- DIG 5006 Drip Irrigation Controller ordered from Sprinkler Warehouse for $65.
- 4 120 VAC, 3 Amp relays, part number Tyco KHAU-1711-24 ordered from ebay, $4/each
- Technical Pro PS-S8 rack mount power supply ordered form ebay, $20/shipped
- 2 Rainbird irrigation solenoids, 1" NPT, from Sprinkler Warehouse, $11
- 1 "miniature" float switch from Fish Bowl Innovations, $12 plus shipping
And after a few shakes from the money tree...
I ordered all of the supplies for automation. I've opted for the Wasser-Controller Pro. Materials include:
Not to overflow...
Removed the overflow.
It's gonna work out the best for me. I may end up with a float valve in the tank, but I've read about kind of a "mini" float valve that hopefully won't be so visible.
Since that didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, I went ahead and painted the back of the tank. 4 coast of paint plus touch up later I was done.
You'll notice some Styrofoam insulation under the tank. It's 1/2". I would have loved to have 1/4". The 1/2" makes the rim of the tank stick almost a 1/4" over the stand. I don't think it's gonna be an issue. I have a feeling that stuff is going to compress a lot once I put 1200 lbs. of water in it!
It's gonna work out the best for me. I may end up with a float valve in the tank, but I've read about kind of a "mini" float valve that hopefully won't be so visible.
Since that didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, I went ahead and painted the back of the tank. 4 coast of paint plus touch up later I was done.
You'll notice some Styrofoam insulation under the tank. It's 1/2". I would have loved to have 1/4". The 1/2" makes the rim of the tank stick almost a 1/4" over the stand. I don't think it's gonna be an issue. I have a feeling that stuff is going to compress a lot once I put 1200 lbs. of water in it!
To overflow or not to overflow....
I've really been going back and forth on removing the overflow. It shouldn't be such a hard decision, especially since it would be easy to put it back in.
I have two thoughts:
1) Remove the overflow. All equipment would be inline, including all probes and whatever mechanism I choose to control the fill cycle of the automatic water change system. The main hiccup here is that last part...figuring out a way to control the fill of the tank. Scolley chose pressure swtiches....that's a bit out of budget for me. I think in this scenario, where I remove the overflow, I may just have to end up with one piece of equipment in the tank which would be some manner of float switch.
2)Leave the overflow. Probes could be in the overflow, float switch, and I could use the dursos. This would be the cheaper option. Making inline probes isn't expensive, but certainly it would be less expensive to not have to make them. The overflow occupies the back corner, an arc with about a 9" radius. Since I so dearly want the entire 24" of tank depth to play with, this would be a problem.
I'll have to ponder this further.
I have two thoughts:
1) Remove the overflow. All equipment would be inline, including all probes and whatever mechanism I choose to control the fill cycle of the automatic water change system. The main hiccup here is that last part...figuring out a way to control the fill of the tank. Scolley chose pressure swtiches....that's a bit out of budget for me. I think in this scenario, where I remove the overflow, I may just have to end up with one piece of equipment in the tank which would be some manner of float switch.
2)Leave the overflow. Probes could be in the overflow, float switch, and I could use the dursos. This would be the cheaper option. Making inline probes isn't expensive, but certainly it would be less expensive to not have to make them. The overflow occupies the back corner, an arc with about a 9" radius. Since I so dearly want the entire 24" of tank depth to play with, this would be a problem.
I'll have to ponder this further.
An Outline
As I mentioned, I started the early stages of the planning for this tank over a year ago. Therefore, in that time, I was able to do a lot of reading. I'll be stealing shamelessly from a lot of people on different forums, but why reinvent the wheel, eh? I've done all that reading, but now was the time for decisions. This is what I'm planning on for the tank:
These projects will be completed in the very near future.
I've taken a year to plan this out, so when I say "near future" that means, hopefully, before December 31. I'm patient and planning to build everything perfectly. I'm heavily leaning on the learning and experience of others.
- I will most likely be removing the overflow and simply using the exisiting holes as the intake and output for my filtration system. There will be one input from the overflow hole. Output will either be entirely by a substrate level spray bar similar to BryceM's, or the substrate level spray bar plus two glass lily outputs.
