700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance

[Reefski's]

i am posting a link to my tank build thread here for any that want to follow.

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic70....aspx?Update=1

it has one unique feature and that is a skylight over the tank that is the same footprint as the tank.

the following is the first part of the thread.

700 gallon tank build.

First and foremost I want to thank my wife of twenty four years, Pam, for allowing my obsession to become a reality.

I have had a reef aquarium for a few years, ever since I went to a koi club member’s home and saw the magnificent reef tank that his wife had. My wife and I missed most of the koi club meeting mesmerized by the 260 gallon SPS reef tank. My wife said we have to have one. I said NO WAY, ABSOLUTLY NOT! Too much work, impossible to keep salt water fish and corals, oh my gawd corals, blah, blah, blah. I was basing my opinion on forty year old info from my childhood when I kept fresh water tanks as a teen. I have seen many tanks since then and Tankgirls is still among the best I have seen. TOTM quality. She has become a wonderful friend and mentor.

Needless to say we soon found a 120 gallon tank for sale in the local recycler newspaper. It had LR, LS, PC lighting, a few fish, and a couple soft corals. After a while we moved up to a 260 gallon tank that we still have today. It has halides, and lots of well established live rock full of life, worms, fan worms, sponges, tunicates, etc, DSB, and LPS, SPS and soft corals, a mature RBTA, and a few fish.

I now have several tanks for various corals, display tank, frag tank, soft coral tank, 400 gallon barrel outside in the sun with several hundred pounds of live rock waiting for the new tank to be set up.

I have some other folks I want to thank for all their expertise and knowledge they have shared through their writings on the forums and books they have written without which I would not have had the courage to attempt a new tank.

Tankgirl for her amazing tank that inspired us to get our first tank.

I highly recommend all the following authors for their work. Anyone setting up a tank or wanting to learn would do well to have read these books.

I have read and reread all of them several times over.

Invaluable sources of information I have learned much from-

Eric Borneman “Reef Corals” thank you for answering my questions on your forum.

Ron Shimek “Marine Invertebrates” and for answering my forum questions.

Scott Michael “Reef Fishes” series.

Julian Sprung and Charles J Delbeek for their series “The Reef Aquarium” vols I, II, and III, especially Vol III which is the most complete book I have seen on the science and art of setting up a reef tank. Charles Delbeek is the head of the Waikiki Aquarium. There they have a 5,000 gallon reef tank. Simply awe inspiring. It has a large skylight over the tank providing natural light supplemented with several 1,000 watt halides and a 10hp chiller outside the building.


This tank has two giant Tridacna clams that are about 25 years in captivity, the oldest clams in the world in captivity. They are HUGE.

Mr. Delbeek, thank you for the behind the scenes tour to see the tank from above and the giant surge devices and other equipment for the most magnificent tank.

Thank you to all the reefcentral.com TOTM’s tanks. I have read all your threads and drooled over the pictures in awe. Also thank you to all the others on the forums who have willingly shared their ideas and expertise freely.

Finally, thank you Anthony Calfo for being a sounding board for everything reef on the forums. No question to stupid to be answered respectfully.

Anthony Calfo-“Reef Invertebrates” when I bought this book I thought it was about corals, after all they are invertebrates, I was disappointed, and then I started to read it. Wow, a cornucopia of info on all the other stuff in our tanks. I have read it so many times the pages are falling out. Not disappointed any more.

“Coral Propagation” volume I- can’t wait for volume II with more pictures.

“The Conscientious Marine Aquarist” cowritten with Bob Fenner who is also a very entertaining speaker. This was my first book i got along with the first tank.

“C…The Journal”-very entertaining and educational magazine.

The system-
The tank is 96”X48”X36” Approximately 700 gallons.
Acrylic-built by SoCalCreations.com
It is viewable on three sides. The two long and one short side. It will be in the living room and entryway hall.
There is and external 3’ overflow on one end that will be in the closet adjacent to the tank and also there is an island overflow in the middle of the tank. Five 2” overflows total.

Two closed loops all with OceansMotions.com 4 ways with each powered by a Sequence Hammerhead, 5800 GPH. Closed loops have all openings through the bottom of the tank with 1.5” bulkheads.

Return pumps from sump in garage under tank. One Sequence Dart, 3,600 gph, and another Sequence Hammerhead, each on separate 20 amp circuit for redundancy. Returns are to be Calfo style closed loops around the top of the tank so as to give equal flow over the whole top of the tank.

