Here are some pictures that Klaus (the man behind Bubble King) posted on RC, showing off his sump creations. Although Royal Exclusiv is well known for their skimmers being the best, not much love is given to their sump designs. Looking at these pictures and you wonder why not? I’m sure these sumps cost more than a typical mortgage payment, but oh how lovely are thee…one day…
I finally started building my hood to cover up my lighting rack. It’s anchored to the wall by 3 sets of door hinges to allow it to swivel upward. When it’s down, there are wood blocks that stop the side of the hood from rotating to far. In fact, the hood doesn’t sit on the tank at all. Also, my light brackets prevent the hood from falling down, in the event that the hinges fail. The hood was designed to be as light as possible. 3″ x 1″ boards were used to built the frame, 1/8″ paneling was used to cover it and standard baseboard trim was used to overlap over the tank edge. Everything is painted gloss white, with a bunch of liquid nail and silicone used to seal things up right. The top is open to allow air circulation and prevent heat buildup.
The stand uses the same baseboard molding and will blend right into the wall baseboard molding. I added a 5″ lip to finish the top and allow drinks to be placed there. Since the stand cover literally slides out from the steel stand, no doors were needed. I’ll add a waynes coating type treatment on it to make it look like there are panel doors on it. I used pocket holes to screw the 3/4″ mdf boards together, along w/ liquid nails glue.
I still need to add a crown molding, up top, to complete the look I’m after. I’m happy with it so far. Just need to add some more trim pieces to finish her up.
I recently built a rotation device that turns my Tunze 6065 pump 90 degrees every 15 or so seconds. This helps create random water movement in the tank and I’ve noticed less detrius buildup on the bottom of the tank and SPS polyp extension has increased(near the pump). The design of the device is very similar to a Sea Swirl, as seen in the pictures below. It’s also waterproof, once the cover is on, and uses only 4 watts. It works great so far. I’ll be building another one for the other back corner. Just need to figure out how to hide the power cord from sight. Below are some pictures and the link to built your own.
Link with step by step instructions on Reefcentral.
Bacteria driven supplements have been all the rage lately in reefkeeping. It’s basically a system that introduces bacteria and a food source to promote bacteria growth. This in turn reduces the nutrients within a tank and cleans it up. I’m using several systems right now, including Zeovit, made by Korallen Zucht. KZ started the bacteria trend and their chemicals appear to be top notch. It’s super concentrated, so a little goes a long way. Below is the list of additives I’m using from them. I’ve noticed that when I stop dosing, things don’t look as good as when I dose on a daily basis. So far, so good…
Zeobak, Zeofood 7, Zeostart 2, Zeovit Rocks,Stylo Pocci Glow, Potassium Iodide Floride, Amino Acid Concentrate, Iron, and Zeomag(in calcium reactor).
There are three main ingredients to a successful reef tank. 1. Lighting 2. Filtration 3. Flow. All these items need to be in proper balance for things to work. Lighting feeds the photosynthetic needs of zooxanthellae in corals. Filtration affects the water quality and health of corals. Final, water movement allow the delivery of nutrients and the export of waste, from the water column, to and from the corals.
For water movement, I’m using several different pumps to try and create a random, high flow environment. I’m not happy with the amount of flow I currently have and will need to upgrade, in the near future, to increase it.
I’m using a Sequence Reeflo Dart Gold as my return pump. I love this pump, powerful and relatively low wattage. Attached to the outlets are penductors to increase the velocity of water coming from these nozzles. Seaswirls are used to automatically move these nozzles back and forth to create redirected flow from the front of the tank.
I’m also using an Ecotech Marine MP40W pump, connected to the back glass, in pulse mode to generate some wave action. With all other pumps turned off, a noticeable wave is formed. When everything is on however, the wave crashes and the effect is minimized. In the future, I’m planning on added a second pump on the other side and running it on an opposite wave mode. This should create a nice wave across the entire tank. The latest generation of these pumps are much quieter than when they first came out.
Finally, Tunze 6065′s are used on the backside of the tank. These are currently attached using their magnet mounts. I’lll be attaching these to DIY rotating mounts, similar to Seaswirls. There’s a link to the DIY thread on Reefcentral. In the future, I plan on upgrading these pumps to controllable Tunze 6105′s. You can’t go wrong with Tunzes!
Picture of the DIY swirler stein from Miwoodar:
