Doctor64776's 400gallon Show 700gallon System
 

Hello,

My name is Chris aka doctor64776 and I love reefs... so amazing to watch and learn from :) My current obsession are Micromussa and for the past 2-3 years I have developed a collection exceeding 60 morphs. Last year I began noticing that I was having to sell off all of my other corals just to make room for my micros and acans... my 80 gallon tank just could not hold everything. I had visited this forum so much that I knew I wanted to build a large system but the costs were very intimidating. I finally decided to just do it! I knew I needed an entire reef room to house this and also I wanted room to be able to mantain this tank and all of its equipment, I was also tired of crawling around under a tank stand.... I also knew that with all of the frag tradeing that I do I would need to have quite a large prop tank. 5 years ago when I had built my house I had not finished my basement and then it was off to Iraq so the Basement never got completed. This scenario was perfect for me to sell the idea to my wife Sue :) "I'll finish the whole basement if you let me build part of it as my reef room baby?" she was positive and supportive from the beginning.

So here are the stats:

The room itself is 14'X14' and has 3 dedicated 20A circuts (not including the actual ambient room lighting which is just on the Basement light circut) I have plumbed a deep utility sink into the wall and also plumbed a drain and run my 100GPD RODI lines for easy water changes. Everything I list here is already purchased and much is assembled.. I will slowley add pics. For the Plumbing I had ALOT of help from Paul at Oceans Motions... he is great and gives up so much of his time to explain things, what a smart man.

The tank is Starphire 1/2" low iron glass in a Eurobraced plywood frame coated in "BREWCOAT" 2 part FDA approved epoxy... the back of the tank will have the Black pond foam.. then coated in epoxy and then crushed coral will be sprinkled into the drying epoxy to form a rock wall.
96"X32"X31"

Stand:
Wood and concrete block

Filtration:
1X 3600gph Dart for sump100 gallon, fuge150gallon, prop50gallon, return
ETSS 1500XR skimmer powered by Iwaki 100rlt
Shallow sand bed in tank with DSB in fuge
400+lbs of live rock in show tank and 100+lbs in the Fuge

Closed LOOP:
2X OM 4ways feed by 2 X 3600gph Darts cycle flow back into the tank through 8 ports to create a "swirling barrell" effect

Lighting:
2X 8bulb banks of 54watt T-5s
4X 400watt 20K Radiums

Ca:
4002 Koralline reactor with CO2

The wife looking on as we are framing things up
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/Basement5.jpg[/IMG]

Framing in place
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics1.jpg[/IMG]

Wood portions of the stand
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics4.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics3.jpg[/IMG]

Insulating the room for sound... This whole wall is being covered in cultured stone that looks like it has shells and fossils embedded in it
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/DSC05383.jpg[/IMG]

Drywalling the inside of the room... The stand is not yet finished here... concrete blocks support both ends
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/DSC05389.jpg[/IMG]

Starting to take the shape of an actual tank!
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics5.jpg[/IMG]

Framing to hold the Starphire
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics10.jpg[/IMG]

Ahhh the Glass! $849 just for 1 piece of glass!
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics7.jpg[/IMG]

Testing the Frame
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics8.jpg[/IMG]

Glass being sealed into the frame and tank
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics13.jpg[/IMG]

Eurobracing Starts
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics20.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics17.jpg[/IMG]

BREWCOAT 2 part epoxy really neato stuff! but $100gallon
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics14.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/tankpics15.jpg[/IMG]

Some sanding on the tank by my boys
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/DSC05009.jpg[/IMG]

Closed Loop Plumbing
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/doctor64776/DSC05002.jpg[/IMG]


MORE Later

what's the deal with docters and nice big aquariums on reef central :D

where abouts in arkansas are you from. im in little rock myself

wow that looks like a really fun project!

interesting, tagging along, looks good take more pics!

More pics coming :)

I am in Mountain Home AR :)
I'll be in Little Rock this weekend for the Blue Man Concert hehe
How to be a MagaStar 2.0 !

As crazy as this is, I've been to Mountain Home several times. I used to fish from the Cotter Trout Dock yearly (when Ken and Judy owned it)! The White River is just beautiful and I can't wait to see your thread progress.

John

Fishing there is AWESOME :) Very beautiful here... Having grown up in Chicago (Great culture there) I really respect and love this area (trees, deer, lakes, fish, sunrise, sunset)

WOW!!! I wish I had the realestate for a tank like that!

It's going to be wonderful.

Re: Doctor64776's 400gallon Show 700gallon System
 

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9238764#post9238764 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by doctor64776 [/i]
[B]The tank is Starphire 1/2" low iron glass in a Eurobraced plywood frame coated in "BREWCOAT" 2 part FDA approved epoxy... the back of the tank will have the Black pond foam.. then coated in epoxy and then crushed coral will be sprinkled into the drying epoxy to form a rock wall.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Why are you going to cover the pond foam in epoxy? Is it just to give something for the crushed coral to stick to? I'm asking as I am going to use the pond foam as well on my 225 gallon and had not seen anyone else suggesting covering it with anything.

Nice start on the big build! It's going to be a killer Micro and Acan haven!:eek1:

Hello...


Originally when I bought the Pond foam I was just going to spray it on the back to make the rock wall look like in the other amazing threads that I have seen then in one of the threads I forget which one a reefer was describing how he had taken and covered the pondfoam in the epoxy and then while it was wet he had sprinkled sand and crushed coral on it... after the tank was up and running it looked initially like the rock wall but quickly became so covered in corralline that many visitors thought that it was actually rock... includeing... Tyree? or Boernman?? one of the biggies had seen it and actually thought that it was full rock.. the more I thought about it I decided this would be awesome! I am almost readt to do this.... still a few things to complete .. i will take many pics and post them for eveyone

Thanks, keep us posted!

how are you sealing the glass to the frame and tank?

The glass panel sits in a 3/4"X1/2" groove cut into a 2X4... the goove was first filled with Aquarium silicone and the glass frame secured with silicone spilling out everywhere then after it was dryed the excess was cut away... as the tank is completed the inside is then sealed with a bead of additional silicone around the inside edge where glass meets epoxy... above in the picture posted you can see a sideview closeup of the channel into which the glass fits. The frame itself was sealed into the tank body with Gorrilla Glue and screws on the outside and dowels on the inside to connect to the eurobrace... than all of this was sealed over with 6 coats of epoxy

I always wondered how to do that. Thanks for the info.

Doc looks great!!!! BTW could not help but notice we have the same dinning room chairs...MK

mountain home hu? i have never been i hear its beautiful there though. haha blue man group....:lol:

I think they must have made a million of those table sets.. heck cheap but they look good :)


Thanks guys for the compliments :)

Wow!! Looks like a very fun project. Nice deep tank. It is going to be great having all that room to aqua-scape. I for one am always running out of room! Your plumbing looks intense. I am looking forward to seeing how it will work, sounds great. Can't wait to see it come together, tagging along.

How about some pics of your current tank? Id like to see what 60 different types of micro's look like in a tank:)

check this thread out. It has some of the nicest micros available on it. And a lot of them are doc's!

[url]http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=896007[/url]

Doc the set up looks awesome keep up the awesome work ;)