melev

As you know, for some time I've talked about setting up a stand alone frag system in the corner of the fishroom. In December I got everything built and last weekend I finally plumbed it in, got water circulating and a raw shrimp is now working its magic for three days to get the cycle going.





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April 20, 2013 - Richardson Texas: Our club had the first frag swap of the year inside the community room of the St Barnabas Presbyterian Church on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. About 100 people or more converged on the swap to buy, sell, and trade corals.

As previously stated, our frag swaps have come a long way from what I attended a decade ago. Gone are the tables full of small bags of water, replaced by aquariums lit with LED fixtures to showcase the abundant selections available ...

With all the months of planning, I still found myself thinking about how I wanted the plumbing to be, pondering on what would be the ideal layout that wouldn't result in having to make changes and modifications later. I had some crazy ideas in mind originally, but modified them some.

The principle is simple: Water drains into the sump. Water goes back up to the display tank. Avoid too many turns and fittings, and keep it looking clean.

The return assembly was a big ...

My 400g reef had five drains in the external overflow. They are equally spaced apart, and plumbing these into my sump was a little challenging. I'm sure I got a few gray hairs trying to come up with the perfect plan.

First of all, it needed five Durso Standpipes. All five are 1.5" black PVC going into 1.5" bulkheads. The drainlines are 1.5" as well.

Each Durso is drilled with a 3/16" hole in the cap to vent the drain. None of the Durso Standpipes were glued. They ...

On February 6th of this year, I started running 2 liters of Vertex biopellets in my system, and over that 7.5 month period I was able to maintain zero nitrate and zero phosphate. Granted, my system has a DSB, live rock, a skimmer and a refugium, but so did my 280g reef. I've not had to dose Phosphate Control nor use GFO once with the new tank. And no vodka dosing either. I've only done a handful of water changes in that time. Maybe 600g, possibly.

Two weeks ago, I hooked up a ...