29 Gallon to 120 Gallon Upgrade Build

marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Well, I got a little more done on both the basement and the tank. Fiancee picked out the color for the walls downstairs.I got the first coat done last night. I think it will look nice with the shimmer from the tanks. It's a rec room area, so I expect the room will be dark most of the time when we watch movies and the only lights will be from the TV and the tank. We went with a Pale Seafoam. Second and hopefully final coat will be on tonight. Then I can finally put the tank into its final resting place!

Also decided, since I was in a painting mode, to paint the back of the 120 gallon tank. I did some research and found that an acrylic craft paint and small roller will work really well on glass. It makes a nice smooth coat on the glass side, but stays textured on the back. I went to Walmart and hit up the craft section. I was debating on blue vs black, and decided on a blue back ground. But I did want something darker. There were about 5 shades of blue, but this one sticked out. "Ultramarine". It has the work marine in it! How could I go wrong!

At $0.97 a tube it was a cheap background. Though it did take 5 tubes (1 tube = 1 coat) over 2 days to get full coverage with no holes. The acrylic will come off super easy with a razor blade if I decide to change it up later. My only complaint is that no matter how well I taped off the trim, some of the paint made a capillary action and sucked up between the trim and glass on the top. So there isn't a nice straight black trim line between the blue background. Over time there will be purple algae on the back, so I'm not going to try to fix it.
Overall I'm pleased with the result!
Before!

After!

Next part is the plumbing. I'm going to go ahead and try to dry plumb my original plumbing idea. 10 Gallon Refugium, 40 Gallon Sump. After I get the overflow tested I will then decide whether or not to do the waterfall or upflow algae scrubber. I've been pricing a RED LED light build on Rapid LED. I would just need 2 660nm per side of the scrubber with one driver and a heatsink to light the scrubber. This is according to Floyd R Turbo's Algae Scrubber Basic thread I found online. Seems to have a real good grasp of scrubbers. I also found an Ebay solution for some 4 LED bulbs. 4 1W Cree LED's per bulb at $15 a pop. From China though. I'm not sure; I think the custom build would probably be a better bet as far as knowing what I'm getting.

Plumbing and tank view - separated

Plumbing and Tank view - Joined together
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Looks super.....I couldn't detect any issues with your tank painted.....You have to remember only you will be able to pick out the flaws in the end.....I think we are "our" own worst enemies on these projects......
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
I worked a full shift on the build last night.. started working around 11 PM in my new "Fish Room" and finally crawled into bed around 6 AM.
I got the 5 Stage RO/DI installed. Ran the water lines through the walls from the adjacent room to the tank. I'm filling the sump first via the bean animal overflow. Seem to be working great! However I did make a small error with the RO/DI. About 2 am I put the water line in the sump. I came down this morning and there couldn't have been more then 3 gallons of water. Over 8 hours, that didn't seem right!
I found that the unit I bought had a flush membrane valve which was open. I closed it and now I'm making a steady stream of RO/DI water. Frustrating that I wasted all that water. Lesson learned.

I also got the 10 gallon refugium tank drilled and installed with the bulkhead and filter. Everything fit under the cabinet, but it is not easy by any means to get into either tank. Not a lot of clearance, but I'll just have to manage at this point. Not anything I can't work around.
I also used a dremel tool to make my overflow elbows have a filtered finish. That i do have a picture of. I'm happy with they way they all turned out.

I also think I finalize my rock work. I have a nice sweeping arch with shelves on it and a peninsula style tower, also offering lots of shelving for future frags.

Its look quite different in person. There are alot of 3D aspects that are lost in a photo. Maybe I can do a video after I move it into the tank. The arch is fulling rodded and bonded (its made out 2 pieces/2 halves.) The tower I will be finalizing tonight I hope. Thank I can move them into the tank.
This brings me to my next area of discussion. My tank has an un-tempered bottom. I was worried about the weight of the rock directly on the glass. Main my worry has to do with points of pressure. I had a thought to use some scrap acrylic sheeting to place the base of each structure on. My thought was that this would create a nice base to distribute the pressure out. Since I will have a 1- 2 inch sand bed you will never see the acrylic base. Does that sound about right?
I'll get some more pictures up later. I have to run out and do some last minute Christmas Shopping!
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarvelFan http:///t/393629/29-gallon-to-120-gallon-upgrade-build/20#post_3505101
I worked a full shift on the build last night.. started working around 11 PM in my new "Fish Room" and finally crawled into bed around 6 AM.
I got the 5 Stage RO/DI installed. Ran the water lines through the walls from the adjacent room to the tank. I'm filling the sump first via the bean animal overflow. Seem to be working great! However I did make a small error with the RO/DI. About 2 am I put the water line in the sump. I came down this morning and there couldn't have been more then 3 gallons of water. Over 8 hours, that didn't seem right!

