I had the Pukani in the garage in a 35 gallon Brutt with a heater and small pump. I just used tap water and changed the water out every week to two weeks. It seemed to be much cleaner after and the water was very smelly and dirty every time I changed it. I think they were in the can for almost two months. Hope that works and keeps the phosphates down.
I did mine the exact same way. Was in the can for 5 months as the build took longer than expected. Never had an issue with phosphates.
The first part of the build was constructing the sump area. The tank is set up with a bean animal drain with 1" bulkheads and piping. I wanted to construct everything out of hard plumbing. I placed unions everywhere that I could and used all 45s so that there was as little friction loss as possible(that comes from being an engineer on an engine company). I used a spears gate valve to control the main siphon drain.
The return pump is constructed on mainly hard PVC except the small section of silicone to stop vibration noise. I wanted the tank to be as silent as possible. With the Vectra M1 I glued a 45 directly to the output and then a barbed fitting from there to accept the silicone tubing. The opposite end was pretty much the same.
I didn't buy colored PVC, instead I painted everything the color choices. If I were to do it again I would buy the red color PVC and find clear primmer. I could not find the clear primmer anywhere and didn't want to see the purple so thats why I decided to paint everything afterwards.
The electronics area was divided off with 1" ply and then I mounted everything to the mounting board and wire managed everything behind. I will be adding battery backups to the system. I want the apex to be able to communicate if the power goes down so I will be hooking the 1Link to a UPS but will probably not be powering the WAVs with that battery backup since I don't have the room for that big of a UPS to make them run long enough. The UPS hooked to the 1Link will power the apex through the aquabus connection. I will probably be buying the Ecotech battery backup with the booster(not yet released) for the Vectra M1. I will then be purchasing a generator for long term outages.
The ATO I wanted to be as clean as possible (I have a major case of OCD) so I hook the Tunze pump to a barbed Murlock adapter and then plugged that into the bulkhead on the inside of the ATO container. I then ran the 90 degree Murlock adapters on the top side with some RODI line(red of course, have to be stylish) between the Sump and the ATO container.
Thanks again for all those that follow and please feel free to chime in and give advice or ask questions where needed. I will have a lot more questions when it comes to the livestock. I will be QTing all fish and dipping all corals. Thanks again
You have a very serious setup there buddy congrats reef keeping is a very addictive hobby so be prepared for fun times and bad times since you say this is your first reef I would start off with fish only with live rock and go from there best of luck to you! if you have any questions you can reply or contact me at this forum or my email I have been reef keeping 20+years I am always excited and willing to help any fellow reefer oh yeah and sorry this may seem weird but I just joined this site lol wow it is an amazing place already love it!So I've finally got my very first reef tank in the house. It has been a work in progress for almost 6 months. I have been assembling the tank in the garage for the last 2 months. I wanted to get everything assembled in the garage first so that I didn't have a construction zone in the middle of the living room. I have learned so much from this forum so I want to return the favor and start my own build thread so that others can learn from my build. I will try to lay this build out step by step the best I can even though it is being filled at the moment and almost complete.
First the inventory list:
Miracles Custom Tank 60x24x20 with eurobracing
Powder Coated Metal stand built by Miracles
Synergy Reef SS-34 Sump
Reef Synergy 5G ATO container
Kessil A360WE x3 with goosenecks
Neptune Apex Gold
Neptune WAVs
Neptune DOS
Vertex 180i Skimmer
Vectra M1 Return Pump
Tunze Osmolator 3155
Eheim 150 watt heaters x2
BRS Dual Media Reactor
Pukani Rock 65LBS
CaribSea Fuji Pink 80lbs
There will be a lot more posts to follow. I have the equipment layout figured out for the most part but I have a lot to learn about the livestock and corals since this is my first build. I have built numerous Koi ponds from 1000 gallons to 6000 gallons and if this is anything like that there is a huge learning curve. The thing I'm trying to avoid is not doing it right the first time, hence taking it slow and absorbing as much information from the people on this forum. Thank you to all those I have learned from and all the questioned answered by those as well.
You can't go wrong with damsels! They are very hardy and very inexpensive as far as saltwater fish go would recommend blue and yellow tail damsels very tough and strikingly beautiful and like I said inexpensive try to stear away from domino damsels they are great fish but can tend to be very territorial I have always had trouble with clowns and those damsels specifically but you have a somewhat large tank you have a very large selection of fish you could get just only add one or a couple of fish at a time then be diligent on testing your waters parameters ie. And ammonia. nitrite. Nitrate. Etc.... And like I said always happy to help so feel free to ask
I'd make a list of the fish you want...Start with something like clowns as they're a bit more hardy, then start adding peaceful fish. Then the semi-aggressive ones, then the aggressive or territorial ones (tangs)...That way the peaceful fish can get established and what not, rather than adding them last and they'd more likely get picked on by the territorial fish.
Start with clowns, then as you get your initial algae bloom maybe a foxface or blenny of sorts, then chromis and other semi-aggressive fish, then tangs if you want them. This is just how I'd personally do it...I'm sure there will be 10 other ways of going about adding your fish.
For my build I started with my 2 Snowflake Clowns and Magnificent Foxface.
I would love to see your list that you created. I do have a mac but I use Excel. If you can save it in Excel read format I would love to see it. Thanks for the info and the nice comments.
Thanks for all the info, its been really nice to be able to follow your build since we are around the same point. I'm really happy to see that the dreaded bulkhead issue was resolved. I would love to be able to place everything in the basement like you have but I will have to make the sump area under the tank work. I will be watching to see what you do with livestock and corals since you have experience and I have none. Thanks againI'd make a list of the fish you want...Start with something like clowns as they're a bit more hardy, then start adding peaceful fish. Then the semi-aggressive ones, then the aggressive or territorial ones (tangs)...That way the peaceful fish can get established and what not, rather than adding them last and they'd more likely get picked on by the territorial fish.
Start with clowns, then as you get your initial algae bloom maybe a foxface or blenny of sorts, then chromis and other semi-aggressive fish, then tangs if you want them. This is just how I'd personally do it...I'm sure there will be 10 other ways of going about adding your fish.
For my build I started with my 2 Snowflake Clowns and Magnificent Foxface.
