quick video of my garage and what I am now calling “the Lab”. As you can see I tried my hand at cutting glass, and suffice it to say I will be sticking to other experiments.
I have found that I am much more handy than I realized in the past, and have made a hobby out of buying broken reef equipment and trying to fix it. So far I have repaired 3 dead AI hydra 26 HD that I got for 100 total and now use as a supplement in my main display, I have fixed a leaking waterbox tank that is now my torch tank, and now I am repairing the chip board on an ATI sun power dimmable that wasn’t responding on the screen and not turning on from a guy who was throwing it away already got it running and now I’m just waiting for a momentary button to solder onto the board to get all the functions the bins in the video run into the house to my tanks, 1 RO for ATO’s and 1 NSW for auto water changes.
The black mat is where I am going to be placing a new frag tank I ordered after shattering the old junky free tank in the video. The sump on my work bench was my old display tank sump before I got my TriggerSys that was beat up and had a small leak in it, so today I am learning how to polish acrylic.
never thought I would put this much time and effort into the “non reefing” side of our hobby, but here we are.
“The Lab”
As far as the tank that is going in here, I posted in another thread about it, but it probably deserves its own build thread so I can document.
here’s the list :
Alright, either have or am getting the final setup in the mail now.
Advanced acrylics 48x24x10
going to run it peninsula style facing out from my mixing barrels for 3 sided viewing. I just want something different than most tanks that are middle overflow with returns blowing the short side.
lighting will be an ATI sunpower dimmable 48”x4x54 T5 with 2 48” reefbrite XHO actinics. They will be held in place by horticulture style pulley caribeners, that way I can lower it to
Overflow is going to be a drilled external, either an eshopps S or L (600gph/1000gph) with 1 inch drain lines to my sump.
Sump is my old one from the display that I repaired and am building baffles for. Chamber 1 will have 7 inch filter sock separated with a triggersys style inlet. sca skimmer in chamber 1.5, middle chamber will be LR/biosphere (largest chamber in sump for bio filter) *not sure if sand is a good idea here?*, final chamber is going to house a pump to run through my JBJ chiller and a VarioS2 (714gph dc) up to dual 1/2 return lines on either side of overflow, loclines with Y’s for flares and random flow generators aiming low, a gyre on the opposing side of the return aiming high, with 2 11-22 mad rack pros. (I also have a CF GRO 100w horticulture refugium light I don’t use since I started doing display macros in my display fuge, not sure if I’ll need this or chaeto? I can split the middle chamber to accommodate if y’all think that’s the best.)
Metal 48x14x30 steel stand, on the top I’m going to bolt down butcher block for the upper tank and the lower rack will have another one to hold the sump in place.
All of this will be controller by another apex (I already have 2 setup).
I have found that I am much more handy than I realized in the past, and have made a hobby out of buying broken reef equipment and trying to fix it. So far I have repaired 3 dead AI hydra 26 HD that I got for 100 total and now use as a supplement in my main display, I have fixed a leaking waterbox tank that is now my torch tank, and now I am repairing the chip board on an ATI sun power dimmable that wasn’t responding on the screen and not turning on from a guy who was throwing it away already got it running and now I’m just waiting for a momentary button to solder onto the board to get all the functions the bins in the video run into the house to my tanks, 1 RO for ATO’s and 1 NSW for auto water changes.
The black mat is where I am going to be placing a new frag tank I ordered after shattering the old junky free tank in the video. The sump on my work bench was my old display tank sump before I got my TriggerSys that was beat up and had a small leak in it, so today I am learning how to polish acrylic.
never thought I would put this much time and effort into the “non reefing” side of our hobby, but here we are.
“The Lab”
As far as the tank that is going in here, I posted in another thread about it, but it probably deserves its own build thread so I can document.
here’s the list :
Alright, either have or am getting the final setup in the mail now.
Advanced acrylics 48x24x10
going to run it peninsula style facing out from my mixing barrels for 3 sided viewing. I just want something different than most tanks that are middle overflow with returns blowing the short side.
lighting will be an ATI sunpower dimmable 48”x4x54 T5 with 2 48” reefbrite XHO actinics. They will be held in place by horticulture style pulley caribeners, that way I can lower it to
Overflow is going to be a drilled external, either an eshopps S or L (600gph/1000gph) with 1 inch drain lines to my sump.
Sump is my old one from the display that I repaired and am building baffles for. Chamber 1 will have 7 inch filter sock separated with a triggersys style inlet. sca skimmer in chamber 1.5, middle chamber will be LR/biosphere (largest chamber in sump for bio filter) *not sure if sand is a good idea here?*, final chamber is going to house a pump to run through my JBJ chiller and a VarioS2 (714gph dc) up to dual 1/2 return lines on either side of overflow, loclines with Y’s for flares and random flow generators aiming low, a gyre on the opposing side of the return aiming high, with 2 11-22 mad rack pros. (I also have a CF GRO 100w horticulture refugium light I don’t use since I started doing display macros in my display fuge, not sure if I’ll need this or chaeto? I can split the middle chamber to accommodate if y’all think that’s the best.)
Metal 48x14x30 steel stand, on the top I’m going to bolt down butcher block for the upper tank and the lower rack will have another one to hold the sump in place.
All of this will be controller by another apex (I already have 2 setup).