hello

[Apo]

Hi,

Wanted to say hi, I have been lurking on here for a while now reading up on the S/W Reef posts. Im looking to build my own 700L reef. I want to make as much of it myself, as i can. I will probably buy a 2x.6x.6M tank, but DIY the stand and lights etc.

I was looking at doing a live rock filtration system until I found out u cant by it here. So denitrified rock from jansens or hollywood and go the 6 wks with a couple of dead cocktail prawns..?

I'm looking at an aqua c ev-180 skimmer from the states. Didnt like the red sea prizim pro the lfs recommended.

Will talk to a pump wholesaler like grunfos or davey to save on pumps.

maybe make my own sump/refugium.

Have been sniffing around some lighting wholsalers and can get the MH or VHO almost half the price of LFS. Might make an aluminium frame, a polished stainless reflector and put 3 coralstar fluro's in with room to add 2xMH 10k 150w aqua's...with mech ballists. unless i can get lecky ones way cheaper..

so i have a few questions for the learned reefers on here:

given i cant use the live rock, whats the next best thing? an algal bed in a sump? or a trickle filter?

Do i need a 110kg's of rock in my tank?

if so, do i need it all straight away? or can i start off with say 20% and build up to it slowly, with only say 1 or 2 anenomies and one or two fish over maybe 3mths. Then adding rock as my budget allows.

Pies I really like your setup, and hope to model my tank on yours.

Thanks for any advice.

Apo

[Pies]

Apo. Good news on getting started in marines! If you are serious, you have looked at the costs and understand them? Here is my first advice, you will spend a LOT of money. If you don't have it, aim smaller. Smaller tank, smaller lights, smaller pumps, smaller rock, smaller stock etc etc etc. OK OK enough with the lecture.

First advice is don't buy anything right now. NOTHING. Plan first, look for 2nd hand gear and good deals. e.g. lights, I know a place that does CHEAP metal halides with 10k bulbs with reflectors for about $350ea (wired up an ready to go). I also know someone who may have a 150 watt 2nd hand for sale, been run for like 2 weeks...

Plan the tank, and buy around it. Start with the tank. Overflows? If so this means sumps, which means return pumps, which means weirs or stand pipes, which means drilled glass, which means you will need to talk to you tank builder prior to them making the tank. Not worth the hastle to try and drill a tank after its built, and in 10mm you just may not have too.

NOTE: I made a million mistakes here, and if I could go back in time, how things would change. I would drill the back (and sides depending on how the setup will look). Drilling the tank insted of using 'hang over' pipes would be worth its weight in gold. I will do this next time for sure.

Remember if you are drilling the tank (reccomended), then your cabinet will have to accomodate for it. Also if you are putting all you equipment under your cabinet, you will need to know what you are buying first.

NOTE: This is another mistake I made. Having the equipment under the tank is a wrong, plumb it outside the house or into another room (the garage), the noise and mess all happens here.

Rock. I have good advice on this. Get your rock now. Dead white rock from Jansens or Hollywoods or whatever. The dead white stuff. Buy nice bits, as much as you can afford. Get a old bath, drum, tank or whatever and put it in there, grab a heater and a few airstones or pumps and get it going now. TRUST ME ON THIS. Use sea water from the ocean. Chuck in sand from the beach, snails and crabs, seaweed, ANYTHING! Don't light it. Change the water every week or 2. This will liven the rock, it works, it will cycle, it will be cool! Go do this tommorow! The longer the rock is in there, the better.

This will give you something to do while designing you tank. Have it made to order, its cheap (there are lots of tank makers around). Offer cash and a few beers, all will be sweet. If you can get it for $1.00 per litre, assembled thats a good deal. If you need help with the stand pipes and weir/overflows, mine are pretty good. I mean that given the chance to do it again, i would do it the same as I did it this way. I can give you the web site on how to make them, its easy and well worth it. I belive these are the best system to feed a sump, and everyone I know would do it this way again.

