Torqued's 180g Build
- Thread starter torqued
- Start date
looking good! I like that pump!
Got my RO/DI hooked up last night....that was a big decision as to where to put that. I have finally settled on putting my sump in my basement. This will accomplish several things, not the least of which is having to deal with cramped space under the tank, as well as the noise....this should make the tank nearly silent in my living room.
The box of fiji live rock i got from RIT has been "cooking" for a week now, and all ammonia is gone, yet the Nitrites are off the charts....so it looks like my cycle is not yet complete in my live rock tank.
I appear to have made a deal on an MRC 4 Calcium reactor setup as well. I was originally going to skip the CaRx this go around, but in retrospect, I feel a CaRx is the way to go for overall stability, cost, and maintenance of trace elements. The plan is to run some zeo mag chips in there as well to maintain the mag levels.
The box of fiji live rock i got from RIT has been "cooking" for a week now, and all ammonia is gone, yet the Nitrites are off the charts....so it looks like my cycle is not yet complete in my live rock tank.
I appear to have made a deal on an MRC 4 Calcium reactor setup as well. I was originally going to skip the CaRx this go around, but in retrospect, I feel a CaRx is the way to go for overall stability, cost, and maintenance of trace elements. The plan is to run some zeo mag chips in there as well to maintain the mag levels.
Santa just arrived with some goodies from Ledgroupbuy.com! These are the LED clusters, connector cables, power supplies, and the 72" long heatsink/fixture with fans. The Bluefish controller was backordered and expected to arrive in a week... this build is going to be fun...Can't Wait!
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More goodies!
100 lbs Marco Rocks...this stuff is NICE. Super porous...very happy with what I got!
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Mortar for aquascaping
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Reefflakes substrate. I learned a hard lesson with my last tank using sugar fine sand. This time I went with much more course aragonite to avoid sand storms with high flow!
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100 lbs Marco Rocks...this stuff is NICE. Super porous...very happy with what I got!
Mortar for aquascaping
Reefflakes substrate. I learned a hard lesson with my last tank using sugar fine sand. This time I went with much more course aragonite to avoid sand storms with high flow!
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Wow Kurt going to have follow along on this one.
Looks first class all the way!
Looks first class all the way!
how is the mortar? can the rocks taken apart after it cures?
just want to gauge how strong it it.
just want to gauge how strong it it.
More goodies arrived! This time, the HOPEFULLY fail safe Apex driven Auto Top Off. Alk components were purchased from autotopoff.com
First let me start by saying, although riskier, I do not want a topoff resivuar. It adds one more pump to go bad, or go empty, and require me to manually fill. However with that comes the added risk of a flood to to supply of endless water. For that reason, I opted with multiple layers of safety built in.
From left to right:
1/4" RO line solenoid. This will be be triggered by the main low water sensor in the sump (4th from left). This will open the flow of water to the sump, and turn off the water once the proper height is reached.
Next is a flow lock device. This is the last line of defense. This sits on the floor, and the RO line runs through it. If any water touches it...it closes the line, stopping all water flow. This will be placed in series BEFORE my RO unit. So even a leak in the RO unit will shut the entire setup down.
Third: this bracket mounts in the sump, and will have 3 float switches attached. One set at a high water level to shut off the solenoid if the main float is to get stuck. The lower will be to alert me if the water reaches a critical low level that would damage the pump. This would indicate something went wrong in water delivery.
The long float switch on the far right is actually for my skimmer cup or collection container. This will shut down the skimmer to prevent it from running over.
Finally:. I don't have it shown here, but I will also have a physical float valve that turns on and off the water as well that sits inside the sump at the proper level.
So again, HOPEFULLY, with all these layers of protection, I am hoping to have a fail-safe, ultra low maintenance topoff setup..
I will also note that this option was chosen over a prefab topoff because I want the ability to control and monitor the entire system via Apex. A prefab ( like the Tune system) would likely do a good job (though nearly all require a holding tank), it couldn't be easily monitored online. My goal is to have every part of this system monitored and viewable on my phone!
