I have been setting up a 90g reef tank over the last 4 months, mainly due to the expense and also the very bad experience that I have had with my LFS. Everything from ameteur plumbing, 48* angles, leaking bulk heads, plumbing installed wrong where I can't even use the filter socks going into my sump/fuge. They said they would be back in the next 2 days to fix the plumbing leak and I have never seen or heard from them since. I was told when they left that the salt creep would seal the stream of water that was running down the main pipe and running back into the fuge, they were right.... 9 days later. I know I need to have a professional plumber come in and rip everything out and redo everything, but I will wait until this summer. Here are a few of my questions. They placed a screen in my fuge that is shaped like a table with 4 cut pvc pipes leaving about a 2.5 area beneath the screen. On top of this they placed about 5 lbs of crushed coral. Some of the reading I have done says people are using a DSB in this area, not crushed coral. My DT has around 4" of various size sand alone as I read that the different sizes from sugar size and a little larger were a great combination. What are your thoughts on this? I was told that I should place the microaglaes on top of the crushed coral. Another problem that I am having now is with my built in tower overflow. They broke off a piece in the back on both sides for the pipe to pump water back in the tank, but only used one side. I placed a few feeder fish in my DT for my lion fish and a little while later found one of them in my sump. What can I use to seal off the that one area on the tower that they didn't use. I have some "Hold Fast" but it takes 30 minutes to cure and I am afraid that the pressure from the water flowing into the tower will be too great to allow the clay to harden enough to hold. Should I use a fiberglass, plastic like screen used on porch doors here or a piece of black plastic? I am so frustrated I could just burst into tears. Another question I have is in regards to the section used for my fuge. The overflow going out of this section has 4 large 2" holes across the top to drain the water into the section that contains my skimmer and 2 pumps. Any living creature that I put in this area will be dumped into the area with my skimmer and pumps. What can I do? Should I place screens over these holes because they are so large? When I decided on the 55g Sump/Fuge, it was with the idea of maybe housing a sea horse or other interesting species.

Any of your advice, chastisement, etc. would be appreciated! :-)

Well, being the intelligent individual that I am, ahhem :roll: I found some appropriate plastic material and cut myself two small ventilated sections to repair the damaged tower overflow. I worked with a product called "Hold Fast" as I had worked with it when I did some of the aquascaping with live rock for my tank. It worked pretty well and when I was finished, I felt quite pleased with myself. That was until I looked up and the level of water in my DT had risen to the point of me freaking out at the possibility of a deluge! I quickly removed one section of the repair that I had done and the water level planed out. Whew! I now realize that perhaps I need to tweek the pump's water flow? I really need some help here as I sure am not gonna get it from the LFS. The only thing they have helped me with is to empty my pocket book and discourage me. How does one adjust the volume of water/flow from their main pump? Or should I use a plastic type screen instead of the two ventilated plates I made? Help! I'm drowing in ignorance:sailing:

i would go to HD and pick up some black plastic gutter gaurd and zip tie it to the existing overflow teeth to fix that problem.

to fix the holes in the fuge ... i would get an egg crate (light diffuser [white] while at HD) and cut it to fit to form a sort of screen over the holes and either superglue it to the tank or to a mag float. you can attach the magfloat like normal and it should hold it in place.

oh, and i would pull out the screen and crushed coral and add a DSB in its place.

hey skervey

id ask how you've been , but im guessing i already know the answer to that question. chin up brother, we've all had our fair share of doddgy brothers.

Lets get you on the path. A dude, try grabbing a camera, you can host the pic's at photo bucket for free & then copy them here.

I was told when they left that the salt creep would seal the stream of water that was running down the main pipe and running back into the fuge, they were right.... 9 days later. I know I need to have a professional plumber come in and rip everything out and redo everything, but I will wait until this summer.

thats crap, they should have seen that straight away after the wet run. Im assuming they didn't wait for the wet run:madmad:
Even if they applied extra glue after the fact, then at least that would have been better than nothing. 45 deg angles are ok, depends on what they are used for, bulkheads on the other hand shouldn't leak for obvious reasons. unless the rubber bung is had it, & or they forgot to tighten em. Did you get this fixed yourself?

bobbys on the money, gutter guard is cheap as, & its non restrictive. Note that word...non restrictive, look at it logically that you want protection for your animals, but as non restrictive a possible. you realised that when the level couldn't be maintained.