I could go on for months, but I think thats enough. Give me an email or call me and we can chat.

If you want some books to read, I strongly reccomend tullocks "Natural Reef Aquirums", this is the current 'bible' on modern reef keeping.

And to answer some of your other questions:

Bio balls/bio tower - NO! Rock is better, don't bother, you can use rock, it will just take a few months. And algae bed? Sure! I am, great stuff.

I had a look at that skimmer, looks good! Are you sure you want an in-sump skimmer? I personally wouldn't ever have one, just from a maintenance point of view. Although its 'safter' to use insump, I think the external are better. Just something to consider. Look at TUNZE and some of the DELTECs before making your final decision. Bigger skimmers!

Pumps: grunfos are good, and we know of several reefers using them. Also look at IWAKI. I personally have an IWAKI and will buy them again, no problem. They come is all shapes and sizes, and are available in NZ. Again let me know, I know where some 2nd hand ones are (BIG ONES!).

You can add the rock slowly, but if you do as I said above, you will be onto a winner. I've seen a large tank (1000+ litre) that was made entirely of dead rock, brought back. His tank looks stunning, i will try and put some photos on the site tonight.

My tank is also 700 litre (+ sump and skimmer and plumbing). So this should be good to compare other bits and pieces. My sump/refugium is almost perfect, be worth a look for you, if you want to run an algae bed/refugium.

Good luck will stop here before I write a book.

Pies

[jetskisteve]

All good advice from pies Wish i could type so well! where in the country do you want to do all this? If yr in AK i could seed some rock in my sump 4 u. Steve.

[Pies]

JetSkiSteve! Get some in there for me while your at it please A couple of LARGE bits would go down a treat! I got a hole to fill...

[Caryl]

Welcome Apo. Sorry I can't help as I know nothing about marines but pies has started a lot of us drooling!

[Apo]

Hi Guys thanks for your replies.

Rest assured I wont be running out and spending $5000 this week, or even this year. I see this as a long-term project. I don’t want to let impatience limit my budget through avoidable mistakes. My first project will be the tank and stand. As I have already bought a house, I’m limited in where I can put a tank. I believe that you should buy the biggest tank you can afford, and I feel that 700L is a good size for me.

This, however, limits me in where I can place it in my house. My garage is detached and I cant plumb it through the wall into the garage. The tank really needs to sit in the foyer of my house. My house is on piles, and has about a meters clearance from the ground. I could possible plumb everything straight down through the floor. I’d need two holes through my slate tiles I guess. An overflow and a return? Maybe a gully trap for leeks?

What do you think about putting everything under the house? Failing that if the pumps were really strong, I could plumb it out to a garden shed…but the pipes would run several meters to get that far.

Once I decide upon this I can weld up my stand. 2†steel tube, zinc coated and finished with marine enamel. Maybe walled in with veneered remu or something one day…

It’s very hard to plan, without knowing everything you need in advance. But w/o experience it’s hard to know what u need. I spend (have spent) a lot of time on reef central and other websites just reading posts and reviews. Trying to get my head around everything. That’s why I’m on here, no point in reinventing the wheel. You guys will already have fantastic contacts and set-ups to help me along ;>

Pies what’s your weirs/overflow design? I didn’t see it on homereef…

Jetskisteve, yes I’m in Auckland too and may take u up on that offer. I still think it would be good to cycle the rock in an empty tank with ocean salts, RO water and a dead prawn. Less chance of getting any unwanted nasties from the ocean in there.

[Ira]

I think having the stuff under the house would be about the worst possible way to do it. Then you'd have to crawl under the house every time you wanted to do something with your sump. I think having everything under the tank is just fine if it's not convenient to plumb it to a closet or something. Most people have everything under the tanks.

