Debs 40 Gallon Custom Upgrade

[debdp]

First I want to thank Marc for doing such a great job on building this custom tank set up for me and for your helpful advice!!

This is an upgrade from my 20 gallon long, although not a significantly larger one. The new tank is two pieces side by side with a display refugium for my sun corals and a main display. Technically I started this last December and asked Marc about building it in February.

LAYOUT
The tank is in my home office and here's a quick layout of the setup. I have an extra water tank in the closet now to hold saltwater for water changes but I have to carry a 5 gallon bucket from the garage all the way around to the room. Which is ridiculous when the tanks are less than a foot away. So I'll be putting yet another hole in the wall and run a pump from the garage container into the smaller container in the closet. Also, since the RO Unit is right there as well I ran a line into the closet to fill up the top off container for the tank.

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THE CLOSET
A last minute decision I decided to utilize the closet for the tanks instead of my clothes and office supplies. Since there was already an outlet on the garage side, I had an electrical outlet added in the closet.

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Wire shelving was added.

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As noted above the RO unit is in the laundry room right behind the closet so a line runs into the 5 gallon jug which will be for top off. The electrical will be all in the center and the canister filter and the B-Ionic auto system is on the bottom shelf. There's a 750W APC unit that two pumps will stay plugged into. The vent duct runs to a Vortex fan which will pull the heated air from above the tanks out into the garage.

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Picture of the Vortex fan unit. (Light switches go to my 12 gallon nano)

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AIR VENT & CORD BOX
Rough cut for opening of electrical and vent tube above

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Framed in duct & electrical. I built a small box to fit inside the wall to run the electrical cords through. I used eggcrate to cover the duct opening more for aesthetics.

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Closet side view.

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TANK / FOAM
I decided to foam the tank using black pond foam. Since I just finished foaming the background for my freshwater tank and got familiar with its properties, I decided to play around a bit more creating ledges by layering the foam.

Here's the empty tank.

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I started the foam by setting up a pocket to hold and hide the MiniJet pump that will pump water from the display tank to the refugium.

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I foamed the back and after that dried I began building foam ledges to set higher light corals. I used wooden blocks covered in plastic food wrap since the pond foam won't stick to the plastic wrap. I had already made the mistake of removing the blocks too soon in the refugium foam set up and found that it would keep expanding if not completely dry inside. The tank here is at an odd angle, so this is a top down view at the back and left side.

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A wide shot of the tank as the foam sets up.

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The dried background. The foam that dried against the plastic wrap left a smooth shiny surface. Also when I removed the brace it still wasn't dry and expanded a bit more.

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I cut out the expanded bulges and touched up everything with a bit more pond foam to get rid of the smooth shiny surfaces.

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CABINET
Marc suggested I set the tank on pink foam. I hadn't originally planned for that and so now needed a way to frame the tanks and hide the pink foam. First I was going to just surround everything but I couldn't figure out how to secure it without damaging the laminate top. So I built a complete frame. I needed to paint everything in Satin to match the cabinets and needed a super smooth finish, so I decided to use spray. I used Rustoleum Universal but it had a horrible spray pattern so I ended up sanding everything down, repriming and ended up using Rustoleum's Painter's Touch Flat white and coating it with Painter's Touch Clear Matte. It actually worked out better because the White Satin was too shiny anyway. The underside of the frame and the inside were given 3 heavy coats of Helmsman Indoor/Outdoor Spar Urethane Satin on bare sanded wood. All the inside edges where boards meet were additionally filled with silicone sealant. Since I'm always spilling water, I'm considering running a thin bead of silicone sealant between the tanks and the wood frame as well (but that might be messier than I want).

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I moved the majority of the corals to a 15 gallon tank which had been cycling for a while and emptied out the water and simply slid the 20 gallon over, then refilled it. With the tank moved, I began by starting cutting out the opening for the air vent and electrical

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I painted the background black. The decision was made before I decided to foam the tank.

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Dry fit of the tank frame into the space.

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Dry fit of tank inside the frame in the space.

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I'll be running a canister filter, so behind the refugium there's an opening to run both canister filter hoses up to the tank.

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LIGHTING
Above the tank sits a 12x36" cabinet, which I needed to modify for hanging the lights.

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The boards are screwed into the upper cabinet and notches cut into the back support board for additional support. There will be another board going across the front after the doors are mounted which will give the bars additional support.

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TODAY
Almost done. After quite a few trials I finally got the cabinet doors to line up perfectly. The tanks had to go in first because the frames holding the cabinet doors both go over the tanks about 1/4" on each side. Next I'll need to cut and router a design on the board to go above the doors. The design will match the edge routing that's on all the cabinet doors.

