1000gal DT build

[New Jersey REEF]

I’ve been planning to redo aquascape but first I’m going to test how it will turn out on the 60 cube.
Been doing some sketching today, here is what I’m thinking of making

got some nice small rock from eBay, 150lbs to play with

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Got my new water tank delivered today

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Getting ready to do some plumbing.

And so, I made a hole in a wall...

to be continued ...

 

[New Jersey REEF]

So little bit of progress here. I did glue both sides to 90 elbow pvc, however it did not go as planned. The angle and work space was so tight, being 2” schedule 80 it was hard to push the pipes in all the way. I think it went in about .25” before it was not moving any more. I hope it won’t leak. I will be testing it once it’s all fully connected.

worst case scenario would be, I’d have to cut both out and then put them together with Union.

fingers crossed...

1000 gallons barrel been filling up slowly for 3 days about 600 so far in it.
I will connect dc12000 to it for mixing salt. Hope it’s not gonna be too weak to mix it.

Other than that, not much progress. I haven’t started building new aquascape yet, but already have everything needed.

Two days ago I took covid shot (moderna vaccine) that think knocked me out...
Been out of commission for two days with headache and my arm was hurting too. Today day three, feeling much better. Back to work...

 

[Jepprox]

Getting ready to do some plumbing.

And so, I made a hole in a wall...

to be continued ...

Been following along. Such a terrific build! Thanks for sharing the ups and downs. How do manage all the additional humidity within the house?

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Been following along. Such a terrific build! Thanks for sharing the ups and downs. How do manage all the additional humidity within the house?

Tank is located in the basement separately. Dedicated AC unit is connected for climate control. In addition to that I have 3 dehumidifier running, 2 in the fish room and 1 In the basement hidden from the view.

Great question, humidity been definitely a challenge that I had to overcome. Next step will be upgrade system to entire basement one large energy efficient unit.
I think one of the big energy hogs have been running all three of these units non-stop.
Tank daily water evaporation has been around 10 gallons. That’s definitely needed to be put under control from the start.

Thanks for tagging along!

 

[New Jersey REEF]

I’m about half way done with plumbing. Yesterday I finished first part and connected main 1000 gallon barrel from garage to 200 gallon mixing station in the basement. There were lots of challenges running pipes and connecting them with tight spaces in between. Mainly because 2” pipes are a pain in the butt. I actually had to redo corner fitting and replace pvc pipe with flex pvc.

I’ve also connected main barrel to the drain just in case. Very tight space under the stairs. After doing that job was like doing an advanced yoga class. You should have see me doing these flips and bending backwards just to get in there...

Yesterday I tested water lines, no leaks. It takes about 16.5 minutes to fill up 170 gallons from upstairs. That was just gravity test, up next I’ll be testing it with a pump.

What’s left to plumb is next part which will connect directly into the sump.

Here is a happy selfie of job done, don’t want to go back there again...

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Crazy man!!

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Crazy man!!

Haha little bit

 

[New Jersey REEF]

So I was on vacation for 5 days, out of town. I set up everything on cruise control with apex, or so I thought...
2nd day out, Monday evening we have power surge. My system tells me one of the Neptune energy bars went offline and then come back with no voltage to it. Of course, it happened to be most critical energy bar.
ATO connected to that, RO refill connected to that and I made a mistake to put both dozers from two calcium reactors also connected to that energy bar.
Now I’ve been monitoring and calculating what would happened in the next 3 days and looks like my alkalinity is dropping at the rate of .5 dkh per day without calcium reactor dosing. It went from 9.5dkh to about 7 dkh when I will be back home tonight. Currently at 7.8dkh

I’m thinking of using buffer to get it upto 7.5dkh when I get home and then reconnecting both calcium reactors with same dosing as before. Additionally I’m planning to do small water change and increasing alkalinity testing from 4 times per day to maybe 8 times until I find good spot for drip rate with alk. My goal is to increase alk to about 8.5 over 1 week period.

Also I’m removing kamoer pumps from apex and putting them on battery backup power strip that’s always on.