I found that the unit I bought had a flush membrane valve which was open. I closed it and now I'm making a steady stream of RO/DI water. Frustrating that I wasted all that water. Lesson learned.
Those little things happen.....No harm though!!!!!!
I also got the 10 gallon refugium tank drilled and installed with the bulkhead and filter. Everything fit under the cabinet, but it is not easy by any means to get into either tank. Not a lot of clearance, but I'll just have to manage at this point. Not anything I can't work around.
I also used a dremel tool to make my overflow elbows have a filtered finish. That i do have a picture of. I'm happy with they way they all turned out.
L
I also think I finalize my rock work. I have a nice sweeping arch with shelves on it and a peninsula style tower, also offering lots of shelving for future frags.

Its look quite different in person. There are alot of 3D aspects that are lost in a photo. Maybe I can do a video after I move it into the tank. The arch is fulling rodded and bonded (its made out 2 pieces/2 halves.) The tower I will be finalizing tonight I hope. Thank I can move them into the tank.
This brings me to my next area of discussion. My tank has an un-tempered bottom. I was worried about the weight of the rock directly on the glass. Main my worry has to do with points of pressure. I had a thought to use some scrap acrylic sheeting to place the base of each structure on. My thought was that this would create a nice base to distribute the pressure out. Since I will have a 1- 2 inch sand bed you will never see the acrylic base. Does that sound about right?
I'll get some more pictures up later. I have to run out and do some last minute Christmas Shopping!
I love the rock work.....Takes a bit of time, but as your seeing your quite pleased and it looks very good IMO.....Your thought or worry about the rock being on the glass isn't an issue......There is no pressure point as your referring or thinking of.....Rock on bare glass is done all the time. It won't hurt anything with using acrylic, but definitely not needed.....
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
I got the rock work done in the tank this morning. I really like the way it turned out. I made some changes to the right side which I think are for the better! I like how open the front is on the left side and the right rock work offers a good geography for future coral placement. I still have 45 pounds of rock in my current tank. I think after i cycle and move my live stock over to this tank I'll put the current live rock in the sump for filtration. Here are some shots of how it turned out. Again, it actually looks better in person that in pictures.

Front view Front View - Lit

Side view - Rock work Front view
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
I was pretty sure it was BRS..... Hopefully you rinsed the rock before hand as well. If not you'll see a good bit of sediment, and another thing to watch for is your phosphate level. Normally not a big concern during a cycle, but being the fact of using "dry rock" there is a bit more dust and sediment, and possible hidden matter that has decayed and this is a common thing to see elevated phosphate levels which you'll want to identify early and start to immediately controlling the leaching.
Happy cycling!!!!
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Update time. Made some more progress, I'll post pics tomorrow. Some ups and downs over the last couple days. I ran my 75 GPD RO/DI System for about 2 1/2 days to get the 120 Gallon Display, 40 Gallon Sump and 10 Gallon filled to the proper levels.
I did some research and decided on a trying a small DSB refugium. Now I'm not sure how much of a benefit I will receive from a 10 Gallon DSB, but I figure that I will have several things going for me in the tank and I thought it would be worth experimenting.
I will have an algae scrubber, DSB refugium with macro algae. 40 lbs of live rock in my sump for filtration. I'll also have a skimmer running.
I put 40 lbs of #0 white sand in my 10 gallon display. 2 days ago. 10 minutes afterwards I was adjusting the PVC out of the 10 gallon overflow I drilled and the 10 gallon tank cracked. I did a silicone repair job and it filled it back up with sand and water. It seems to be holding well. I ended up building a small stand behind the sump to hold the 10 gallon tank instead of trying to cram everything under in the cabinet. (Pictures to come)
I placed 2 1500 GPH Koralina CL pumps in the tank today. Lots of flow! I got the beananimal overflow tuned in as well. Seems to be really working well and handling my 1320 return pump at full power! Still waiting for the water to clear. My high flow and light sand may not be a good combo. I may have to dial it back a bit or come up with some create flow patterns, but I'm gonna give it time. Thinking the shrimp cycle will start tomorrow!.
Last night I slowly added salt over the night. I'm right around 1.027 SG right now. I have a 300 W Eheim in the sump. I'm trying to dial it in and calibrate that right now... over 36 hours i'm only at 73 degrees. I also placed a Aqueon 100W heater in the refugium. I bumped up the temp on the heaters and hope to be around 77 tomorrow afternoon.
More updates to come!
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by acrylic51 http:///t/393629/29-gallon-to-120-gallon-upgrade-build/20#post_3505719
Really not sure if you'll see any major benefit from a DSB at all......Just my .02
yeah.. i'm not sure. I can't find one pieces of solid info on DSB. There is so much back and forth about it being the answer to everyone's prayers and then the next thread is nothing but stories of people crashing there tanks. I figure I can try a 10 gallon DSB. It will offer ~120 square-inches of sand bed surface, which I hope will eventually over at least some filtration and denitrification. I figure its worth some experimentation. the Refugium can be completely disconnected from the sump if need be.
Should be easy enough to stock it with some cheato or other macro and a small clean up crew.
What is a recommended macro? I have cheato in my current refugium, so i was going to pull some of that to seed my new refugium.
Just got some shrimp today, I'm sitting at 76.5 degrees. Only a degree or two go.
Also picked up an air stone and some craft mesh for the algae scrubber build. I'll be starting that soon.
I'll try to get some pics today of the set up.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Here are some pictures.

