Flippers reef 125 gallon

[NY_Caveman]

Brian, we do have the garden up and running and do have a pressure canner. Just saying. Lol

How have you guys been doing through all this? Still touch and go in NY?

Doing pretty well. I commute into the city every day still. Lucky to still have work. Check out my "Ghost Town" thread if you have not seen it for a look at NY if you are interested. Lots of photos showing the unprecedented emptiness.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Doing pretty well. I commute into the city every day still. Lucky to still have work. Check out my "Ghost Town" thread if you have not seen it for a look at NY if you are interested. Lots of photos showing the unprecedented emptiness.

Will do. Hang in there and stay safe! I've been working night shift since this go started. They sent all the office staff home to work and my shop is split into the two shifts to distance us out. BBraun germany says we will stay this way at least till July, maybe longer.

 

[Flippers4pups]

And today we have plugs!

Going to do a large water change and install my frag light in a bit. I took a half day of PTO as we were slow at work, so I'm home! Yeah!

 

[Flippers4pups]

It's up!

Cleaning the sump. Wow it's dirty!

More pics coming!

 

[Flippers4pups]

 

[Cwentz758]

Day 3 with the UV water clarity looks good, seems the glass isn’t getting algae on it, the sand still gets brown, I’ve been stirring it to get the particles to float. We shall see!

 

[Flippers4pups]

Well if all goes as planned, this coming weekend is set for:

This past weekend was spent repairing my wife's car. 2012 Honda Accord. Had a vacuum leak, bad brakes and two rear struts wore out.

All fixed and the wife's happy!

I still have to set the Viparsectra light schedule and it's intensity before the fragging begins. Otherwise, everything is a go.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

 

[DiefsReef]

Hello @Flippers4pups
1st I want to say I love your Tank and Sump setup!
2nd Its caused a lot of frustration for me
I have been watching and learning on R2R since 2017 and finally at the end of 2019 started working on my first reef tank. When I finally got the go ahead from the boss, I bought a used 90 but she then decided she wanted a peninsula tank. So starting again, the end of February I ordered a Marineland 120 from my LRS and started to build my own stand. I bought a 40gal Breeder for a sump while waiting on the 120 to arrive (understandably it took almost 2 months to come in since they are up in NY area). Being new to the hobby I was trying to wrap my head around all that would be required for a sump and looking at all the great threads available when I came a crossed your build thread. My wife was siting behind me looking when all of a sudden everything changed.
She said "Hey you can do that" and nothing has been the same since Even though I had my plan almost figured out, she is very stubborn and wore me down so now I am starting over and trying to figure out how I'm going to make this happen. Sorry for the long post in here but figured I would give you the story behind my questions.

I have many many questions I could ask you but to start I was wondering what size pipe you used for the drains and the return as well as the water change drain? It looks to me (looking at your pic below) the drains are 1 1/4 and the return is 3/4.
My 120 will have an Eclipse L overflow setup in a Bean Animal config and I'm still trying to decide how many pipe runs I'll need from the basement to the living room upstairs.

Again sorry for the long story line and thank you for any help.
Your basement setup is fantastic!

 

[TriggerFinger]

Sorry @RichtheReefer21 , I thought I saw him mention how much real estate that pesky toadstool was taking up, not the monti ;Joyful

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hello @Flippers4pups
1st I want to say I love your Tank and Sump setup!
2nd Its caused a lot of frustration for me
I have been watching and learning on R2R since 2017 and finally at the end of 2019 started working on my first reef tank. When I finally got the go ahead from the boss, I bought a used 90 but she then decided she wanted a peninsula tank. So starting again, the end of February I ordered a Marineland 120 from my LRS and started to build my own stand. I bought a 40gal Breeder for a sump while waiting on the 120 to arrive (understandably it took almost 2 months to come in since they are up in NY area). Being new to the hobby I was trying to wrap my head around all that would be required for a sump and looking at all the great threads available when I came a crossed your build thread. My wife was siting behind me looking when all of a sudden everything changed.
She said "Hey you can do that" and nothing has been the same since Even though I had my plan almost figured out, she is very stubborn and wore me down so now I am starting over and trying to figure out how I'm going to make this happen. Sorry for the long post in here but figured I would give you the story behind my questions.

I have many many questions I could ask you but to start I was wondering what size pipe you used for the drains and the return as well as the water change drain? It looks to me (looking at your pic below) the drains are 1 1/4 and the return is 3/4.
My 120 will have an Eclipse L overflow setup in a Bean Animal config and I'm still trying to decide how many pipe runs I'll need from the basement to the living room upstairs.

Again sorry for the long story line and thank you for any help.
Your basement setup is fantastic!

Thank you for the kind words!

I'm at work, as I'm working second shift since the pandemic started, but I'll answer any questions you have.