Another thing I’m going to add is 2ndary ATO as fail safe. Split ATOs between two different energy bars.

One thing I don’t understand if how it fail, new energy bar. Maybe fuse went off. I can still see it on my apex display just says zero voltage output.

Looking at cameras, seem that ATO hasn’t been working for about 3 days and water lever dropped. Salinity went up to about 36-36.5ppt
And RORefill seem to be not working as well. RO reservoir isn’t empty but not refilling either.

All fish seems to be doing fine.

flying in tonight and should be home this evening.

 

[ReeferBud]

Every time I go on vacation it seems like the thing that’s never happened before and shouldn’t happen actually happens!

Worst I ever had was the solenoid to the calcium reactor fail open and realize that my Alk went up to 11 dkh. Had to troubleshoot and walk my wife through adding muriatic acid to bring it down slowly, all from 30k feet flying back from Doha to the US. Amazingly, everything survived just fine.

Good luck and hope everything is ok!

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Every time I go on vacation it seems like the thing that’s never happened before and shouldn’t happen actually happens!

Worst I ever had was the solenoid to the calcium reactor fail open and realize that my Alk went up to 11 dkh. Had to troubleshoot and walk my wife through adding muriatic acid to bring it down slowly, all from 30k feet flying back from Doha to the US. Amazingly, everything survived just fine.

Good luck and hope everything is ok!

Thanks, lesson learned here. I’m going to double up on my tank equipment redundancy.
Everything seems to be a okay, yesterday I came home and figured out what caused the failure of power bar.
I had connected power bar to a new smart plug before my trip, to verify wattage. Well silly me forgot to program smart plug to stay on as default setting. When power tripped that put it to sleep.

btw I did use seachem alk buffer yesterday (8 table spoons) it raised alkalinity by .3dkh but now it back down to 7.7
Both calcium reactors been running over night, tank is hungry. I’ll use 8 more table spoons

I’m still waiting on lights to come on to see how many corals were lost.

 

[mattgsa]

I just went through your whole build. You are making great progress, you had a very small ugly phase compared to mine. Love the tank.

 

[New Jersey REEF]

I found an interesting pattern in orp reading:
In the morning 9am two auto feeders turn on, between next two hours orp will drop 20 units. Lights still off, lights comes on 12pm-12am

At 11am it seem to be the lowest reading point, it goes up from there all the way to any where from 4pm to 6-7pm (20units) that’s when I would feed fish heavy (4 nori sheets)
ORP drops from that point about 20 units again to the lowest reading which usually at 8pm

it goes up from there all the way to next morning 9am where it peaks and drops to repeat the cycle.

over all it looks like orp would rise for about 15hrs (night time) and drops for about 3 hrs then raises for about 7-8 hrs then drops for about 1-2hrs

Typically 20 units in drop

I’m not sure what it means exactly but seems that feeding definitely consistent with drop in the reading.

I guess it’s good to go by this pattern and if something unusual will happen it may show up in the reading

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Yearly diy reef chili food is made!
It’s so messed and the smell… ahhh glad it’s only once a year…
I’ve about 12bags out of it.
now to vent the air in the basement!

 

[New Jersey REEF]

So something crazy happened to me today. I was doing big water change and drained sump for that. When I started filling it back up, first baffle that supports socks collapsed under water pressure. Luckily it still hold water…

gonna have to figure out how to fix it, not sure yet. I’ve reach out for some support, hopefully get some help soon

 

[Rogueaquariums]

Just finished plumbing of first two pumps. Here is a quick video

Very nice build. Love the plumbing job.

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Very nice build. Love the plumbing job.

I put in lots of effort went into this plumbing job. I think now I’m done with plumbing for a while.

Thanks for tagging along !

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Today I was able to fix the sump by putting in between baffles some pvc supporting pipes.
my socks are hungry and I need to feed them!

These 3” pvc cylinders came in handy!

 

[TeamAquaSD Verified Sponsor]

Can't wait to see this one up and running!