400g system from scratch pictorial

[pclausen]

After years of running fresh water tanks, I decided to try my hand at a salt water tank. I decided to jump in with both feet and go for a full blown reef tank.

The display is in the living room with a fishroom located in the basement.

I'll start in the basement and work my way up to the living room. Here is a shot of the 100g fuge and 150g sump. Return pump is a Sequence Hammerhead and the skimmer as an ASM G6. Since this picture was taken, I have done the recirc mod on the skimmer along with the gate valve mod and it is also being gravity feed from that 2" return pipe you see. In this shot the return and skimmer pumps are running the system contains fresh water for testing.



Here you can see the Typhoon III RO/DI unit. I now have 2 BRUT 32g containers holding the RO/DI water. To do water changes, I simply open the ball valve next to the drain to expell the old water, then start a pump to replenish from a 44g mixing tank (also a BRUT).



Here are a shot of the drain and return pipes coming out of the wall in the living room. The cap on the 1.5" pipe keeps water from spraying all over the floor when running the fish room in closed loop mode for testing.



Here is a back shot of the tank itself showing the CL plumping. 2" intake through the back wall of the tank and 1.5" return which is then reduced down to a 1" manifold.



Here is a shot of the plumbing below the tank with the tank in its final position. CL pump is also a Sequence Hammerhead.



Here are a couple of pics of the CL being tested for functionality and leaks. No leaks, but I wasn't very impressed with the flow through the front 3/4" lock-lines. I have capped 4 of the 16 outlets, and the flow is much better now.

[pclausen]

Next up was the lighting. I went w/ 3 Reef Optix III+ pendants all running 250W Phoenix 14K DEs. I decided to keep my AGA modern canopy, but mod it slightly so the pendants could be hung from the wall and allow the canopy to be removed easily.







And finally, here is a shot of the living room showing the tanks location.



I hope to wire up the ballasts this evening (I'm building a tripple M80 using parts from hellolights.com). It will be located in the basement hallway next to the fishroom.

[Carl_in_Florida]

Talk about jumping in with both feet! Good luck.

Carl

[tplummer]

Nice tank (and house for that matter)

[Fishysan]

Excellent way to jump! Nice work!

[pclausen]

Thanks guys! Seems like everyone is documenting their tank setups, so I figured I would as well.

I got the ballast all done and wired up. Here is a shot of the completed unit. I used an old car amp heat sink to mount everything on.



And here it is on the shelf in the basement below the tank.



And finally, a shot of the tank with the Phoenix bulbs on.

[TheCoralReef731]

wow, looks really cool. There is a lot of light spill though, but that's an easy thing to get used to, especially when your eyes are fixed on the cool corals and fish in the tank.

[clown fanatic]

looks like you tank is the gateway to heaven! hey can you frag one of those lights for me? thanks

[NewMariner]

Nice, what pendants are those.

[pclausen]

Those are Reef Optix III+ pendants. I picked them up from reefgeek along with the bulbs.

After running the lights for a couple of hours, the transformers got HOT despite the heat sink. So I'll be adding a couple of fans to the M80 shelf.

Once I get water and rocks in the tank, I don't think the light spill will look quite as bad. And I can lower the lights further down into the canopy if necessary.

[merlock116]

looking nice. that's a lot of work with all the locline in there. i'd say take half of them off, and cap em, and throw in a few tunze streams w/ magnet holders.

[pclausen]

I have capped 6 of the locklines and removed several of the "joints" to make the remaining ones shorter. Looks a lot cleaner now. My goal is to try avoid having visible equipment in the tank and I feel a pair of tunze streams would be very visible. I'd like to think that a Hammerhead, rated at 5400 gph @ 4' head would provide plenty of flow for a 180g tank. That is like 30x turnover, not counting the 7x turnover provided by the sump return pump.

I plan on doing a 5-6" Southdown sand bed and about 180# of uncured Marshall Island rocks from premium aquatics. I'm thinking of curing the rock in the tank barebottom, then add the sand. Depending on how much space the rocks will take up, I might throw some of them into the otherwise empty fuge. It has a 250W MH over it. Once cured, the sand will go in and the rocks aquascaped.

I've never done anything like this before, so maybe my approach isn't the best, but I hope this will work out ok.

[Carl_in_Florida]

I have never cured that amount of rock before but you would not believe the amount of mess it will cause. I would definately cure it in a tub of some sort before putting it in the tank. Especially since you are going to pull it out to put in the dsb.
Maybe one of you big tank gurus can chime in.

