75 Gal Rebuild Thread

[carym]

Did you put your new fish in the tank yet? make sure you acclimate it... lol
Also take a picture would love to see how it is doing...

[schneijt]

Originally Posted by carym

Did you put your new fish in the tank yet? make sure you acclimate it... lol
Also take a picture would love to see how it is doing...

Just for you, Cary!

I'll have you know that I had to get out of this INCREDIBLY COMFORTABLE RECLINER I'm sitting in right now to go down to the world's WORST SMELLING BASEMENT to put him in the tank and snap that picture... lol

-Joe

[ReefLuvR]

Beautiful fish Joe! Maybe if you give it to your Mom she won't hate you for stinkin' up her house!!

Oh, and congratulations on having smelly rock. Let the fun begin!

[schneijt]

I figured I should post an update. The house still stinks, but not as bad as it did. I can't do a water change in my stinky tubs until I get a heater for my new 44gal Brute trash can... So, hopefully I get a heater soon. Right now, though, the rock is just cycling, so there's no harm in not getting a water change done.

I got the back of the tank painted yesterday, and this morning my father and I took the tank off the stand so I could clean it a little bit and get the huge new sump in. So, once the sump is in there and I've cleaned the stand and tank a little bit, I'll post pictures.

-Joe

[schneijt]

Here are some pictures of the tank with multiple coats of black paint on the back. I also took some pictures of the new sump in the stand. It's a "two-level sump," meaning that the sump is lower in height than the refugium/freshwater top-off chambers. The ATO chamber holds roughly 5gal of RO/DI water, so I'll only have to refill it every few days to a week, depending on how much water I evaporate out of the new setup during different times of the year. My kalk reactor will go on the opposite side of the sump and be fed from the ATO section of the sump, since I had to maximize space down there.

The refugium holds somewhere around 20gal of water, last I remember. It has "teeth" allowing the water to return to the sump via gravity, but the teeth are a few inches from the edge on each end, since I don't want water to trickle down and end up outside the sump... The pictures don't show everything perfectly, but that's life... I'll host a meeting sometime so everyone can get a better look at things once it's all said and done. :-)

My only complaint was that, having built the sump in TN when my tank/stand were in Eau Claire, I don't have much access to the ATO chamber and the fuge to get my hands in there. So, harvesting chaeto will be tricky until I find a good method to perfect the operation. As far as filling the ATO chamber, I'll just have to use a Maxi Jet pump and snake some tubing into the ATO chamber and then turn the pump on. Should be fun.

Again, I talk too much... Here are the pics!

-Joe

[schneijt]

Had to delete some of my older attachments to make room for more...

[jakecaps]

looks good Joe! cant wait to see it all come together!

[Kyuss]

looking very nice Joe!

[odie]

Not sure if mentioned...but did you make the stand?

[tangmang23]

looks like an all glass stand

[Sndwave80]

Keep the pics coming. I like how large your sump is, that will make a great grow out area.

[schneijt]

It's the standard AGA stand. If I'd have made the stand, it would actually have some HEIGHT to it... Grr, I hate the fact that the stand is so short, but that's life.

The "sump" section of the sump/fuge/ato conglomerate seems large, but it's actually really small when you put the huge Octo Extreme 200 skimmer in there along with a return pump and a filter sock on the drain... :-( Believe it or not, I wish I'd have taken a couple more inches for the sump and made the 'fuge a bit smaller.

I don't expect it to be a problem when everything is running, but I wonder how much room I'll have in the sump for water when the power goes out. The skimmer runs best at 6-8", so I'm planning to run the water in the sump right at 6" to start out and go from there. Once I know how much room I have for more water if the power goes out, I may raise it a little bit to see what depth my skimmer works best in.

You'll notice that I have no baffles in my sump. I've had success with this in the past when using a larger sump, and had absolute no microbubble issues. This is a smaller area of water than my old sump because I now have a large fuge and an ATO section built into my sump, so hopefully I won't end up with any microbubble issues. Using a filter sock on the drain will help. Also, no baffles means that I have to keep a rock solid water level for my skimmer, which I achieve by using a Tunze Osmolator. The pump for the osmolator will be in the ATO section, of course, and it'll pump water to the kalk reactor, which will be placed in the empty space on the left side of the stand.

Once again, I'd like to point out that as much as I hated tearing down my tank before I moved to TN, it really gave me a chance to do everything over again 100%. There were lots of things about the tank last time that I wish I had done differently, and now I have the chance to put all of my years of experience to work to make this a really sweet 75gal setup.

-Joe

[schneijt]

Well, the tank is on the stand and the skimmer is down in the sump. I also took two 1" x 16" pieces and put the reinforcements in my sump and fuge. Since the sump is holding such a HUGE amount of water, I have to admit that I'm really concerned that the thing will fail on me when I get it all up and running. It's been briefly leak tested, but still I just don't trust myself and my ability to take 1/4" acrylic and make it hold lots of water without exploding or cracking or otherwise destroying my stand and basement...

Anyway, I hope to have water in the tank within the next couple days, and I'll post pictures soon.

-Joe

[taminate]

looks great, cant wait to see it in person. Just curious, maybe you already mentioned it but how many GPH are you running on your return and can you get that huge skimmer in and out of the sump with the tank on top or does the tank have to be off to get the skimmer in. I really like the fuge/sump set up. Thanks for the pics

[schneijt]

950gph pump for the return, but it'll be going through a few 90 degree elbows and will also feed the refugium. So, probably won't be but 400 or 500gph getting to the tank. The skimmer easily fits in and out of the sump (with the collection cup off, of course).

I love the height of the refugium, but I'm actually a little concerned about how much pressure will be on the seams of the acrylic since it's going to hold somewhere around 20gal and it's 20" high. I'm really going to be nervous when it's up and running for a few days, since I'm not 100% sure it'll hold together down there in the stand!

Worst-case scenario I just put my old sump back under there if something happens. I don't think the sump/fuge will have any trouble holding the water, especially since I just put the reinforcements in. Still, though, this is the time when I wish I'd have paid an acrylic sump pro to assemble the acrylic parts for me. :-)

-Joe