120g Mixed Reef Build - Newbie with lots of pics

Hey 3Reef!! Welcome to by first reef build!

I've been working on research and planning for this for several months now and I'm finally at a stage when I'm ready to start buying stuff! In fact, I made my first purchase last weekend at the Denver ReefStock show! (more later) I'm new to reefkeeping so I'd really appreciate all the feedback I can get... both positive and negative. I'll put some specific questions below in bold that I'd really love to get input on. I originally posted this a couple days ago on another site but wasn't getting very much feedback so I thought I'd try here... you guys seem pretty active!

So here's the plan...

I'm building a 120g (48"x24"x24") mixed reef. I plan on starting out with mostly LPS and Softies for the first 6 months or so and then ease into clams, anems, and a bit of SPS. I'm on a pretty fixed, but reasonable budget (around $5k) which based on my plan, is tapped out right now. So, let's start with the component lists first...

Parts List
Tank: 120g Perfecto (48X24X24) with matching stand... going open top. Will be setting up a BeanAnimal external overflow. I'll be drilling and building the overflows myself. As for internal flow, I’ll go with two Koralia Magnum 7s. I’ll plan on upgrading to MP40s in the year to come.

Sump: 40g breeder that I'll split into skimmer, return, and Refugium (with Miracle Mud) sections. I'll be using a Reeflow BlowHole 1450 for the return pump. 1 1/2" drain plumbing and 1" return plumbing. I'll tee off the return to a manifold to power a pair of BRS single reactors for carbon and GFO. For the skimmer, I’ll be using the Reef Octopus Diablo xs 225 - small footprint but still good performance. I’ll also keep a couple of 250w Jager heaters in the sump as well.

Controller: Neptune APEX full system with breakout box. I’m a computer nerd at heart so this is a mandatory item for me.

Lights: a RapidLED 90g dimmable kit controlled by APEX. This kit has the following LED and color combinations: 18 Cool White Cree XP-G, 20 Royal Blue Cree XT-E, 6 Violet UV, 2 Red Cree XP-E, 2 Green Cree XP-E.

ATO: DIY with parts from AutoTopOff.com – 3 float switches monitored by APEX breakout box. Aqualifter pump will dose Kalk from the ATO reservoir. Eventually I’ll replace (or suppliment) the Kalk with the BRS 2-part system but I want to wait until I can spring for dosing pumps.

Water: BRS 75gpd Chloramines Plus kit. Will be setting up a water station in the garage using two 55g food-grade barrels (the blue ones) plumbed up to a Panworld Blueline 30HD pump. I haven’t finalized the plumbing design yet but I want to plumb a 50’ RV water hose to use for water changes. Will start with Instant Ocean mix and then later move to Reef Crystals once I get more coral. Will also be getting a BRS Refractometer.

Dry Rock and Sand: 100lbs of dry rock and 120lbs of sand from ReefRocks.net. Heard nothing but good things about these guys and the sand is free with my rock purchase… just need to pay $45 shipping for the sand. Rock is just $2/lb shipped and it’s gotten very good reviews. Initially I was thinking I would not need to cure the rock since I was goign to cycle the tank from scratch. As I later found out though, I'll still need to cure it to get rid of the PO4. Need more research here still but sounds like I should get started with that right away.

Live Rock: I’m struggling here a bit. I really want to get the Primo Deco rock from LiveRockNReef.com (http://www.liverocknreef.com/liveroc..._detail&p=7926). It looks amazing and I’m really wanting all the life, both good and a little bad if necessary, to kick the tank off right. It’s pricy though… my alternative is 50lbs of mixed live rock from Saltwaterfish.com. It’s certainly cheaper but doesn’t look anywhere close to the deco rock.

Test Kits: API Saltwater master kit for the cycle (NH3, NO2, NO3), Red Sea reef foundations kit (Ca, Alk, Mg), and Red Sea Algae control kit (NO3, PO4).

The Design
So guys, here are some drawings of the design I have planned. Note that any blue pipe will be SpaFlex so I may be able to remove some fittings… the flexible pvc is just a PITA to draw in Sketchup. I’ll explain some of the features as I go.

So the pic below is the view of the back of the tank. You can see the external overflow box there with the three BeanAnimal standpipes. The external overflow box measures 8”x5”x20”. The middle pipe is the emergency drain. It’s 1.5” below the edge of the external overflow box. The left pipe is the open channel which is placed 6” above the bottom of the box (at the weir). The far right pipe is the full siphon pipe which is 3.5” above the bottom of the box. All the drain plumbing is 1 ½” schd 40 PVC.


