First Time 40 Gallon Breeder Journal

[SirReefsALot]

End of last year, my kid's lizard dies...
... tank sits on the floor in the game room.
Whilst sipping Kettle One over ice, I stare at the empty tank recalling my decades old desire to build and care for a reef tank.
Naturally I head for the internet and I am quickly sucked into hours upon sleepless hours of reefing madness.
I decide in December of 2018 that I will "do this thing" but that I will do it RIGHT [emoji106] from the start.
But how to pay for all of this beautiful equipment and supplies and rocks and lights without sending up any red flags for my lovely wife to worry about?[emoji848]
That part will remain a secret but what follows is my journal FWIW, documented here on R2R mainly because I know that some reefer will search and find a mistake or a fix that I made just as I utilized R2R for the very same thing.........

 

[SirReefsALot]

End of last year, my kid's lizard dies...
... tank sits on the floor in the game room.
Whilst sipping Kettle One over ice, I stare at the empty tank recalling my decades old desire to build and care for a reef tank.
Naturally I head for the internet and I am quickly sucked into hours upon sleepless hours of reefing madness.
I decide in December of 2018 that I will "do this thing" but that I will do it RIGHT [emoji106] from the start.
But how to pay for all of this beautiful equipment and supplies and rocks and lights without sending up any red flags for my lovely wife to worry about?[emoji848]
That part will remain a secret but what follows is my journal FWIW, documented here on R2R mainly because I know that some reefer will search and find a mistake or a fix that I made just as I utilized R2R for the very same thing.........

This is how the tank sits today, in the fifth week of a cycle with Dr Tim's method....

 

[Retro Reefer]

Looks great! Love the stand and your aquascaping

 

[steelwrap]

Welcome to R2R. Looks like youre off to a good start

 

[SirReefsALot]

Backing up now to January of 2019 and a visit to Lowe's Home Improvement. I wanted precise lengths so decided against cutting it myself and learned that Lowe's will not only help you determine the number and length of boards you need for your project, they will also cut each piece to the exact length you need at .25 cents per cut. I came away with a complete set of boards for my entire project.
This is $40 worth of dimensional douglass fir, $36 for a laminated spruce board cut to make a top and sump floor, and a box of high quality pro screws.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Another 4og breeder. Welcome to the addiction. Nice setup.

 

[SirReefsALot]

Dimensions to give me an inch around the entire tank...

 

[SirReefsALot]

Enlisting some help from the "boy"....

 

[SirReefsALot]

Very heavy and somewhat over-built but I know it will last...

 

[SirReefsALot]

Paint it all up with Kilz and start thinking about the outside finish work....

 

[SirReefsALot]

Another 4og breeder. Welcome to the addiction. Nice setup.

Thanks!

 

[SirReefsALot]

Ended up covering it with already primed and stained clapboard from Lowe's. It had a rustic grey look and I only had to cut and screw the boards on. Built the doors myself and elected to go with magnets on the inside, not only because trying to get hinges right is tough, but removing the doors to access the sump gives me a lot more room to work...

 

[SirReefsALot]

New stuff.
Nervous here about drilling my first tank.

 

[SirReefsALot]

Clean hole except for one problem...
.... the Eshopps template slipped under the lip of the tank rim and I ended up with the hole being 1/2" too high...

 

[SirReefsALot]

Ended up being a happy accident. I took my Dremel and very carefully cut and smoothed the notch I needed on the rim in order to get the overflow to fit flush. Worked out great!! Now my water line is halfway up the rim.

 

[SirReefsALot]

Time to drill the return.
Here's my first hack as a newbie reefer...
...I drilled the Eshopps template with the return drill bit to create a 2-in-1 template. Probably been done before but I was pretty proud of myself.
Installed the schedule 80 bulkhead backward to save space in back.

 

[SirReefsALot]

Painted with gloss black rustoleum.
Rolled with a smooth roller.
Two coats.
Cut cardboard templates and taped from the inside to keep paint off the holes.
I got a few scratches in the paint after reinstalling the overflow and bulkhead which I touched up after plumbing.

 

[SirReefsALot]

First ever plumbing job. Took days to get the glue off my fingers.
Schedule 80, gate valve overflow, ball valve return, blue 1 inch. All from BRS.
I aquired this knowledge from reef2reef.
Thanks for posting.

 

[SirReefsALot]

Super excited about combining all of this electricity with 60 gallons of water.
Added a heavy duty GFCI to the wall socket.

 

[SirReefsALot]

Full system leak test. Tap water "oh MY!" Not a leak to be found. "Whew!"
Did the power off test and watched the water fill the sump to two inches below the rim. No check valve on the return.
Marked the high line with a Sharpee then ran the Varios 2 on level 2, tuned the gate valve on the overflow to a quiet full syphon and marked the running line on sump with a sharpee.
This is my running fill line.
Ran for 24 hours.
All good!