About cycling in an empty tank, I'd think you're better off just using straight ammonia like in a freshwater fishless cycle instead of using a rotting chunk of meat and filling the tank with all kinds of fungus and bad bacteria. Oh, and less chance of bad nasties with not using stuff from the ocean also means no chance of good animals.

[Pies]

Rock and nasties. Would not worry about this at all. Steves offer to seed some rock for you is an excellent offer, I would take him up on it. His tank is already cycled, so its the ultimate way to get it living.

Rotting shrimp is un-nessessary. Just load the tank with rock, and like Ira sais you could add amonia, or just add some crabs and snails and shrimps from the rock pools. Gives you something to look at, eats algae and cycles the tank. Most people use this system.

Plumbing under the tank. I think Ira is incorrect about this, most people with marines have their plumbing elsewhere. Under the tank is a real pain. + the noise and mess. I regret doing this, and would NEVER do it again. Infact I am thinking about moving it.

Under the house? If you only have a metre this is also no good. The shed option sounds great though! Pumps don't care somuch about the distance as the height. There is a way to calculate it, but if its only a few metres I wouldn't worry about it.

You will be greatly restricted by using an under the tank system.

Tank height. My tank is 650 deep. Its a little awkward, I wish I had made it 600 or even 550 deep. Something to consider.

If you use metal for you stand make sure its very well sealed. I got some advice, and it was 'don't use metal anywhere'. I stick to this, saltwater will get to it, and distroy it.

http://www.rl180reef.com/ is the page for the standpipe. This is a good system, and I would do it again.

Good luck.

Pies

[Apo]

ok so i'll buy/build a garden shed. this also means i can make a huge rain water catchment vessel, like the guy selling on trademe. about 2-3 cubic meters of water, and plumb that in as a resovior? via an RO filter maybe?

so question: from my tank. i will have two pvc pipes, one coming and one going. is that right? is that all? I have to mentally plan this all before i get to carried away.

hollywoods new shop is just up from where i work in albany. I will get some rock up there when they are set up. (did anyone notice the aptasia in their display tank???) and I will ask steve to cure it for me. where abouts do u live steve?

ps i think techtonics is a customer of ours. i work at techpac

[Pies]

Aye we buy a bit from TP form time to time

Plumbing, this is were it all gets tricky!

You will have 1 return from the sump/refugium into the tank. If you want to split it off into 2 or more (I split mine into 2), do it at the tank.

So thats easy.

How many from the tank? Got a calculator?... It depends on the size of your plumbing and the power of your pump. Most of us use 25mm plumbing (good size, lots of taps etc avail in this size).

I lost a lot of sleep over this one... I went for 2 overflows (2x 25mm piping leaving the tank (1 in each corner). I would have been in trouble with just one, wouldn't have been able to cope with the flow (but its a restriction in my combs not the pipes...).

I would aim for 2, I am sure you can join them up and just have 1 pipe leading out. I will have a talk to mate who has this setup (i think).

I've been killing Aipstasia tonight... B A S T A R D stuff. I personally think that Hollywoods stock and display (havn't seen nth shore) are shocking. With bleeching coral, dieing fish (i've seen a dead fish in there), waring coral and general mayhem.

I only know 2 reefers with no aipstasia. 1 has a copperband, 1 has a really SMALL tank.

If you want to talk plumbing, I am sure I can help you out. Also beware, plumbing is EXPENSIVE, and its gets more expensive if you have to do it twice.... Like I did in places... This is the most important thing.

read www.thereefweb.com for some good setup logs. This site helped me out more than any other.

Good luck!

[Apo]

ok, well plumbing doesnt scare me, and i got lots of contacts in that dept. I'll go over to Davey pumps today and price out a couple of pumps. I measured it up yesterday. its 2.4 M fall from top of tank to floor of the garden shed. and its 8m away as crow flies. so will look for a pump that can handle it. 700L tank, cycled say 10x an hour?? Thats 7000L per hour up to say 3m. Ill see what they say.

