40 gallons and counting

[Saltyreef24]

I finished plumbing, filled my tank, and ran it for a couple of hours, tweaking it as I went. Initially, an unexpected large amount of water would drain from my display tank to sump when I shut power to my return pump. This was because the waterline was a couple of inches above the return line bulkhead. To resolve this and avoid flooding my living room, I made a pvc extension with a couple of elbows to raise my nozzles. Now when I power it down the display only loses about 1/2” of water, which my sump is able to accommodate.

I had to demo and rebuild my filter sock holder, because the crash box was a bit to small, and it also held the socks high enough that the splashing noise was quite loud. I will be installing my new one today once the silicone holding it together has a chance to dry.

I have also tweaked my sump layout a bit, removing the large glass baffle just to the right of my filter socks. I am replacing it with a shorter acrylic one placed slightly farther over, on the other side of my protein skimmer. This reduces the water level in the first (sock) chamber, decreases the operating volume of the sump and also separates my skimmer from my refugium.

Separately, the gate valve on my drain is leaking pretty badly. It doesn’t leak when it is closed, but I need it half open for the tank to work. I have already reached out to BRS about replacement gaskets/o-rings, so hopefully that will be resolved soon.

Overall I have encountered some bothersome setbacks, but still made good progress

 

[Saltyreef24]

Good job on the progress and thanks for reporting back. I haven’t started my build thread but I should finally get water into my 40 in the next week. I’m not a huge DIY guy but I’ve learned a ton. I think the biggest thing for me is that I really haven’t saved any money doing it piecemeal and if I was to do it again I would of just paid the upfront money on a plug and play system. I’ve acquired some newer skills or at minimum fine tuned some.

Thanks jd, it really resonates with me when you say you probably didn’t save much but learned a lot. This has been a much more involved process than I anticipated, and I do wish I did a couple of things differently but I am correcting what I can and tweaking the system basically every time I look at it. Looking forward to seeing your thread when you put it together, and good luck with filling/leak testing

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I finished plumbing, filled my tank, and ran it for a couple of hours, tweaking it as I went. Initially, an unexpected large amount of water would drain from my display tank to sump when I shut power to my return pump. This was because the waterline was a couple of inches above the return line bulkhead. To resolve this and avoid flooding my living room, I made a pvc extension with a couple of elbows to raise my nozzles. Now when I power it down the display only loses about 1/2” of water, which my sump is able to accommodate.

I had to demo and rebuild my filter sock holder, because the crash box was a bit to small, and it also held the socks high enough that the splashing noise was quite loud. I will be installing my new one today once the silicone holding it together has a chance to dry.

I have also tweaked my sump layout a bit, removing the large glass baffle just to the right of my filter socks. I am replacing it with a shorter acrylic one placed slightly farther over, on the other side of my protein skimmer. This reduces the water level in the first (sock) chamber, decreases the operating volume of the sump and also separates my skimmer from my refugium.

Separately, the gate valve on my drain is leaking pretty badly. It doesn’t leak when it is closed, but I need it half open for the tank to work. I have already reached out to BRS about replacement gaskets/o-rings, so hopefully that will be resolved soon.

Overall I have encountered some bothersome setbacks, but still made good progress

Congrats on finishing the plumbing for your tank!

 

[Saltyreef24]

Congrats on finishing the plumbing for your tank!

Thank you. I just installed my new filter sock holder and baffle. Ill post pictures in a few

 

[Saltyreef24]

All siliconed in place. Planning to water test this new design tomorrow once the silicone has had a chance to dry.

This one holds the socks ~1/2-3-4” above the water surface, compared to my previous setup of 2” or so. Plus my crash box is the full depth of the sump, and the top of it is lowered to reduce splashing when I start up the drain’s siphon.

 

[Saltyreef24]

I added some new marco rock to my current setup in my evo 13.5 to start growing some goodies on it before transitioning it all into my new tank. Last time I added fresh rock to this system it colored up and came alive rather quickly.

Hopefully having extra cycled rock will make the transition to the bigger tank easier

 

[Saltyreef24]

I found out why my spear’s gate valve was leaking. It seems like it sat for a long time at the warehouse, as there were clumps of old hardened grease stock to this piece, preventing the O rings from seating properly against it. I scraped it away, regreased it, and assembled the valve, and it seems better. Once the silicone in my sump cures I will run another water test on the whole system and put this valve through its paces to make sure all is good.

 

[jdpeters]

Thanks jd, it really resonates with me when you say you probably didn’t save much but learned a lot. This has been a much more involved process than I anticipated, and I do wish I did a couple of things differently but I am correcting what I can and tweaking the system basically every time I look at it. Looking forward to seeing your thread when you put it together, and good luck with filling/leak testing

I’m making my water this weekend maybe while I wait I will finally put it together. The amount of resources that have gone into this 40b is staggering btw lol. I will buy my light fixture, power heads and doser soon but thankfully I’m nearly done