Marlons 80 shallow

So I've had a IM lagoon 25 running since September and i really wanted 2 tanks so i picked up a red sea max 250. But trying to have 2 tanks running is too much for me so my wife said get rid of one. I said I'll get rid of 2 but get one I really want. She said fine. So I'm going with a Aquarium Masters 80 shallow. Hopefully I'll pick it up this weekend. I have will be transferring my rock and coral from my lagoon and rock from my red sea which is now sold. The money will go towards paying the tank. I will be using my dosing pump and ato from the lagoon for this build. I'm still debating the plumbing. A buddy of my buddy posted a sump and other reef stuff on CL he had q trigger systems crystal elite 36 for 100$ He ended up giving it to me. He also had a eshopps 150 skimmer and I gave him frags for that. So my skimmer and sump situation is good.

I trader another reefer a Mr aqua 12 long for 2 Acan lighting led fixtures they are older but have built in timers. I will run them for now.

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A new tank is always exciting. Is it going to there in front of that window?

 

Yup unfortunately that is the only spot that will fit the tank. I have put thermal block out shades and I put 3/4 inch thermal styro on the back glass

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Are you going to paint the back glass or just use the thermal styrofoam?

 

I painted the foam black. Lots of work has been done over the last month for sure. Here is an update.

I finished the stand and finished the skin. I went with Velcro to hold it in place I didn't want the skin to be fixed because I wanted access to all sides of the sump.

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I also epoxy painted the inside to make a shower pan inside the stand in case there is a spill. I decided to take it one step further and add water proof membrane. I think with that and the caulking it's pretty water tight. Here is the stand

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I knew I wanted to incorporate an algae scrubber into the filtration so I made one. I messed up and did all sides black so my lighting will be inside of it. My next step was to tackle my plumbing I have never plumbed anything. I knew I wanted a manifold to control other things. So i placed my order from supplyhouse and orders my gate valve from marinedepot. I went with clear primer and glue so it wouldn't look unsightly. I dry fitted everything before I glued. I think it came out pretty food for my first time. I went with a herbie overflow. I'm a glazier by trade and handle glass everyday but I did not feel comfortable drilling the return on this tank for some reason. I know that the 3/4 drain should have been my main drain and the 1 inch my emergency but o well.

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Finally it was time for water testing. I had 2 leaks in my system. I didn't seal the scrubber well so I had a leak on the side and I fixed it. Also the gate valves for some reason did not have a full seal it had a small drip. So what I did is add some 1/2 inch barbed fitting and I will be adding a little fishes ball valve to them that way I can add a reactor or plum my frag tank. I also built my light stands. I wanted to be able to move the light up or down so I used 3/4 pvc and a 3/4 to 1/2 inch reducer as a guide with safety clips to be able to move it up and down. For lighting I am going with old led fixtures until I can save for some kessils

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I decided that I wanted this system to be as clean looking as possible so I have started to tuck cables and Velcro my controllers. The heart of the system will be a jebao 10000 Amazon sent my a 6500 by accident. I tested the pump and everything ran great. The emergency drain handles the flow in case main clogged and my sump held all the water in case my pump stops going. There is also a check valve on my return line for added safety even though my return is only 1 inch into the water. I just have to make sure I have no issues because of my wife. She said 1 leak Marlon and your sleeping in your tank outside. I am thinking of adding a float switch in case the tanks starts to fill up to much but not sure yet. For the power I went with an American DJ switch

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So onto the frag tank I mentioned earlier. My plan is to have a floating frag tank on the upper right hand side. I kept thinking of how to achieve this and I decided to go with a pull out tank using drawer slides. The slides I will be going with are rated for 200# today I built my rack for the tank. I used 2x4 and Simpson joist hangers. I just need to order my slides and cut my plywood and mount them. Looks pretty straight forward. I will be doing herbie method for this little tank as well. It has a total volume of about 7 gallons. I will be using 1/2 in drain and returns. I'm just debating on using a separate pump or using my manifold. If I use my manifold then there will be a lot of adjusting on my gate valve. Hopefully I can get that set up next week. I plan on having the tank running this weekend

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I have made the water for my tank and I have my rock from my red sea in bins still alive. Wife is getting tired of buckets all over the place. So really shooting for this week. I bought my sand from an online vendor. I went with 30# reef flake and 30# mini flake. People kept telling me not to use my current sand. I'm kinda dissapointed by that.

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Somebody's been busy!

 

Ummm yeah. You've been busy! Bet a lot gets done in the middle of the night. My wife would also be in my case if I had all those buckets in the kitchen. Excited to see how this frag drawer turns out. Would like to see how you've plumbed it to allow it to slide AND protect against leaks.


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The tank is running now. I have been so paranoid of sump leaks etc never have I had a tank with sump. I did all the test again. Clogged main drain and the emergency handles it like a champ. Test 2 was power outage and the sump handles the water coming down. The return sits 1 inch into the tank and it also has a check valve so I'm covered there. I had a misfortune on initial start up. I forgot to close the valves to the manifold and water started gushing out. Lucky I had a water membrane down which is now my aquarium mat. Most fell on there and a lot on me. I was soaked. Wife freaked a little. I was nervous to transfer my stuff over but it's all doing great. The skimmer is already pulling gunk. I added a small chamber for cheato because my fuge is going to have live rock and on top it's a frag rack. I am still planning the frag drawer that will be herbie soft vinyl plumbed. If you guys don't have a Henry's blue skin membrane mat man those are amazing and water tight.

Now to the hard part cleaning the lagoon and getting ready to sell it.

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New dosing containers

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Love this tank

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