Layton's Start

[laytonutah]

New to the life style and new to forum. I have run fresh water tanks for 20 years. I have become bored with fresh water and recently gave all my fish away, drained my tanks, threw all the gravel out and have moved everything to the basement with the tank right next to my desk.
I have 2 - 29 gallon bow fronts and a 72 gallon bow front.
Pumps:
Fluval FX5 607 GPH canister filter
Fluval 205 110 GPH canister filter
1 Penguin powerhead 170 GPH
1 Power sweep wave maker power head 214 GPH
1 46" glo stick it has 2 - 54W T5 HO 18,000K

My man cave:


On the other side of the wall of the tank I want to make my filter room. The ceiling is a drop ceiling with water copper water lines easily accessible.


In this new adventure I am looking for all input and criticism. You guys really know what works.
Starting with the filter room:
Rip out carpet (boy is she gonna hate me)
Build cheap wood shelves probably 5' long 3 shelves high 30" between each shelf (to do)
Tap fresh water pipe and connect to RO unit (need to buy still)
50 gallon food grade drum for mixing / replenish (have)
Drill tank, install overflow. (guy told me $60)
Wire in a dedicated 20 amp outlet (to do)

Sorry for being so long winded. Easter weekend is here and I think I'm gonna get started.

[7digits]

I'm pretty new too, but I'm sure that you don't want to use copper on the tank side of the ro/di unit. I don't know if you intended to, but that wouldn't be good.

[laytonutah]

I'm pretty new too, but I'm sure that you don't want to use copper on the tank side of the ro/di unit. I don't know if you intended to, but that wouldn't be good.

Copper is the what is in the house. I plan to tap in to the copper with a saddle valve and feed an RO unit that feeds a 50G drum with a float. I had some water jugs laying around along with a 1300 GPH pond pump. I'm going to try a Beckett with what I have and see how it goes.

[laytonutah]

Is this good?

[Steve McKay]

I'm pretty new too, but I'm sure that you don't want to use copper on the tank side of the ro/di unit. I don't know if you intended to, but that wouldn't be good.

Most old houses have copper plumbing. If the water is used and doesn't just sit in the pipes and stagnate it will be fine.

[laytonutah]

Most old houses have copper plumbing. If the water is used and doesn't just sit in the pipes and stagnate it will be fine.

Once the water leaves the copper house pipe it should never touch metal again. I hope to order the RO / DI unit in a few days. In the mean time my new home made skimmer seems to be working well.
Next I start working on shelves and a tank canopy.

[Steve McKay]

Once the water leaves the copper house pipe it should never touch metal again. I hope to order the RO / DI unit in a few days. In the mean time my new home made skimmer seems to be working well.
Next I start working on shelves and a tank canopy.

That must be one mean skimmer if you have to keep it chained down.

[laytonutah]

That must be one mean skimmer if you have to keep it chained down.

I had to Kind of mess around with the air. I drilled 3 holes in the 90 that comes from the pump and forced airline through the holes toward the skimmer. it draws a fair amount of air. If I plug the top of the skimmer it will actually float off the bottom of the tank.