So here’s my first specific question… I replaced the sanitary Ts in the original BeanAnimal design with two 90s to save space. Bean had mentioned that he only used the Ts so he could clean the pipes. Also, in his internal overflow box, he didn’t glue the street 90s he used. Now, since this design has all the fittings inside an external overflow box, I don’t think I have to actually glue them into the bulkheads do I? If not, then I’ll have access to clean everything without the Ts.

As for the return plumbing, from the top of the tank returns down to the 2nd wye (just above the pump) is all 1” pvc. I debated on going with ¾ but since I’m using 1.5” from the pump to the internal manifold, I thought going to ¾ might be too small to fast. Not sure. The ball valve just below the left side return will be used to balance the flow between the two sides. I plan on reducing down to ¾” lockline fittings (with siphon hole) inside the tank. Also note that the blue pipe that connects the right hand return to the rest of the plumbing will be flexible PVC that I should be able to snake behind my drains without any extraneous fittings.

Here are a couple pics of the overflow plan. The external overflow will be ¼” glass at 8”x5”x20”. I’ll drill two 2.32” holes in the tank (same size hole as 1.5” bulkhead requires).

Then on the inside I’m doing something a bit different… In a lot of the pics I’ve seen of external overflow tanks, I’m always able to see the outline of the silicone and glass joint of the external overflow. Now I know that it will eventually get overgrown with coralline and maybe I have a bit of OCD going on but it annoys me. So I’m planning on covering the entire inside back panel of the tank with 1/8 black acrylic. I’ll cut a window out of that to allow water to flow through the two holes in then tank. And then I’ll weld an internal weir onto the top of the 1/8” back plate. The internal weir measures 47 3/8”x1.5”x4.25”. This should give me a clean look from the front of the tank and since I’m mounting the internal weir to the acrylic back plate it should be plenty strong. I’d just be siliconeing (sp?) the entire 47”X24” back plate to the back of the tank interior. Aside from overkill complaints… any concerns about this approach?




The next pic is the front view. Here you can see the manifold that I set up teeing off the 1.5” return. The manifold reduces down to 1” ball valves. The right hand one will be used to adjust my refugium flow. The next two will reduce down to ½” JG fittings to power Carbon and GFO reactors. The final one is there for future needs (auto-water change? Maybe).


Note that the pump intake is plumbed into a 1.5” bulkhead in the return section of the pump. Here’s another place I could use some verification. My return section is 10.5”x15.5”x9”. Is that big enough to be safe? Both in terms of the risk of running the pump dry but also in terms of having enough water for the BeanAnimal siphon to kick in?

I also want to be sure that I’ve got enough free space in the sump to handle a power outage. So here are the dimensions of the sump sections: Skimmer: 10”x15.5”x9”; Return: 10.5”x15.5”x9”; Fuge: 12”x15.5”x12”. As for the open space… as I figure it I’ve got 3”x15.5”x12” of air above the fuge, 6x15.5x10.5 above the return, 6x15.5x2.75 above the bubble trap, and 6x15.5x10.5 above the skimmer section. So that gives me 2766 cubic inches of space… almost 12 gallons of flood waters before a drop hits the floor. Did I calculate that correctly?

Also, my brother, his wife and I got the chance to go to my first Reef convention last weekend… the Denver ReefStock 2013! It was really cool but it sucked to see all those AMAZING frags and not be able to buy any!! I can't wait till next year! It was a lot of fun, met some local reefers and was able to open the wallet a bit for a Reeflo BlowHole 1450.


I didn’t realize it but Reeflo is located in Co. Springs just an hour and a half from me. They had a booth and Reefstock and were showing this pump. I was originally planning on using a Mag 12 for the return and then two MJ1200s to power my reactors. But Reeflo offered me this pump for $120. It’s $199 online right now. For that price I took a chance. This pump has three speeds you can run at with amazing head pressure tolerance. It’s rated for up to 30’ of head pressure! So based on my plumbing layout, how much head do you think it will need to fight? The pump is 4’5” below the return. Here are the specs of the pump and a pic of how TINY it is… I guessed I’d be at around 10’ of head after powering the reactors? That should get me 1100gph through the sump.




Finally, after all day at Reefstock doing everything I could to keep from buying a zoo frag to put in a fishbowl on my desk… we stopped at petsmart on the way home so I could price check a QT system. Next thing I know, my sister in law walks out of the store with her very own Beta! The BRAT! I’ve spent months planning and drawing and then all day drooling over stuff at Reefstock and SHE’S the first one to actually get a fish! SHEESH!