Lighting-I have a 4X8 foot skylight over the tank. I have lined the skylight with highly polished aluminum 4x8 sheets from http://anomet.com/cgi-bin/online/storepro.php. this particular sheet is 87% reflective. They have other sheets that are more reflective for visible light BUT reflect very low in the UV portion of the spectrum.

The skylight itself is single glazed acrylic opening type. Said to transmit 94% light and 44% UV.

I have an Apogee light meter and will be monitoring the light coming into the tank for many months before adding and fish or corals. Then I can decide what supplemental lighting I may need.

To accommodate the tank in the house we had to do a bit of reinforcing. After all, the tank fully loaded will weight somewhere around 8,000 pounds.

The tank is going to be primarily Stony Corals with fairly high light requirements and some LPS, and one large RBTA that is my wifes favorite. And of course fish. I hope to keep out the soft corals, we love them too but due to many of their fast growth rates and chemical warfare we will try to limit them.

I also plan to run carbon and ozone 24/7.

I still can’t decide what to do about a skimmer. I have read Anthony’s discussions about skimming and on the other hand I have read Eric’s writings about the skimmerless tanks with no water changes.

I have a small skimmer, the Aqua C EV-400 that I think I will run so I can add ozone, a 200 mg per hour Red Sea unit. So not quite skimmerless.

I have access to Free NSW at UCSB that I will be taking advantage of. I have a 1,200 gallon cistern in the front yard to hold the NSW.


i can only set up the tank now. i must wait until the rest of the house is finished to take over the garage for the sump and the rest of the equipment.

i will get the live rock in soon and the 6" sugar fine DSB seeded from my existing tanks. this will just run on the closed loops for months, 6-8 months while the house is finished.

this way the infauna in the sand be will have a chance to really mature and the LR will prosper. no additional light other than from the skylight.

i have the stand and we hope to start plumbing next week.

PLEASE DON'T POST ASKING FOR UPDATES. there won't be much activity for many months after the initial rush of set up. i will take periodic light readings and post on the thread along with periodic

pictures are on the other site.

Carl

[t-bone2]

kool cant wait to see more congrats

[EBOLII]

daughters inheritance? That's not nice...don't forget to name the new tank in honor eh?
700gal eh? sweet!

[Reefski's]

what do you mean not nice, i do only have the one child and she will get EVERYTHING one day. so it is still her inheritance. and as a matter of fact she just graduated from UCSC and she is coming back to live with us for a while and we are delighted. so at least for a while she won't be far from her inheritance.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Glad to see you've got things started.

You've seen my setup so you know that I too like the NSL. One thing I've found though is that you will want some suplimental lighting for several reasons.

One is for the early morning/late night viewing. It's nice to have the tank lit after the sun has set so that you can still enjoy it. During the summer it's not bad but during the short days of winter, it makes it nice.

Two is to add some blue light so that you can see the colors of the corals better.

I'm running 2 X 400W DE 14K hamiltions on the light mover. It adds in light during non sunlight times and it adds just enough blue so that the colors in the corals will stand out. Some of the SPS corals just don't show their colors under just NSL.

Not for sure how you can incorporiate the lights, other than maybe as a perimiter lighting. But you have a little time to work on it.

Carbon can be run in the sump or in a couple of canister filters like I do. AS you said, ozone injected into the skimmer works fine. I've never had a problem running it like that. Now I've just got to get some new units to run it again on the skimmer. Stay away from the UV bulb ozone generators. I've used them and just don't like them. They don't seem to do as good of a job at making ozone.

Good luck and I'll be waiting for pic's as they come in.

[Reefski's]

check out my thread on the other site. it has the pictures.

i will definitely have supplemental lighting, just not sure how much i will need. i have my Apogee light meter to take readings with over the next few months.

i like the color of the 14K's also. i hope i can get away with three 400 watt DE 14k's.

yes, especially additional lights for evening viewing. i have 6 10 watt LED moonlights that i will be running on the tank as well. they are surprisingly bright.

Carl

[EBOLII]

carloskoi I wasn't being mean I think it is a great Idea.

[RobTheReefer]

Any updates?


















Sorry, you left me no choice.

[tanya72806]

love to see some pics

[miwoodar]

Very nice...can't wait to see how it looks when everything is up and running.

[ChrisB]

Any updates?

[Reefski's]

other aspects of the construction have taken precedence over the tank set up. i am finally ready and able to start the plumbing. at least the closed loop so i can get some water in the tank.

that should be done this week. and then freshwater testing. it will only be the closed loop running in the tank with the LR and dead sand turning live for a few months until the rest of the house is completed and i can build the sump under the tank.

