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90 gallon tank in my kitchen

Hello to All....

I’m a new member and really enjoyed reading the Forums and have learned a lot from the postings and advice given at this site. I’ve had a FW tank from about 5 years and have been dreaming about putting up a salt-water build. I’d like to put in a few fish and some easy corals to start. The tank is in the middle of my kitchen and will get some ambient light. I’m also looking forward to getting out to one of your meetings – especially when it’s a bit closer to North Jersey. This is my first post so bear with me!

I’m about half-way through my build and thought it would be a great time to stop and ask for some feedback. I’d appreciate any comments or advice – good, bad, and otherwise as I’ve been learning primarily by reading about what other people have been doing on sites like this and asking questions at my LFS. The tank is a 90 gallon acrylic and I’ve got it plumbed to go to a basement sump that I’m building.

Here’s a picture of the tank – my wife calls this my mid-life crisis fishtank -- She may be right! Yes there are snowmen in the tank since I had no fish (yet) and had to put in something :)

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The tank sits on a 1/2 inch wooden platform. I was told that having it sit on the quartz counter was a bad idea. The Overflow is a side-drilled Synergy Reef Overflow model which is supposed to be quiet. All the plumbing is right behind the tank which is a cabinet dedicated for the plumbing.

For the lighting for now will just be a Current USA sitting right on the top which I know will limit my corals to softies and maybe some LPS.

First question is the return. I’m trying to decide if I should drill a hole at the bottom and run the return through the bottom or running a return pipe over the top of the tank. If I drill a hole and run it along the bottom I’d be concerned about leaking.


Here’s a look at the other side of the tank....

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First problem is that the threads from the synergy overflow box inside the tank don’t quiet go far enough to reach the external overflow box. Plan B will be to cut out a section of the cabinet that will allow me to place the external box flush to the tank. After that it’s just a matter of connecting the overflow box to the plumbing. The pipes are 2 inches but I was going to replace them with 1 inch pipes and reduce the output. This will be a Bean Animal (primary, secondary, emergency) and I’ really hoping that this overflow runs quiet.

Now to the basement….I have read that you want to have a lot of water volume to stabilize your parameters....

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The pipes come in all the way at the left of the photo and I’ll need to run them about 6 feet over to the 150 gallon stock tank. I was going to put a refugium in the tub with a good light. I had my FW tank in a similar location and had a little algea (not terrible) – I was hoping a bunch of macro algae would help with that and also grow some pods for the fish in the display.

In the middle is a RODI unit connected to a 90 gallon barrel. Someday I may build an ATO that would take water directly from the barrel.

For the return I was going to run a pipe from the refugium to an external pump. I’ve got about 16 feet of head pressure and was looking at the Iwaki Pumps (MD-55RLT). If my math is right it should give me about 771 GPH. I have no idea if that is good or bad – I do have a Maxispect gyre to move water around in the display.

That’s about it for now – again I’d really appreciate any comments on things I might want to change….
 

Mark_C

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Nice, had a lol at the snow-scene tank.
Welcome aboard!
I ran a few Current USA lights on my first 40b. One was working well enough to keep things alive (many zoas and two hammers, tried SPS under em to no dice). When I added a second I got considerable growth. They're not bad lights at all, just underpowered. If you can find a second one used it would be worth it.
My humble opinion is to run the return over the side. Drilling in from the bottom can be catastrophic if a leak develops.
 
hey truckin. looks good - i did very similar project last year for my midlife crisis lol
Here's a couple imho thoughts based on that experience;
Id probably look to jog all 3 drains over in order to get the box as close as possible to the wall, might be easier to do with flex tubing (i wouldn't have the courage to rip up the wall plus I think that would probably limit your access to the box too). Make sure to plan for easy reach to the dial of the needle valve on the siphon drain, they are pretty big and you will find yourself fine tuning it often. Its great how you will have it hidden away, plus there is some surprising noise that carries up from the basement through the emergency port so having it in an enclosed closet helps with that too. Add strainers to the siphon and durso outlets - BRS sells them.
On the return side I used 200PS - 1750 GPH - Pan World, and bought two from the get go so one is shelf ready. Its loud but the basement doesn't care. I made one mistake in my build that I had to change after, I put a 90 bend coming right out of the sump and just before the pump. So don't do that :) This pump is getting me 450GPH up to the DT and Im porting off about another 400 to my fuge and maybe another 150 or so to a reactor; so it covers the head with room to spare.
I don't think its advised to port the return into the bottom of the tank because the check valves can't be trusted. Maybe theres ways around that that others around here are more knowledgable in.
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions - very good advice. Decided to go with the overhead return. Also ran a water test and decided I needed to drill out the cabinet to bring the overflow flush with the tank. Will more pictures in a few weeks. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the meeting next week.........Bruce

