Neptunes first tank: 125DT 55Sump

[King_Neptune]

Mounted tank:

Also a demo of my over flow design. Turns out lots of people have done this, so Im not that special, but I guess great minds think alike

This isn't the final product...but you get the concept of an overflow bar with a drain slit in it. I will tweak it a little to accommodate more water flow. Stay tuned.

Also put int he foam wall build today:

And added Acrylic bracers:

I folded them over with a torch and metal plate. Ill sand out the burn marks and bubbles tomorrow after it hardens.

I debate adding a lip as well to prevent jumpers. Any thoughts?

 

[King_Neptune]

What people never show on their tank build diaries ^^

The ugly side of it all.

Hear is the drain lines, nothing is glued in...just dry fitted to demo it before I choose a final.

Stand pipes:

The cap i am considering leaving unglued...in case I want to ever do maintenance. They are a really really tight fit, so it wont be easy to pull off. Also I'm putting a sliding airline. It is made from model airplane control rod housing. It resembles a 3ft long straw, and stiff. The theory behind it is I can slide the tube up and down the length of the durso to "Tweak" where my air bubbles hit the water. Therefore adjusting my noise. Also I can cap these with a valve to adjust the flow of air.

I worked out my space problem with that monster skimmer:

I can fit skimmer,calcium reactor,and probably a 20-35lb Co2 canister.

I changed up the oposite side of the sump a little:

1.5" Flow valve is in a different spot, this made more room for the screen to hang closer to the edge of the sump. Also tweaked the plumbing on the scrubber a little as well.

Adding this "U-Turn", gave me a good amount of space to work with. Originally I was limiting myself to the length of my screen pipe. Now I can have a screen run the length of the fuge chamber. AND allow me a union coupling to remove it for easy maintenance/upgraded screens.

The draw back is this also restricts flow a bit, but I can compensate via larger holes in the screen pipe...or adjusting the flow valve on the primary drain below.

 

[King_Neptune]

Dry plumbed the return system to demo it before I glue it in.

Its a Mag18, I immediately went from 3/4" to 1" and Put in a coupler for easy removal/cleaning ect. Then a flow valve to control the throttle. After that I ran the 1" line at a 45 degree angle to the outside of the tank.

I drilled a hole to allow the "T" fitting to slip through the acrylic I left over hanging. This will help keep the return line locked down.

I branched out to either side where I will have it go back down to 3/4" loclines.

Ill fasten it into place with epoxy resin tomorrow. Plus I have to go to the hardware store and pick up coupling to convert from 1" to 3/4" threaded, so I can place in the loc lines.


I have a question about the Return pump...is it ok to have it site on glass like that? or should I pad it somehow to keep vibrations down? Also does it need to be in filter sock of some kind?

 

[Darthv247]

haha gotta love the porno collection holding up the baffles in the building of the sump. guess there IS more uses for them than i thought.

 

[King_Neptune]

haha gotta love the porno collection holding up the baffles in the building of the sump. guess there IS more uses for them than i thought.

woops!! good eagle eye. i myself missedthat^^

 

[Chichas01]

haha gotta love the porno collection holding up the baffles in the building of the sump. guess there IS more uses for them than i thought.

DOH!!

 

[King_Neptune]

did a freshwater test. made some small changes to the plumbing to get the flow i wanted.

got a nice gentle flow through the sump. thanks to our very own salmon slayer, i followed his advice and did a slow churning sump. cut out the return line and plumbed it to a single...no "T".

the bar is twisted 90 degrees so it is face up now. i get pretty nice surface agitation from the return lines. and great surface skimming from the drain bar.


then I drained it and sealed the foam wall in with a bead of great stuff all the way around. this will drasticly reduce water flow getting behind the wall and setting up nasty deposits.

the wall build really pops out underwater from the magnification. I cant wait!

was a little disappointed with he scrubber....

the solid line is the main stream. the dotted lines the secondary wash. i was worried that it wasn't flowing right since it didn't cover the whole screen. but after asking around i was told it would once the screen is covered in algae.


so thats good news.

Also poured the concrete for the saltwater mixing room in back!!

Ill plumb it in a few days and hook up the Ro-DI unit.
Within a week(theoretically) i should be ready to order my LR!!

 

[King_Neptune]

Got the lights up, RO in. Salt mixed, sand installed. Water params good. 50lbs of LR from an established tank.

Its not enough, so im going to order another 50lbs of base rock and have it seeded form the other LR.

 

[Darthv247]

very nice ! looking like all the hard work is starting to pay off fast.

