Dmitri's 1000 gal DT journey!

[Adam]

I finished my current basement myself 15 years ago and I remember the dust vividly. We'll hopefully moving next spring, and obviously, dont know if the basement will be finished or not. Having a tank up and running during a big construction process is a big concern for me.

If we can swing it I'm hoping we can get access to the new house for a month or two before we have to be out of our current one. That way I can get not only the new tank set up but a chunk of any finishing work done too. In a perfect world we'll be able to do the tank move from here to the new place in one day.

 

[Dmitri]

 

[Dmitri]

Getting ready to paint above the tank then plumbing.

 

[Dmitri]

I’ve made some adjustment to fish room, build a new stand for 100 gallon tank and setup hospital tank rack.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Man you’ve been busy!!! Looking awesome! Nice score on getting the plumbing from the old install. That stuff costs a fortune. Especially the valves and colored pvc! Thanks for all the updates!

 

[12scanlon]

It’s HUGE! Can’t imagine how cool this is going to be once it’s all up and running.

 

[Dmitri]

Some more pipes came in today.
Getting ready for some serious plumbing work

 

[FutureInterest]

This is such an epic build... I live my massive tank dreams vicariously through you

 

[Dmitri]

Day by day slowly making progress. After busting two bulkheads (overtightening them) finally finished bottom plumbing part of the sump.

Also moved UV filter and skimmer in place ready to be connected with plumbing.

 

[Dmitri]

Plumbing project continues, more fittings came in today! I also made lots of progress with creating main manifold (mostly 2” fittings)

I can now see finish line for main plumbing, goal is to finishing by March and then do a test run with fresh water.

 

[Dmitri]

Oh I just got this today. Hannah salinity tester, so easy to use and super convenient to test water, I recommend it!

 

[Dmitri]

By the way, this has been the greatest plumbing tool for this project.
Can’t imagine doing all these cuts manually...

 

[Dmitri]

Doing overflow plumbing tonight.
Here are some more pictures of progress

Drain consists of 4x 1 1/2 pipes and 6x 1” which I will connect to two 1 1/2” pipes
The holes are too close to each other on flow box, so I’m using flex tubing to connect to hard pipe.

 

[Dmitri]

One side of the drain plumbing completed. I’m going to try and finish other side today and then work on the return.

 

[Dmitri]

Both sides drains are now completed. When doing test water runs I realized that I put bulkhead seals backwards and he to redo it.
Everything seems to be working well, no leaks on drains.
Here are some pictures of plumbing



Doing some water tests with mag 24 and mag 18 pumps.

Up next, planning to finish first return line today.

 

[Dmitri]

Here is an update:
After finishing plumbing first pump, I found couple small leaks which could not be easily fixed. I ended up cutting off some pipes and redoing it.
Yesterday I turned on pump and run it all night long. Gotta tell you, it’s a weird feeling running this much water with new plumbing not knowing what you will wake up to. Will it be major flood in the morning?
Luckily no issues, I did find minor drops here and there, should be easy to patch it.

Here is what main pump plumbing looks like and after running about 9k gallons per hour flow through sump, only thing that make sound is water flow within the sump itself. Everything else is quite, love dolphin pumps!



Following items are on the agenda:
1. Build support for plumbing (draining side)
2. Finish plumbing 2nd pump
3. Raise refugium 6” higher (build addition support for the base to help draining)
4. Finish plumbing water changing system
5. Adding equipment to manifold (skimmer, UV, refugium, calcium reactor, denitrification reactor, additions two reactors).
6. Acid bath dryrock
7. Aquascape
8. Install lights fixture (leds / t12s)
9. Finish framing the tank/ paint
10. Finish drywall basement/ paint
11. Fill up tank with saltwater (cycle begins 4-6months)
12. Test flow, add powerheads
13. Finish basement flooring
14. Adding fish 1 month after cycle
15. 4/5/6 months triton test (adding corals based on results)

 

[Dmitri]

I just finished main plumbing, both pumps in action. About 12k gal/ hr and drain holding it down. I’m planning to record a quick video of that.

 

[Dmitri]

 

[hiimsean]

Everything is looking AWSOME!! I'm coming over when it's done!

 

[Dmitri]

I had a bit of a issue with leak overnight. Water was dripping from one of the bulkheads of the sump. It must have been dripping for 6-8 hours. I caught it on my lunch break.
Lunch break turned into project of draining the entire sump out and using about 10 towels to soak up as much water as possible. I left few fans running and couple of dehumidifiers.

Here is where it leaked, I’m planning to patch it up this Sunday