GG is totally inert & alot more UV resistant than most products so it makes for an easy solution . Between GG & plastic create you can make anything.

If curing time is only 30min for your bonding product, then as long as you monitor any stress levels in your animals, then shutting down the return system for that time is ok.

They placed a screen in my fuge that is shaped like a table with 4 cut pvc pipes leaving about a 2.5 area beneath the screen. On top of this they placed about 5 lbs of crushed coral. Some of the reading I have done says people are using a DSB in this area, not crushed coral.

they have designed this to be a cryptic fuge. the table top is to restrict light & a safe haven under neath for various critters. depending on what space & future stocking list, it can be handy. choice is yours to remove the coral gravel on top of the table, although personally i wouldn't bother unless you were going to pull out the design.

Wow, that is frustrating. Where are you in SC? I know there is a reef club in Charlotte, NC where you could probably get good recommendations/assistance.

Thank you Bobby and Veriann! :raining: Thanks for the umbrella to keep the black bird of misfortune from, ahem, you get the picture. :blush: I looked in my cabinet and I've got a small leak going on from one/ or both of the bulk heads again. Not sure if my trying to repair the tower changed the pressure and caused the leak again or not. No, the guy from the LFS was here the whole time (3 hours 1 day to do the plumbing and came back a few days later and primed it and let it run for 1.5 hours) and saw the water running down the main drain line from the bulk heads and just added some glue and said that it's normal for them to leak for a while and it was ok because it was running straight into the fuge. (Oh yeah, I really believed that one and Toto don't like doggy biscuits either.) He said that the salt build up would seal the leak and that he would come back the next day or day after that to make sure everything was fine as he couldn't do anything else that day as it was getting late. You know the scenario, you call, complain, etc. Just beating a dead horse at this point. Thank you for telling me about the gutter guard and egg crate. I'll zip out tomorrow and pick some up. I am thinking that if I can continue to do improvements to my tank, the more confident I will feel and more comfortable. After all, I did make my own mixture of sand for my DSB and feel good about my aquascaping job. :D

I had another question also. The top of my tank is reinforced all the way around with a center cross bar also. I thought about cutting 2 clear plates (plexiglass or some other medium) as a cover to cut down on evaporation. I also thought about taking the last 3" on each piece and cutting ventilation holes that would run the width of the sheet to let air still circulate and not hold too much heat. What are your thoughts on this or other suggestions? And if so, what thickness? I do not have a lighting system into play yet as I am still planning out what type of environment I'd like to create for corals and the types I would like to keep. (deep water, tide pools, shallow reef, etc.. As you can see there are still many decisions that I must make yet and I know that my lighting set up will play a major impact on how my tank handles heat from lighting. I also know that using a cover with my lighting when I get it will have it's output cut due to having to penetrate this medium and will alter the spectrum of light, or light that enters the tank and also that reachs the bottom of the tank. (Or at least that is my miniscule understanding of all the informative documentation that I have had the oportunity to read.)

I have a camera, not a good camera, but it's all I have so beggers can't be choosy, especially when they are spending every extra dime they have building a tropical paridise with 145g of salt water. :love!: Nothing like wearing headgear with magnifying glasses with your head pressed up to the glass of your tank just staring into that paridise for hours. Makes people really worry about you sometimes. :D I'll try to post some pics soon of the DT and the S/F. My cabinet turned out nice I thought. I bought an oak kitchen base cabinet and had a carpenter reinforce
the interior with braces to support the extra large weight load. I came out $200 cheaper than what the LFS tried to sell me so I am very pleased.

And hello Carmie Jo! I live on the coast, Charleston. If I had to move away from the ocean I would dry up and blow away. There is a reefers club, but it's sponcered by guess who? Needless to say, we won't be going there. :no:

glad to see you still have a pulse on the humor bud:up:

while your zipping out, pick up a bag of zip ties while your at it! You'll need em for the diy building kit.

you can handle the fixes yourself, even though its easy to get it done for you, once you do it only once, you tend to sit back & say thats a snap!
that leak needs addressing, i'll put it into perspective, when i plumbed my last nano project i still had a small breach on the return. drinking & gluing might be the cause in hind site but the moral of the story was i let it go because it was like a drip a min and would block easy, anything that constitutes a trickle = :huh: & should be sealed.

look forward to seeing your cabinetry. glad you thought about the weight ahead of time.

