fishytime

Thanks for the suggestion Sharuq. Another forum suggested gutter guard from a hardware store. Not sure which one I will try...depends on how much this gutter guard is.

Heres a few more shots of the up and running sump. Its been a week and a half now since the move and it looks as thought all the live stock has survived the move. I have one "small" thing to work out. My wee tiny ocellaris clown is the only fish in the tank that is small enough to fit through the eggcrate strainer at the top of the overflow. He is batting 100% so far. Every morning I have to rescue his dumbass from the overflow box. Gonna have to try and figure something out...cause he sure isnt. Im gonna take some aquascaping pics tonight, after it gets dark.

Big updates. I moved last week and managed to get the tank ready so I could just move the contents of the 68g directly into the 110g. Its been running for a week now with NO glitches. The move went well and I didnt lose anything. Will post some pics of the rest of the build now and will post some of the tank with the livestock in it after I tweek a few things and clean the glass this w/e.

Reef tanks are like crack...just more expensive. You can get into saltwater in-expensively if you want, but I would say get the best equipment you can afford, because chances are you will just upgrade to better stuff later. I made that mistake, and am now getting rid of my cheaper goodies at less than half of what I paid for it. I would have been better off buying quality equipment to begin with.

More pics.

Here's the update for ya Flip...and everyone else that may be tagging along. Its been kinda slow going lately as I am in the process of moving at the end of the month. I've been sneaking away from my packing duties every once in a awhile to get my plumbing parts together. I think I've finally got what I need. I ordered a few things from B.C. because a buddy was making a huge plumbing order and said I could piggy back on his order to save shipping. I got the stuff from him last week and figured out right away that I needed to go back( again) to the plumbing store. I am still waiting on the gate valves from a different order(picking them up tomorrow). But I thought I would share what I did today. Here is what the stack of parts for the return look like. Before. After. The return goes from the 1" output of the pump to a ball valve by 1" flexible tubing. Then is reduced to 3/4" hard pvc . First a check valve, then a "T", then a ball valve for each return, and finally through the locline.

Why go to elite when you can just go its mother store...Danny at Wai's owns elite. And if you are at wais you can go to ocean city as well. Wais is salt water stuff only, Elite carries fresh water stuff as well. Also agree that Colby is one of, if not THE best guy to deal with in town.

How much you got...j/k. The way I charge is cost plus. So cost of material plus labour. Pm me if you want more details.

Most of the driftwood you will find by the river FLOATS and will need to be soaked for months if not years to become waterlogged enough to sink.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Have found the salty side of the fish keeping world sooooo rewarding, but a little expensive. To quote another reefer " reef tanks are like crack, just more expensive"

Just wanted to share a few pics of a stand I made ( I am a finishing carpenter by trade) for a reefer here in Calgary, and the "floating" canopy (1- 150w mh pendant & 2- 24w HOT5 actinics) I made for myself. I will be doing this on the side to try and make some extra coin to feed my reef addiction. If interested you can pm me. Hope I dont get in trouble with the mods for this.

Sweet pics shark. Any chance of a full tank shot?

I got the sump finished tonight. Well... I finished it yesterday , but I leak tested the baffles tonight and....IT HOLDS WATER :smokey: . Cutting the glass for the baffles actually proved to be way harder than drilling the tank. I just could'nt get the glass to break cleanly on my scribe. So I broke out the trusty beltsander to grind down the wonky cuts.The following pics show the sump and a couple of the goodies to go in it. The layout is; skimmer/drain section on the left, return pump section in the middle, and drain/refugium section on the right.If you guys see any issues with this design PLEASE let me know. This is my first sump and I wanna get it right. The return pump is a quiet one 6000, and the skimmer is a euro-reef rs135.I need to do the overflow box inside the tank, but I think I will leave the cutting of that glass to the experts. 3/16" glass was hard enough, never mind the 3/8" glass I will need for the overflow. Then after that is the plumbing. I am a carpenter by trade so wood is really my thing. But I am learning lots and I think I have a handle on how the plumbing needs to be.

