Building Big Bertha: 800G

[erics3000]

So what are you saying. Like a 150 fuge for a 300 display with a 75 sump. I have a tall 150 for my fo tank that I could use instead of a 55. I really do want to have plenty of fish in the 300 display. The 150 wouldn't be gravity feed but it would be big. I have the tanks already except for display. Still deciding glass or acrylic? It would be tough to squeeze that 150 in the same area but if its worth it,,


Sorry if I am Hijacking your thread Ben..

[bbrantley]

Originally posted by erics3000
Sorry if I am Hijacking your thread Ben..

No worries; post on!

[jnarowe]

yeah, I would guess that the 150 would be OK. The question would be if it is too tall to grow enough macro, rather than a shorter tank with more surface area.

[cbui2]

17"H is what i used. ok Ben any new updates

[bbrantley]

Originally posted by cbui2
17"H is what i used. ok Ben any new updates

As I type this, the water level is about to crest the overflow. I have to produce another ~125-140g to have enough water to engage the skimmer and circulation pumps, so I hope to power the thing on and start sucking out the gunk probably Saturday morning! Right now it is a ghastly green-brown with a haze in the water; the rocks are really leeching a lot of gunk. I should have washed them better before I put them in, but I think the filtration and some big water changes in the coming weeks will do just fine.

Pics when something fun happens!

Ben

[Crackerballer]

Hurrry...HURRY.... Getting anxious!

[ruby1sam]

this is awesome and trust me I'm taking notes.

[bbrantley]

Howdy all,

Welp, the tank is "running!" I added a bunch of buckets of salt last night and raised SG to 1.020; I'll fine tune it over the next few days to get it dialed in just right. The big skimmer started skimming before I'd added any salt, which was good news: the poorly-rinsed base rock was shedding dead stuff into the RO water over the past week and generating a pretty rank, rotting smell. Fascinatingly, the smell was gone within a couple hours of the skimmer booting up.

Today the skimmer is mostly dialed in for what amounts to very little bioload, producing a dark tea-color, wet skimmate at a rate of about 0.25gal/hr. Everything else seems to be humming along nicely, the water has gone from a ghastly brown-green to something more approximating clear. It still has a brown tint to it, so I thought I'd try some fresh carbon tonight in hopes that it will clear it up a little. I've been debating an ozonizer anyway; it would have been nice to have that available to fire up tonight!

I've put the Aquatronica to overkill duty: simply monitoring tank temp and plotting a graph over time. Interestingly, I've got one 250W heater on, set to 80F, that basically did absolutely nothing to heat the tank last night. I think the rate of evaporation is so high that 250W can't even compensate for it. Today the room got a lot warmer (with all the halides on) and tank temp steadily rose throughout the day, starting from about 70 and peaking at about 76 as I write this this evening. I fully expect to see that graph concave-down by morning, though. I will bust out another kW of heating capacity soon and we will get it to the right point.

Otherwise things seem surprisingly good. Soundproofing is working great; you can't hear a thing from the main room. I have some rocks to stabilize and secure (I didn't peg the top ones in each stack, and they're so much more buoyant in the SW!) and some extraneous work on the windows is delaying the completion of the install of my auxiliary tanks. I'm going to be out of town all of this coming week, but I will try to post the pictures that go with this narrative tomorrow.

See ya,

Ben

[jnarowe]

great news!

["Umm, fish?"]

Congratulations!

[cbui2]

i'm right behind you Ben. galde to hear everyhting is working fine also what heaters did you go with since i am still debating which one use to cook.

[bbrantley]

Originally posted by cbui2
i'm right behind you Ben. galde to hear everyhting is working fine also what heaters did you go with since i am still debating which one use to cook.

Thanks, Bart. I'm just using the cheap glass Ebo-Jagers for now. I have a handful of the titanium ones that, in one way or another, each have failed or done something weird. I know the glass ones fail, too, but at least they are cheaper.

I plan to put a bank of three or four of 'em in the sump, assuming 1kW is enough heat to do it.

This morning, I noticed an interesting thing: either we had significantly lower humidity two nights ago or something else changed, because the tank lost a lot less heat overnight. I think it may reach the (arbitrarily targeted) 80F this afternoon based on the fact that it only lost 2 degrees (down to 74) last night.