Anthony Calfo suggests a year for all the infauna to establish good populations. does the 6 months on the patio contribute to that? if so it may be a year.

i do want to let the sand establish with no fish or corals in the tank for a few months. i had hoped this would have begun months ago.

some of the inspiration. Waikiki


Atlantis Marine World Long Island



before


getting ready.


new tank supports

[Reefski's]

skylight shaft with reflective material.




PAR values yesterday were about 300 at the top of the tank midmorning, sunny day.




this is out on the patio with a 1000 watt heater. nights have been in the high 40's and water is still mid 70's.

i have an Aptasia problem on this rock that i will have to address before going in the new tank. i hope to exclude any Aptasia from entering the new system. the rock has lots of other life on it so i don't want to kill it all. i will take each piece out and examine it, try to kill the Aptasia and put it into another holding tank where i can keep and eye on it for any resurgence of Aptasia prior to entering the new tank.


Carl

[Elliott]

very inspiring, looking forward to seeing it all come together, thanks for sharing

[Jar*Head]

OMG, that is my dream... I wish i could do that with my new home in Colorado without my wife kill me . Looking forward for more picture.... I have the same dimension tank, just a little shorter 24" height...

[OnlyCrimson]

Oh wow, that really is amazing. I wish i had sunlight like that.

[jnarowe]

Hmmm...300 PAR isn't that much, but I guess it will help. Any idea how much heat the sky tube will generate?

[erics3000]

I remeber this thread from the other guys. Cool You are posting here.

[Reefski's]

the 300 PAR is on just about the shortest day of the year, and not mid day.

it was a sunny day though. it can only get better from here. i also think that 300 is not that low. many tanks have PAR values about that level. i think it will be higher much of the time.

in an article on advancedaquarist.com there is a study of par values and they were not too far different than what i have here. i kind of remember Eric Borneman saying that PAR values a few feet down on the reef were 500-600 if i remember right.

As Delbeek and Sprung say in "the Reef Aquarium" vol III the levels of 2000 Par at the reef crest are only achieved for a few hours per day on the sunny days. we don't have to achieve these values in out tanks. rather a longer although lower constant value is ok.

the tropics are tropical because it rains a lot there. that means that there are many cloudy days where the PAR values are considerably lower. i have cloudy days here too of course but LA was a desert more or less before people came.

i do plan on some supplemental lighting but want to see how it is over the next few months without it as the rock which is mature old rock and new sandbed is maturing without corals in the tank.

i have no idea about the heat inside the shaft but the skylight opens and will likely be open much of the time here. i may even take it off and just have the shaft open like in the photo. i'll see how the PAR values look over time as the days get longer.

i have easy access to the skylight from the roof deck.

the plumbing for the Closed Loop is just about done and can be tested with fresh water.

Carl

[jnarowe]

Very cool Carl. I use 1000W lamps on my reef but have yet to measure PAR. You are a brave soul having an open unfiltered air in Venice Beach. I suppose that is better than inland though. I just remember there always being some sort of greasy soot on my windowsills when I lived in Beverly Hills, but I was in the flats near a higher traffic area.

My cousin has a cool place down there as well. Donn Hoffman...built a radical cement & steel house in a rough area that I am sure has completely changed in the last few years. Is Great Western Steak & Hoagie still running? Man I used to LOVE those!!

[Elliott]

I'm considering a skylight or tubes on my next tank, we have a lot of sunshine here in Arizona. I'm from Long Beach, CA originally and remember the morning fog that burns off around 10-noon everyday.

You might try setting up a par meter that turns on auxiliary lighting to keep par values at a minimum setting. There is a Veterinarian in Texas (Herpervet) who has a skylight similar to yours and has experienced burning of corals when the sun is most intense during the summer months. He says that during the winter when the sun intensity drops he uses supplemental lighting but the sudden high intensity when summer hits causes burning of some of his corals. Maybe keeping the par higher during the winter can prevent that from happening, just a thought. There is also a company in Tucson that makes a mirror tracking device that follows the sun throughout the day to greatly increase light, I believe Herpervet uses this device.

[jnarowe]

I suppose you could trigger a shade when the PAR gets too high as well right?

[Reefski's]

no greasy soot here. i am not on a busy street, about three miles from the beach. so no really hot days and no really cold nights. it is 47 outside right now just before sunrise, but that is about as cold as it gets most of the time.

"Is Great Western Steak & Hoagie still running? Man I used to LOVE those!!"

i think so.

[jonathanws]

would it kill you to give us some updates already????




















joooooke. awesome tank, i can't wait to follow it's progress

[swimfree]

You are living our dream! I would love to see some full tank shots!