Scott's 50-Gallon In-Wall Build

[lovetoreef]

just made it through the thread - great idea! i wish i had room to put a tank in-wall like that - very nice. a couple of points ...

> i use the pulverized limestone - works great and it hard to beat the price - if you use it, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse - did i say rinse??

> for your aquascaping, look at sanjay's thread on how he did his rock structures - by using acrylic rods and some quick set crete, i made some awesome pillars and have few dead spots in my tank - i love them

> you may want to incorporate some flex PVC to give those pipes some play - that might help to limit the stress on the bulk heads

great job - keep up the great work

[mx36]

Your set up looks great, can't wait to see the aquascaping. On a side note, how did you get the google sketchup to post on here?

Thanks Chris

[scbauer]

Originally posted by mx36
Your set up looks great, can't wait to see the aquascaping. On a side note, how did you get the google sketchup to post on here?

Thanks Chris

Thanks Chris... In Sketch-Up, there is an option to "Export" your model to a 2D image. I simply export to JPEG, upload to my RC account, then link to that.

-Scott

[scbauer]

Originally posted by lovetoreef
just made it through the thread - great idea! i wish i had room to put a tank in-wall like that - very nice. a couple of points ...

> i use the pulverized limestone - works great and it hard to beat the price - if you use it, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse - did i say rinse??

> for your aquascaping, look at sanjay's thread on how he did his rock structures - by using acrylic rods and some quick set crete, i made some awesome pillars and have few dead spots in my tank - i love them

> you may want to incorporate some flex PVC to give those pipes some play - that might help to limit the stress on the bulk heads

great job - keep up the great work

Can you tell me more about the pulverized limestone? I'm curious to know what it looks like.

-Scott

[scbauer]

FYI, for anybody interested, PetSmart is having a "Free Shipping on $50 or more" sale. It says it doesn't apply to Dog Food or heavy items, but I just bought 80 lbs of sand and probably another 50 lbs of salt and my shipping charge of $81 was deducted at final checkout. There was also a 15% off coupon that I found online. In total, I bought $120 worth of sand and salt and paid $104 with tax shipped to my house.

-Scott

[scbauer]

Okay, you can ignore the question about pulverized limestone since you can see from my post above I just ordered 80 lbs of Aragamax sand.

Also ordered 200 gallons worth of Reef Crystals salt (4 50-gallon bags). I figure 1.5 bags should take care of the initial fill, then I'll have 2.5 bags left for water changes, or 125 gallons. If I change 5 gallons every other week, that should last me about 1 year. What a deal!

[hyndu]

just read all 10 pages... lookin good

*subscribed*

(btw... I have 8 hrs to kill at work everyday and its usually spent on RC so I'll be sure to add some input)

[chrismunn]

5g every OTHER week water change on your 50g? livin' on the edge!

i agree with pete about pointing the effluent of your CL towards each other to creat randome turbulance. if you were going bare bottom i would have said to point them down towards the bottom of the tank to keep detritus suspended long enough to make it to the skimmer for exportation, but with sand thats not going to be possible. the only thing i would change would be the locations of each effluent nozzle on the CL. i would have 2 & 4 at opposite corners rather than on the same side of the tank. same with 1 & 3, but in your case your going to get a nice back and forth motion that will be visually appealing if you keep LPS. since you've made it this far ide leave it where it is though.if you dont like it you can always change it later, but im sure it'll be just fine the way it is.

in this link you can see what i did using 3/8" acrylic rod for my rock structure...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...0#post12810810

and your right about having to hike the freeway overpasses in texas, thier about the highest thing around here. especially going from eastbound US-290 to northbound I-35, that thing is HIGH!

[scbauer]

okay, maybe 5 gallons each week or 10 evey other week. I'm not convinced that water changes are the miracle that people think they are. I've seen some very successful tanks tht do small water changes every few months. We'll just have to see, though... I may end up doing 1 gallon every day or two just to vaccume the sand.

[chrismunn]

personally i think that if you do things like vaccum your sand often, you could probably get away with less water changes, even if your only replacing 1 gallon every other day.

[lovetoreef]

nice pick up on the sand - that is a great price and only about $85 more than the limestone would have been

no, just giving you a hard time - hard to beat that deal.

i also agree with the points about pointing the cl together - it is hard to create random flow and beat the benefits of it. that is definitely one of the most important parts of a healthy tank - random flow that encompasses the whole tank - perhaps one of the reasons the wavebox is so popular (wish i had one )

as for water changes - i have gone back and forth - i have invested a lot of money in a top notch skimmer and also added a denitrator - so i could in theory go longer, but, i believe there is something to be said for replenishing the other elements to the tank.