As for the covers, im surprised an american is asking to employ them..lol
most of you leave open top & contend with major evap. which is fine if you automate the process with auto-top off devices. if your still controlling salinity manually i can see why the need for limiting evap. just keep in mind its sometimes a neutral gain, you can easily win in one area, but lose in another.
I use glass for everything cause its cheap, as long as you factor ventilation namely for gas exchange and the logical use of your tank bracing positions your laughing.

I am thinking that for now, perhaps I'll go with the 2 sheets of glass and to make up for the section over the tank for ventilation, I will just cut a strip of egg crate or some other medium as the tank does need to breathe. I do not have an auto top off, or any other bells and whistles at this point. But hey! There's something to look forward to.

I do have another question! I have one return pipe nozzle? pumping water back into my DT. It has high water flow on one end of the tank, but the other side of the tank is a much lesser flow. I have placed a wave maker on that end to help. What can I purchase to act as an attachment to this pipe and have the water flow dispersed in 2 directions to get better water movement on the other end?

man !! I WISH I COULD OPEN A PET STORE/ MAINTENANCE COMPANY !! i hate they way that the maint. companies do things !!

need a little more info to really be of any help here Skurvey. here is what we need ...

1) PICS of the entire setup ... tank, plumbing, overflow, return, skimmer, EVERYTHING. WE will be more than happy to walk you through REDOING everything that the LFS has done. it really is not that hard to do so dont worry if you mess up a little bit. we can rebuild it ... better ... stronger ... and mostly more impressive than it was before. and YOU will be very proud to be able to say that it was built BY YOU !!

you get us pics of the whole shebang ... we will blow your mind with what can be done in this tank !!

Thanks Bobby,

Would you believe and I'm embarrassed to say, that I have a little over 2 grand tied up in this little system so far? AND no lighting system yet! :rotfl: I hope things finally plain off to a stable maintenance routine and not fall into the same category as that movie with Tom Hanks, "The Money Pit!." :rotfl: But of course that sum includes the $225 charge to build my sump/fuge from a 55g I had and around $300 for labor on plumbing, pvc and 2 bulk heads that had to be special ordered. All of that of course is added extras in addition to the gotta have expenses like expensive pumps, skimmers, LR, now that is a big expense, but honestly I can't tell you how much I enjoyed picking each and every piece by hand that I wanted to use to aquascape my tank. That was awesome. Figi Pukani, to me, is the most beautiful rock I have ever seen. I took a 45 minute drive to get there and it was well worth it!

I kept telling the LFS that they had to use heavy duty schedule 80 bulk heads as that was the standard for the custom built system that I have. I am really hoping my lucky stars as that is what they purchased and installed on my system. Seems like about every few days I get brazen and want to jump in the car and go to the LFS and get up in their face and give them the what for and tell them to get their ignoranuses to my house and give me the professional plumbing job that I paid for. But alas, I must be a eunich. :shout: I sure don't see $45 an hour work here! I will get some picks together. I am PO-ed that I can not use the system (Sump section) exactly as it was designed.... with the socks. They installed the plexiglass plate with the 2 sock fittings backwards to fit the plumbing that they did. And as I sit down and use my pumkin. The water leak is coming from the bulk head intake from the sump/refuge. It is just drops now. I think I broke loose some of the salt creap earlier when I had my fiasco with trying to repair the tower.

The good news is, I went to HD today and bought GG, thin plexiglass AND egg crate! One can never have enough supplies when one is not entirely sure of what they need to do or how to do it. :p I do know that I will have to do some type of modification on how to apply the GG to the fuge drane holes as being flush is too restrictive and not enough water flow. Very scarey! Boo! They will have to be installed at an angle. I am thinking about how to accomplish this. I will see how I fare with the GG and the tower repair. ;) Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I must say that even though there are a ton of obstacles set before me. I will eventually overcome and I will be the better for it.

And I can't thank you enough for hanging with me as I feel like a science project gone bad.

im afraid to inform you that your money pit will soon become a reality no matter which way you play it! :unsure:

I have $2k wrapped up already in my latest nano project & its still only half finished, & to put a weird perspective spin on that sentence - its big enough to fill after a heavy drinking session. go figure!

such is the hobby,moving forward we'll try to save you as much money as possible..lol,

Charleston is beautiful. I was at a camp (St Christopher's) on one of the islands last year about this time and had a great time.

