JaysLittleOcean Piece of the Reef.

I had an older 150 gallon per day RO/DI Filtration Unit prior to purchasing our new home. But maybe it wasn't such a good idea to leave it in the car during the winter, especially with water. This is what happens when you.




So I decided instead of just purchasing replacement canister that I would just order a whole new unit and pretend I was Dr. Frankenstein. So when the FedEx Delivery Driver came be my house yesterday I was super excited! But after opening the package I didn't think it would be some assembly required.



After unpacking some of the pieces of the unit I was a little disappointed that the main mounting bracket that holds the three primary canisters together was not metal, rather plastic and a bit flimsy. So I took the entire unit apart so I could swap with metal mountain bracket from my original RO/DI filtration unit. Once I had everything in pieces the gears in my head started turning... why not use everything and make something better? The new RO/DI Filtration Unit now has the following. I also added a Hanna Inline TDS Filter and Pressure gauge to ensure everything is working right. I call it Frankenfilter! Once these filters are exhausted I will reduce the Deionization filters and move to another combination of sediment, chlorine and carbon. But until then I'm reading 35ppm TDS In and 000ppm Out.

- One 5 Micron Sediment Filter.
- One Chlorine Filter.
- One Carbon Filter.
- Two 150 gallon per day Reverse Osmosis Membranes.
- Four Deionization Filters.








The next task was to get the water line adapter in place underneath the family room bathroom sink where the RO/DI filtration unit is going to be placed with the Aquatec 88000 Booster Pump & Power Supply. This was a little nerve racking at first because I have never done any plumbing like this. But I think everything turned out okay.

 

Welcome to 3reef, excellent documentation.

You certainly did your research.

Perhaps someone else can address the brass fittings to the RO system.

Great beginnings.

 

Thank you! Its nice to just start to be apart of this forum.

 

So with the end of my vacation nearing I decided that maybe I should get my stuff together and get my plumbing all square away so I could start making some saltwater and begin cycling the aquarium. So after a few trial and error glues I finally found the right combination that worked for my setup. I'm pretty happy with it.

 

If noise is an issue you may want to lengthen those returns so they end up underwater.Also did you thoroughly rinse that sand??Looks awesome great start!

 

Noise reduction is not an issue at this point. It has been more of a focal point that I'm working to reduce with the equipment and overall design of the aquarium. I did not extend the pipes more than 1 inch under the surface of the water because I did not want to trap air bubbles inside of the PVC pipe which would contribute to additional noise. But their always room to try it and if it doesn't work out the way I think it should. I can just purchase more PVC.

 

So there is something to be said I believe in working with a company that set the bar back in the day for what was considered the high end, top quality and design innovation of aquarium equipment. I did some searching and discovered on another forum that Deltec is making their way back into the U.S. market with Doug Thompson being their primary dealer in the states. So I gave Doug a call and had some conversation with him over the past few days and decided to get some new toys delivered. I purchased a Deltec SC1456 DC Variable Speed Protein Skimmer to replace the Bubble Magus that I had purchased and cleaned up earlier. My experience with Deltec equipment made such an impression in the past that I just had to swipe my card and give it a try. Doug was extremely helpful right sizing the equipment for my particular setup and addressed any concerns should the need for a replacement part be necessary. So I waited eagerly until the next day (thankfully I live only a 1 day delivery time from Pennsylvania). My items were delivered with safely with an extreme amount of care taken to pack the items safely for transit.










After drooling over the new protein skimmer I managed to put some to the pieces together and see some








The first thing I have to say is that the Deltec SC1456 Protein Skimmer has a much smaller footprint than the Bubble Magus. This provides me the ability to have more room underneath my cabinet for maintenance, other equipment if necessary or opens the possibility of running two Deltec SC1456 Protein Skimmers for redundancy and extra skimming capacity if I wanted which I am please with. Also the build quality is still their. The skimmer is sturdy and looks very nice. I will review how it performs once I have it fully setup and running for a for weeks. One of the things I am also happy about is the skimmer uses only 11-38 watts of electricity which is always nice!

 

Thought it was.

 

I got carried away.

 

I noticed that a had a very slow drip leak in the return line of my aquarium this Satuday. Apparently I didn't place the clamp high enough up on the barb fitting. So when I tried to get some slack I realized that not only could I not get the plastic clamp to clear the wall and the trim of the aquarium that I had to play a little game of shimmy the stand. Well... not the brightest thing I could have time because I cracked the bulkhead to the emergency drain within the overflow and my little drip turned into a huge problem. So I gave Russ a call at Saltwater Critters and took a little drive to get the last 1 inch slip Bulkhead fitting he had in stock. Got home later that day and thank goodness for spar PVC parts. I just cut another piece of 1 inch PVC Pipe took half of a new PVC Union and I was back in business. Good thing is that my sump has proven it can hold the entire overflow capacity of extra saltwater without overflowing.