[lovetoreef]

sadly, i don't have a thread on here to be a member of the WIAGAS club, but, maybe i will bust your membership with lots of posts!

as for the climbing overpasses, we don't even have one of those here in East Texas - maybe a tree

[scbauer]

Originally posted by lovetoreef
nice pick up on the sand - that is a great price and only about $85 more than the limestone would have been

no, just giving you a hard time - hard to beat that deal.

i also agree with the points about pointing the cl together - it is hard to create random flow and beat the benefits of it. that is definitely one of the most important parts of a healthy tank - random flow that encompasses the whole tank - perhaps one of the reasons the wavebox is so popular (wish i had one )

as for water changes - i have gone back and forth - i have invested a lot of money in a top notch skimmer and also added a denitrator - so i could in theory go longer, but, i believe there is something to be said for replenishing the other elements to the tank.

Actually, the sand was only $45 for 80 lbs. I used the sand bed calculator here on RC and it said for a 3" bed I would need 84 lbs. I was looking for my sand to be about 2" - 3" deep, so this should be perfect!

I'm also hoping to see some improvements in my system by using Reef Crystals. I've always used Instant Ocean in the past, and have always contemplated switching to Reef Crystals because many people have such good things to say about it. Hope it works out.

-Scott

[scbauer]

Okay, well I ran the system for about 24 hours yesterday. I had the chiller turned off, however.

When I got home, the tank was 94 degrees (the outside temp was about 105 and the garage was probably about 110). I turned the chiller on, and it took about 4 hours to drop the temp 10 degrees, down to 84. So far I'm happy with that, but I believe there is still a lot of room (and necessity) for improvement when it comes to temp control.

I hope to work on that this weekend... I will build a wall around the tank, making sure I can still fit the ladder into the room so I can work on the tank. I will also install some vents from inside the house. The plan is to have a vent down low in the kitchen that goes under the stairs as an intake (probably the coolest air in the house) and have an exhaust back into the living room. I found a really neat fan at Home Depot that goes inline with 4" duct, so that should really help to suck/blow air into/out of the fish room.

I also plan on installing a small fuge this weekend. It should be REALLY easy, just a 10 gallon tank above the sump that will be fed by a small powerhead in the sump, then it will be gravity fed back into the sump to flow back to the tank.

The last major piece I have to install before I can fill the tank with RO/DI and salt is the Auto Top Off. I alreay have the system built (I built a custom ATO a few years ago and it works great), but ned to install it. Also trying to decide if I should use the 20-gallon Brute as my top-off water or if I should use a smaller container. I think once I get the temperature controll down, I won't evaporate nearly as much water.

Oh yea, and the electrical is going to be a headache since I really don't have anywhere to put my control panel that won't have the potential of a spill. I guess that's why I have 10 GFI receptacles, right.

Should be a busy weekend.

-Scott

[lovetoreef]

great deal on the sand!

that sounds great on the ATO ... if you can fit the 20 gallon container in there, that would be great - that would make so nice to not have to fill the ATO container every week or so

also, if you can swing it, you might want to see about adding a ceiling fan to the room - i have one in my aquarium room and i have no issues with the temp with no chiller and no other fans - the best part about a ceiling fan - you don't have to worry about it falling into your sump and it is nice to work around the aquarium with the nice breeze

[scbauer]

2 problems with a ceiling fan... 1, I don't even know if there is enough room to fit it into the room. 2, if I did have a ceiling fan, I would probably hit my head every time I tried to work on the tank since the tank is so close to the ceiling in the garage.

That does bring up a VERY good point, though... the ceiling of the garage is probably about 2 or 3 feet lower than the floor of the second floor. That tells me that there is a signifigant space above the ceiling where I could potentially run a fan duct out to the outside of the house for venting.

I still think the best option is to bring cool dry air into the fish room from the kitchen and exhaust hot moist air into the house. This will increase the humidity inside the house which we have always wanted and it will also use the house AC to keep the tank cool.

My biggest concern about the ducts in/out of the fish room is that it will allow sound to travel easily into the house. My favorite part of the tank so far is that I can barely hear it running. I'm wondering if it would help to have the duct work do a loop or two under the stairs. I will definately use insulated duct work which should help.

