Addiction wins, 450 gallon system begins

[Hop]

What happened?
I have been into the aquaria hobby for over a decade dealing with mostly planted/freshwater tanks. The passion evolved into keeping higher-end/high light/Co2 injected planted tanks and eventually worked up to a 125 gallon tank that I built into a wall of our living room. While doing this I got hooked on salt water which always seemed outside my realm of skill. Then I found reef central and saw that there was no real veil of secrecy surrounding the hobby. Initially I was going to build a wet room directly behind our 125 and turn that into a full blown reef tank.


So to get a handle on the hobby I set up a 55 gallon tank in our bedroom. It set with salt water and sand for several weeks and I wound up with a single rock, a couple of hitch hiker snails and a peppermint shrimp.

Then a few weeks later, another rock and two more peppermint shrimps, I found that the wife and I were spending hours in front of this simple, basically empty tank. About a month after that I ordered about 40 lbs of rock from an online vendor and sat back and learned. The tank stayed this way, except the addition of a few crabs. I then added 6 black bar chromis and really became hooked on the hobby

The plan for the 125 had changed and I began planning a tank that was eight feet long in our home office/entertainment room. After a few financial hick-ups, it took several months, several design revisions and a ton of patience from my family, but the project is now, well underway. One of the subsequent goals of this project was to make the tank fairly quiet. We did not want to hear the buzzing of pumps and other noises that are distracting from the viewing of the tank. A little splashing water would be okay, but no mechanical sound. This meant moving all the equipment to a wet room, 21’ away in the garage.

I had been posting small updates in the large tank section of RC, but still being fairly new to this hobby, I have elected to let that thread die and post here as I hope that suggestions, problem spotting and general discussion will be more prevalent and help in making this tank a real healthy environment.

The Tank:
So initially I set up thinking that I would be doing a standard 240 gallon tank (8’X2’X2’). This idea became to evolve slowly and over time I planed a bigger tank, which went through several revisions to include 96�LX27�HX28�D, with dual overflows and all the plumbing hidden with possibly SCWDs assisting with the closed loop. After some suggestions and research we decided to go with a 96�X30�X30�, with ¾� acrylic, with a single, exterior overflow, and a single closed loop running with an OM 4-way. With the ¾� acrylic, this makes the internal, usable volume of water approximately 332 gallons. The tank is currently being built by James at Envision and is scheduled for delivery around mid to late August. The tank will be viewable from two sides, the front and the right side. The left side and back will be black with the left side supporting the single, exterior overflow. The left side also has the intake for the closed loop at the back, lower section, under the overflow box. The flow of the overflow will be approximately 1600 gph, but is capable for nearly 2000 gph. The closed loop will be a little over 2000 gph. All the returns will be plumbed through the top, with six 1� bulkheads being installed, two for the sump return and four for the closed loop returns.

[Hop]

Filtration:
Wet room: The wet room is located in a section of our garage that I recently framed in, insulated and sheet rocked. I am currently running experiments in this room in order to address heating and cooling issues as well as humidity. I am planning on exhausting the room outside, but I am not sure whether it will need actual cooling/heating as of yet. The room is 5’X10' and will house a sink, sump, refugium, RODI and salt water mixing/top off, all other filtration and a 55 gallon quarantine tank.


Sump:
For filtration I took an extra 55 gallon tank I had lying around and turned it into a sump with three compartments. One side was made fairly deep to hold heaters and equipment and line up with drain for the refugium. This side of the sump houses the drains from the display. This section also holds the bulkhead for the intake of the skimmer pump. There is then two other sections for water to flow through to help dissipate bubbles, before reaching the Sequence Barracuda. The Barracuda is then T’d sending water to the main display as well as the refugium. After building this I began looking at other alternatives and buying sumps from an on-line retailer. The problem was that if I was going to buy a sump, it would need to be over 80 gallons to justify purchasing one over using the one I built. The “extra� capacity of the home-built 55 is only about 16 gallons and in the event of a power failure, I need approximately 20-22 gallons available to avoid a flood. After looking at the price of sumps vs. shipping, I elected to keep my home-built sump and changed the original plumbing around a bit. It is now set up that in the event of a power failure, water will balance out in both the refugium and sump, giving me more than enough volume in case of power failure.