Canopy on - started my cycling process with raw shrimp in a filter sock

Inside the back wall. Plumbing, refugium & controller

Reefkeeper Elite controller mounted above the tank. Have the Wavemaker working with 2 CL pumps, also have both heaters running.

View of the refugium placed behind the tank. 5-6" DSB. Overflows into the sump.

Sump is running with carbon/GFO reactor. Cleaned up the cloudiness of the tank in about 5 hours. If you follow my posts you will remember that I placed my overflow lines with 3 90 degree elbows each. What I found out was that the line with the air tubing had to be placed at an angle in order to properly clear the lines of air and get the overflow pulling water cleanly. I made the lines adjustable so I can move them up and down as needed.
The other thing I'm still struggling with is getting the temp up to 77-78 degrees. i'm currenly sitting at a steady 76. . I've been increasing my 300 watt heater up 2-3 degrees at a time over the last 3 days. My 100 Watt heater in the refugium is maxed out at 86 degrees, yet the water temp is still 76 everywhere I measure it. I'm using the Reefkeeper Temp probe, Coralife Digital thermometer and a standard glass thermometer. They are all reading exactly the same +/- 0.1 degrees of each other.
Next I need to work on mounting the LED lights under the canopy and finding the proper spacing from the water to diffuse the light properly.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
I was a little surprised, but it took a 3rd 150 Watt Heater to hit my target temp of 78. With the 300 and 100 W heaters maxed out I was stuck at 76.7 added the 150 W heater and now I'm able to maintain a proper temperature. The ambient temperature in the basement is about 65 degrees. I'm thinking either the 300 Watt isn't working correctly or maybe I just have too much flow and surface motion. Evaporation has been crazy high! I estimate about 5 gallons every 2-3 days.
Not sure if this is normal, but I was only seeing this type of evaporation about every 7 - 10 days on my 29 gallon. I guess more surface area equals quicker evaporation.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
I have the temperature stable at 78 with a hysteresis of .1. its been about 3 days with the shrimp in the tank. I have yet to do an API test, but I do have my Seneye device in the sump just to see how accurately it keeps track of my ammonia.
Currently its reading at 0.008 ppm Free Ammonia (NH3) and about 11 total ammonia (NH4) reading on the device.
On New Years Eve day I took both the carbon/GFO reactor and a small 10 gallon Aqueon HOB filter that I have been running on my current 30 Gallon Reef.I moved them over to the 120 gallon system. Each filter has been running for at least 2 weeks on the live reef system. I figured this would help seed the new system. Not sure how much it will help, but I expect to see an ammonia spike anyday now.
I'm wondering however if the reactor and filter will counter this somewhat. Maybe I need to add another shrimp or feed some flake food into the filter sock?
I'll check the shrimp tonight or tomorrow to see how badly it has decomposed. Also I think its time to do a set of API tests.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
API Test results.
Ammonia 0.5 ppm
pH 8.2
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
I added 3 pieces of cured live rock from my 30 gallon into the 120. Hopefully it will help seed the system. Also threw a small ball of cheato and a grow light on the refugium. I'll run the light for 8 hours during the night and leave all lights off during the day until the tank is fully done with the initial cycle.
I didn't look at the shrimp yet. Going to of town this weekend and will check it tomorrow. I'll probably just ghost feed some flake before I leave for the weekend.

Added Live Rock into the 120 Mounted one of the LED lights to the canopy. Its about 3 - 4 inches off the water surface.

Picture with one light on. Piece of Cheato in the sump with a temporary grow light.

Pic of the LED mounted from back behind the tank. I used some plastic pipe clips with the mounting clips that came with the lights.
 
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