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Here's another shot with some spare lights put inside for effect.

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A closer view of the foam background in the tank.

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So although it's waiting for me to fill it with sand and water, I'm giving it just a few more days because I always forget something…

 

[newtofish]

Nice Job. Looks like a lot of thought went into your decisions. I always just do it then have to make it work later.
I will be following.

 

[hegi]

Really cool Deb! I can't wait to see the setup in action!

 

[debdp]

Well we have sand. I used 80# of Carib Sea Ocean Direct.

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We have water:

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Everything is level:

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Water's clearing up.

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Now the wait. This tank will have to go through the full cycle. Before I moved half the corals to the 15g, It went through about 2-3 month cycle mostly because I didn't have time to start on the cabinet mod. But even still my pink birds nest and a couple gorgonians are not happy with the move. I had to move the gorgonians back into the 20g. The 15g is bare bottom and I'm having slime issues. The move disrupted both tanks but the 20g is handling it better. Long story short, I figure I won't be able to just plop my corals into the new setup for a while until it's gone through most of it's cycle and then just move them a few at a time. At least one good thing, the peppermints in the 15g have cleaned up all the aiptasia. I haven't seen not one pop up anywhere J. And so as the corals from the 15g get moved to the new tank, I'll move the corals from the 20g so they can get picked clean from aiptasia, too. The monti cap, pavona, candy canes & millis all took the move really well. Some suncorals did not. The orange ones which were my first purchase began tissue loss and some polyps too. They just disintegrated. The yellow sun corals stopped fully extending and only barely extended their tentacles. So for sure they'll be the very last to go into the new tank.

 

[melev]

Your build thread is great. You didn't really post much about how you set up the refugium side, foam-wise. Or I missed it somehow.

I hope the project comes together as you spent a lot of time planning this out. The vent fan was a great idea, as well as your electrical pass-through spots. The tray was nicely made too.

Looking forward to your updates, and hope you can keep the rest of your corals happy for now.

 

[v320]

Very nice work!!!
And I second the thought comment... its always better to think it out and take your time (regardless of what you friends say, lol)!

The fan reminded me of a turbo 8) , and then I saw it was a Vortex - they make car super chargers as well (if its the same company ).

 

[debdp]

Thanks for the comments. We're cycling still. I sorta switched after reading Serk's post, and stopped with shrimp and started using ammonia. Ha, he stopped using ammonia and started using shrimp. I had also added Fritz Turbo Start to kick start the bacteria along with the live sand. I ddn't have huge jumps in ammonia, but even so the nitrites started to climb and then the nitrates. We now have the wonderful (NOT) brown diatom all over the sand, foam and rocks. The rocks are not live, the were at one time. But they all had red bubble algae issues and even after keeping them in the dark no food in a bucket of ciruclated SW the second they went into a tank within a week the bubble algae came back. So I just toasted everything. I removed any sponges and then toasted the rock... air dried, bleached, soaked in Prime treated water then sun dried again. White rocks with no life. One set is in the tank cycling with the rest of the tank the others I have to figure out first where all the corals will be going and then how to aquascape the additional rocks and what corals will go on them. But I have plenty of time seeing as most of the corals were not very happy going into a 3 months cycled tank (howbeit no sandbed) so I won't be too quick to move them into the new tank and having all these multiple tanks is wearing on me pretty quick.

 

[Jeff]

This is really cool. Great design. I'm a bit confused on the water's path though. Is the only return to the display that locline from the fuge side? Where is the drain again and all. I'll go back though the pictures and see if I can figure it out.

 

[Jeff]

OK, I got it. Minijet from display to fuge. Canister filter added.
Are you going to use a skimmer anywhere?

 

[debdp]

Skimmer... Yes! It will be going in the fuge. I will post pics later on views of the fuge, top down as from the front you can't really see what's going on. Additional circulation will be two Koralia 1, one on the left side and one on the right pointing towards the middle and downard. It seemed to work well in the 20 creating a turbulent flow. I'll also be using drilled PVC to keep the older rocks with corals mounted above the sand and on the new rocks fiberglass rods. I like open sandy areas which will be a challenge to create with all the corals & rocks I have. The canister filter will have most likely both tubes in the fuge, but at least definitlye the exti tube which will give my sun corals a lot of flow that they like.

 

[debdp]

I'm really needing to get some live rock into this tank but all my rock is attached to corals. So I went ahead and moved the monti over since I really coudn't do anything to the tank until it was in becasue of its size. The water is still a little silty from putting it in. It's sitting on 3 pieces of PVC covered in pond foam and pushing the pipe into the sand stirred it up a bit. The rock the monti is attached to is 10# with tons of holes and tunnels in it so I really wanted to get that in the tank.

