Gavin’s Reef 60 gallon breeder

[jonelder68]

Nice job... been looking for months on how to redo mine... Awesome Idea!

Thanks! Had some left over heim joints from car projects so thought of using them for attaching lights. Came out good and working as I thought it would.

 

[CBonito]

Had some time at work to cut out/fabricate some brackets for DT lights out of 316 stainless. After USPS lost my 40-20 slotted aluminum the company I ordered from finally decided to send another order a month later. Seems my fully adjustable concept worked out good! Height adjustable by changing pin locations. To get everything re-centered used some leftover heim joints at work allowing me to loosen jam nuts and turn bars to adjust lengths to compensate for the adjustable angles. Also will be nice to lift lights up out of the way for tank management and just locking them up out of the way by sliding a pin out and in. Had to order swagged tubing for the quanta bars. Waited until I got my slotted aluminum and everything mounted so I could get correct length of tube measurements. Hopefully will have them mounted by next weekend. Then onto figuring out cord management for the lights.

Excellent man!

 

[CBonito]

Thanks! Had some left over heim joints from car projects so thought of using them for attaching lights. Came out good and working as I thought it would.

I knew you were a car dude as soon as I saw this. LOL

 

[jonelder68]

Not much progress sadly…today I got the stand built for a brute can mixing station. FedEx strikes again and took 3 rounds of order/shipping to receive my brute cans! First were lost and second they said were delivered but photo and signature was not my house! Hopefully get it painted this week and plumbed. Progress is slow as we welcomed our third boy a few weeks ago. So household has been a bit crazy! Already scheduled appointment for the ol’ snip snip .

Have an extra jebao DCP 13000 return pump. I’m sure it’s way overkill for a mixing station. Also I’ve saw some say it’s ok externally mounted and some say not. The instructions included say it can be mounted externally so I’m going with that. Hopefully more progress soon!

 

[jonelder68]

Got the mixing station/ATO about wrapped up! I’ve got to get another valve for the RO bucket fill outlet and decide what hose type for pump outlet. Sadly took way longer than I was expecting but hey it’s progress.

 

[jonelder68]

No real update…forgot how much time a newborn consumes. Hopefully the tank will be operational soon. Kind of delaying until life gets back on track and not so crazy. At least I hope . Had a slow day at work so decided to make a display panel for the next project. Electronic control board. Love having a plasma table! Quick poor picture with a flash light but with the LEDs should look awesome! Pushed the limits with such small detail but seems it cut great!

 

[jonelder68]

Waiting on a few more items before i get everything mounted and then off to powder coating. Brown cardboard will be cable grommets/wire pass through. Inside cabinet I will mount all the power bricks etc. to the peg board.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Waiting on a few more items before i get everything mounted and then off to powder coating. Brown cardboard will be cable grommets/wire pass through. Inside cabinet I will mount all the power bricks etc. to the peg board.

I love the light on your board!

 

[jonelder68]

Got the control board back from powder coating buddy and have started on electrical. Will get more pictures once I’m done with it all. My OCD makes this take forever! How do you all fit this under a tank in a stand !?!?!

 

[Kweezy12]

this build is sick! love the light mounts

 

[jonelder68]

this build is sick! love the light mounts

Thanks! I take my sweet time for sure but piece by piece it’s coming together.

 

[jonelder68]

essentially done with cord management (sump side) until I order my MP40s and kalk dosing pump. Will get inside of the cabinet/control board cleaned up and routed better once I get those. Thought process was to cleanly route everything while maintaining easiness for maintenance. Creating essentially subharness to be able to quickly unplug everything verse having to snake cords in and out of cabinet every time I need to remove anything. Even the skimmer float has an easily accessible quick plug location.

Got an Avast plank auto feeder. Installed it so it’s integrated into return pump. Will dump into a 1.5” to 3” expansion to act as a funnel and hopefully all food will go in and then broadcast feed tank through return outlets at DT. Hopefully it will work as I’m thinking it will.


Slowly but surely! DT got moved and hoping to start on the house flooring ASAP so I can get this thing running!

 

[skey44]

Loving the attention to detail and patience. Understand the kids thwarting the build here too. Following

 

[jonelder68]

Loving the attention to detail and patience. Understand the kids thwarting the build here too. Following

Thanks! I’m trying to do this one right the best I can. Yes kids (3) are a handful! Everyday they ask me if the tanks ready and we can go to the fish store lol! Luckily my old tanks still going at grandpas so they get to go visit it severely times a week. We just got back from Florida where they collected sea shells for the “fish tank”. There definitely excited. The wife had to ruin it by deciding to do the tile flooring last minute. Only been asking here for the last year about it. Was no and now hey I’m filling the tank. Once filled never moving. Ok then let’s do the tile first lol!

 

[jonelder68]

Order some ridged acrylic tubing for my ATO. Took awhile to find black. Didn’t want clear as it would probably allow algae growth from light. I didn’t like that if you bumped the float/level sensor you could drastically change the water height with rodi flex tubing. Now with ridged it’s locked in place.

Due to having to raise water level in return chamber for the avast plank auto feeder to have the proper 4” of pump submerged I need to raise the skimmer up 2.5”. Clear choice aquatics made me this 3D printed awesome skimmer stand! Also order some of there 1/4” rodi line clips to secure my ATO tubing. They were a pleasure to deal with and highly recommend them for any 3D printing needs.

 

[jonelder68]

We’ve got power! Electrician buddy and I installed a 100amp sub panel in the basement. Got circuits ran for the fish tank. Ready to go once tiling is done. Patience is so hard! Start laying tile hopefully in the next week or two. Better get tank going as I’m already looking at getting a 115 gallon hydroponic reservoir and starting a frag tank set up in the meantime.

 

[jonelder68]

Decided on mounting location for the avast kalk stirrer. Fabricated a mount for it and made it for easy removal for when it’s time to clean it out.

Decided to make a secure mount as this happened from sitting on the floor and being knocked over by one of my kids. Didn’t know acrylic would shatter like that! Luckily Avast marine got me hooked up with a replacement coming in the mail.