Here is what my Christmas bonus paid for. It's a 29g (12wx18hx30L) with about a 4" sand bed. I set this up on Thursday December 28th. For those of you that followed my
refugium plans, that was a huge flop. It wasn't a total loss because it turned into a closed-loop system. Anyway here it is along with some explanation on the mods that I did to the entire setup.
I started off with a Perfecto 29g tank/stand setup. I submitted plans for review for a 10g
refugium in the base of the stand. After a few suggestions and some plumbing discussion with another engineer (I'm a mechanical engineer but plumbing isn't my forte) I was set out to build a great setup.
So the holidays came and I have my empty tank yelling at me that it wanted to be filled. After selecting the pump that I wanted to use (Supreme Mag-Drive 9.5), I proceeded to call on Dec 22 to local fish stores. 1 place had the pump so I drive about 20 miles during my lunch break to find out that they were looking at the wrong model when they said that they had stock. So back to work empty handed. I called another
LFS in my hometown where I live (about 50 miles away) and they have stock. I head there after work only to find out that they have a 100% markup on their dry goods. (When ever asking for lead time...always ask for pricing as well...lol)
So I order the pump on the 23rd. I went out and purchased more
PVC than I could toss a stick at and I think the employees at Home Depot thought I was replumbing my whole house. With about $100 worth of
PVC and misc equipment in hand, I start building my setup. With everything built, except the baffles and overflow box, I start to silicone everything in place, including my
live rock to the Ø1.5"
PVC pipe (to get the rock off of the substrate) only to look at the label after applying everything and reading "NOT FOR USE ON AQUARIUMS". ARRRRGGGG! Why couldn't I have read that in the store when I was studying the labels like a hawk. Back to the
LFS for aquarium grade silicone.
With silicone in hand, I finish the baffles and overflow box. A couple of days later my pump arrives and off to the garage for testing. At first I was wondering why I was testing but it soon became obvious that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to plumbing. First attempt...overflowed display. Second attempt...overflowed
refugium. Third attempt...overflowed display. Out of desperation I ripped the
PVC off of the overflow and just created a closed-loop system.
Know what the first lesson in working with
PVC should be? Don't cement every single joint together. If you do, atleast use a union that can separate. I had every joint sealed and realized that I hand tightened my fittings to my pump. I pulled everything off and all I could do was swing the
PVC pipe around to tighten the connectors. Know what happens when you have a 4 foot moment arm on a plastic ABS housing? That's right...it cracks. So I am now the proud owner of a cracked pump that is waiting on replacement parts. Oh well atleast the pump still works...
Now for the photos. I didn't take any during the building process because I wasn't planning on doing this for 'show -n tell' but I will show my end result. After the
PVC and housing incidents, I have decided to replace a lot of the
PVC shown in the pics with flexible tubing so I can service the pump.
Here is a quick equipment list that I used: (minus the
PVC component list)
29g Perfecto Aquarium Tank/Stand
60lbs of CaribSea Aragamax (Sugar Sand)
20lbs of CaribSea Aragalive (Live Sand)
25lbs of Base Rock
~5lbs of dried rock from my existing tank (been dry for 2 years)
Magnum
HOT filter (mainly for phosguard) (250gph)
Maxijet 600 (165gph)
AquaClear
PH (125gph i think)
Supreme Mag-Drive 9.5 (800gph at return)
Current USA
PC lighting 130w total
For a total water flow - 1200gph
EDIT: I missed a couple of modifications that I did for the setup.
I added a shelf inside of the stand for test supplies. I hung the original light strip for the tank inside of the stand so I can see while digging through my supplies. This was going to light my
refugium but since that didn't go as planned it served a new function. I also created a test tube rack to dry my test tubes on. (which I can't believe how useful it is)
Thanks for viewing.
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ryan 
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