Cliff’s 180 gallon reef

[Cermet]

Wow, fantastic tank! Almost as nice as when I was diving on a reef and seeing such while I was part of the 'aquarium stock' as well ... however, that time I came face to face with a really giant Moray Eel - this monster was over ten feet long (only part of his body out of the reef and his vertical size was a foot and a half! Never heard that those things could get anywhere that large!) Lucky for me, he was only begging for a handout, not looking at me as said desired morsel ... . Three other divers saw and approached as well – all confirmed its size … as did the drive master back on the boat (he already knew about it just didn't think to tell us before hand.) Still hard to believe its vast size.

[glarior]

Thanks guys

glarior: I have not decided if I will use any sponges yet. I will be using filter socks on the intake to help polish the water. As long as there are no micro bubbles making it into the last compartment of the sump, I don't think I will be adding any sponges.

Going to be a sweet setup!

[Cliff]

I picked up the new sump today and I must say,.... "ITS FREAK'N HEAVY" !!!. I would estimate about 225 lbs. My brother-in-law and I picked it up at the store today and set it in place. I jusr finished re-do the plumbing for it tonight so I will let everything cure overnight and give it a leak test in the morning. But a few pics until then.

Here is the sump at the store before I took it home



Below is the first compartment of the sump. It is a two part compartment allowing for water to flow into it from the tank and then be filtered through three 4 inch filter socks



The second compartment is for the skimmer



The third compartment is for the live rock with macro algae and the skimmer. I may not put the lights on the skimmer for a while as my nitrates are still steady around 1 to 2 ppm

[Cliff]

And the last compartment is for the return pump water



And a final parting pic of the sump in place

[~firefly~]

If you're setting this up in place of the broken one, then what's filtering your tank at the moment? I wouldn't have a clue how to swap something that size out.

[ibuyen]

My guess would be bulkheads to shut water to and from sump then just switch it out.

[Cliff]

Actually, I just turned off the return pump and let the drain-back fill the old sump. I have no type of shut-off between the display tank and sump. I did save a lot of that water for reuse, but I will be adding mostly newly made saltwater. The waterlevel in the display tank went down by about 2 inches.

With ~200 lbs of live rock providing biological filtration in the display tank, everyone in the tank will be fine.

[~firefly~]

Well I've learnt something!

Is it possible to keep a reef tank using just rock for filtration?

[Cliff]

It is possible. I have read about people doing that with more tolerant corals. I don’t think I would ever try that as that is beyond my comfort level. I’ve had my tanks running as long as close to two weeks without a sump, skimmer and chemical filtration with not bad side effects tho. Just my personal preference I guess.

When I tested the new set-up a little while ago, it was like the 4th of July, except instead of fireworks going off everywhere I had water spraying everywhere. It looks like when I had changed the impeller on my return pump, I over tightened the cover for the pump and cracked the pump housing. I don’t know why I just didn’t take my own advice and get the pump with the correct impeller installed the first place.

As I can’t find a replacement housing, I’ll have to get a new return pump tomorrow.

But I now have the sump filled with water and have put my live rock (from the old sump) and macro algae in the sump. I have a few powerheads and a heater in there right now so I should not get any die off from the macro algae.

[sheamurai]

wow that is one impressive sump set up.

I'm always way impressed by the plumbing hijinks people build to create their systems. Its all beyond me but I surely can appreciate the work and the system benefits.