Not a new build, changing to a new sump...

[Chuck_e]

So, I call this tank "Chucke2.3".

Chucke1.0 was a 40 gallon toe-dip into the hobby about 12 years ago after many years of fresh water tanks. A couple pieces of live rock, two frags from a coworker, a small in-tank skimmer, a Coral Beauty and a Yellow Tang introduced me to the world of wonder and frustration that is reefing.

Fast-forward 4 years and it was time to get a real tank - Chucke2.1 - a 90 gallon package bought from a local store with a stand and a sump. Whoa. More live rock, more frags, more fish, more heartache, more fun learning the ins and outs of lighting, water parameters, flow, SPS, LPS, Inverts, reef-friendly and not-so-reef-friendly fish, water changes, ATO, more frags, more fish, repeat as necessary...

Then, about 2 years ago, our basement flooded. Not because of the tank, the home sump pump failed during an epic rainstorm. Repairs and rebuild meant moving the tank, and Chucke2.2 started a year-long existence in exile. Out-of-sight meant maintenance suffered, with predictable results. When the rebuild was done things were in such bad shape that I seriously considered shutting it all down. But, I was convinced to give it another go, and Chucke2.3 was set up back in its original spot.

But I knew that I had to do things differently. So this thread will be about the journey of Chucke2.3. I hope you enjoy, and maybe pick up an idea or two like I've been able to from many other contributors here.

Here we go!

 

[Chuck_e]

Chucke2.1 & 2.2 were “manual” operations - the only automation was the schedule on the R420R lights and an automated ATO system. No temperature control other than the thermostat on the heaters, occasional pH and Ca testing, water purchased from a commercial bottled water supplier in 5-gallon jugs (RO only) hauled into the basement and then hauled back upstairs when it was time to do a water change. Which was a good workout, but eventually I’d had enough.

This photo is 2.1 in July 2022, just before it was moved and became 2.2 for about a year while the basement was being rebuilt. Yes, those are 5 Finger Leather corals in the middle. They were all propagated from the one at the very top of the group, and were all originally at the bottom of the tank. They decided they didn’t like that spot so they all migrated to a different rock and moved to their present spot. But I digress…

2.2 wasn’t a happy reef - the move was very disruptive, and between that and the drop off in maintenance the toll was about 2/3 of the coral and 1/2 the fish. Including 5 of the 6 Finger Leather and the Hammer which was my very first frag when I started out.

If 2.3 was going to happen, there needed to be lots of changes…

 

[Chuck_e]

Yeah, so, life happens...
Came back from vacation to a tank completely covered in brown. Long story short - it's the Dreaded Dinoflagelatte! Now working on lowering the phosphate level and maintaining a semi-healthy nitrate level, so sump building is on hold for a little while...

 

[Chuck_e]

Well, what a summer it's been! In May the Phosphate was off the charts (1.0 by Salifert, > 0.9 ppm by Hanna). Oops. Nitrates ok @ 5.4. Needed to fix the PO3 & manage the NO4. Treated for PO3, stopped the ReefRoids, 50% water change, added Phosguard reactor, and hope. Bought some Hanna test kits PO3 & NO4). Bought a microscope, because, well, why not??? After 2 weeks PO3 was down to 0.1, NO4 still ok. Tank looks better but still lots of Dino visible. Bought a UV Sterilizer in June, then went away on vacation. Considered treating with ChemiClean because now there's evidence of Cyano, too. Decided against it because of being away for 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, work continued on the sump move...

 

[Chuck_e]

Some photos and a video of what I was seeing in early June...

 

[revhtree]

Are you seeing it diminish in any way? I wonder what it looks like today?

 

[Chuck_e]

Are you seeing it diminish in any way? I wonder what it looks like today?

For sure! But it took a while…

When I got back from Vacation in July, my first thought was “should have treated with ChemiClean”. Not only was the Dino thriving, but it was pretty obvious that I had a cyano bloom, too.