Carl

[Adam]

pclausen,

Beautiful! and quite a bold leap!

Your sump/refugium (before connecting to the display) would make a great place to cure your rock. I would suggest throwing at least a couple of shop lights over it while it cures to preserve some of the photosynthetic life.

If there isn't alot of dead and dying stuff on the rock, you could cure it in the tank. In this case, I would lean toward adding the sand first so that the sand gets well seeded with life.

Another suggestion is to make pylings out of 3-4" diameter PVC and about 1" taller than your final sand depth (remember that southdown will settle about 25% in the first couple of weeks). You can then build your rock structure up from there. This makes the structure more stable, immune to tumbling from burrowing animals, allows better water movement, prevents detritus from being trapped at the interface of the sand and rock and exposes more sand surface area for critters and denitrification.

You may want to try mounting your ballast assembly vertically or upside down so that more convection can occur around/past the fins on the heat sink.

Also, a question.... where did you get the sexy bus bars that you used to wire your ballasts?

Adam

[pclausen]

I plan to talk to premium aquatics about the difference in dead/dying stuff on their cured vs. uncured Marshall rock. At a difference of $0.50 a pound, it might be worth it to spend another $90 and get the cured rock.

I really like your idea of rasing the rocks slightly above the sand surface. Would you recommend connecting the pylons somehow, or just leave each one free standing and balance the rocks on top of them? Using 3-4" diameter PVC piping will likely be quite stable by itself I would think. So the inside of these pylons would fill with water right? In other words, the pipes should not be capped.

Good idea on turning the ballast upside down. That might do the trick. One thing I still have to do is increase the heat transfer from the transformers to the head sink. Right now, only the ears on the transformers are in direct contact with the heatsink due to the heat sink having a central valley in it.

I had those bus bars laying around. I'm not sure where they came from originally, but I would think a place like Grainger would carry them.

[reefboy1]

Pclausen,

Awesome setup. You've really done your homework.

My advise is to cure the live rock out of the tank (even if you decide to buy the precured stuff) and in one of your stock tanks. This will make it easier to siphon out detritus and keep it out of the tank. I'm currently in the curing/cooking stage of about 500lbs of live rock and it's nice to be able to take out and examine all of the rock.

I'd also keep it in the dark for as long as possible to kill off any unwanted algae. I know that it'll also kill off some potentially cool critters, but in my opinion you'll most likely want all of the real estate in the tank for critters that you pick out.

What type of live stock to do plan to keep in there?

Art

[Gerard Alba]

Soo nice. 10/10

[Adam]

I really like your idea of rasing the rocks slightly above the sand surface. Would you recommend connecting the pylons somehow, or just leave each one free standing and balance the rocks on top of them? Using 3-4" diameter PVC piping will likely be quite stable by itself I would think. So the inside of these pylons would fill with water right? In other words, the pipes should not be capped.
Thanks! I have done this a couple of times, and won't ever use a DSB without these. If they are cut straight and square, they are plenty stable on their own, especially when surrounded by sand. Every time I have done this, I have always put the sand in first and plunged the pylons into the sand uncapped. The insides will collect some detritus, but my brittle stars are in and out of them frequently which leads me to believe they are cleaning up.

HTH

Adam

[pclausen]

One issue with not including the main tank in the curing process is that I converted my skimmer to gravity feed from the display. I suppose I could temporarily revert one of the needlewheel pumps to a feed pump instead of recirc, however.

I understand that Marshall rock is very porous, so I'm not sure if 180# will fit in my 100g stock tank/fuge. I have very little room in the sump itself because of the huge G6 skimmer, but I'm sure I would be able to fit some of the rocks in there.

How long would you recommend keeping the rock in the dark. A week or so? Then slowly increase the photo period to about 10 hours over the following week? I have a vertical 250W MH (like those you see hanging in large warehouses) that will go over the fuge.

Stupid question; Once the rock is cured and ready to be moved to the display, what will be the best way to transport it from the basement up to the display? Take each piece out, wrap it in plastic, carry it upstairs, unwrap and drop it into the display? Or, move 5 or 6 pieces at once in a wheel barrow with a single plastic sheet keeping all of them wrapped? Asked another way, how long can I have the rock out of water before stuff will begin dying?

I'm still working out what critters I want to keep. Since this is my first tank, I'll likely want to try a little bit of everything. So I'm thinking of doing a mixed reef. I'd like to trade a few frags now and then, and would also like to keep a few clams.

