Jeffy's BC29 BIG SUMP Adventure! Tons-O-Pics

[JeF4y]

Where to begin...

Well, let's see. All she really wanted was a few goldfish. That quickly ended up changing into a full-on reef aquarium. Now, not knowing ANYTHING about reefing, we bought a bit of hardware and dove in. We originally thought we should go very small scale, something modest. The Biocube 29 would be perfect for us. Small enough for the bedroom, yet not just a bowl of water. (again, we had no idea what we were doing).

We didn't buy any livestock yet, but instead, spent some time reading and researching a LOT.

Our intent was a small reef with a few LPS corals, 2 clowns and a mandarin. So that's what we set out after.

We started with 50# of crushed coral, and 30# of fully cured, straight out of a functioning reef tank - liverock. After letting that sit for a while, we added the CUC and a few corals. Then the fish.

Here's what we started with:




Everything was going along just fine, everyone was quite happy. But we wanted something more. What originally started out as a place to grow pods, ended up as a full-blown experiment in how much money can be spent and how crazy can you get for a simple biocube. Now, I'm sure there are people who have gone MUCH crazier, but, well, this is our story at it. Before I begin, I have to say that JohnnyBravo was a big inspiration for what I did here, and he gets credit for some of the plumbing work.

Goal:
Add fuge/sump to grow pods, and expand water capacity.
Replace crushed coral substrate with deep-sand bed.

Step 1:
Find the biggest sump that can possibly fit in the space we have in the bedroom.

I found an ebay seller "Filter-Tech" who had a Refugium "for 150 gal tanks" which looked like it would fit the bill. The dimensions are 31x12x16 which gives 25.7 gal to the top, or 19 usable gallons (minus 3-4 gal for rock & sand).

(sidenote: if anyone is looking for a sump/fuge, I HIGHLY recommend this ebay seller. They are very quick to ship, respond, and they do custom work. Very good quality at a good price.. and no, I don't know who they are other than my transactions with them.)

Step 2:
Build a stand! Not just any stand... No... A stand that the wife thinks looks good and is functional. So it needs to be bi-level so one level is bed-height and the tank is 12" higher so we don't have to stoop to see the fish.

Frame:


Stand front without doors - I should note, the top of the lower level (nightstand) actually lifts off. Very useful in what will be a PACKED bottom:


Stand Rear - This part will remain open & has overhangs so that it can get closer to the wall yet hide some of the plumbing.


Step 3:
Buy some Marco Rocks, and 60# of Marco Sand, and pick up some lace rock and a few rocks from my boss who used to reef years ago:

Marco Rock:


Bosses old Rock:


Lace Rock:


Step 4:
Soak/Season/Cook/Kill/Acclimate it. Whatever you want to call it, I took the rock, threw it in the biggest cooler I had with a fat piece of liverock from the tank and then cycled it with both fresh saltwater and drain water from my weekly water changes on the tank. It sat in my garage and maintained a temp in the low 80's for just over a month.

[JeF4y]

Day of the actual move start... 8:00 AM on a Saturday.

Step 5:
Toss all your plumbing on the table and re-write your plans a few times over..



Step 6:
Leak test that sump



Step 7:
Rinse 60# worth of the finest sand you can get. Now THIS was a task. It took much longer than I ever imagined and we ended up doing probably 10-15 fills/rinses in order to get it relatively clear, but we did get it clean.

Step 8:
Figure out an aquascape. This actually went pretty well because I had the original packing material from the BC29, so I laid it on the garage floor and had good dimensions to work with. I measured the front-to-back on the tank so that the existing sump chamber would be accounted for, and made a calculation that 12" was as high as I could go and still keep things under water with a 5" sandbed.

Pull out the rock


Start scaping - used a few pegs & putty (putty turned out to be useless) - The Red rock represents where our Flower Anemone will go.

You can't quite see it, but the green-ish rock in the center is actually a bit of a shelf. Shows up better in later pics.





SHOW TIME!

Step 9:
Pulled the rock & tossed it in a bucket with tank water. Then went fishing.


