Hi thought some of you may be interested in my other hobby of Reefkeeping here is a start to present dairy of the tank

After finally getting the tank home the first thing on my list was to silicone the wier comb in and the tank connectors then think about the pipe work





Then I made a home made strainer for the closed loop pump intake

All the pipe work was assembled both with ball valves to isolate pumps then added to the tank connectors (dry fit) and connected to 2 x Eheim 1262's which I am using for the closed loop and sump return which are rated at 3400lph each but am expecting more like 2500lph after head loss.Both the closed loop and sump return are connected with soft pipe to the hard pipe also the closed loop pump sits on some Neoprene sponge mat all to help with vibration noise.

Next was the sump I got a second hand Eco sump from Reefstore fits almost perfect just had to leave the back of the stand and insert width ways into the stand instead of the more usual length ways.

the moment of truth lets get this thing wet.in the wier I have gone with a stand pipe at first if it's too noisey I will replace with a durso, also i have been worried that using the 1262 as a return pump if it would be too powerful and the wier would not cope with the water volume. I have drilled a hole in the return piping just under the water surface to break the syphon in case of power/pump failure.

So far so good no leaks in none of the pipe work and the wier is coping really well also as silent as it could be after all because of my design change the drain travells through 2 90 bends down to the sump back to the first post if it was drilled in the base it would be without these. I cant tell if there is enough flow until it's up and running but I can add another closed loop if need but instead of pumping back through the right hand side tank connector I would change this to another drain to another pump and then return both closed loops up and over the tank.

Here are some more picture following the water down the wier to the sump and showing the water movement in the sump.

Painted the back glass blue



installed my RO unit (50GPD)ps027 ,Varnished the inside of the stand using Yacht Varnish, and also fitted the Durso standpipe.

Filling Up and close up of the modifed Durso


Full View Filling


After this I added the Mud to the sump then added RO water and as per directions added a cap full of Live Sand from the main tank and had to leave for 3 days to help colonise before turning on the pumps.

3 days over withps027 Turned on the pumps
Sump (Mud)

Return pump

The water is very dirty from the mud but will clear in the next few days hopefully.
I have also built a new top surround for the tank the other one was to narrow IMHO.
Salted up and new surround

Just need to wait for the tank to clear and get the SG right then I'll start adding some cheato and LR from the main tank to kick start the cycle.

Built a reef rack to keep LR up of the glass and get extra flow throught/around it



Lights have been hung this is a single 150w which will not be the light used when stock is in there I have a 250w lowbay(need a new bulb)


Full view with sump lighting

Started the Aquascaping
Front

Right

Left