So -
- Physically removed as much brown & red gunk from the sand, sides, and corals as I could
- 15 % water change
- Full-dose treatment with ChemiClean
- Lights out
- Skimmer off
- UV off
- Phosphate reactor (PhosGuard) off
- Carbon out
- Stop all dosing & supplementary feeding

3 days later, it was a whole new tank! Cyano was gone, so was most of the Dino. 20% water change, including the overflow wells in the tank and sump. Basically emptied everything that had standing water. Restart dosing, skimmer, UV, and reactor. Phosphate & Nitrate were high (0.13 & 18.3 ppm respectively). Over the next 2-3 weeks worked to rebalance nutrients and other parameters, started seeing what I thought was hair algae. Another major cleanup & water change mid-August, this time included all wave makers, UV, Skimmer, & Phosphate Reactor. Microscope indicated very few if any Dinos.

So, basically 2 months from the start of serious treatment, things were under control. Cyano is gone, for now. Dinos are still there, but manageable. Nutrients are ok, Ca & kH are ok, too. I’ve actually started adding more corals, and feel that everything is in a pretty good place, at the moment…

 

[Chuck_e]

And, this is what Chucke 2.3 looks like today.

Corals include:
4 different zoas
2 colony’s of Green Button Polyps, 1 of which came in with the live rock on Chucke 1.0 almost 10 years ago!
2 Finger Leathers, one being an offspring of the large parent top-centre
2 different Candy Canes
2 different Hammers
2 different Acans
1 Duncan
1 Blue-Yellow Chalice
1 Montipora Confusa (Green)
1 Pink Goniopora
1 Purple Rim Montipora with a couple of fragments that got left behind when the main piece was moved away from the Duncan
1 Pavona Maldive
1 brown-green Favite that’s fighting with some Zoas for space. I think the Zoas are winning…
1 Red-Green-Purple Favia
1 purple-green Favia that’s also fighting with some Button Polyps for space. I think the Favia is winning…
1 Blue Mushroom that went into hiding during Chucke 2.2 and has only started to poke up out of the rocks again. The original colony was also hitchhiking on Chucke 1.0’s live rock…

The only survivors from Chucke 2.0 were the hitchhikers, the Leather, the Favia, and the Duncan. Everything else is less than 1 year in the tank.

Inverts include multiple snails, hermit crabs, emerald crabs, and a Long-Tentacle Anemone that was just added a couple days ago. Oh, and countless worms, one of which has been in the tank for a long time and is big enough to be named (Rex, of course…)

Fish:
1 Tomini Tang (8+ Years)
1 Yellow-Tail Damsal (8+ years)
3 Pajama Cardinals (< 1 year)
1 Bicolour Blennie & 1 Lawnmower Blennie (< 1 year)
2 Oscellaris that recently decided to move from the Hammers to the Duncan. Maybe they’ll move to the Anemone when that settles in?

 

[Chuck_e]

Meanwhile, there’s a sump to relocate, and there’s a deadline…

The concept was pretty simple - put the new sump into the utility room adjacent to the room where the tank is. Redo some plumbing, add a plug or two, and it’s done.

Reality is NEVER that simple!

 

[Chuck_e]

How it started…

 

[Chuck_e]

How it’s going…

I’ll post about some of the main features, how and why I ended up with the choices I made, and how the DIY items were built.

 

[Chuck_e]

So, the obvious question is - why the cabinets? These were on a different wall in the same room, used for storage, work bench, and wax bench for waxing skis in the winter. The space I wanted to use for the new sump was a clothes hanger pre-flood. I wanted a sink with water, and I wanted to move the cabinets anyways to improve my access. So, the entire room was rearranged to make sure I didn’t lose any total storage, and to meet the needs of a reef support & wax room.

One of the things I hated the most about the under-tank sump was access for maintenance and cleaning. So, the countertop immediately above the sump is removable to let me get at things easily, and both the sump and ATO Reservoir are sitting on another piece of countertop that’s mounted on wheels so that I can pull the whole thing out if I really need to. Both of those features were indispensable during construction, but I don’t see doing either on a regular basis.

 

[Chuck_e]

We interrupt this interrupted thread for a status update. It appears that the Leather at the top of the tank is getting ready to split off another offspring. About 3 weeks ago I noticed that the branch on the right was getting longer and lower than the rest. I've seen this movie before, and have a pretty good idea how it ends.

Here's how it looked at the beginning of November. Yes, it's at the top of the tank - high light and high flow. I know it shouldn't be there, but it moved there on its own before Chucke2.0 got exiled. The smaller Leather between the top one and the Duncan was dropped on the journey.

