90G Reef Construction Thread

[spudbuds]

As some of you may know, I recently got a great deal on a 90G drilled tank with a bunch of extra goodies. I've been doing a bunch of research and now I'm ready to start building. I figured I would start this thread and just post updates as I make progress. I'm hoping that by updating frequently you guys can help me avoid any major mistakes. And hopefully this thread will provide some value to other newbies. I hope you'll follow along.

Equipment

• 90G AGA Megaflow Tank
• Coralife Aqualight Pro - 2x150W 10,000K Metal Halide, 2x Compact Fluorescent Actinics, 4x blue LED moonlights
• 30G Sump
• Deltec AP600 Skimmer
• ViaAqua VA3300 Return pump
• SpectraPure MaxCap RO/DI System
• Refractometer

I still need to purchase the following items. I'm sure there will be some discussion on each of these as I go.

• Powerheads and wavemaker
• Calcium reactor w/ CO2 supply
• Background material and paint
• Light for refuge
• Sand, rock, macroalgae, etc.

If you have any questions on any of this, please feel free to ask. I can share why I decided on the equipment I did or anything else you want to know.

Also, as a warning to our dial-up friends, I plan on making this thread fairly picture intensive. If photos of any part of the construction would be helpful to anyone, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. With this in mind, here's a shot of the tank with lights mounted. Only the actinics are on in this pic.


- Bill

[cocoa_pleco]

looks awesome so far!

[sailor]

Sounds like a great project and am waiting in anticipation to watch this build progress.

[coachfraley]

Good luck Bill!

I will be following along. I need to learn how to plumb up a large tank to a fuge.

[spudbuds]

The sump I got as part of the package was built with a few baffles already. I didn't like how it was done for a couple of reasons. For one, the baffle series that control bubbles getting into the return area were placed too far apart and it was missing a baffle. The second thing that bothered me was the baffle separating the return and refugium was very small, so the refugium would have been nearly useless. Here's a before pic:


Here's what it looks like now that I've removed the baffles. There was a ton of silicon holding them in. I was careful to not cut into the silicon holding the tank together. I'll give it a water test after I get it completed to make sure I was careful enough.



Here's where I need your input. This is my plan for the sump and plumbing.


I'm leaning toward making the return section 9" wide and the refugium 14" (I just didn't want to update the pic). Also, I realize the calculations for width aren't taking into account the thickness of the glass and plexiglass. So, my refugium will probably be an 1"-1.5" smaller then I have in the drawing because of this. One of the things I struggled with was balancing having as large a refugium as I could without making the return area too small. I didn't want the return area to run dry if I missed my top offs for a day or two.

For plumbing, I'm currently planning on splitting the return between the skimmer area and the refugium with a ball valve controlling the flow into the refugium. I'll also be gravity feeding the skimmer so I have a ball valve to control the flow there as well. My overflow is capable of handling 600gph and my return pump does 600gph at 4ft, so I think it will be just about perfectly matched. I may have to tee the return line back into the sump if the overflow can't keep up.

Any thoughts or suggestions to this plan would be greatly appreciated.
- Bill

[spudbuds]

Good luck Bill!

I will be following along. I need to learn how to plumb up a large tank to a fuge.

If you have any specific questions about what I'm doing, please don't hesitate to ask. Also, a great resource for sump plumbing has been http://www.melevsreef.com/. There is a ton of great information and a bunch of sump designs. I'm using Model F.

[coachfraley]

I don't know much about this stuff, so I hope you don't mind what could be a stupid question...but, why is the skimmer wall shorter than the fuge wall?

[accts4mjs]

Looks good Bill -- I like the pictures, keep 'em coming :)

Mike

[coachfraley]

Nevermind Bill, your link answered the question. I didn't know there would be teeth on the fuge wall.

[spudbuds]

There are no stupid questions. Fire away and I'll help if I can.

The skimmer's return pipe needs to be above the water level of the sump when it's operating. I'll have to build a small stand for the skimmer as it is. The taller the wall, the taller the stand will need to be for the skimmer. If I make it too tall, skimmer maintenance will be more difficult because the top of the skimmer will be too close to the top of the stand. The height of the skimmer wall is directly related to the return pipe on your skimmer. However, the refuge has no limitation, so I made it as big as I could. The more volume I can get in my refuge, the better. I still may make it another inch or so taller, but I don't want the water falling into the return area to make too much noise. The tank is in my living room so sound isolation is going to be very important to me.