Skimmer:
After a ton of research I elected to go with a Beckett style skimmer and decided on a MRC MR-3. I like the design of this style skimmer and like that I can always upgrade if needed, by only buying additional parts. As mentioned before the intake for the Gen-X PCX-55 is on the intake side of the sump, the skimmed product in then emptied into the refugium for the simple fact that it will have a longer distance to travel before returning to the display, and allowing bubble to disperse.

[Hop]

Refugium:
I decided to go with a 100 gallon Rubbermaid container for its cost and ease of obtaining locally.





Lighting:
When planning this tank I decided that SPS was nice, but I did not want a system full of SPS. So we decided on a mixed reef, with the focus of the tank being on the fish and invertebrates. So for lighting I have planned 880 watts of VHO and three 175 watt metal halides. There are eight 4’ VHO bulbs. 6 are URI actinic and 2 are URI 50/50 actinic whites. The idea behind this is to assist in balancing out the color, since I will be running only 3 metal halides. The metal halide ballasts I had sitting around and only needed to buy new bulbs and reflectors. I picked up XM 10ks and spider reflectors. All this will be mounted in a custom light rack that I haven’t even started to design yet.


So this is where things sit today as I wait for next week to begin the plumbing of the wet room. Like I said before I am hoping that people will help to point out areas that I have missed or potential trouble spots. Thanks again to everyone who has helped to date, I appreciate it!

[Mercutio]

Awesome, can't wait to watch!

[Dudester]

Awesome.
I'm planning a similarly-sized tank that will also be viewable from the front and right sides, so I'm anxious to see how this progresses. I think the 4-way is a great idea, but have you considered the Tunze wavemaker? That might be a better idea, since you indicated that the pump for your CL would be 21' away. Why are you going with a single overflow instead of duals? I like the idea of duals for redundancy in the event of a problem.
Great start!

[Hop]

Dudester,

Sorry I guess I did not make that clear. Actually there will be another sequence that runs the closed loop right next to the tank. I am planning on making this area as sound tight as possible, or possibly putting it under the tank in the crawl space. I like the idea of the OM 4-way, so I didn't really look into other products. The goal is to see as little equipment in the tank as possible As far as the single overflow, I read nightmares of people with large tanks that had issues with dual overflows due to un-level stands and matching dursos etc. So I checked out a tank on RC here by furspere (I think) and liked what he did. Inside the overflow there will be 2 1 1/2" drains that I forgot to mention.

And thanks Mercutio!

[Hop]

I also forgot to post above the plans for the inside of the tank. I prefer a tank that does not have the "Applecart" look and really like channels and places to take your eyes. I found myself really drawn into weatherson's tank and decided to go a similar route. So I fired off an e-mail to Capt. Jer and he put together a little package of base rock for me. The basic idea is what you see here, but he added about 20-30 lbs of smaller rocks to throw in. I also plan on about 50-70 lbs of live rock to seed what you see here!

[Hop]

Arrrrgg.

Well I found out tonight that the twenty year old, unknown make, 55 gallon tank that I was going to use as a sump, had tempered front and back glass. I successfully drilled a 2 1/2" hole in the side and then moved to the front and after just a few seconds... POP... typical tempred glass shatter.

Oh well I guess some acrylic fabricator will be overly happy to see my order over the next few days
think happy thoughts....................

[elephen]

Good luck, it is a learning experience, but a fun one at that!

[Hop]

Originally posted by elephen
Good luck, it is a learning experience, but a fun one at that!

See I'm smiling!

Sump ordered.. Plus my White Cheek Tang and coral beauty in quarrentine showed signs of ich today, so I upped the garlic and will begin medicating

[WarEagleNR88]

Wow that's some great looking base rock! And that Planted FW looks very good.

Looking forward to watching this project develop.

[Hop]

thanks WarEagleNR88,

I appreaciate it. I'm hoping that the number of bumps in the road slows down a bit, but this has been a lot of fun up to this date!

The base rock is scheduled to be here today, over 400 lbs along with some other gadgets! I'll let you know if the rocks are as good as the pictures. I am sure they are, capt. Jer's got a great operation going!

[clavery]

Originally posted by elephen
Good luck, it is a learning experience, but a fun one at that!

Ahhh, but the learning can be expensive!!!!!!!!

Hop, I'm looking forward to tracking your progress. Wish I had the room for such a large tank. I'm totally jealous!!!