LOL… well thanks guys… I’ll keep this thread updated as I progress. Will be ordering the tank and stand this week! I’m on my way. Please offer whatever input you can. I could sure use the help!

 

Curing Dry Rock

So folks, want to be sure to confirm my understanding of the process of curing dry rock (mainly to remove leached PO4).

I'll be buying 100lbs of dry rock from reefrocks.net. Here's what I was planning on doing for the cure process.

1. Rinse the rock in tapwater to remove dust
2. Place rock in a 55g water drum (or two plumbed together if needed) of saltwater in the garage.
3. Add a heater to keep water at 80 degrees
4. Provide good waterflow. I'll use my BH1450 return pump (on lowest setting of around 700gph)
5. Let it sit for 24hrs and test for PO4 (to get a baseline)
6. Add 5ml of SeaKlear LC solution each day
7. Once PO4 drops below .02ppm, stop dosing SeaKlear
8. Wait 3 days and test for PO4... if the PO4 level is high, return to step 6.
9. If PO4 is low after 3 days without dosing, START MY AQUASCAPING!

Does this seem right to everyone?

I have a couple questions....
I know it's hard to tell... but using this method what's your best guess as to how long it will need to cure. I'm guessing 4 weeks right now as a rough estimate.

I'm a little confused on the dosing amount and method for the SeaKlear LC product... let's say I'm using 50g or water... is 5ml per day enough? Do I need to drip it over a period of time or can I just dump it in since I'll have good flow?

From what I've been reeding, there should be no need for waterchanges right?

I would imagine that I'm going to cycle the rock while curing it (i.e. kicking off the nitrogen cycle while removing the leached PO4). I'm assuming this will mean that once I actually start the tank, the cycle time will be minimal. Is that a correct assumption?

 

My first rental payment to Lowes!

ok, I'm sorry... there is NO WAY one should walk out of Lowes with a $267 worth of PVC unless one is building a damned house!!! LOL

And if one DOES spend $267 on PVC at Lowes one should NOT think of the 9 things one FORGOT to buy in the 3 blocks it takes to drive home!

 

Additional Purchases and Water Station Design

So, I figure my first step in the timeline will be to get my rock started so I can leach as much PO4 as possible. To do that I'll need RO and Saltwater. I ordered my rock, RODI unit, float valve, salt, refractometer, a handful of uniseals and a float valve. Also picked up a Panworld Blueline HD 30 X pump for the water station.

I was thinking of just mixing the salt manually this first time around but why do the work twice. I'm just going to build my long term mixing station.

So the plan is to use two Rubbermaid Roughneck 54g storage boxes. After doing a bunch of searches in various forums seems like lots of folks use these successfully and at $20/piece it's a good value. I'll be setting this up in the garage so I'll need to pump the water about 40 feet to the tank in the house. I'm be using the Blueline 30HD for that. Got a good deal on Craig's List!

After lots of thought I went ahead and drew up my initial design. I was pretty happy with it and then at about midnight just when I was ready to show you all the plan it hit me... this takes up WAY more floor space than is needed. Here's the initial design.


So I threw out the first 3hrs sketchup drawing and started over with a vertical design. Here's what I came up with. The RODI tank is on top with saltwater below. These first two pics show the front view with the plumbing. This setup will allow me to move any water anywhere I want. The intake of the pump can take either fresh or saltwater. The output of the pump will allow me to push water into the saltwater tank, the RO tank, or to a spigot which I'll hook to a 50' RV water hose.




Here's what the inside of each tank will look like. The lower pipe just ends in a downturned elbow so I can drain the tank to 1/2" or so. The top one extends to the end of the tank and shoots water down for mixing or moving water between the tanks. The RO tank will be fed by the RODI unit with a float valve.


And here's what the frame of the stand looks like. It's all 2x4 pine with a 3/4" plywood top on each shelf. I think this should be plenty sturdy.


Lots of thanks and a major shout out to d2mini for the inspiration for this design. The only change I made to his setup was to add an extra output from the pump back up to the RODI tank. I did this so that if I want to make a double batch of saltwater I can simply open all the valves except the spigot and let it circulate.

Thanks guys, please let me know what you think before I start gluing PVC this weekend! LOL

 

Your planning is meticulous! I am going to watch this thread with some popcorn!

Welcome!

 

Great looking layout. Can't wait to see it come together.

I don't have any experience with Bean Animal, so I'll let others dive in there.

A couple of things...

I have my sump set up like yours and it works great. However, you may want to consider feeding your fuge with just the return water rather than combined with the unfiltered tank water. You will hear both sides of sending unfiltered water to the fuge. Some say it's needed to feed the pods. I prefer to manually feed a few pellets each week and control the bio load to the fuge. Either way can be successful.