I'll be moving my royal gramma over here and adding a bit of clean up crew and then take my time with everything else.

 

[v320]

Wow, that almost looks like a flower in bloom! :shock:

 

[debdp]

@v320 wrote:

Yeah, it does, I never thought of it that way.

 

[DaveG99]

By adding more rock the tank will clear up quickly. I am looking forward to seeing this tank once its established.

 

[debdp]

Well moved my Royal Gramma from the 12g last night. It really loves the extra room and has pretty much claimed the monti as it's playground. It has spent all day swimming in and out of openings. Although last night it slipped under a rock that sits on a 3" PVC base and slept in there. I also moved the emerald crab in there.

Decided to upgrade one of the powerheads. The ones there now are temporary since both Koralia1's are in other tanks. So I ordered a Koralia2 and will eventually have a Koralia1 and Koralia2 in the tank.

 

[debdp]

Quick update:

I did get the Koralia 2 for the tank and I absolutely hate it. The powerhead itself is great, good flow, etc. But it's way to big and to me looks like an eyesore. So after this whole week trying to figure out how to do maybe a closed loop or external pump I broke down just now and ordered the Vortech MP20. I'm sure I won't be disappointed. I should get it Thursday

Although I was not able to figure out what was up with the 15 gallon holding tank it just never seemed to break in and none of the corals liked the tank at all. I lost 75% of my favorite suncoral before I disconnected the refugium from the tank. My main birdsnest I ended up fragging but it never did well. All the macro on the rocks and the coraline was dying. Then when my rose milli started to RTN, I dropped everything and broke the tank down. Most of the corals had already been moved back into the original 20 gallon which is like way crowded now because I also took all my zoas out of the 12g Nanocube. Okay maybe not such a quick update. Anyway, I had kept the 15 gallon bare bottom with intentins to move it into my dual tank cabinet set up and make it a frag tank after the 40 gallon was completely set up, but I couldn't wait. I went to PetSmart and picked up CaribSea live sand, cleaned the tank out by wiping it down, scraping the glass but not using vinegar or anything. Set it up where it will remain and moved the shirmp, snails, hermits live rock and some monti frags into the tank. I moved the candycanes, pavona and Duncans into the 40 gallon and they're all doing really good.

So as of now my original 20 gallon tank with a sun coral refugium has now been split into 4 tanks . The 20g with a divider to keep my cleaner shrimp from eating my pepperments so they can eat the aiptasia, the sun coral refugium with my sun corals, the 15 gallon and the 40 gallon upgrade. And due to all these changesI'm testing water quality daily for alk & calcium so I can dose B-ionic. I sooo can't wait for these 4 tanks to become 2.

I'll post some pics later... and I'll do a separate build thread for the dual tank build.

 

[Jeff]

Wow - busy weekend for you Deb. Any ideas what caused the problems and so much regression?

 

[debdp]

@DheereCrossing wrote:

Not really. Whatever it was it wasn't showing up on any tests, no nitrates, no phosphates, alk about 8 but has always been the same in my 20 gallon, calcium around 400. Even though I had the tank running for 3 months before stocking, possilby moving too many corals into it at one time upset the balance. Nothing showed on tests, all I could see was the animals were just not happy. A brownish cyano algae would not go away. I cleaned it daily did water changes every other day, ran a skimmer, had good flow, tested every day, fed little, I don't know. The algae I did get more in control, but nothing looked right. The tank didn't smell right either. I just know once the animals were moved they began to react much better within 24 hours. I had 3 other millis and a green slimer on the same frag rack with the rose milli and they were unaffected. Snails, hermits and shrimp were okay, mysids were still growing in numbers. One tiny mollusk had died as I saw an empty shell on the bottom so I moved the two small rocks that I know have small mollusks on or in them.

 

[debdp]

Well went through the diatom bloom and now it's going through a cyano phase . Added the new Vortech MP20 and I like it. Added a couple corals but still have rock and arranging to do as I figure what can go next to what.

I finally put in the skimmer and added a refugium light. I had a Mini Coralife sitting around so I turned it into a hanging light. I took the Tunze out of my frag tank to move it in here and put my old Prizm in the frag tank . But the Tunze here is doing good and hopefully will help to clear out some of this cyano. The Tunze is mounted with a magnet, so I used 30 lb. fishing line to tie the outsdie magnet so I don't lose it when I have to take the skimmer out for cleaning.

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Here's a wide shot with a couple corals added:

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A closer view of my added corals:

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The candy canes will pretty much stay there and I still have to figure where I want everything else. Slow but we're getting there.

 

[bimmerzs]

Looks awesome....... :nod:

Cheers,