jtarmitage

Made some progress this weekend. Got the manifold done, as well as nearly all of the plumbing. A slight miscalculation on the room I had to work with on the CL pump means I have to wait a few more days for a few new fittings to run with plan B, but the drain lines and return lines are done, and skimmer is in the sump.

I've started the plumbing, but working 6 days a week for UPS through the end of the year. Will need to find a regular job in January, but making money and losing weight at the same time is good 😂  as for the plumbing, doing a little each day before work. The drains are all but done, so will be working on the CL, returns and manifold next, and the wife has decided furniture needs rearranging... 

26 minutes ago, Jorge said:

Wouldn't even know that's on a budget!! Great build!

Lol. Well, I did blow the budget of course. Spent more on lighting than I'd planned, but hard to resist 50% off 😁

Well, got the canopy finished and mounted the Maxspects. The shipment of plumbing fitting also finally showed up, so will start laying pipe soon

Well, a little setback with the plumbing part shipment...They sent out the 2nd order, but seemed to forget all about the 1st...So, I had to contact them and they finally shipped it yesterday.  Looks like I'm waiting another 7-10 days to get the plumbing done.  Still working on the canopy.  Got a couple coats of stain on and will add 1 or 2 more shortly.   And had this show up yesterday

They don't look quite like the majano's I've seen in the past...however, they are a type of pest anemone, and you can see several smaller ones in the nooks and crannies as well.  Soooo, kill em and be done...Turning off the pumps and covering in kalk past has been my go to in the past.

Scored a pair of Maxspect 150's to add to the flow in the tank, And decided against going open top, so time to get to work on the old canopy that came with the tank and bump it up a bit...
 

Not much progress this week...still waiting on a few shipments, but these just came in today... got a great deal on a used pair with controller 
 

1 minute ago, R-3 said:

Loving the progress man! Keep it up

LOL, thanks.  It's gonna stall for 7-10 days awaiting plumbing parts. I finally got around to fully mapping out where/how I plan on running everything to figure out what all I'd need to order.  Going with grey PVC as I have in the past and making sure I put the proper unions, true union ball valves, and gate valves in the right places, and will set up a manifold to run a carbon/gfo reactor and have a couple of valves open for potential future additions should I decide to add.  I'd forgotten just how quickly all the valves, unions, and fittings can add up...

The fuge is a 10g tank that I mirrored 4 of the sides on to make the most out of whatever light I put on it...

I'll end up linking the two tanks together via a pair of 1" pipes and feeding the fuge via 1 of the 2 main drains from the tank.  Just need to wait for my plumbing order to arrive...

Other than that, got the holes drilled for the returns, and had to enlarge the holes in the bottom of the tank to accommodate 1" bulkheads. Finally placed the order for the plumbing fittings and valves...will be a waiting game for a bit now until delivery.

A bit more work on the tank done this week. First up, I painted the sides and back to the sump (20 Long) to limit the light entering the sump from the fuge and to hide any cables running behind the tank:

Then laid out the acrylic pieces to turn this into a proper sump...

Finished up staining the stand, painting the back of the tank and installing the overflow. Next up, putting the doors back on and drawing up the plumbing to figure out what all needs ordering... 

2 minutes ago, nrc said:

Looks fantastic.  Welcome to PNW.

Thanks nrc...Trying to get the stand color right atm and its driving me nuts lol.  I'm from Northern California originally, and after living in Hawaii for the last 5 years I've come to realize that I am much more of a mountains guy than a beach guy

23 minutes ago, TheClark said:

Looks like a great restart! 

Did you end up using the drill for most of the polishing or hand?  Did you have to use sandpaper or were the scratches shallow enough that novus 2 did the job?

 

Yep, used the drill and novus 1, 2, and 3. There are still some scratches that I'd need to hit with sandpaper to fully remove, but most will vanish with water in the tank, so I've opted not to go to that extreme. 

You can also see from the pic above, that I went with the Synergy Reef Shadow overflow. Had to drill a couple extra holes in the tank, but it's a nice unit. Still to do...paint the back of the tank black to hide the pluming and wires and give it a nice clean look.
As for the holes in the bottom...they tank was previously a freshwater tank with a UG filter. As the holes are already there, and I like a nice clean look in the tank, I will be re purposing them for a closed loop.
Thus far, I have a few things ordered, including a Waveline DC6000 and a Waterblaster HY7000. I'm not yet sure which will be the return pump vs the closed loop pump, but I got great deals on both, and I guess I've got a little time to figure it out, as I'm still working on modifying and refinishing the stand.
PUMPS:
Return vs Closed Loop
Waveline DC6000 (1585 gph)
WaterBlaster HY7000 (1800 gph)

Heater:
Cobalt 150w Neo-Therm
Eheim Jager 150w (Back-up and extra umph for those cold Northwest months)

RO/DI:
BRS 75GPD 4 stage value RO/DI

Rock & Sand:
50lbs Marco Rock along with a few seed rocks I'll pick up locally
60lbs Carib Sea Arag-Alive

Salt:
HW-MarineMix Reefer Salt - I've always run Reef Crystals in the past, but decided to try something a little different this go round

Lights:
As for lights, I'm holding my breath a bit. I found a too good to be true deal on eBay on a pair of these:
Vervve Plus LED Fixture with Bluetooth - Giesemann
Being the deal that it is, and being that I have to wait an extensive time for economy shipping from China, I will believe it when they are actually in hand...Should this not pan out, lighting is up in the air, but will either be T5, LED, or a combination of the 2 depending on the deal that I can find...

Skimmer:
Yet to be determined. Depends on the deal, though I am looking at the Simplicity 120DC or 240DC. I am vertically challenged in my stand. I cut the bottom out of the stand which gives me 26", but will need room for plumbing and I don't think the 23"-24" skimmers that I like will be fun to maintain...

Controller:
As this was a bit of a budget build, I wasn't going to add a controller, or if I did, I was just going to pick up an AC jr or Reef Keeper lite, but I came across another deal and will be picking up an Apex with a pair of EB8's

Sump:
As for a sump, I can't justify getting what I want, which would need to be a custom job to work in my stand. So I'll be using a pair of plain 15 or 20g tanks plumbed together, with the left being the "system" sump, and the right being a fuge.

I think that covers the basics up to this point...I'll post up more as I go. Happy reefing all.

And after a solid days polishing...

Being a used tank, it needed a little TLC. Lots of scratches to work on, a stand that needed refinishing, and a few holes in the tank to work into my plans. So, a little elbow grease was required....

Hello all. After living in Hawaii for the past 5 years, we have moved up to the Pacific Northwest and it's time to get my fingers wet again. I'm a long time reefer, with my last tank being a 225g(5'x3'x2') custom peninsula that was taken down in a rush prior to moving to the middle of the Pacific lol.
So, it's time to build another tank, and on a bit of a budget. I've got some items so far, and will list the details as I go. Others I'm waiting on until I find the right deal.

THE TANK:
I picked up a used acrylic 60"x18"x18" tank I found on Craigslist. For $75 for the tank and stand, I couldn't really pass it up