29G Tank Build

Here are the first few pics of the cycling tank. It's by no means impressive- I've definitely got a bad case of tank envy from perusing other setups. This will have to do though until either my 55 is cleared or I get out of my 3rd floor condo and into a house.

Being my first SW, this will be as much a log for myself as anything else. Hope no one minds.




The cycling is definitely aided by the LR, already cured and nicely porous. I've put two jumbo shrimp in and so far the NH3 and NO2 spikes have happened, continued ghost feeding since. NO3 is around 5ppm. So far I've got diatoms, hair algae and coralline advancing(Actinic only, 5-6 hours a day). So it's time to get serious about the sump. I've been putting it off out of indecision on the sump design. I've decided to drop the idea of any sort of fuge with this size. A piece of LR or a small turf screen might fit though to help with nitrate removal.




Color of the LR, love looking at it. Yes... I know... I need help.


One of my not so welcome hitchhikers.


One of my more welcome ones. All in all, five of them.










More pics to follow on the next episode of Computer Geeks & PVC - When Good Pipes Go Bad. (This should be amusing)

 

I'm looking forward to watching this progress

 

Sump plans are finished. It appears everything is going to fit except the heater which will be about an inch too long. Installing it at an angle with acrylic brackets should give it enough space and keep it away from the glass.

There is some room near the return pump, perhaps enough for a very small partition for macro. I know it's better to keep the return chamber as large as possible, but this will have an ATO when finished. Any comments on the possible fuge chamber or the plans are much appreciated. The plans are to scale.

 

Looks great man... Looking forward to watching this one...!

 

How many pounds of rock do you have in there? And are you planning on going fish only or full reef or what? It sounds like you're going to have corals, considering you have the lighting for it.

My best friend has a 2 year old 29 reef setup with a 10 gallon sump installed, along with no fuge. It's a nicely sized tank. It's by far the smallest I'd recommend for someone with little experience.

And I highly suggest you get a decent protein skimmer in the months to follow. They are a must have in my opinion.

 

There is 20lbs of LR in the tank at the moment. The plan is to add another 20lbs when the sump is complete and let the displaced water go through the overflow to the empty sump before filling it up the rest of the way. We'll see how that plan works out...

I'm going to start with fish only, but I definitely want to go reef once I'm sure I can keep the params. I've got an AquaC Urchin Pro that will go in the sump. It's rated for 40-120 gallons(maybe a bit overkill, but all advice points to buying larger than rated if considering a reef), so I *should* be ok there.

 

Sump is complete. Started it up two days ago, but I've been lazy with getting the pics off the camera.




Fitting the return together before cement.






Man that primer is runny. I left the little ball applicator out of the solution the whole while. That helped a bit.







Finished gluing, now to make it purty.



Paint dried and masking removed. Now for the test.... *cringe*



No leaks!

 

Now on to the overflow..




Looks like it's going to fit. Bottom 45 won't be cemented so I can adjust it for bubbles/noise.


Ready for paint. After painting, it's on to the sump/baffles. Oui, now to figure out this acrylic stuff.:-/



Left some gaps on the sides and bottom for expansion, an old stick of ddr makes a great spacer for the bottom and sides.




Curing. It might be the ugliest thing I've ever seen. I had a hard enough time getting in there to smooth the silicone, trying to apply masking tape? Fuggetaboutit.



Set up and filled. I had some rubber matting I used for padding. Rinsed the heck out of it.
It needs a trimming though. I'd also like to find a better material as I've no idea how it will hold up to constant salt water.


Skimmer.



Pumps on and overflow draining. Baffles look like they're working, though I would have made the middle one higher.




Bubbles from inlet and return chamber.

 

Overflow and return line. The nozzle on the Loc-Line is about 1/4" below waterline. Power off test drains about three inches back to sump before siphon is broken. Overflow 'U' looks like it holds siphon throughout. ;D




Looks like I've got a few other things growing that I didn't catch at first.




No idear, but it seems to be growing larger.


Looks like a small featherduster.(?)


Possibly a brittle star? I've seen two that come from under the LR at night, these tentacles look similar.




Some kind of pod, looks to be a sand sifter. Need to go through the ID threads to find out.


No idea what the heck.. Snail without a shell?


Overall, the plumbing wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was my first time plumbing anything, but I learned a lot of useful information of fittings and how to plan something like this. Some things I'd do differently next time. Now on to the ATO.

 

For the ATO, the plan is to try to make the system have some intelligence rather than just relying on switches that can fail. I want to avoid coming home to water on the floor and burned up pumps.

To do this I'm going to use multiple float switches and a microcontroller called an Arduino. These things are very versatile and can read sensors and switch relays on and off. Logic can be put in that will not allow the top-off pump to run more than ten seconds or so, so even if something *really bad* happens, it won't burn the pump out. I've ordered six of these float switches which should give me extras if one fails. They'll be hooked up like so:



One thing not included in there though is the return pump. It will also be hooked up to a relay, if the High High float switch in the overflow detects water, the return pump will be shut off.

While waiting for the float switches, I'm going to try to set up an interim top-off using a sonic ranger hooked up to an arduino that I have lying around. The micro bubbles get fairly bad if the water level in the return drops more than a quarter of an inch (about eight hours).