Thoughts?

-Scott

[lovetoreef]

that is definitely an interesting idea ... the other issue is mold in the discharge area from the moist area. you may consider a dehumidifier for the room - they put off some heat, but, help keep the moisture down which would help with the moisture issues.

worst case, what about putting a window unit that vents out to the garage?? you could set it at a certain temperature and then not worry about the house ac keeping that room a good temperature. an added benefit is that it will help keep the humidity in a reasonable range. i have seen several fish rooms use this option.

[scbauer]

Okay, maybe you didn't see the pictures... my fish room is going to be about 5' x 3'. If the point of the AC unit is to keep the tank temp stable, I'll just use the chiller. That works just fine. I would actually like to get some humid air in the house since it is such a dry climate in Vegas.

As for moisture causing mold in the fish room, I don't think that will happen if I constantly have air moving through the room. If the air wasn't moving then there would be a signifigant amount of moisture in the air, but with the air constantly moving from the kitchen through the fish room into the living room, the air won't get too humid.

I think this will work wonders for the stability of the tank temperature, especially if I have the air blow into the fish room right next to the chiller, which outputs quite a bit of heat. Then the exhaust would be up at the top near the lights.

I think I may put together some sketches in Google Sketch-Up this weekend and get your opinions.

-Scott

[lovetoreef]

sounds good - sorry for the mistake

[chrismunn]

i love google sketchup!

[scbauer]

Originally posted by lovetoreef
sounds good - sorry for the mistake

Mistake? What mistake? There are no mistakes here, just people trying to help me build the best possible mini-ocean in my garage.

I definately appreciate all the ideas, so please don't hesitate to throw out any ideas, even if they seem odd.

-Scott

[scbauer]

Hmmm... made a few posts to the thread in the last few days using my Nokia 770 and it looks like they didn't make it. Oh well, can't remember what I said so I guess it wasn't important.

Well, the tank was emptied and cleaned on Monday night. I took everything out of the sump and removed the closed loop pump, then let everything dry overnight and all day Tuesday so there is no more dirty water left in the system.

Tuesday after work, I found a few bags of the Reef Crystals salt that I ordered, so it was time. I actually got some of the coolest pictures I've ever seen... here is what I did.
[list=1][*]Fill your 56-gallon tank with about 2 gallons of RO/DI water[*]Dump in a large bag of Reef Crystals salt, good for 50 gallons[*]Leave your RO/DI on overnight[/list=1]

When I woke up this morning, the tank looked REALLY cool. Basically what happened is that the 2 gallons that were in the bottom of the tank contained enough salt for 50 gallons. Not all the salt was able to disolve because the water was super-saturated with salt. Then, as the RO/DI water filled the tank, there was basically no flow in the tank, so the super-saturated water and the salt stayed on the bottom while the top portion of the tank was filled with clear, salt-free RO/DI water. There was basically a nice gradient from white to clear from the bottom of the tank to the top. It looked SO cool!!!

Okay, well I'm hoping to finish up the "fish room" and the vents this weekend, sorry for no drawing, I'm just going to do it.

Anyways, as you can tell, salt water is in the tank. I turned on the closed loop this morning, so it should be nice and clear when I get home tonight.

The sand was also delivered this afternoon, so when I get home I'll wash it and add it to the tank. I also have some base rock that I've been soaking in RO/DI water for about a week, so I'll put that in the tank, too. I may end up getting rid of it, but for now it will be the only thing in the tank. There are definately a few pieces that I want to keep in the tank as they look really cool, they will just need to get covered in coraline quickly so the wife stops crying about ugly white rocks.

-Scott

[tigerarmy40]

that sounds pretty cool! I cant wit to see the pics...

[lovetoreef]

that sounds pretty neat!

one idea for your base rock i read on another thread - you can try taking a piece of heavily encrusted rock with coralin and scrub it with a toothbrush - then put that in your tank. supposedly, it seeds the base rock speeding up the process. might be worth a shot!

[scbauer]

Originally posted by lovetoreef
that sounds pretty neat!

one idea for your base rock i read on another thread - you can try taking a piece of heavily encrusted rock with coralin and scrub it with a toothbrush - then put that in your tank. supposedly, it seeds the base rock speeding up the process. might be worth a shot!

I've heard that, too. The idea is, small pieces of coraline flake off and land on the base rock, then start growing there. I'll also try placing some coraline-encrusted rubble in the tank for a few weeks while the tank is cycling.

-Scott