I wouldnt mix the altolamps. Interbreeding between them will be an issue. And as far as the Daffodils go, they are closely related to brichardi, and if allowed to start breeding they will form a colony and can quickly take over a tank.Neet thing about them though is they are one of the few fish that will defend territories in a group/pack mentality. My suggestion would be to pick ONE of the altos and consider one of the juliedochromis spieces to help fill things in a bit. And if you dont go with fronts, a 200g+ tank would be awesome with a big school of cyprichromis or paracyprichromis.

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement everyone. I am doing the sump as I type this. Will post some shots when I git er done.

Its happened again. My reef tank is growing. I started my salty life with a wee 20g, that only took about 7 months for me to upgrade to a 68g. And now the 68g will soon be upgraded to a 110g(72"lx20"tx18"d). This build will be almost entirely a diy project. The tanks I will be using were built and the equipment will and has been purchased, but the rest of the build I will do my self. The 110g I have had for three years running as a fresh water setup. First with cichlids then as a big community tank. Heres what I have and am planning to do. 110g display with a 55g sump/ refugium. The 110 was not drilled and did not have an overflow. The display will have dual corner overflows with 1" herbie style standpipes drilled through the bottom. The returns are 2, 3/4" drilled through the back, fueled by a Quietone 6000. This journal will be pic intensive, so here is a few shots of the "birth" of my new baby. Sorry if some of them are a bit blurry, but I was still shakin from drilling the tank myself (with Zylumn/Kevins help and encouragement...thanks again Kev btw).First time drilling glass.

Very cool. I've been wanting to add another clown to my tank for a while now but cant find any that are for sure smaller than the one I have. Are those ocellaris or percs?

I have a ton of rock that I wont be using any more( field stone and slate). And drift wood too. Pm me if you want.

You were at Golds huh? How deep is the sandbed? Much easier to clean a bare bottom tank and you dont have the nitrate issues associated with a deep sandbed (2" or deeper). Personally I hate the way a bare bottom tank looks so I went with just enough sand to cover the bottom. I also picked up a bunch of nassarius snails to keep what sand I have "stirred".

My ocellaris wont host in anything!!! GSP, frogspawn xenia....nothing. Golds HAD some aquacultured ocellaris in last w/e. Might wanna phone just to make sure they still have some. As far as corals go, lots of people here in Calgary (myself included) frag their corals and make them avialable to fellow reef junkies. My suggestion would be to check out canreef.com most of western Canada's reefers are on that site.Welcome to the dark side.

Where's my fishin rod j/k. What would you feed a beast like that???

Sloughshark, was to bad $50. And thanks bosshog.Ok...seriously thinking bout a change of plans. I have a 110 freshwater that has been whispering "salt" in my ears since I ventured into the salty side of things. All this talk about the relibility of the crp overflows is putting tons of doubt in my decision to use one on the 68g. I am going to be moving in a couple months and am thinking that I dont want to move both the fresh and the salt tanks while they are up and running. So I am thinking of shutting the 110g fresh down. While it is dry I am going to drill it and put in probably a couple corner overflows. So when the move happens I hope to have the 110 ready to transfer the contents of the 68g into it. I was going to use a 33g for the sump on the 68g but that will be way to small for the 110, so Im thinking probably a 55g would be better. I still have to hammer out some of the details, like what to do with the fish from the 110 and finding a 55g somewhere. On a differant note I grabbed a zoa frag from delphinus(Tony) and man am I happy with it. It didnt look like much in the picture he posted or when I went to look at it, but It is quite nice IMO. Whatcha all think???

Use ro/di water if you can. I started mt 20g with tap and experienced a heavy algae bloom. Have switched to distilled water from safeway since. Besides phosphates ro/di water will be free of all the other crap that gets put into our tap water. I used a jug and a half or so week between water changes and toping up ...so about $7-$8 a week.

Thanks AGAIN guys.Scored a pretty nice blasto. All this crp overflow talk has got me all freaked out, and rethinking my plans. Any one out there that is running a cpr wanna chine in with their experiences with theirs?