AquaticEngineer Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 I picked up another marineland commercial system that is smaller for inside the house. Needs some re-wiring done and a good clean but should be sweet, and for the price I couldn't pass it up. The model is a ML-22SS, its designed to be a holding tank for shellfish. The tank measures 27x27x13 with an over all height of 50 inches. The tank has the built in chiller and recirculating pump with the large built in reservoir, but no major filtration so that will be the first mod. Most of the wiring on the new tank had been chewed by the guy's dog. Easy fix though, I picked up 3 new grounded power cables at Fred Meyer for $6. Tested the Little Giant pump that was on it with the new plug and it works great. Still have to finish wiring the temp control but the chiller is re-wired and ready for a test this weekend. It has a fiberglass reservoir bottom just like the larger tank. The drain for the circulating pump is locating in the bottom of that resevior and it has 2 return lines plumbed back through the bottom and up to the display. My first thought was to just put a canister filter in line in front of the return pump. But I'm wondering if using one of the return lines as an overflow stand pipe and puting a small sump on it with a skimmer and a place for an auto top off would be better. Here's pics of the new tank on 6/18: Here's the new tank on 6/23 after cleanup and some paint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveweast Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Interesting.....there's no doubt that's a great deal. I do have some concerns about the glass though. I've seen grocery store tanks sweating up a storm.....and they generally keep their seafood section of the stores colder than a typical residential home. I hope it doesn't prove to be a problem. What do you plan to keep ? and are you tide pooling or diving ? what rock do you plan to use ? when is water going in ? I spent last weekend collecting rock off the San Juans for my tank. It was quite the chore. If you dive, you might want to tag along with Ryan and I when we collect this summer......and if not, we could always use a Sherpa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 19, 2010 Author Share Posted June 19, 2010 Interesting.....there's no doubt that's a great deal. I do have some concerns about the glass though. I've seen grocery store tanks sweating up a storm.....and they generally keep their seafood section of the stores colder than a typical residential home. I hope it doesn't prove to be a problem.. I hope not, I may end up puting another layer of acrylic over the existing glass, not sure if that will work but it was an idea someone gave me to prevent sweating. What do you plan to keep ? and are you tide pooling or diving ? Planning on keeping mostly tidal stuff, since I dont dive yet. I am debating on plumbing both of these tanks together for the benefit of the filtration and added water volume and keeping them both in the garage because of the noise from the chillers. Also, less wiring to put them on their own circuit. what rock do you plan to use ? when is water going in ? I'm leaning towards using large grade coral aggregate for buffering and bacteria in the contained areas above the cooling coils. It wouldnt be visible from the display. For the display area I will probably keep it pretty natural but try to find the most pourous rocks that I can. Hoping to ge the inside of them painted and ready for water this weekend and I can work on the outside looks of the tanks later. But I will most likely setup the small one first and continue working on the larger tank. I like the small one since I can see right into the top of it like a tidepool I spent last weekend collecting rock off the San Juans for my tank. It was quite the chore. If you dive' date=' you might want to tag along with Ryan and I when we collect this summer......and if not, we could always use a Sherpa.[/quote'] I would love to tag along with you guys even if I just lug gear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smann Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Looks like a cool project, the collecting from the coast should be fun and make for a very interesting tank. Do you still have your saltwater setup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 19, 2010 Author Share Posted June 19, 2010 Looks like a cool project' date=' the collecting from the coast should be fun and make for a very interesting tank. Do you still have your saltwater setup?