1 1/4" was used for the drains. The stock 125RR came with two bulkheads per overflow on each side. One for the drain and the other for the return. As a way to appease my wife, i convinced her that no flood would happen upstairs if I made emergency drains out of the return bulkheads. That's why you see 4 drains. I purposely avoided 90's by using 45's and spaflex.

Return is 3/4" and returns over the top of the tank.

Ask all the questions you want!

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Sorry @RichtheReefer21 , I thought I saw him mention how much real estate that pesky toadstool was taking up, not the monti ;Joyful

If i have to go down, ill be swinging for the fences! Ha!

 

[DiefsReef]

Thank you for the kind words!

I'm at work, as I'm working second shift since the pandemic started, but I'll answer any questions you have.

1 1/4" was used for the drains. The stock 125RR came with two bulkheads per overflow on each side. One for the drain and the other for the return. As a way to appease my wife, i convinced her that no flood would happen upstairs if I made emergency drains out of the return bulkheads. That's why you see 4 drains. I purposely avoided 90's by using 45's and spaflex.

Return is 3/4" and returns over the top of the tank.

Ask all the questions you want!

Awesome Thx!
I'm going to add another questions but dont feel you need to answer right away!
I'm going back outside to try and finish up the stand.

I had my 120 drilled for the Eclipse L overflow box and had another 3/4 hole drilled for my water change plans. Now that the sump is going in the basement the extra hole is redundant but I'm going to plumb it into the emergency drain in case I ever need to dump the tank. I think I'm gonna go with 3 drain lines anyway just to make sure no floods and may even go with 2 returns. Another question I had was external ver internal return pumps. You have the Panworld 150ps, I've been looking at a lot of info related to pumps and cant decide. The big issue is head pressure which I think I have calculated somewhere between 16 and 20 ft of head pressure depending on some plumbing. I've been looking at 2 varioS-8 Controllable DC pumps or maybe Vectra M2 2000 GPH Max H 21.5 feet or 1 external like you have but I'm worried about redundancy. I really like the External because it removes the question about head pressure but everything i read says to have a redundant pump.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Awesome Thx!
I'm going to add another questions but dont feel you need to answer right away!
I'm going back outside to try and finish up the stand.

I had my 120 drilled for the Eclipse L overflow box and had another 3/4 hole drilled for my water change plans. Now that the sump is going in the basement the extra hole is redundant but I'm going to plumb it into the emergency drain in case I ever need to dump the tank. I think I'm gonna go with 3 drain lines anyway just to make sure no floods and may even go with 2 returns. Another question I had was external ver internal return pumps. You have the Panworld 150ps, I've been looking at a lot of info related to pumps and cant decide. The big issue is head pressure which I think I have calculated somewhere between 16 and 20 ft of head pressure depending on some plumbing. I've been looking at 2 varioS-8 Controllable DC pumps or maybe Vectra M2 2000 GPH Max H 21.5 feet or 1 external like you have but I'm worried about redundancy. I really like the External because it removes the question about head pressure but everything i read says to have a redundant pump.

About a return pump, the DC pumps are nice but I question their reliability long term with head pressure. My experience with basement sumps has been with pressure rated magnetic drive pumps such as iwaki and now Panworld. They are designed specifically for pushing up water at distance they are rated for. Their track record in the hobby for these applications are well known, some lasting 10+ plus with little maintenance. DC pumps, well I've always stuck to what I know works.

As far as redundancy, having two return pumps is ideal. One in service and one as a backup is the way to go. I have a Panworld 100Px as a backup just in case, but it probably won't ever be needed as a temporary return pump as the 150 is a beast like it's iwaki counterpart. It's been running now for over 5 years now with, as expected, no issues. That's what you want, a return pump that you don't worry about.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Before the fragging starts, I removed the UV from the DT and I'm in the process of making a permanent bracket on the sump for it. Once done, I'll start fragging.

Updates throughout the day and pictures.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Update:

UV light bracket is made:

Mounted:

UV mounted:

And plumbed:

Up and running.

Now the fragging can begin!

 

[Flippers4pups]

 

[Flippers4pups]

Just getting started......

 

[DiefsReef]

About a return pump, the DC pumps are nice but I question their reliability long term with head pressure. My experience with basement sumps has been with pressure rated magnetic drive pumps such as iwaki and now Panworld. They are designed specifically for pushing up water at distance they are rated for. Their track record in the hobby for these applications are well known, some lasting 10+ plus with little maintenance. DC pumps, well I've always stuck to what I know works.

As far as redundancy, having two return pumps is ideal. One in service and one as a backup is the way to go. I have a Panworld 100Px as a backup just in case, but it probably won't ever be needed as a temporary return pump as the 150 is a beast like it's iwaki counterpart. It's been running now for over 5 years now with, as expected, no issues. That's what you want, a return pump that you don't worry about.

Thanks for the info Flippers, It helps me make up my mind so I'll be buying 2 external pumps for the job.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hit and humid here today. Expect some pop up storms.

Back to fragging today later.

I did a 20 gallon water change later last night after fragging. Everything looks good.