- The stand is maple, custom built. I've built plenty of stands before, some that even passed as decent(see the first post here), but for this I wanted professional furniture grade. After getting the thing home, it's apparent that I could have easily done the stand because most of the trim is prefab from a woodworking store like Rockler, but the canopy was the real gem du jour. The canopy is very solid, and incorporates a nice design to minimize light from shining through the seams. That was important to me and I couldn't have duplicated it unless I blatantly ripped off the cabinet maker.
- The filtration will be a closed loop system similar to Scolley's, but incorporating three canister filters instead of his seperate pump/filtration modules. I will also be incorporating an auto water change similar to Sergio's.
- Lighting will be a 6x54w Tek T5HO with 3 Giessman Middays and 3 Aquafloras.
- CO2 pressurized with a pH controller.
- I'll be installing a single dosing pump for dosing prime during the water changes, but I will be building the piping to allow for an additional two dosing pumps for micros and macros later on.
- Finally, the whole thing will be controlled by a Wasser-controller.
These projects will be completed in the very near future.
I've taken a year to plan this out, so when I say "near future" that means, hopefully, before December 31. I'm patient and planning to build everything perfectly. I'm heavily leaning on the learning and experience of others.
Distractions
Well, things have been a bit hectic around here, what with the holidays and all. We had some of my family and some of my wife's family over for Thanksgiving, so the 120 got bumped down on the priority list. We hadn't really decorated much since we moved in, but Thanksgiving was kind of our hard deadline to have the house in presentable shape. That required staining and polyurethaning of furniture, hanging pictures, and multiple, extensive honey-do lists from my better half.
The week after Thanksgiving I allowed myself another minor distraction: an ADA 60-P.
I purchased this tank before our move from the west coast, but like the 120g, it required some patience. Again, like the 120g, I purchased a custom cabinet for the stand but I stained this myself. The stand is made from maple and stained with a Jet Mahogany.
Equipment for this tank includes:
The pH probe was my only real DIY on this, aside from the piping. It uses a simple PVC tee, Heyco liquid tight cordgrip for the pH probe, and an irrigation drip connection for the co2 injection.
The plumbing looks like this:
It's pretty simple, but gave me a good opportunity to get back in the swing of things before I dive into the 120g.
A quick shot of the hardscape:
The week after Thanksgiving I allowed myself another minor distraction: an ADA 60-P.
Equipment for this tank includes:
- Eheim Ecco 2236
- Coralife 2x55w PC fixture
- Bulbs:1 GE 9325k, 1 AHS 7800K
- ADA Aquasoil Amazonia I
- 10 lb Pressurized CO2 with Milwaukee pH controller
- Coralife 6x Turbo-Twist UV Sterilizer
- Hydor ETH 300w Inline Heater
- DIY Inline pH probe and CO2 injection
The pH probe was my only real DIY on this, aside from the piping. It uses a simple PVC tee, Heyco liquid tight cordgrip for the pH probe, and an irrigation drip connection for the co2 injection.
The plumbing looks like this:
A quick shot of the hardscape:
And then we move onto the scape.
It's rough now. I threw it together because I wanted to get things cycling.I got pretty much all of these plants from Phil Edwards. He's moving to Dallas and is doing a bit of restructuring of his own. I needed to get these into some water/light/co2 so no time to waste on some pretty scape.
It's been a long post, and if you made it this far, I apologize because there's no good full tank shot to be seen. I'm not ready. I need to tweak the scape a bit. Give me a few days and you'll be rewarded.
Step 2: Tank
I made my decision. I went with the Marineland 120g with the corner overflow and black silicone. I did this for a few reasons. The first is that the corner overflow is more appealing to me. Once I cutout the overflow, the location of the holes will work very well for the filtration setup I have planned, and if I ever wanted to use a sump the corner overflow is much more appealing than two monstrosities in the middle of the tank. The hard decision came concerning the black silicone. As I said before, I don't really have anything against, but I just assumed I'd always get clear. Marineland doesn't make a 120g tank with clear silicone, so my option was to either get black silicone that was done well, or get clear silicone that was all globbed on from another manufacturer. Ultimately, the choice was clear.
