GoToSleep's 700g Build Thread (& complete remodel)

Now that's what I call good usage of shutter speed

 

Really!! Looks like a shot of a spine. You can see the individual vertebra.

 

man this tank keeps lookin better n better i cnt wait to see it done

 

I put another 200 gal in today bringing the total to 600 gal so far. Along with the extra water came a few surprises… The good news is that the water sensor under my stand works and the alarm company called me within about a minute of my flooding underneath my stand thanks to a bulkhead that wasn’t tightened all the way.



On the plus side, I’m really glad that I took the time to install the shower pan under there. It only took a few minutes with the shop vac and everything was as good as new. While I was under there I checked all the other bulkheads and found another one that needed some more tightening.

 

Here are a few early shots of water filling the sump. This the refugium (left) side of the sump



And this is the skimmer (right) side of the sump. You can see the flow coming in at 12 o’clock. There’s deliberately much more flow on this side of the sump.

 

The frag (upper) tank is full and starting to fill the 40 breeder below.



I discovered 2 other fittings on the manifold that weren’t adequately glued. I’m not sure if they ever got hit in the first place. I was able to pull them apart with my hands. This was actually good news since it meant that I was able to just clean and cement the fittings without having to cut out and replace everything as I originally feared.

 

I've set-up and torn down reef tanks many times before and never had an issue with a leak. This time around I've spent hours fixing leaking plumbing. Apparently, making the move to PVC hard piping inserts a few more variables than my early tanks with a few barb fittings and vinyl tubing.

 

All in all, I'm fairly pleased with things. I do have to do some fine tuning with my overflows though. I'm getting a fair bit of noise and a lot of air through to the sump. I'm doing a little bit of searching and will try a few things over the next couple of days to see if I can take things from good to great.

 

Oh yeah, the vinyl tubing is a snap to do compared to hard PVC. But have you seen the price of vinyl tubing lately? Wow is it pricey!

I think it was 20 feet of 1" OD 3/4" ID clear vinyl was like 17-18 dollars at HD!
You can buy a lot of fittings and PVC for that. Spaflex is a great alternative to using a ton of fittings for bends. You just need to let the glue sit a lot longer than a traditional pvc fitting when you glue it.

 

looking great..