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LQgTHQBHxsj_tl4v3tC3VbOOLW_G0nDM
IMG_1670.JPG

Decided to go with a bare-bottom but painted the bottom outside of the tank with textured sand paint.
IMG_1679.JPG
 
hey truckin. looks good - i did very similar project last year for my midlife crisis lol
Here's a couple imho thoughts based on that experience;
Id probably look to jog all 3 drains over in order to get the box as close as possible to the wall, might be easier to do with flex tubing (i wouldn't have the courage to rip up the wall plus I think that would probably limit your access to the box too). Make sure to plan for easy reach to the dial of the needle valve on the siphon drain, they are pretty big and you will find yourself fine tuning it often. Its great how you will have it hidden away, plus there is some surprising noise that carries up from the basement through the emergency port so having it in an enclosed closet helps with that too. Add strainers to the siphon and durso outlets - BRS sells them.
On the return side I used 200PS - 1750 GPH - Pan World, and bought two from the get go so one is shelf ready. Its loud but the basement doesn't care. I made one mistake in my build that I had to change after, I put a 90 bend coming right out of the sump and just before the pump. So don't do that :) This pump is getting me 450GPH up to the DT and Im porting off about another 400 to my fuge and maybe another 150 or so to a reactor; so it covers the head with room to spare.
I don't think its advised to port the return into the bottom of the tank because the check valves can't be trusted. Maybe theres ways around that that others around here are more knowledgable in.


Jim - I'm in the middle of plumbing right now. I don't have an 90 degrees from the sump to the pump. However - coming out of my pump to the DT I was going to have a few 90 degrees. I could go with 45 degrees but the 90 degrees would be cleaner. Hoping this won't be a problem. Thanks....Bruce
 
I've got several bends and elbows btw the pump to the DT that shouldn't be an issue; just some extra head to account for. Good luck we're waiting for startup
 
Long overdue update - I wound up doing all of the plumbing myself so this was definitely a labor of love! I've been following many of the builds of the past year+ and have gone to a few meetings. I appreciate all of the advice. Onto the build.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product. I've got about 5 fishes in the tank now and am almost ready to start into corals. Some of the equipment I've got so far includes the MaxiSpec Gyro, Synergy Reef Overfow, and Current USA Orbit Marine (I was looking used but it's got some good bluetooth features). I've been running for 8 months without a Protein skimmer as the filter sock and refugium seem to keep up with the waste but I know I'm only buying time until I need a Skimmer.

Here's what the 'finished' product looks like.....
 

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To start out I painted the tank with some textured paint to look like sand. I was following the BRS Ultra Low Maintenance series and tried to follow this as much as possible. I was pretty happy with how it turned out and for maintenance I really just focus on keeping the sides clean. The Gyro keeps the bottom pretty clean.
 

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For the back side and below I had a cabinet made to house the overflow and wound up having to cut a hole in the side to connect it to the tank. When the door is closed it is pretty quiet - the loudest sound is the Iwaki pump running in the basement
 

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To cycle the tank I followed the BRS ULM process as much as possible. (The same week I started my cycle we had a bathroom leak and I wound up sealing the entire kitchen!) Whatever happened after 6 weeks of covering, the tank was ready and I have not had any cyno. I did however have some of the Green Hair Algae which is what I was afraid of with the open windows behind the tank. I re-covered the tank for a few weeks and went to Plan B. Got the right kind of fish, established a refugium with good lighting and got to cans of Coraline Algea in a bottle (It seemed like snake oil but after 8 weeks it's working). I used the BRS Dryrock and while it still has the GHA it has more purple coraline.
 

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