Saying "Hi" to MR - new arrival

[techreef]

Hey everyone. I just found out about this site while putzing through RC. It's great to have a dedicated site for area residents! Can't wait to start getting advice on places to go around here.

I've been going painfully slow on my 1st saltwater reef tank, a 90G AGA tank. I started reading up on saltwater back in September '05, and wanted to avoid 1)wasting money buying junk equipment I'd later have to replace 2)injuring/killing wildlife while I figure out what the heck I'm doing 3)flooding my apartment and then hoping that I get thrown out of the building before my wife could get her hands on me.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello. Looking forward to joining the group.

 

[SaltWaterN00b]

Welcome to MR bud! You wont finding a nicer bunch anywhere!! Good luck with the tank (and before you get yelled at) POST PICS!!:biggrin:

 

[jhale]

welcome to Manhattan Reefs

funny first post

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Hi there.

It's great place here. It's not just about reefing. You actual make friends here too. I re-union couple old friends here too. We never knew that we love fish until we met in this forum. Just an hour ago, I found out another friend of mine has been in this forum as well.

 

[techreef]

thanks guys. LOL, i'd love to post pics, but the glass box has nuthin' but 3" of o-so-precious Old Castle playsand in it. I've got a bunch of pics of the construction process at home on the camera though. I can post those if it would help anyone here who's also going through the start-up process. This hobby is pretty intimidating with the tsunami of new information you should learn.

 

[Liz]

WELCOME!

 

[herman]

Welcome Dude!!! :biggrin:

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

thanks guys. LOL, i'd love to post pics, but the glass box has nuthin' but 3" of o-so-precious Old Castle playsand in it. I've got a bunch of pics of the construction process at home on the camera though. I can post those if it would help anyone here who's also going through the start-up process. This hobby is pretty intimidating with the tsunami of new information you should learn.

Definately, it helps. Even if your methods are very traditional or completely different would help. It will show us more diversity in setting up things. I am a renegade and never believe in only one way of doing things. I even post up FW tank setups or lighting designs in this site. Every little bits of info. related to this hobby will help in the big picture. Lets see your pics in the tank forum or DIY forum.

 

[techreef]

You got it Wingo. I'll try and figure out how to post pics when I get home tonight! (new at that too! LOL)

 

[meschaefer]

hi

 

[Zoous]

Welcome Aboard

 

[nycmat]

welcome

 

[Tonyscoots84]

Welcome to the family...... :grouphug:

enjoy the site.. many useful tips and info on here.. especially alot of people here who have alot of knowledge in this hobby and who are always looking to help out....

 

[ANCHIENT MARINER]

welcome to the MR family, lots to learn here :smile:

 

[techreef]

well, I'm having some problems resizing my pics to fit within MR's size maximums. I'll keep trying and eventually will figure it out, but no postable pics yet...

 

[DEEPWATER]

Welcome to MR .

One thing i vouch for eveyone is that we all had a flood one time or another.its a given in the hobby .Get a water alarm that should help if things over flow

Enjoy the site ,lots of nice ppl here ready to give good advice


Ronen

 

[techreef]

okay, i think i've got the pic uploading issue down now. here are some pics of just the tank in the stand/canopy...

and some pics of my lights, fully installed. I used a 2-bulb Sunlight Supply Tek T5 retro kit, and a 4-bulb IceCap T5 retro kit. Everything is 48" long, 54W, although the IC ballast overdrives the 4 IC bulbs to 80W. I should say now that the IC reflectors are MUCH nicer than the ones that come with the Tek kit.

I arranged the 2 Tek bulbs so that they bracket the four IC bulbs. I plan on firing the Tek bulbs first everyday, by themselves, to graduate the lighting to and from full-bore noonday light.

the two ballasts

 

[DEEPWATER]

Nice looking tank ,
One thing ,make sure you put a fan on blowing on that ballast ,it will also give you some heat in the sump area .

 

[techreef]

this is the power controller for my Reefkeeper 2 (RK2) controller. This is literally one of the first things I purchased, after the tank and stand/canopy. It is killing me that I still can't play with it! (The interface for the RK2 is that tiny black box mounted to the right-hand side of my stand, in the above picture. I still need a staple gun w/ cable staples to cleanly mount the wire leading into the stand from the interface)

on to the plumbing, Stage 1: Drain, filtration, and return. I built a homemade sump/refugium out of a new 30G glass tank. Bought the panes of glass at Lowe's (they cut glass to your specs for free) and siliconed them into the 30G tank to form 3 separate sections. From left to right, there is the skimmer (a Deltec AP600 skimmer, gravity-fed from my display tank) section, followed by a 3-baffle bubble trap, then the return section which holds my Mag 7 return pump, and on the far right is my refugium.

Here is a pic of the drainage plumbing laid out on the floor. It is split 3 ways because the Deltec skimmer works best at a measly 160GPH, so I needed to figure out what to do with the rest of the approx. 440GPH coming from my 1" bulkhead drain. I didn't want all of that flow going through my refugium, so I divised this plan up so that whatever isn't used by the skimmer and refugium can just dump into the skimmer section of the sump and then flow into the return section, to be pumped back into the display.

and now, installed

the return is a simple straight shot up from the Mag7 to the return bulkhead in my overflow. I only got to test this setup out very quickly 2 nights ago. There is a bit of vibration, so I'll be working on ways to quiet things down in the next couple weeks, as we move ahead and can actually pump water.

Stage 2 of the plumbing involves building a 9-nozzle closed loop manifold which will sit on top of the tank, driven by a Sequence Marlin external pump sitting on the floor. I'm waiting for the PVC parts for Stage 2 to arrive this week, so more pics to come from that... Thanks for taking the time to check out my efforts. Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

 

[cali_reef]

Very nice setup, you should continue this in a new tank thread..

Few things I would suggest:
1. Swap out the Mag with a Eheim 1262, MAGs have metal screws that rust out and puts a lot of heat in your tank water. You can change out the metal screws with plastic ones if you decide to keep the MAG, but you should use a piece of vinyl tubing to cut down on the noise and vibration.

2. While you are swaping the pump out, take a look putting the return pump outside of the sump. You will need to drill the sump for a 1" bulkhead, Dremel tool with a diamond tipped bit is all you need.

3. Drill a 3/8" hole on the side of the stand to put RK2's cat5 connector thru instead of stapling the wire, it will look much sharper.


Enjoy the hobby and this site!!