Your return pump flow seems oversized to me. I calculated your active sump volume at about 22 gallons (not including bubble trap). If you're at 1100 gph, that's a 55x turnover rate and seems very high. I think 10x sump volume is more typical. I'm at about 7x. I know some of that will be pulled off for the fuge and reactors, but that still seems like a ton of water moving around inside your sump.

If you stay with the 1" return line, you won't have much head to fight other than vertical head. You don't have many elbows.

You did calculate your excess volume correctly. With that, you will have less than 2" of DT water that can back flow into the sump before you're going to overflow. Make sure your returns are high enough in the tank and if you have some flexible joints to direct flow that you have antisiphon holes drilled in them. I just left my returns very high in the tank (almost out of the water) as I don't rely on them for flow.

Good luck on the build!

 

Been there. Done that. I'm fortunate enough to have a hardware store about 3 minutes from my house. I never get it all in the first (or second ;D) trip.

 

First off, welcome to 3reef!

Well planned in detail and great (virtual) execution!! Its gonna be one sick build!

-Bean overflowbox design: it looks good. Is that all your design? It kinda worries me that extra weir might cause unwanted noise... When i did mine, i just followed the direction off BeAn site, so mine is an internal with short on the sides box (not full coast to coast). I didnt want the pvc to go over the edge of the tank, so i dont have to alter the mesh top.

-Cycling/curing the rock: when i cycled/cured dry rocks to for addition, i didnt even rinse. Straight up Rubbermaid cycle for a few months. No water change, just dosed MicroBactor7 daily for the first 14 days.

Its gonna be very similar to my build, equipment-wise: DIY LED, Apex, Bean, SWC Skimmer etc... Ill be definitely following!

 

Awesome planning.

I'm actually using a Rubbermaid Roughneck 50g for my sump!

I'd just like to add:

You will need a simple frame around the sump, under the lip near the top of the plastic container. O/W- when it's more than half full- it'll BOW like crazy.

My basement sump- the RM Roughneck container (works great btw- mine uses an internal Marineland 5500 for my return pump- could also go external)
has a wooden frame built around and under that lip built into the stand I have it on- stand lets me:
get Head height back for the return
siphon detritus/water out of it
work on it without bending over

Oh, and one more thing, if needed- which I don't think you do, but using a 'Spa-flex' flexibel PVC for the return really keeps the pressure up by using wide bends instead of sharper- rigid PVC.

Keep up the good work

And lastly- your sister in law is hot!

 

Guys, thanks so much for the kind words and the comments!

Thanks Hei, as it is now, only the "Open Channel" drain from the BeanAnimal overflow goes into the refugium and it's supplimented by the return line manifold. That open channel will only supply about 10% of the overal drain flow. The other 90% will go to the skimmer chamber.

Yeah, I struggled with this a bit in my research. There seem to be a lot of opinions out there about high flow or low flow through the sump. Ultimately the reason I decided on the higher flow was based on the set-up instructions for the EcoSystems Miracle Mud: Miracle Mud Set-up Instructions | EcoSystem Aquarium

Based on their flow chart below, they recommend 1200-1500gph for 120g tank.


Seemed high to me too. In either case though, the beautiful thing about the current design is that it let's me experiment a bit. The BH1450 pump is a 3 speed pump so I can drop it to it's lowest setting and that alone will take me from 1100gph to 600gph with just the flick of a switch and a couple turns of the siphon gate valve. This will have the added advantage of droping the power consumption of the pump by 75 watts!

Also, I can control how much flow goes through the fuge seperately from how much goes to the skimmer chamber. If need be, I can starve the fuge all the way down to 60gph if I wanted to. Based on your recommendations I'll start with the pump on it's lowest speed and see where it goes from there.

@exactlyodp - yeah, originally I was going to do an internal overflow box. Certainly easier to set up. After looking at hundreds of pics and videos of BeanAnimal implimentations and after reading all 130+ pages of that MONSTER thread, I decided to go with the internal/external setup.

Since the intenral weir is 48" long, it should allow the water to stick to the inside of the weir in a thin sheet without creating a waterfall. As long as the water hugs the wall of the weir it will remain completely silent. I can always dial back the flow a bit to make sure that happens. Bean himself said that if he had it to do over again, he would do the external box. It's just a lot cleaner look and it has the added advantage of allowing you to mount the siphon pipe significantly lower than the open channel pipe. This makes expelling the air from the siphon during a pump shut down much faster.

Thanks for the advice Todd! A frame around the bins should be easily accomplished.

Again folks, really appreciate the input! Thanks!