A week later the arm has dropped even more and is now in contact with the rock. I expect it to attach to the rock, and then start to separate from the main body. Either that or the whole thing is moving. Or both...

 

[Chuck_e]

OK, back to the build. I’ll start with the sump. I’d like to say that I put a lot of thought into this – configuration, path, residence time, storage capacity in case the pump failed and the display tank drained down, etc. But the reality was I thought my original sump was leaking and was looking for a replacement. Nobody on the local forums had a sump for sale, and there were literally 2 sumps available from the local shops, both Trigger Systems CRYS30’s. One with clear resin, the other with a rose-coloured accent. So I bought the clear one. Fortunately it does have enough capacity to handle whatever could drain from the display tank if needed. It also has a chamber for a refugium, and the ability to run to dual filter socks. And, most important, it fit in the space available. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good…

A refugium sounded like a good idea, and I don’t run filters all the time so I set up the drain line with valves to allow me to send the flow to one or the other, or both depending on how much flow I was pushing.

I also thought it might be cool to divert some of the flow through my Phosphate Reactor, and save a pump, so I added a union and a spool with another valve, just in case.

I went back and forth on how to set the sump. My main driver was that I did not want to be reaching over plumbing to be cleaning out the Skimmer bowl, and I was concerned about the return piping interfering with the power outlet on the left wall. So, I put the ATO Reservoir against the wall and the sump beside it. There is some interference now between the Skimmer and the Dosing Station on the right hand side, maybe someday I’ll rethink that decision…

In the end, I’ve settled on running the drain through the Refugium full time and only directing the flow through one filter sock when I’m scraping down the display tank walls or cleaning off the algae. I’ve abandoned the idea of running the drain through the Phosphate Reactor, I don’t think there is enough flow to make that work and I’d rather have constant flow through the Refugium.

As far as the Refugium goes, there’s lots of threads on Reef2Reef about how and why. I was hoping to reduce my daily pH swings (I was seeing daytime pH around 8.4 and nighttime pH around 8.1, so typically a 0.3 swing and that felt a bit too much) and maybe help with nutrient management. After operating for 2 months I’d have to say the jury is still out – I went with a deep sand bed in the Refugium, added some chaetoplankton, a GROLight, and some snails. The pH swings are lower but still there (typically 0.2 between night & day) and I’m seeing little or no impact on Phosphates, but Nitrates do seem to be stable around 4-5 ppm. It was good to have the space when I needed to pull a new fish out of the display tank because the incumbents did NOT like the newcomer.

In the next post I’ll talk about Power & Control…

 

[Chuck_e]

Power and Control, or if you prefer, Power and Automation. Some background – I’m an engineer, and I spent my entire career working for a global petrochemical company. I worked closely with people who designed and built complex piping, instrumentation, power, and control systems for chemical processing plants. I also worked very closely with the maintenance people who had to keep the plants running after construction and commissioning. So I have a healthy respect for maintenance, and I also have a good grasp of what is possible when it comes to automation and control, and these have had a strong influence on how my system has evolved.

Only 18 months ago my system consisted of a couple of power bars, a stand-alone Neptune ATK (no Apex, just the FMM), a Maxspect LED light with its own internal programming, a Gyre XF-230 Wavemaker with its own controller but not programmed, a Jebao DCP-8000 variable-speed DC recycle pump also with its own controller but no program, a Jebao 4-head dosing pump with internal programming, a heater, skimmer, and a couple of power heads. A battery-powered programmable feeder dropped pellets twice a day. The main power bar was set up in the cabinet under the display tank with just enough capacity to run everything. I used a programmable smart-plug to turn the pump off at feeding times so that the pellets didn’t just end up in the sump. The ATK FMM and controllers for the pump and Gyre were mounted on the inside of one of the cabinet doors, and the dosing pump was sitting on a DIY shelf inside the cabinet over top of the sump. Dosing bottles were on the floor of the cabinet. The top-up reservoir was a plastic tub on the floor beside the tank, filled by hand from 5-gallon bottles. Despite all my efforts to keep things organized the cables, power bricks, and dosing tubes were a tangled mess on the walls and floor of the cabinet. Things were a mess, physically, and I could not justify the cost of an Apex system. Besides, I had no place to put it.