I love the climate here as it's mild considering the rest of the US with snow and "COLD, COLD" I must be a fair weather friend or a migratory creature as if I had to reside in cold climates for extended periods of time, well, I would surely perish. (Cabin syndrone fever) :rolleyes: I guess I'm spoiled. There are many, many beautiful islands here. Perhaps you were around Seabrook or Kiawah, both of which are exquisite. The land of the beautiful people. Too bad the majority of those resorts are owned by Saudis. Go figure.

Variann, it's not the money I invest in my tank that I mind, it's the donkey backwards methodology that bothers me. :rotfl: It's the not getting what one pays for. If I'm gonna get the shaft, I'd at least like to choose the gigalo. If you get my meaning. :heart: I have no idea how my LFS stays in business. I wanted them to aquascape my tank, order me a glass cover, put a T flow adapter on my out put water source and help me with choosing the lighting system. They could of made a tidy profit. They can't even return my call. It's a sad state of affairs. But that's ok, even dogs can be taught and learn new tricks. I may be a tortoise, but I will eventually win the race, thus getting my tank where I would like it to be. I too have quaffed a few shots and am enjoying my cigar and as I look at my set up with the cabinet doors to my cabinet closed. I am pleased with what I see so far. I am debating whether to try to repair the tower tonight or wait till morning. Vandamere has been very uninterested in my tank repairs so far, but we'll have to have a pow wow with him to see if it will inconvience him tonight. :rotfl: Visiting the ER and 5 days of bed ridden agony living on percocet with my last love affair with a sting ray makes me not want to disgruntle the new love of my life, a lion fish. :up: Perhaps I'll do a Scarlett O'Hara and say, " after all, tomorrow is another day."

I really thank each and every one of you for hanging with me.

Thanks Bobby,

Would you believe and I'm embarrassed to say, that I have a little over 2 grand tied up in this little system so far? AND no lighting system yet!

i would not doubt that one little bit. if it makes you feel any better, i have estimated that i have almost 5x that in my system !!

im afraid to inform you that your money pit will soon become a reality no matter which way you play it!

I have $2k wrapped up already in my latest nano project & its still only half finished, & to put a weird perspective spin on that sentence - its big enough to fill after a heavy drinking session. go figure!

such is the hobby,moving forward we'll try to save you as much money as possible..lol,

V might be crazy, but he is also right. either way you decide to go ... it will cost a lot of money. i am following this thread, so if you need help just ask.

Thank you all for the valuable information and ideas on how to fix my tower overflow and the fuge overflow problem. I managed to fix both with GG, but wound up having to cut the pastic section off in the center leaving the screen portion which still allowed me to use the hard plastic as a frame for support on the outside. It worked like a charm. The use of the mag float to hold the screen in the fuge was perfect. Thank you for that suggestion also. I am so utterly happy right now. I am making headway. Yippeee! :up: I purchased a large sheet of thin plexiglass that I still need to cut. Is there anything special I need to do to it beside tape it the full length of where I will run the skill saw to make the cut? I decided to use the egg crate across the back 3 inches instead of drilling holes in the plexiglass as I am afraid with it being so thin that it will start to get fractures over time. I will keep you posted.

no problem. the egg crate will also let more gas exchange take place than the plexiglass would have, so good call on that. keep us posted on you progress.

sweet stage one is underway, just dont forget we're picture hungry over here, visual delights also help us, identify an potential pits that still may be present.

Seal your mag float with silicon if your keeping it submerged long term.;)

Merry Christmas to all my fishy friends! :D Pictures will soon be on the way thanks to my new Christmas present! Unfortunately it can only hold 7 pics at a time until I purchase a memory chip. So far photography doesn't seem to be one of my talents so please be patient with me. :blush: When I do get some example shots, where are some links explaining the hows to post a pic.

i just transfer them to my computer and upload them to photobucket ... then copy and paste the [img] tag in the reply box. then when you click "post reply" a pic will appear instead of the code.

Ahaaaaaaaaa! I started a tank journal. :blush: I have included some pics, but you have to click on the link that takes you to my photo gallery. Perhaps me thinks I am confused with posting piccies. :rotfl: