show the step by step with pics. I always have problem visualizing how to set up the sump with all the piping. You open in eyes. Thanks alot!! [smilie=clapping.gif]

 

[Slovak]

Any updates?