In January 2023, things started happening – I thought my sump was leaking, and started the project to install a new sump in the room next door. I finally broke down and bought a 4-stage RODI system. I changed my lights from the Maxspect to a pair of 5th Generation Radion XR15 Blue, changed the dosing pump to an updated Jebao 3.4 with wifi, and added an AI Nero5 power head. An IKEA cabinet was modified to hold the dosing pump and bottles, and the plastic top up reservoir was replaced by a 10-gallon aquarium tank and moved to the room next door. And, I came across a used Apex Jr with the EB-832 power bar (who needs all those outlets???). Temperature and pH probes were added, along with a Neptune Level Sensor for the ATO Reservoir, and the Apex adventure began.

At first, programming was pretty basic – the recycle pump was programmed to turn off for feeding, replacing the smart plug. The skimmer and phosphate reactor pump were programmed to turn off whenever the recycle pump was off. I set up one of the Feed Cycles for manual feeding. The FMM was plugged into the Apex to run the ATK. And that was it. I knew there could be more, but everything else was put on hold until the sump move was complete.

Reef2Reef has been indispensable in the planning process. There are all kinds of examples and advice on sump configurations, plumbing, programming the Apex, control panels, and cable management. One comment that stuck with me was “Don’t plug anything into the Apex that you don’t want to control…” Very good advice. I will add to that “or monitor” because of the Apex’s ability to generate logs and monitor power usage.

So, my “power strategy” is:

1. Everything that is automated through Apex is plugged into the EB-832:
o Recycle Pump (turns off during feeding periods)
o Phosphate Reactor Pump (run time and off when the Recycle Pump is off)
o RODI (on when the ATO Reservoir is low, controlled by an optical sensor; triple redundancy on off – Level Sensor, run time, and a mechanical float)
o Skimmer (run time and off when the Recycle Pump is off)
o Heater (Neptune Temperature Sensor plus high-temp off by its own thermostat)
o UV Sterilizer (run time and off when the Recycle Pump is off)
o ATO Pump (24v) (ATK optical sensors in sump plus default runtime controls)
o GROLight (24v) (run time opposite display tank lights)

2. The Radion lights and Nero5 are controlled through Mobius. I have not invested in the module that will let Mobius talk to Apex, and probably won’t. These, along with the Gyre and any other power heads in the tank are plugged into a power bar in the cabinet under the display tank. This power bar is plugged into an “always on” outlet on the EB-832 for the purposes of power monitoring. This leaves me with 1 spare outlet on the EB-832.

3. Miscellaneous items such as the doser and a 1-Link Module that aren’t controlled by Apex and have very low power demand are plugged into another stand-alone power bar in the sump area. The 1-Link Module controls and provides power to 2 solenoid valves related to the RODI.

One thing I did about 5 years ago was to add solar panels and a back-up generator to my home. The solar panels generate on average 550 kWh/month, and were installed mainly to offset the demand from the tank and our air conditioner. A separate circuit was put in for the aquarium so that power could be available from the generator in event of an extended power failure. All outlets on this circuit are protected by GFICs. So far that system has not been put to the test. That was my first inventory of how much power was being used, and it was an eye-opener. Since that time I’ve almost doubled the number of powered devices. Now with everything being monitored by Apex I know that my average monthly power usage is about 240 kWH, or for me about $25/month. But, the solar panels cover that, so…

Main lessons from all of this? There’s a lot more power hookups needed than I thought – not counting the 24v items I have 13 pieces of equipment connected to 3 power bars. Each of those power bars is connected to an GFIC outlet. And I would not consider my setup to be extraordinary – on the contrary my guess is that it’s in the low end of median. All of these hookups mean lots of thought about cable management, and how to arrange things so that items that have to be removed for regular maintenance can be easily unplugged. Sort of…

 

[Chuck_e]

Stupid urchins...

 

[Chuck_e]

Leather update -
Don't think it's calving, looks more like it's moving. The lower arm is fully in contact, but there's no sign of thinning at the base, and now it looks like the back end is stretching to the right...

 

[Chuck_e]

Oh, and this happened yesterday - a full Goldenrod colony. Thought I was just getting a 2-branch frag! Photobombed by the Yellowtail Damsal...