[/quote'] Yup still got the other system going, just slowly fragging and trimming. Mostly the orange monti cap and the millpora I got from you (laugh) I should post up some new pics of it in my other tank thread now that I think about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 21, 2010 Author Share Posted June 21, 2010 Update IT'S ALLLLLLLIIIIIVVVVEEE!!!! Got the tank re-plumbed, re-wired and leak tested today. It is currently holding steady at 40 degrees with no leaks. Colder than I would ever need it, so I bumped it back up to 50 and am letting it run over night to see if it will hold steady. Little giant pump is super quiet, the chiller is not too loud either. Going to work on making it a little more quiet with some sound deadening material and some WD-40 on the fan. Anyone ever bled and refilled R-134A refrigerant before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 22, 2010 Author Share Posted June 22, 2010 After 2 days now I've backed the chiller off to the point its no longer running. The temp has slowly been creeping up its now right around 50 degrees. Hopefully this will be a good holding point for the temp so that the chiller doesn't have to run quite so much. Still need to figure out a good filtration for it if I am going to run it on its own. One cool thing I found out is that that this system has a timed pressure switch connected to the circulation pump. When you press and hold the button on the side of the stand it will turn off the pump and it will come back on automatically anywhere from 5 seconds to 2 minutes later depending on what you set it to. And so far no condensation on the glass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveweast Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 Nice on the lack on condensation....but....the summer heat has yet to come. In my old cold system, I frequently got condensation on my PVC piping on hot days....which is why on my new system, I went with all schedule 80 plumbing. 50F is probably unnecessarily low....you'd be fine with 55 - 58. How do you plan to cycle the tank ? and what filtration are you planning ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 22, 2010 Author Share Posted June 22, 2010 Nice on the lack on condensation....but....the summer heat has yet to come. In my old cold system, I frequently got condensation on my PVC piping on hot days....which is why on my new system, I went with all schedule 80 plumbing. 50F is probably unnecessarily low....you'd be fine with 55 - 58. How do you plan to cycle the tank ? and what filtration are you planning ? I figured it was still not warm enough or humid enough to really build any condensation. I bumped the chiller thermostat up again on my way out of the house this morning, so it should be set to turn on at or around 60F now. I dont think I have enough space to house decent filtration inside the stand on this tank and make it self contained. Possibly a canister filter like a Fluval, but not much else. I could setup a sump behind it or next to it but the more I think about how this tank is setup currently, the more I think I will need to plumb it into the larger system. The larger tank has more than enough filtration, this little one was only designed to be a holding tank for shellfish so all it had on it was a UV filter which was broken and removed. The larger tank has a skimmer, UV filter, large bio-wheel, and two overflows that dump onto areas for filter pads. I think I will cycle the tanks with rock and small rubble for substrate, and a few sculpins. I think this tank will be a smaller different temperate biotope than the larger tank but plumbed on the same water. Maybe holding live food items for the inhabitants of the larger tank like clams to feed the starfish and a school of baitfish or something possibly. Or a seagrass bed like a refugium maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeFit Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 you may want to consider insulating your plumbing. it may help with condensation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefboy Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 I sub contract for Marinland if you have any issues chiller wise or other I can help plan to set up my own here soon just getting the wife to agree is a issue I have 2000 gal in use already lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 23, 2010 Author Share Posted June 23, 2010 I sub contract for Marinland if you have any issues chiller wise or other I can help plan to set up my own here soon just getting the wife to agree is a issue I have 2000 gal in use already lol. Good to know, thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 23, 2010 Author Share Posted June 23, 2010 Day 4 of water testing and the chiller has barely turned on since I bumped up the thermostat. Tank is steady at 53F. Painted the exterior plastic panels and top last night black and touched up the stand. Looks pretty nice so far for only having a grand total of $62 into it. Draining the tank today so that I paint the interior plastic black as well, I love Krylon Fusion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 23, 2010 Author Share Posted June 23, 2010 Updated Pic [/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smann Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Wow, looks like you cleaned it up a bit, not so industrial anymore. Thats a pretty cool deal Stu, where did you get this idea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 24, 2010 Author Share Posted June 24, 2010 Wow' date=' looks like you cleaned it up a bit, not so industrial anymore. Thats a pretty cool deal Stu, where did you get this idea?