Pulled out the corals & put them, the 'nem and the fish in a rubbermaid crate.


Pop them in the shower with heat, airstone & a powerhead


Here's why crushed coral is apparently a bad idea. This is only about 4 months of life in the tank.


Bedroom mess:


Stocking up in the bathroom. 32 gallons of fresh seawater ready to go.


Step 10:
Drill the tank. I've NEVER drilled glass before, but was willing to give it a chance. At first I was thinking I would do 2 holes, but on further reflection, decided that 1 would suffice. For the hole location, I went 5" down from the top plastic rim of the tank, and dead center side-to-side for the TOP of my cut.

For this, I took video because I figured if I was going down, it was going to make the internet! But, as fate would have it, the drilling was totally uneventful. I took a *LOT* of time drilling the tank. My time start to finish was 19 minutes (on the video) and actual drilling time was around 15 minutes. I probably could have gotten through in 1/3 of that amount of time, but fearing shattering the tank, I went as slow as I possibly could. This worked out VERY well because I had absolutely NO chip-out on the inside. It was pretty difficult to restrain myself from my urges to push the drill through, but I managed. So if you're a first-time-driller, I say GO FOR IT! Just TAKE YOUR TIME!! As a back-out plan, I had enough cash to buy another tank and knew it was in stock at my LFS. Will post this video once I get it edited.

Pic:

[JeF4y]

Step 12:
Start plumbing. (All of my plumbing is 3/4" except for the weird dimensions of the eheim which are a touch smaller) Plumb the overflow/durso:





Plumb the sump return:
To explain a bit about this, reading on Melev's site, I opted to plump in a run-off for flow-control instead of simply throttling it back with a ball-valve. So how this works is that if I want less flow going up to the tank, I OPEN the ball-valve on the T which allows water to return back to the sump as well as go UP into the tank. Open it more = less water going up. Close it down = more water up. Doing it this way prevents extra strain on the Mag-drive pump while providing the same result.



I THEN found out that my plumbing would be too tall to fit IN the sump cabinet, so I hung it on the back. I can still get to everything with varying degrees of difficulty. In retrospect, I could have put another ball-valve/union down near the pump to disconnect it without draining back the water in the plumbing going up to the tank, but it'll work fine like this.



Plumb the tank & sump together. Hoses from LEFT to RIGHT:
Durso/Overflow - Sump return - Eheim filter OUT (back into tank) - Eheim filter IN (tank to filter)



Top-down shot on the plumbing in the cabinet:


Add 40# of livesand, water, the 30# liverock that was previously in the tank, and a few wads of Macro to the sump/fuge & plumb up the ATO:


Add 60# of Marco sand & aquascape the display tank:


Top-down:


Water time! - for this as you can see, we took a plate and set it in the tank upside down, and set a small bowl on top of it. The trickling effect worked EXCELLENT in controlling the cloudiness of the water.


We spent some time getting the overflow adjusted right and the flow back up from the sump correct. I'm also concerned about the noise on the Mag 5 pump. It is RIDICULOUSLY loud. I thought it might be noise from mounting on the wood, but I can't dampen it by grabbing it or anything. I would think by grabbing it, the noise would subside if it was rattling. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about this.

Aquascape in water:




At this point, believe it or not, it was just after 5:00AM on Sunday. Yeah, that's 21 hours... Sure, there was a trip to the LFS and the hardware store in there, but it was a LONG day.

We picked it back up about 6 hrs later (after absolutely TERRIBLE sleep).

From here, we acclimated the corals, CUC, 'Nem and fish for a few hours using various methods, depending on the critter



FTS at last:


Not the best pic of the final result, but here she is. This is actually before we put any of the fish in.



By the time we were done cleaning up, it was 8:00pm on Sunday. So roughly 30 hours work in a 36 hour window. Granted, a LOT of this could have been done before-hand in prep time, but we've been extremely busy lately, so it just kinda had to be done at once. Thankfully everything worked out well.

