We are in the initial stages of setting up a built in 210g reef system and we will have a lot of questions and want some feedback from more seasoned vets. Bare with me, this is a bit long...
A little background first...
We have a 75 gallon reef with 110lbs of live rock and 2 inches of live sand that has been running successfully for a year. Albeit there are no coral or fish since we set it up last summer then bought a house in December, had to break it down, move it to my parent's and set it back up. It does house a small purple spiny lobster, a cleaner shrimp, a blood shrimp, a boxer crab, 6 snails, 6 hermit crabs, and various hitchhiker featherdusters and mushroom polyps. No causalities in the move, which was nice. I know it seems stupid that we've been running the system with nothing in it, but we couldn't justify buying coral/fish and then having to breakdown and move the system again and risk lives. Nor could we justify giving up all that liverock and critters when they were doing so well and we still wanted them. I guess to each his own.
Now that we are settled into our house we want our tank back. ;0) But we decided to do a major upgrade since we would have the opportunity to start from scratch. (I promise to post LOTS of pics during the construction/set up cause I know how you guys are with that stuff.)
So we have decided to install this new tank in the wall between our living room and laundry room. Our house is an odd layout, it could be considered a split level or a bi-level or neither. It was built partially onto a granite outcrop and the previous homeowner did not blast before laying the foundation. So one cool feature is that we have boulder jutting into our home under our second floor stair, and that there are two levels to our first floor. It will be easier to understand when you see the pics... So, our laundry room is a poured slab and our living room is poured slab. They were divided by a concrete block wall and sheet rock. If I stand in the living room the laundry room floor is "four blocks higher".
So far we have removed the horrid paneling that was there, the sheet rock, rewired and diverted a ton of electrical, cut out all of the studs in the wall, installed an 8 foot steel I-beam and jack studs to support the second floor, and cut out one entire course of concrete block. All of this is illustrated in the pics so far.
The next step is to fill the remaining concrete blocks with more concrete and level the wall. Then we will be building a platform that will support the back end of the tank. This platform will partially sit on the concrete wall; therefore approximately 16 inches of the tank will jut into the laundry room. It will also end up being about 18 - 20 inches off the laundry room floor putting it at a very nice height in the living room.
We are having an electrician friend come in an run new lines that will be dedicated exclusively to the tank. We have two boxes in our house, each 100 amp. So there are several open breakers. Every outlet will be a GFCI as a general precaution. We are going to build an "electrical box" to house all of the outlets, which can be closed off incase a water line decides to fail and spray around the room. I will post pics when we get around to that to give you an idea of what I am talking about. The one electrical box is only a few feet from the laundry, which also makes this ideal. Oh, yeah, next spring we are also going to be buying a whole house generator and tying that into the electrical in case of a power outage. Never mind that our heat and hot water is electric...the hubby is just worried of tank failure so THAT is what is prompting the generator purchase :0) For now we will continue to rely on battery backups to run the pumps and heaters during a power failure.
We decided to build our own sump too. After cruising the web I came across this site: http://www.melevsreef.com and discovered some very useful information. Incidentally, this is also where I got the idea for the electrical box that we will build for the outlets. We are going to build our sump to include a refugium and the finished dimensions will be 60" long by 20" wide by 16" tall. We will have very little clearance between the bottom of the tank and the top of the sump so it will not sit directly under the tank, rather offset toward the back of the tank a little. We are still working on the plumbing schematic to accommodate this issue. Our main concern is gravity/flow from the overflows into the sump. I think the answer lies in ball valves, flexible tubing and pvc.
Our plan is to get the barebones of the system set up and start cycling the tank ASAP. Here are where my questions come in:
1. How much sand for a 210g?
2. What is a good amount of liverock to start a cycle with in that size tank? Or what is the MINIMUM we can use? We have 100lbs in our 75g, but didn't plan on adding that until the new tank is cycled. And just a stupid question here, can we use any part of the liverock from our existing tank to help the cycle? Or just start with new stuff? Also, will adding the liverock from the 75g later on cause another cycle in the 210g after it has finished cycling? Just tell me if that is a stupid question, I think it might be.
3. What brand of pump do you recommend for the return? What about gph? We are finding conflicting information on this.
4. Does anyone recommend two separate return pumps in lieu of one, in case one fails? Or just one return pump that t-splits to each overflow box (one in each corner).
Okay, so those are my main questions for now. If you have any suggestions, advice, comments PLEASE send them along. Thanks!
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/electrical.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install -01" />
removing the sheetrock and electrical
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/nosheetrock.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install - 02" />
removing more sheet rock
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/ibeamjackstuds.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
I-beam and jack studs installed, electrical moved
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/concretesaw.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
using a concrete saw to cut out concrete block
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/removingblock.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
another view of the concrete block removal
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/chipping.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
chipping away the last of the mortar
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/finalopening.jpg" alt="210g Reef System" />
final shot of the opening from the living room, larger than needed at this time...