 

[King_Neptune]

Thx.
I just checked params a few min ago.
1.026 not to hard to achieve a perfect salinity.
ph 8.2(id like to hit 8.3 but no rush)
Amonia 0.0
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 0.0
Alk 4.5 Wouldn't mind raising this as well.

Its only been 5 days so I cant expect a spike yet, I feed daily with 4 frozen mysis shrimp cubes. I see life on the rocks now, some tube worms and the dreaded aptasia, Ill squash that problem in the next couple days. All in all seems to be going steady. Wouldn't mind seeing the ammonia spike hit hard, but only time will tell. Till then Ill feed daily with 4 cubes. If I go 3-4 weeks and don't see anything...hmm. Maybe the tank is already good since It was mature rock. Ill have to ask about that when the time comes.

 

[blakejohn]

I would just toss in about six deli shrimp in a pair of nylons and let them rott. Check the params every day. when the NH3 spikes you can remove them.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Looks awesome so far! can't wait to see it with the new base rock added.

 

[King_Neptune]

another aptasia!!! little bugger popped up last night!!!

I need my paycheck SOON! i cant have this spreading.
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I took a series of new photos to show the work in progress.
Installed the reactor and tested it out. works great.

Installed an acrylic sheet over the scrubber to prevent splash on the lights when I hang them.

nothing fancy, just hanging by some shower curtain clips.

I got the basic shape of the system I will use to suspend the lights for the scrubber station. These are two 65w yard lights that light up a 500ft area, inside each is one of those is a compact fluorescent. Nice and bright!

And a series of shots of the over flow in action:

And finaly a shot of the first signs of diatom!!

Hard to make out, but its just beginning to brown. A full 3 days behind the scrubber station which wasn't even turned on.

 

[King_Neptune]

Got me a tripod today. $25 walmart special! Gotta love it.

I already like it better. Shots come out much crisper. Before I would go through a dozen shots till I got one in focus and clear.

For those of you who wondered about my overflow blocking too much light. Here are some shots from different angles using the exact same lighting conditions:

OH NO ITS TOO DARK YIKES!!!

Now a different angle:

Its just a matter of how the camera translates the image. In this shot it focused on the reflection and left the background image alone.



And my diatom is really coming of age!

 

[tyson256031]

hey tanks looking good man, im getting in some corals this week let me know if your interested. im glad the rock worked out for you.

 

[King_Neptune]

just finished acclimating my emeralds and hermits. dropped em in and they went to town scarfing away. I got my CuC consisting of nas/astrea/cerith snails ordered, I got 10 each which was over kill IMO, but I also got a 29g nano that will be cycling shortly and that will need a cuc anyways.
Added one arrow crab to deal with the bristle worm population, doesn't hurt that they eat algae as well, I got plenty of that.
Also ordered some pods to seed the system.
A lawn more Blenny as my first fish.

And finaly gonna pick up a sally light-foot in about an hour at the LFS, $8 cant pass that up.

Also ordered some pods to seed the system.
A lawn more Blenny as my first fish.

 

[King_Neptune]

I went back into town and picked up the sally light foot, also saw a really really large hermit, so I couldn't resist! $17 for the pair, but that is absolutly it! No more till after my snails and blenny have saturated the tank for at least a month ^_^

 

[King_Neptune]

Scrubber station is active!!

Made a pretty shoddy Acrylic shield, but for its lack in luster...it makes up for in functionality.

I will cut the flow bar and add another 3" to it so It can support the acrylic shield properly. Right now it rests on the baffle below.

These are super bright lights. 65w PC florescent. Simple yard lights found at lowes for around $45. Boast the coverage of a 500w light, and 500sq ft of yard lit up.

I got them set to swivel out for easy access and removal of scrubber:

I scored the plastic with a 3" hole bit, so lets hope it starts seeding with algae. I plan to do bi monthly cleanings. do one side, then wait a week and do the other side. This means each side gets cleaned every two weeks. Its a light bio load right now(jsut a small CuC nothing more), so I dont really expect to see any action just yet.

 

[Chichas01]

Why do you want to get rid of the bristle worms? They are one of the best members of your tank maintenance crew. And when they spawn they are providing zooplankton for your corals.

 

[King_Neptune]

Why do you want to get rid of the bristle worms? They are one of the best members of your tank maintenance crew. And when they spawn they are providing zooplankton for your corals.

they breed too fast and get too big. I just want to get them under control. in 3 weeks Ive gone from a couple, to dozens scurrying about. Im simply getting worried.

i was just worried that they were like aptasia...cockroach breeders. I got a 29G nano that I can shuffle the arrow crab beetween. lettingthem re-populate if thats needed. your the first person Ive ever heard tell me I want bristle worms. Id like to learn more.