We did put the CPR SR3 Skimmer down in the sump, on top of 3 layers of eggcrate. And for flow, we are now down to 1 Koralia-1, plus the Eheim Pro3E and the sump return. Everything so far looks good but as always it may need some tweaking.

Our next step will be the Neptune Apex controller which should be here in the next week. (and yes, I realize I stopped counting steps, but I'm just kinda ADD like that)

Until then!!!

[zy112]

That is a sweet set-up!

[JeF4y]

Thanks Zach!

It's all an experiment in preparation for the deep dimension 200 coming in a year or so =)

[JeF4y]

Here's a few pics of the occupants from last night.

[Royalscott]

Looks great and I love that your Mandarin is very plump!!!

[JeF4y]

Well, it only took 3 water changes before we realized that the external Mag-5 had to go. The Mag5 was a bit too large to fit into the end chamber of the sump, so we had to use it externally, and in doing so, we ended up needing to prime it occasionally when we would do water changes and that became a HUGE PITA.

We just replaced it with a Marineland MaxiJet 1800. I was previously running the Mag5, bleeding off some of the flow to cut it down, but the MaxiJet 1800, I'm running full-blast. It seems to provide a bit more flow than I had before and fits inside the sump while running quieter and MUCH cooler. Very pleased...

Next up = Neptune Apex installation!

Originally Posted by Royalscott

Looks great and I love that your Mandarin is very plump!!!

Ugh... he's going downhill lately. The system changes REALLY depleted the pod supply. Before the sump/fuge, the substrate & liverock were CRAWLING with tons and tons of pods. Small, fat, and in between, there were just tons of them. Well, with the substrate change from crushed coral to a fine sandbed, I don't see any pods scurrying around the sand. And adding the Marco Rock, I haven't seen it populate with pods like the old rock did.

We did put the old rock down in the sump, which still has tons of pods in it. We also have a lot of chaeto down there, and had stocked it with 2 bottles of tigger-pods, but they seem scarce up top in the display.

Lately we've been adding pods up top again in an effort to fatten him back up. Expensive no doubt, but if we can get him back to a good fat stable state he should do fine.. I've seen MUCH skinnier mandarins, so he may be able to make a comeback, but I don't know yet. Time will tell...

It just sucks though because we mostly did this expansion to allow for more water space and encourage better growth of pods directly for the mandarin so he wouldn't starve. And in doing such, it seems like we're starving him...

[TylerHaworth]

Excellent writeup and excellent pictures, and good luck with the Mandarin... really hope he pulls through!

[Dweezil]

Very Impressive! BTW You write very well. You kept me interested the whole time I was reading. (That's saying something) hahahah Great looking tank and keep us posted on the Mandarin.

[tnwillia]

Looks great, got to love this hobby. I started it thinking I'd only go so far, 6 months later I've spent the kids college fund (not really) and no longer have a family room but a fish room. Have fun!

[JeF4y]

Thanks everyone. The mandarin is holding his own, still eating tigger pods but eating less of the Rods frozen than he used to. I had read that it's characteristic of mandarins to eat a larger variety of foods when they're not hungry and focus narrowly on pods when they are. So for now we keep feeding the pods.

And thanks for the comments on the writing. I really enjoy writing. I roadraced motorcycles for 7 yrs and did lengthy race reports after each. It was fun to re-live the experience, and I gained quite a following by doing that.

I just recently started writing a few things on my personal site. Check it out if you're interested:

Kufalk Dot Com

The "midlife crisis come early" will probably be more entertaining than the apple story, but they're there and I'll add more as life continues to move forward (backward and sideways).

[JeF4y]

The next step in the evolution of the BioCube from hell was to pick up a reef controller.

Knowing nothing about them, I set out to see what we could find. One thing I REALLY wanted to make sure we had was the ability to manage the controller remotely (from, say Mexico or Rome) while we are out. This was very important, and I found some controllers that had the ability to display data online but you couldn't control anything. That was a definite "NO" for me because the last thing I want is to watch our reef melt-down without being able to do anything about it from 5500 miles away. No thanks.

