Bonneville's 50 gallon mixed reef

[Bonneville08]

Hi Guys,
This aquarium has been set up for over a year now and the system supported a smaller tank for three years prior to that so this is not a build thread. Improvements have been continuous over the last few years and some of it bears little resemblance to what I started with. I thought I would do the thread in segments and discuss the aspects of the tank that I am happy with and those that could have went better.
Let's start out with the tank itself, it's 36" wide, 20" tall and 20" deep. I call it a 50, but that's just an estimate. It was made by Glass Cages.
Full tank shot from a few days ago:


The right side, top down:


The left side, top down:


The tank size is optimal in my opinion and allowed me to buy a lot of bells and whistles I would not have been able to afford otherwise. The downside to this set up is the plumbing. If I had it to do all over again, I think a Glass Holes overflow would be a lot less intrusive. I would have done the return differently as well.

[Bonneville08]

The cabinet is 63" wide, 24" from front to back and 36" tall. It is made of 3/4 solid oak on the front and back frames as well as the doors and trim. The remainder is 3/4" oak plywood. The joinery is mostly #20 biscuits, and all of the molding was made from solid wood in my garage. The exterior was paste wood filled, stained dark mahogany and finished with six coats of wipe on polyurethane. The interior was painted with an oil based white paint. The top is a custom made solid surface countertop with full bullnose edge on a 1/2" particle board substrate. The doors are lined with pre-woven chair caning to maximize air flow and the back of the cabinet is open.


Right side of the cabinet:


Left side of the cabinet:


I'm pretty happy with the construction in general, but if I had to do this again I would have made the cabinet 30" from front to back for the additional room. As you can see, I've filled up most of the surplus room.

[Bonneville08]

The filter circuit is very simple, the overflow drains to a 12" by 24" algal turf filter which in turn drains to a Rubbermade tote I use for the sump. There are no baffles, compartments or bubble traps in the sump.


The return is via a Pan World 50PX magnetic drive external pump. The pump is throttled down to what I'm estimating is about 150GPH.


The pump suction is attached to the sump with a bulkhead and a hose to reduce vibration.


The return goes through the overflow box and is divided into a direct return and to the refugium.


The skimmer is an Aqua Euro USA Classic 55, it performs as well as any skimmer I have used and is short enough to fit. This photo was taken about two hours after a good cleaning.

I use a 1/10 horsepower chiller, the flow is provided by a mag 5. The chiller return is routed through a small media reactor with carbon.
All in all this system works well, but I should have put the turf filter above the tank and run the return through the turf filter rather than the overflow. I could have avoided the refugium altogether if I had done this. This also would have freed up almost a foot of height above the sump and I could have bought any skimmer I wanted regardless of height.
The flow in the tank is supplied by a Vortech MP 20 in reef crest mode.

[Bonneville08]

The lighting is a retrofitted 36" Current Outer Orbit. I stripped out everything from the pendant and replaced the front 96W PC actinic with two Power Brite actinic LED strips for a total of eight watts of actinic. The 150W 10,000 kelvin metal halide bulb was replaced with a 15,000 kelvin XM bulb. The internal ballast was replaced by an external ballast.




In retrospect I should have done a 20,000 kelvin pendant on a motorized track, as some of the corals got bigger the single lamp did not promote even growth. I think moving across the tank would help with this.

[Bonneville08]

The Automatic Top Off is a Tunze Osmolator, it has worked flawlessly for about four years now. I tried using it to dose Kalwasser, but
the flow rate was much too fast and the pH went crazy. I use a 5 gallon bucket as a fresh water reservoir.


The Calcium Reactor works fairly well, it is fed from the sump using an Aqua Lifter pump


The CO2 bottle fits in the cabinet, but the height is tight due to the cross brace for the turf scrubber, I run about 10 bubbles per minute into the reactor.


The reactor effluent drips back into the sump at about 50 drops per minute through a second chamber filled with reactor media to minimize the impact on system pH


Although the reactor does a good job with Calcium and Alkalinity support, I have the reactor going as slowly as possible and the Calcium level is usually higher than I might want (>500 ppm). I would never buy a calcium reactor for a tank this small again. In the future, it is likely that I will use a two part supplement from Bulk Reef Supply and twin peristaltic pumps for dosing.

[Bonneville08]

The controller is a Reefkeeper Elite, it has eight switchable outlets and pH and temperature inputs among other features I don't use. I'm actually pretty excited about the controller.


At present the Metal Halide lamp, LED's and turf scrubber lighting are all controlled to come on and off as programmed with one device. The solenoid for the calcium reactor shuts off in the event that the pH falls below a programmed value. The Metal Halide lamp will shut down if temperature exceeds 85F
This winter, I will use the controller for the heater. The controller has better control than the internal stat on the heater.
Given the chronic pH near 7.8 from CO2, I will be using a peristaltic pump to dose Kalkwasser to reduce CO2 concentration with a high pH shutoff at about 8.3.
It seems the longer I have the controller, the more I think of doing more with it. My only regret on the controller is that I did not get one sooner.

[Teric]

Awesome set up Russ. Is that an upstream fuge you have on the back of the tank?

[Hosser]

Great post Russ, glad to have been able to see this tank more in depth

[Bonneville08]

Awesome set up Russ. Is that an upstream fuge you have on the back of the tank?

Hi Eric
The refugium is on the left side of the tank and is fed from the return pump and drains into the tank by gravity.
I will try to add the livestock tomorrow when I get home.
Russ

[Flipside]

I really love all the equipment you have, Russ; and I also love the explanations to everything.  Very well put, sir.  However, that stand is awesome!  You build that yourself? 

[Bonneville08]

I really love all the equipment you have, Russ; and I also love the explanations to everything.  Very well put, sir.  However, that stand is awesome!  You build that yourself? 

Hi Leo,
I built the stand in my garage. I don't have a full shop by any means, but I do have enough tools to get most jobs done as far as cabinetry goes. My favorite feature of the cabinet is the vertical rope molding on the front corners. It was very time consuming but really dressed up the front view.
Russ

[Flipside]

I like that feature too, Russ.  Looks like you took a spindle and recessed into the stand.  Very nice feature.  I like the granite top, and the way you did the three doors.  Absolutely fantastic idea for those of us that are worried about keeping the sump cool.   You've got mad skills, sir.  Do you have a hole cut into the granite, or do you just feed everything through the back of the stand?  You might have to upgrade the tank to something bigger soon... it's not like you don't have the equipment to support it.

[Bonneville08]

The solid surface is actually like Corian, so it cuts with a router very easily. This system is very likely to stay as is, when I get the money I will build another system around a 40 breeder and correct what I have not executed so well in this tank. I really enjoy only using only one bucket of salt per year on this tank. Most of the equipment would be marginal on a bigger tank anyway. I hope some day that I will have to beg folks to take frags from this tank.

[Stan]

Wow Russ, It's amazing that you have all of that for such a relatively small tank.  That chair caneing makes all the difference for the airflow.  It looks fantastic to me.  Job well done!!!  Stan

[michael]

its a very impressive set up russ, i love the aquascaping personally,and im glad you have re-posted all the pictures and write up here, i think perhaps we should all do so as well.