A Golden Reef Tank
- Thread starter halmus
- Start date
Here's a small update. The filtration room is in complete chaos right now. I'm making slow progress on the plumbing.
The refugium (to the left) is cycling right now. I built some rockwork in the refugium that is held together with portland cement as an experiment. It was built in place and needed to soak to leach out all of the crud. I coated the inside of the tank with a protective layer of plastic. That's why it has that green look. I've decided that I'll probably use epoxy on the main tank after seeing how this worked out.
The refugium (to the left) is cycling right now. I built some rockwork in the refugium that is held together with portland cement as an experiment. It was built in place and needed to soak to leach out all of the crud. I coated the inside of the tank with a protective layer of plastic. That's why it has that green look. I've decided that I'll probably use epoxy on the main tank after seeing how this worked out.
As a reference for the last picture above, the bottom 1 1/2" line feeds the Vortec that supports the frag system. That vortec feeds the two frag tanks, two reactors, and the skimmer. It might be a lot to ask of a single pump but I'm not planning on running a huge amount of water through the frag tanks, just a lot of internal circulation for each tank.
The second line from the bottom is the feed line that comes from the main system. It also won't run an enormous amount of flow through the sump, just enough to keep the frag system water well mixed with the main.
The top line is the return from the skimmer.
The second line from the bottom is the feed line that comes from the main system. It also won't run an enormous amount of flow through the sump, just enough to keep the frag system water well mixed with the main.
The top line is the return from the skimmer.
The frag sump has two return lines back to the main sump. One is 1" and will run full siphon. The other one is a 2" backup line. That's a trend with this build for all of the external tanks. I run a modest amount of water to it and have the primary and backup drain lines. The 2" is overkill by far, but it's peace of mind.
Thank you. It will be a great place to hang out once complete. Even though it's taking too long, everything is falling into place. There are some minor details to finish in the main space but those will be ignored until my tank is sitting idle cycling.
Thanks. Hopefully an uninterrupted weekend of plumbing ahead.
I met a neighbor the next street over that keeps planted tanks. He's just getting a new tank started. I'm going to give him a hand building an acrylic shelf for a dosing pump. But, other than that, an uninterrupted weekend.
I'll post up pictures of the growing plumbing maze early next week.
Thanks. Hopefully an uninterrupted weekend of plumbing ahead.
I met a neighbor the next street over that keeps planted tanks. He's just getting a new tank started. I'm going to give him a hand building an acrylic shelf for a dosing pump. But, other than that, an uninterrupted weekend.
I'll post up pictures of the growing plumbing maze early next week.
The plumbing on the main system, refugium, frag racks is 95% done. I have one alteration I'm going to make to the reactor plumbing. I'm going to rip out just a little bit of the feed lines to those and re-plumb them with a section of soft line. I don't feel comfortable with everything hard plumbed (the way they turned out). I'm afraid there's stress on some of joints. I'm trying to get this as bullet-proof as possible.
I built supports for quite a bit of the plumbing now. I still need to make a few that will attach to the walls and support the vertical lines. I've been holding off until I'm relatively certain all of that is complete and that I'm done making any changes. I also need to add the pipe clamps for the unistrut supports for the lines running across the floor.
This is the result
I built a wooden framework that spans over everything. Painted it black. Then added aluminum angle iron around the perimeter. There are four removable floor grates that will allow me access to get down to the plumbing lines if needed. The floor grating is industrial grade fiberglass floor grating.
I built supports for quite a bit of the plumbing now. I still need to make a few that will attach to the walls and support the vertical lines. I've been holding off until I'm relatively certain all of that is complete and that I'm done making any changes. I also need to add the pipe clamps for the unistrut supports for the lines running across the floor.
This is the result
I built a wooden framework that spans over everything. Painted it black. Then added aluminum angle iron around the perimeter. There are four removable floor grates that will allow me access to get down to the plumbing lines if needed. The floor grating is industrial grade fiberglass floor grating.