As for fish, I'm thinking:

a pair of false clowns (and a host anemone)
1 yellow tang
1 purple tang
1 hippo tang

Once the tank is established (say a year from now) I was thinking of also adding a Mandarin, but I understand they might like to snack on my shrimp?

I haven't really made any long term plans as far as what fish to keep other than wanting a couple of clowns and tangs. It also depends on if I'm going to be converting some of my fresh water tanks to sw (a likely scenario I think).

My guesstimate timeline is as follows:

Phase I
1. cure rock (2-5 weeks)
2. add sand and seed it (1-2 weeks)
3. add cleanup crew (1-2 weeks)

Phase II
1. add host anemone (week 1)
2. add clowns (week 2)
3. add tangs (1 at a time which will spend 4-6 weeks alone in a quarantine tank)

By this time I think I'll have a good idea about which hitchhiker corals are on the rocks and I'll then begin thinking about picking up additional corals to stick on the rocks. So that would basically become phase III.

I initially was going with a TBS package, but @ over $2000 for a 180g, and the real dense rock, I figured I could do it cheaper using Southdown and Marshall rock. The tank will take a lot longer to establish this way, but I'm not in a hurry.

[Photon]

You have PM.

[Johnsteph10]

I would wait on the anenome. They need stable environments that usually aren't achieved with new tanks until at least 6 months.

I'm glad you're planning on QT - too many ppl don't and wish they had.

Can you post a picture of the return manifold now that you have capped some of the returns?

IMHO, if you have to transport the rock like that after it is cured, it may be too much work to not cure it in the main tank.

I would cure the LR in the tank until the "cycle" is finished (0 ammonia, nitrites, low/no nitrates) and then put the sand in. This way you'll bury a few inches of your rock thus making it stable and not allow burrowing animals to disrupt it.

John

[TheCoralReef731]

any more pics??

[pclausen]

Here is a pic of the manifold after capping 6 outlets (total is now 10). Flow is much better, but I'm thinking of adding some restrictors on the loc-lines close to where the flow enters the manifold to even things out even more. However, the flow from the outlets opposite the pump is now excellent.



And here is a shot from the front with the canopy removed, lights raised and the CL pump running.

[pclausen]

At this point, I think my plan will be to create a PVC 'rack' for the rocks to rest on and cure them in the display before adding the sand. With 400g of water, the ability to do 44g daily water changes, and a skimmer rated at over 1000g, I think it will work out ok.

It is a major trek to get from the fishroom up to the main tank, so not dragging the rocks down to the basement in the first place will be a lot easier.

I took a couple more pics this morning. Here is a shot of the sink and RO/DI containers in the fishroom. I changed the plumbing around a bit to accommodate a utility sink. I feel it will be well worth the effort. Btw, the fishroom is octagonal shaped.



And here is the drain line being connected to the existing plumbing. Fortunately, the 2x4 wall isn't load bearing as there is a cinder block wall behind it. It was still a pain to drill all those 2 5/8" holes through all the 2x4's!



AquaController II has been permanently connected to a computer and AquaNotes has been installed and the control program tweaked to meet my needs. The web interface is up and running and can be accessed from the outside. I have tested that I get sent email notifications when an alarm condition occurs.



I'm concerned about humidity in the fishroom since all my home theater and network equipment is located in a closet in the fishroom and the fishroom is also hosting a pair of custom built subwoofers made out of 1" MDF. Fortunately the cabinets have been primed, so hopefully humidity won't affect them.

Here is a shot of the front of the racks and you can just make out part of the fishroom to the right.



I picked up a 180 cfm exhaust fan that I'll be installing in the fishroom to pull out moist air, but unfortunately I only have a 4" PVC vent through the cinder block wall to work with. I'm thinking of putting up a plastic sheet to act as a vapor barrier between the equipment closet/subs and the rest of the fishroom.

[Johnsteph10]

I would be VERY concerned having all of my electronics in the same room as my fishroom. The humidity will wreak havoc with all of that in a closed environment.

It looks like there was a door there behind the a/v racks. Instead of the vapor barrier, you could put the door back up and put some kind of weather stripping around it to help seal it tight. To keep air moving, cut a hole or holes in the door to mount the fans in blowing air OUT into the fishroom, not in, to draw heat off the electronics/circulation purposes.

Otherwise, looks great!

John