[alphaferret]

very nice start! keep posting pix- thx alphaferret

[floridareefs]

Hop,

Very nice. I think everything you got is going to be perfect for your overfolw, lighting for sps, lps, whatever for your new tank.. Good luck with it all

[Hop]

Thanks Jagsy I appreciate it!

I got all the glass cleaned up this morning. With no one else around to help and the fact I had no where big enough to throw away the shattered sump I used a bigger hammer to make the sump smaller Only cut myself twice getting it all thrown away!

I checked my notes today in regards to the fact I had been monitoring the temps in the garage and wet room with a digital set up. It's been getting near 100 here, so I figured this was a good way to test things. The garage temp has fluctuated between 64 and 87, but the wet room as remained 69.3 to 72.1. I'm hoping that with just some minor ventilation, this will be adequate to keep the tank consistent!

[29reef]

You might want to think about upgrading to 250's MH it would be easy if you dont have your ballast yet. 175's will have a hard time with a 30'' deep tank. And i think a 1/2 HP or 1/3 HP for keeping all animals happy.

[AcroSteve]

Originally posted by Hop

I see this sump is history, but I thought I might point out something that will save you trouble down the road.

It has been my experience that the distance between your baffles is much too small. They should be at least 3" apart to be effective.

Good Luck

[Hop]

Originally posted by 29reef
You might want to think about upgrading to 250's MH it would be easy if you dont have your ballast yet. 175's will have a hard time with a 30'' deep tank. And i think a 1/2 HP or 1/3 HP for keeping all animals happy.

29reef,

Thanks for the input. Regarding the lights... It's been discussed and it is definately in the plans for future implementaion. I've had the 175-watt ballasts for a few years. They were on a planted tank I had. When we budgeted out the tank we decided to go with the 175s plus the vho for right now. I figure that the tank will be set up for nearly a year before I really start adding corals and such. Plus the tank is not going to be SPS dominated.The way things are designed it will litterally mean swapping ballasts and bulbs when the time comes, a five minute job. Still being new my goal for the forst 6 months to a year is to learn to keep the tank stable, so no great excuse other than in the long run, I'm only out the cost of three bulbs.

I'm hoping that with a stable 71-71 degrees in the wetroom, sufficient ventilation in the hood and a constant house temp of 73 degrees that I won't need a chiller. We'll see. I plan on running a fresh water test for 1-2 weeks when things are up to verify everything.

Acrosteve,

Thanks for reading the thread, I've been criusing your progess for a while! Great tank btw. I wasn't real sure on sumps when I built that thing, so maybe in the long run it's best it shattered. The sump I ordered has the spread you were speaking of.

Thanks again!

[Lordhelmet]

Id always read that 1 inch was a good starting point for sump baffles.

Looks like this is going to be one nice setup, and I think your Fresh water planted looks awsome.

[WarEagleNR88]

Yes please go into further detail about the baffles, AcroSteve (if you don't mind).

What happens if I've got a 10G I want to make baffles in and I only have 20" to use? Three Baffles 3" apart doesn't leave much room for anything else.

Thanks.

[AcroSteve]

Originally posted by Lordhelmet
Id always read that 1 inch was a good starting point for sump baffles.

The amount of flow has a great deal to do with the effectiveness of the baffles. The bad thing is, once the sump is in place, it is not very practical to change the spacing if it does not work with the flow you have.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Personally, I am a little sorry that I did not research this before I built mine. Mine are about 2" apart and 16" tall. I still get many bubbles making the trip through them.

My gut feel is that baffles 1" apart and 16" wide will not handle much more than 1000 gph very well. With a small tank and pump, it should be fine.

The height is a factor as well. The taller the better.

[Hop]

Originally posted by WarEagleNR88
Yes please go into further detail about the baffles, AcroSteve (if you don't mind).

What happens if I've got a 10G I want to make baffles in and I only have 20" to use? Three Baffles 3" apart doesn't leave much room for anything else.

Thanks.

I'm still learning here but I think it has to do with GPH and turn over. In a 10 gallon sump, turning over less water, the bubble still have time to dicapate with the baffles closer together, however, when a sump is running 2000-3000+ GPH, the bubbles have no time to escape as the flow rips them through the baffles and obviously into the return inlet.

[Hop]

ooops, sorry acrosteve, we must have hit the submit button second apart

[secrest]

I cant wait for this. I think I may be more excited for this then my own tank!