A little background first...
We have a 75 gallon reef with 110lbs of live rock and 2 inches of live sand that has been running successfully for a year. Albeit there are no coral or fish since we set it up last summer then bought a house in December, had to break it down, move it to my parent's and set it back up. It does house a small purple spiny lobster, a cleaner shrimp, a blood shrimp, a boxer crab, 6 snails, 6 hermit crabs, and various hitchhiker featherdusters and mushroom polyps. No causalities in the move, which was nice. I know it seems stupid that we've been running the system with nothing in it, but we couldn't justify buying coral/fish and then having to breakdown and move the system again and risk lives. Nor could we justify giving up all that liverock and critters when they were doing so well and we still wanted them. I guess to each his own.
Now that we are settled into our house we want our tank back. ;0) But we decided to do a major upgrade since we would have the opportunity to start from scratch. (I promise to post LOTS of pics during the construction/set up cause I know how you guys are with that stuff.)
So we have decided to install this new tank in the wall between our living room and laundry room. Our house is an odd layout, it could be considered a split level or a bi-level or neither. It was built partially onto a granite outcrop and the previous homeowner did not blast before laying the foundation. So one cool feature is that we have boulder jutting into our home under our second floor stair, and that there are two levels to our first floor. It will be easier to understand when you see the pics... So, our laundry room is a poured slab and our living room is poured slab. They were divided by a concrete block wall and sheet rock. If I stand in the living room the laundry room floor is "four blocks higher".
So far we have removed the horrid paneling that was there, the sheet rock, rewired and diverted a ton of electrical, cut out all of the studs in the wall, installed an 8 foot steel I-beam and jack studs to support the second floor, and cut out one entire course of concrete block. All of this is illustrated in the pics so far.
The next step is to fill the remaining concrete blocks with more concrete and level the wall. Then we will be building a platform that will support the back end of the tank. This platform will partially sit on the concrete wall; therefore approximately 16 inches of the tank will jut into the laundry room. It will also end up being about 18 - 20 inches off the laundry room floor putting it at a very nice height in the living room.
We are having an electrician friend come in an run new lines that will be dedicated exclusively to the tank. We have two boxes in our house, each 100 amp. So there are several open breakers. Every outlet will be a GFCI as a general precaution. We are going to build an "electrical box" to house all of the outlets, which can be closed off incase a water line decides to fail and spray around the room. I will post pics when we get around to that to give you an idea of what I am talking about. The one electrical box is only a few feet from the laundry, which also makes this ideal. Oh, yeah, next spring we are also going to be buying a whole house generator and tying that into the electrical in case of a power outage. Never mind that our heat and hot water is electric...the hubby is just worried of tank failure so THAT is what is prompting the generator purchase :0) For now we will continue to rely on battery backups to run the pumps and heaters during a power failure.
We decided to build our own sump too. After cruising the web I came across this site: http://www.melevsreef.com and discovered some very useful information. Incidentally, this is also where I got the idea for the electrical box that we will build for the outlets. We are going to build our sump to include a refugium and the finished dimensions will be 60" long by 20" wide by 16" tall. We will have very little clearance between the bottom of the tank and the top of the sump so it will not sit directly under the tank, rather offset toward the back of the tank a little. We are still working on the plumbing schematic to accommodate this issue. Our main concern is gravity/flow from the overflows into the sump. I think the answer lies in ball valves, flexible tubing and pvc.
Our plan is to get the barebones of the system set up and start cycling the tank ASAP. Here are where my questions come in:
1. How much sand for a 210g?
2. What is a good amount of liverock to start a cycle with in that size tank? Or what is the MINIMUM we can use? We have 100lbs in our 75g, but didn't plan on adding that until the new tank is cycled. And just a stupid question here, can we use any part of the liverock from our existing tank to help the cycle? Or just start with new stuff? Also, will adding the liverock from the 75g later on cause another cycle in the 210g after it has finished cycling? Just tell me if that is a stupid question, I think it might be.
3. What brand of pump do you recommend for the return? What about gph? We are finding conflicting information on this.
4. Does anyone recommend two separate return pumps in lieu of one, in case one fails? Or just one return pump that t-splits to each overflow box (one in each corner).
Okay, so those are my main questions for now. If you have any suggestions, advice, comments PLEASE send them along. Thanks!
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/electrical.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install -01" />
removing the sheetrock and electrical
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/nosheetrock.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install - 02" />
removing more sheet rock
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/ibeamjackstuds.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
I-beam and jack studs installed, electrical moved
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/concretesaw.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
using a concrete saw to cut out concrete block
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/removingblock.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
another view of the concrete block removal
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/chipping.jpg" alt="210g Reef Install" />
chipping away the last of the mortar
<img src="http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/5/5/9/finalopening.jpg" alt="210g Reef System" />
final shot of the opening from the living room, larger than needed at this time...
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