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Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
First let me start by saying, although riskier, I do not want a topoff resivuar. It adds one more pump to go bad, or go empty, and require me to manually fill. However with that comes the added risk of a flood to to supply of endless water. For that reason, I opted with multiple layers of safety built in.
From left to right:
1/4" RO line solenoid. This will be be triggered by the main low water sensor in the sump (4th from left). This will open the flow of water to the sump, and turn off the water once the proper height is reached.
Next is a flow lock device. This is the last line of defense. This sits on the floor, and the RO line runs through it. If any water touches it...it closes the line, stopping all water flow. This will be placed in series BEFORE my RO unit. So even a leak in the RO unit will shut the entire setup down.
Third: this bracket mounts in the sump, and will have 3 float switches attached. One set at a high water level to shut off the solenoid if the main float is to get stuck. The lower will be to alert me if the water reaches a critical low level that would damage the pump. This would indicate something went wrong in water delivery.
The long float switch on the far right is actually for my skimmer cup or collection container. This will shut down the skimmer to prevent it from running over.
Finally:. I don't have it shown here, but I will also have a physical float valve that turns on and off the water as well that sits inside the sump at the proper level.
So again, HOPEFULLY, with all these layers of protection, I am hoping to have a fail-safe, ultra low maintenance topoff setup..
I will also note that this option was chosen over a prefab topoff because I want the ability to control and monitor the entire system via Apex. A prefab ( like the Tune system) would likely do a good job (though nearly all require a holding tank), it couldn't be easily monitored online. My goal is to have every part of this system monitored and viewable on my phone!
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Playing around with some rocks...right now these are held together by zip ties. I drilled holes with a masonry bit...mortar will be applied later once a design is finalized.
This is 100lbs of Marco. 50lbs more Fiji is in my curing tank...I will pull that out when I'm closer to getting water in the tank.
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Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
This is 100lbs of Marco. 50lbs more Fiji is in my curing tank...I will pull that out when I'm closer to getting water in the tank.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Well it's like concrete, so it's very strong. But all this rock can easily be chiselled apart later if need be. I would rather that then have the thing topple over smashing my sps into pieces. That would be a disaster.
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Looks good! It's a slow process.
It's too bad your not farther along. I've got some large, beautiful healthy wrasse that would love to color up that DD for you.
What's on your livestock list? Are you going with peaceful fishes?
It's too bad your not farther along. I've got some large, beautiful healthy wrasse that would love to color up that DD for you.
What's on your livestock list? Are you going with peaceful fishes?
Well I have not really settled on my fish selection yet, but I was leaning towards a large variety of Tangs, so I suppose thats not exactly "peaceful", but I am certainly not going for an aggressive/non-reef friendly tank either. I do LOVE wrasses though.....I do intend on having some of those as well. I am thinking of a nice school of Green Chromis as well, as some clowns. Nothing SUPER fancy really. I have always been more of a coral guy than fish, but now that I finally have a 6 foot tank in the works, larger tangs are def on my list.
Spent some time last night setting up my Apex to control my ATO setup. I got all three float switches (Main, High and Low) all configured, and properly creating alerts, when either the high or low floats are triggered, as well as turning on/off the RO/DI solenoid when appropriate. I will install that on my current live rock curing tank for a nice testing period. Exciting progress , and cool to see this coming together on Apex Fusion...
Moved my apex to the basement fish room. Of course I don't have a LAN cable jack in there so I picked up a cool little wifi bridge for $15 on Amazon. I set it up in about 5 min, and viola...the Apex is now back online....
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Agree coral addict, love Tangs as well!
What is that bridge? I can't read the name of it.
Netgear is realiable as well.
Edit:
Found it, Vonet. The reviews are so so, keep Netgear in mind...
What is that bridge? I can't read the name of it.
Netgear is realiable as well.
Edit:
Found it, Vonet. The reviews are so so, keep Netgear in mind...
Meh, the complaints were mostly from non-techy people who dont know how to read instructions. it works well from what I can tell, and for $15, it serves its purpose. Im not using this to extend wireless around my house... i have other larger/more powerful AC band routers to do that. I just needed a wired connection, and this does that task perfectly