Talking to several manufacturers, we ultimately settled with the new Apex controller from Neptune Systems - AquaControllers - Home Curt was VERY quick to answer all of our questions and help us make appropriate decisions.

Ultimately we ordered the following:

Apex Controller
Energy-Bar 8 (8 controlled outlets)
Temp Probe
Lab Grade pH probe
I/O Breakout Box (for adding ATO & other level switches)
Lunar Sim 3 (3 LED lunar lights which use the built in moon-cycle of the Apex)
and some 7.0 & 10.0 pH calibration fluids

Grand total $681.12

We were on the pre-order list so we waited a while to get the controller. Then it sat around for another 6 weeks while we bounced around the country on a couple of pleasure trips.

Then finally came the day...



The documentation for the controller is not miserable, but does leave a bit to be desired from my perspective. However, much of it seemed pretty intuitive with programming and setting up the network, etc.

Our reef is upstairs in our bedroom (2nd floor) while our home router is actually 2 floors below in the basement. The Apex requires a wired connection, so I had to extend our home network upstairs. I tried to do this with another router (had one netgear and one linksys), but quickly found out that "WDS" (wireless distribution system) isn't something easily done on low-end hardware. After messing around with 3rd party firmware on the routers, etc for a day, I seized the opportunity to throw more money at the project in the form of a new Apple AirPort Extreme and an AirPort Express routers. The Extreme went in the basement and the Express went upstairs near the reef.

I have to say that if you're going to do this, you CANNOT GO WRONG with Apple hardware. Literally 5 minutes out of the box, I had WDS running and the network completely configured. It was the easiest networking I've done in my life! How it works is simply that the Apex is wired via CAT5 LAN cable to the AirPort Express (plugged into the wall 10' away) and the Express wirelessly connects to the Extreme in the basement.
(Read more on how much I enjoy Apple stuff here An Apple a Day )

So now that the networking was setup, I needed to configure the controller itself.



I had the following 8 items which I wanted to plug into the first EB8 (another one is on order) and how I wanted them configured.

1 - Actinics - On daily 9am - 9pm
2 - Daylights - On daily 11am - 7pm
3 - Refugium lights - On daily 9pm - 9am
4 - Main sump return pump - On 24x7
5 - Koralia 1 (left) - on daily 8am - 8pm
6 - Koralia 1 (right) - on daily 8pm - 8am
7 - Heater - On if temp <77.7, Off if temp >= 78.0
8 - Filter - On 24x7



So, a couple of things. I actually ended up moving the 2 Koralia pumps to outlets 4 & 8 because they are relay switched outlets which guarantee cut-off when the time switches off. Because the K1's have such a low power draw, they don't always shut off from the normally switched outlets.

The other question is "why would you want to control outlets that are ALWAYS on? Well, that's simple. They're NOT "always on". When I feed, or change the tank, the filter & main return need to be cut off. This is done MUCH easier via a controller than through pulling plugs.

During setup, I did have one small issue with a bad display which NeptuneSys quickly replaced, and another issue with old Firmware that Neptune again helped me upgrade quickly. In all, setup was pretty simple, but then again, I do not have an overly complex system.

For installation, I mounted the EB8 and Apex itself on the top inside cabinet of my stand. When I add the second EB8 it will be mounted on the opposite side of this cabinet.




While this is kind of hard to see, I mounted the temp and pH probe using a piece of acrylic which I drilled holes into, and notched out so that it holds in place to a chamber separation tab in the back of my tank. The probes are below the LockLine here.



The display, I mounted on the left hand side of the stand and it's easily seen in the room.



In all, I still have some work to do with configuring feed cycles and sorting out a temperature accuracy issue I have, but I'm pretty satisfied in being able to manage things much easier. I also still need to sort out remote access to the controller, but based on Apple hardware, I don't think this will take me more than a few minutes.

I also still have to add a second EB-8, add the moonlights and the ATO switches. So there is more to come for sure!

[JeF4y]

BC 29 No more.... It SPLIT on 9/12 at 4:21 AM..

Story here:

Emergency birth of a 60 Cube from a 29 that SPLIT!