[/quote'] I have wanted to do a temperate/cold water tank since before I had a tropical reef. I attempted one in high school with a home made mini fridge chiller and it was not as successful as I had hoped, only dropped the temp maybe 10 degrees on a 20 gallon that was in my parents house with AC. Did a lot of research after that on what I could do to get one setup and keep it within my budget ( at the time that of a high schooler) And while I was working at a pet store in Eugene I spoke with the Marineland Rep and he told me about these tanks. Ever since it has been on the back burner in my mind. When my wife and I started looking to buy a house I started immediately looking for a bigger tank (naughty) I happened to stumble across the 110 gallon setup on CL and couldn't pass it up. Since then I check CL probably 3-4 times a week looking for similar deals, this one just happened to pop up at the right time and the for the right price. It really comes down to wanting to be more hands on with my aquariums by being able to collect my own specimens with my kids as they get older, and my wife.......maybe.......(wife) I also have a horrible problem with needing to have something different with every hobby I get into (laugh) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coolwaves Posted June 26, 2010 Share Posted June 26, 2010 Or a seagrass bed like a refugium maybe? ...hell yeah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 26, 2010 Author Share Posted June 26, 2010 ... I do have some concerns about the glass though. I've seen grocery store tanks sweating up a storm.....and they generally keep their seafood section of the stores colder than a typical residential home. I hope it doesn't prove to be a problem. I've been reading up on the tanks and found some information indicating that both systems are made with double paned glass. This should alleviate most if not all sweating or condesation hopefully on the tanks. I'll also wrap all the pipes in foam or something. I sent an email to the marineland reps to try and confirm what I found on the net and should hear back from them soon. I'm pretty positive the small tank is double paned, but its hard to tell on the larger one. I would assume it is since its a newer model, but I'll wait to hear it from the the manufacturer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted June 27, 2010 Author Share Posted June 27, 2010 Well the small tank is finished with paint now. I painted all the visible plastic to black with the exception of the return pipes. I just painted the white caps on those and left the tubes clear. Still gotta figure out how to plumb it into the larger system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted October 18, 2010 Author Share Posted October 18, 2010 Got the LED lights setup for this tank, still need to waterproof a few connections and get them glued into place, but they work Best part with the way this tank is set up, I can view everything from above with the lights on and still get into the tank no problem. Also got all the plumbing I needed to finish up the auto feeder. Still gotta drill the mini fridge, glue the plombing together and get it plumbed into the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted October 20, 2010 Author Share Posted October 20, 2010 Here's some FTS' of the second tank I'm setting up with the lights on over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moto826 Posted October 20, 2010 Share Posted October 20, 2010 looks sweet will the leds grow macro ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted October 20, 2010 Author Share Posted October 20, 2010 looks sweet will the leds grow macro ? Not sure if they will or not, probably not though. They are mostly just for viewing so I went with a bright white LED and didnt worry about spectrum or PAR readings. I may try and add another acrylic cube onto this system for macros later on though. I also may add a set of blue along with the whites for color balance but that all depends on how the whites look by themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaticEngineer Posted October 27, 2010 Author Share Posted October 27, 2010 Got the refrigerated auto feeder all done, just need to finish my sump and plumb it all together,thought I'd share some photos of what I managed to get done on my day off. I think the final cost on the auto feeder was under $60. It started life as a free brown mini fridge. Threw a coat of semi gloss black on it to match the rest of the setup. Here is the outside plumbing and hole where the power cord comes out for the doser. I took apart the dosing pump and unwired the power cord and ran it through the side so I didnt have to drill a hole the size of the plug and then fill it in. Inside of the fridge, I kept the freezer in there since I didnt need any more room really and I can keep all the frozen mysis and plankton in here and keep the wife happy I used a piece of pipe to mount the doser on and left enough extra cord so I can pull it out and work on it or change settings easily. And here is what I got going on for the insulated sump, still need some more bioballs though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted October 27, 2010 Share Posted October 27, 2010 very cool work. I love using things for anything other than the original intention of the manufacturer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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