I purchased the tank, stand/canopy, and glass tops from Creation Reef in Canton, GA. Really great people, and I was happy I was able to do business with them. A while back, I did a tour of the local fish store scene here in Atlanta. I toured nearly every store recommended my members of various forums and clubs. Creation Reef and Aquatics was the cream of the crop. They had the best selection of plants, best equipment, and the most unique selection of livestock.
Before I left for the store, I called ahead to make sure someone would be there to help me load up the tank into my truck. When I got there, they just took over and loaded it up for me....above and beyond as far as I'm concerned considering the size of the tank. As it turned out, a 120g 4' tank was the perfect fit. Any bigger length or width and I couldn't have fit the tank and stand in my truck in one trip. I only had about an inch to spare.
Suprisingly, the stand/canopy and tank were not that heavy. I was able to unload the stand/canopy on my own, but had to wait for backup for the tank. Even then, my wife and I were able to lift the tank on our own.
Moving forward
It's time to roll.
I went by two local fish stores yesterday looking at tanks. My final plan is to purchase a reef-ready tank, cut out the overflow, and use the existing holes to feed a closed-loop filtration system. Between the two stores, I've been offered two different tanks for the exact same price:
Option 1: Aqueon 120g, two standard overflows offset from the ends of the tank with clear silicone
Option 2: Marineland 120g, one corner overflow, black silicone
Same exact price. The Marineland is a higher quality tank but my two concerns are whether one overflow would be adequate(or rather, in the closed loop scenario, one point of intake for the filter loop) and my other concern is that I've never had a tank with black silicone. I don't have anything really against black silicone except that I never really considered.
Relatively, this decision is pretty straightforward.
My second decision isn't quite as easy. I have to pick a stand/canopy combo. I am firm on construction being out of maple. Essentially, I'm considering 4 different furniture grade stands produced by a local cabinetmaker. It's two styles, but they each come in two different heights. The first style is "standard" and the second style is "deluxe". The two heights are 30" and 36". Price range starts at Standard 30" and ends at Deluxe 36", with about a 35% increase in price.
I have always had 30" stands, but a 36" stand puts the tank at perfect viewing height if standing. 30" is good for standing and sitting. So that you can see what I'm talking about, here is a picture:
The style on the left is a maple 36" Deluxe. The stand on the right is an oak 30" Standard. Again, I'm firm on maple and neither of those is the stain I'm considering, but this picture is a good comparison of styles.
I've put some feelers out there on the various forums to get some outside opinions, so hopefully between that and a good nights sleep the decision(s) will be easy.
I went by two local fish stores yesterday looking at tanks. My final plan is to purchase a reef-ready tank, cut out the overflow, and use the existing holes to feed a closed-loop filtration system. Between the two stores, I've been offered two different tanks for the exact same price:
Option 1: Aqueon 120g, two standard overflows offset from the ends of the tank with clear silicone
Option 2: Marineland 120g, one corner overflow, black silicone
Same exact price. The Marineland is a higher quality tank but my two concerns are whether one overflow would be adequate(or rather, in the closed loop scenario, one point of intake for the filter loop) and my other concern is that I've never had a tank with black silicone. I don't have anything really against black silicone except that I never really considered.
Relatively, this decision is pretty straightforward.
My second decision isn't quite as easy. I have to pick a stand/canopy combo. I am firm on construction being out of maple. Essentially, I'm considering 4 different furniture grade stands produced by a local cabinetmaker. It's two styles, but they each come in two different heights. The first style is "standard" and the second style is "deluxe". The two heights are 30" and 36". Price range starts at Standard 30" and ends at Deluxe 36", with about a 35% increase in price.
I have always had 30" stands, but a 36" stand puts the tank at perfect viewing height if standing. 30" is good for standing and sitting. So that you can see what I'm talking about, here is a picture:
The style on the left is a maple 36" Deluxe. The stand on the right is an oak 30" Standard. Again, I'm firm on maple and neither of those is the stain I'm considering, but this picture is a good comparison of styles.
I've put some feelers out there on the various forums to get some outside opinions, so hopefully between that and a good nights sleep the decision(s) will be easy.