Ben

[erics3000]

Thats great new Ben. Can we get some pics???

[davefan13]

yes, indeed. Pics would be awesome. great job so far!

[bbrantley]

Wow, talk about delinquency... I've had these pics for a week
now, but I didn't find a free moment to post them until tonight.

I finished putting water in the tank and got the overflow, skimmer,
and pumps up and running a week ago. The skimmer immediately started
producing skimmate, even with no salt and set to the minimum head
height. This didn't surprise me one bit, because the skimmer is very
efficient and the tank was starting to smell like dying live rock!
(Note that there's no live rock in there yet, so it must just be old
crud in the base rock rotting out.)



Needless to say, the tank started out pretty murky. I'm not sure that
green is very accurate... but it was definitely not a crisp, blue
tank on the first few days. Here's a shot with half the halides
on... pretty eerie, huh?



Close-up... almost feels like diving in SoCal!



Bonzo wonders what's going on:



After a few days, the gross color tinge was mostly skimmed out. There
remains some brown in the water that I think time, carbon, and more
skimming will clear out. Without observing closely, though, it's just
a bit cloudy from micro-bubbles:



Here's a reasonably color-balanced shot. The hole in the sand in the
front right corner is because that return plumbing in the top right
corner didn't exist the first time I powered up the return... and the
2000gph went WOOOSH and moved the sand around right quickly. I
added a right angle in white for now; I'll re-plumb it with something
darker and less obtrusive at a later time.



Now I'm doing battle with the Aquatronica controller, my circuits and
circuit breakers, and various stands for the supplementary tanks. I'm
a little concerned about space in the fish room now that I have had to
work in some pretty tight confines between the skimmer and sump for
extended periods of time. I don't know how people do it with
everything underneath a tank... I have a TON more room and it still
feels really awkward and frustrating.

I'll be bolting my plastic cheap-o tank stands to the wall tonight and
preparing them to hold the refugium. I'm also going to smooth the
sand back out, position the Tunzes (now four 6200's, up from two!) at
new angles, and leave the thing running overnight to see if it stirs
up the sand.

Otherwise, I think I'm basically ready for live rock. I am hoping to
place an order tomorrow or Tuesday for delivery later in the week, but
I'm going to be patient and make sure I'm not tripping any more
circuit breakers before I start putting live stuff in there.

That's all for now!

[davefan13]

That is awesome! I have been itching to get some more pictures! Can't wait to see live rock in there. After that you will really start to see all of the critters.

Good Luck!

[smcskim]

Looks great!

[Bax]

Glad to see Bertha holding water & rock, congrats!

[jnarowe]

Close-up... almost feels like diving in SoCal!

No kidding! All you need is a shark resting on the bottom and you'll be set. The rock looks cool. I like it a lot.

[cbui2]

looks great Ben, i will be bringing all the scuba gear since you're supplying the ocean.

[46bfinGA]

I love the second to last pic.Looks awesome with the can lights and the hardwoods.Very nice!

[miwoodar]

I am sooooooo jealous. My wife still believes my 65 is 'large'!

[bbrantley]

Hey folks,

I'm proud to introduce my cheap-o tank stand solution:



Here's what I like about it:

* cheap,
* no wood or metal anywhere in it,
* spaced off the floor with little legs so water spills can flow by/through,
* required minimal effort.

I had to use some spacers and hooks in my wall to give it the support it needs to prevent racking and shearing, but that was easy:



(By the way, one of the best things about SIP walls is that you can just drill stuff right into 'em. No need for anchors, lag bolts, or any of that mumbo-jumbo!)

And 100lb of live rock from Reefer Madness came this morning, only 16 hours after I placed the order yesterday. Here's dog 1 giving his stamp of approval...



...and mermaid aiding with the deployment:



Everything seems reasonably stable -- cross your fingers -- and I'm just kind of hanging out waiting on Aquatronica to help me debug my messed up power strip. I also have to plumb in the tank that goes on that stand (it's in place, holding water, and ready to roll) and organize the rat's nest of wires that are running all over the room right now.

All in all, pretty okay, I think.

Ben

[davefan13]

that is awesome. keep up the good work. i would love to see a full tank shot, too!

[EBOLII]

Reefer Madness? Is this a LFS?