Im thinking that 8m x2 plus sump/refugium will add up to quiet a bit of extra water vloume in the system. Thats got to be a good thing.

[Pies]

My pump does approx 6500 litres an hr, pumping 4ft head, straight up.

Buy a more grunty pump than you need as you can always tap off the return to run skimmers, others sumps, calcium reactors etc etc etc.

You will regret an under powered pump.

If you are going for the shed, I assume you will run the pipes under the floor, then into the shed? If so, the pipes will be quite low, so you will have to have the sump on the floor. This is not really ideal. Have a think about it, hope I have made sense.

As for more water volume because of the sump and plumbing. Yes, its true and a good thing. Get as big a sump as you can. Doesn't have to be flash, you may get a tank for free or ver cheap. Make it a MONSTER! Ideal it would be bigger than the tank itself!

Good luck. Draw us some diagrams!

[Apo]

I called Davey, the smallest pump they do for seawater with a 3M head is pcr100. Its a 200L /minute pump (12000L/hr)

But at that speed, i'd need 40mm piping. RRP is $430+gst

whod ya fink?

[Pies]

Remember that the sump becomes the heart of the tank. The skimmer, chiller, heaters, chemical filtration, refugium etc are all in the sump.

And the old thing connecting the sump to the tank is this pump.

Check that its rated to run 24/7. Check its servicability (some cheap pumps are throw aways). Check its power consumption (compare to others).

I am sure it will be fine. JetSkiSteve has a friend with a sump room and he uses a grunfos pump, its big though. Be interesting to know what specs that pump is.

Do you have a link and pic?

Pies

[Apo]

http://www.daveynz.co.nz/index.htm

but they dont have much guff on them.

TP is just up the road from metropolitan glass too. they be a good choice for a tank?

and do i need 2x 40mm holes cut in it? one on each side of the back of the tank?

[Ira]

I don't know how much trouble it would be shipping from australia, but http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au Seems to have fairly good prices. The pump at the top of this page seems like a pretty good deal. 8000 l/hr(Not sure what that would be at the head you need) and I think minus shipping and including GST would be about $250 nz. I've looked at the cost of pond pumps(Because I get things at cost from a garden center) and even at cost I'd at best match those prices.

[reef]

i have a iwaki 40 for $200. does about 6500 litres /h

email me if you are interested

[Pies]

RLT or RXT? I may be interested

Student discount?

[count_sexy_tart]

trade me has an under gravel filter system you guys might want to check out is a Eheim 3540 just a thought

[Apo]

hmm thanks, but i think im going with a thin layer of sand on the bottom and a plenum in my sump somewhere.

[Pies]

A thin layer of sand is wise. I started with a thicker layer (2 inch) but am slowly sucking bits of it out. A think layer is like 2cm or less.

As for the plenum. I thought about this. Infact I was going to build one. But in the end, there is no point. Most people, if not all, find the plenum is just a water of time. A true deep sand bed does the exact same job (possibly better). Also very few people hace nitrate issues, and the plenum needs to be quite large (larger than 1/2 tank) to be truely effective. I didn't bother in the end, 0 nitrates. Don't know anyone in NZ using one, or wishing they used one.

This is a 'Julian Sprung' inovation that has just died off cause its mostly worthless. Also a lot of people on RC that had plenums in there display tanks have removed them or colapsed them.

Pies

[Apo]

Thats interesting, it does seem like a lot of info out there is out of date.

[Apo]

hey what do you guys gestimate the cost (on your power bill) of running your pumps, skimmer, heater etc?

[Pies]

I think my power bill is up over $100.00 a month on average because of the tank (thats $100 more, not $100 total). Thats a guess though. I've recently taken off a few pumps and replaced them with more efficient ones, so be interesting to see how it goes.

Pies

[Apo]

what exactly are you running pies? U got 300W of MH lights on there as well as two pumps a skimmer, kalkweiser reactor and fluro's. at about $25 a week. cheaper than smoking.. :roll: