introducing my 870gal tank (pics ahead)

[Travis Savant]

WOW

BEAUTIFUL tank Ralf!

[trueblackpercula]

The best looking tank I have ever seen...........................wow

[king4345]

WOW, my system is so pathetic....

[dvanacker]

RALF....YOUR CRAZY.

BUT IN A GOOD WAY ..

[rick17]

what can i say to bring it justice HOLY**** BATMAN WHAT A TANK

[marcusbigdady]

Very nice reef!!! But the behind the scene pic's are out of this world.A great insperation for all that are planning and setting up a large in wall reef. very nice reef...WOW

[Genin]

simply amazing tank RalfP! that is definately a totm if I ever saw one. very clean.

[finding nemo]

There are no words to describe this beauty. Just when I think I have seen the prettiest tank along comes another to replace my desktop picture.
That tank is magnificent.
And the fish, well, I think I need another 125 just for the P. dispars .
Gorgeous fish

[RalfP]

Your replies made me even love it more and gave me new drive to go on with further developing the system.
I tend to see only the smaller things that does not look so good after a while.
Things like... "there is a small spot of cyanos", "that coral is mainly growing in the wrong direction", "the coral over there is trying to kill the other next to it", "that coral over there is developing so fine and getting so coloured, but its behind the reef-pylon, so i only see 1" of the 15" in total", "that damn goby digs the sand only to one side and piles it up at the frontglas" etc.
So my advice to mainly myself and maybe some of you is to more often sit back and watch and enjoy the system.
If u may understand this or not, i thank you for giving me that view back... i did sitting back and enjoying it a lot the last days.

But what i write this post for was:
finding nemo,
I detected the word desktop picture ;-)...
As i take the pics with 3504x2336 pix i would be glad to support who ever with the desired picsize for a wallpaper. Just gimme the size you'd like.

Ralf

[dgasmd]

Very nice and detailed set up. Obviously built by someone that has done this before. Did you do it all yourself or did you simply paid someone to do it for you?? Either way it is an outstanding looking set up, but I am just wondering since lots of the things I see in your set up I have seen in others made by Klaus and his company. No offense intended, just curious.

[RalfP]

Hey dgasmd,

long answer ahead, short at end of post ;-)

well, i indirectly bought the skimmer and the red dragon pumps from Klaus's company.
The german reef-scene is not that big (Germany is not that big also ;-).
Michael, who was a big help, knows Klaus well (they write in the same German forum
and talk about their projects there).

I've had advice and active help from Michael, a friend of mine, who runs "Mrutzeks Meeresaquaristik" a well known LFS and Onlineshop in the German scene.
I of course paid him for his great work and bought most of the equipment from him.
He placed the pipes, i glued part of them, he connected ext. pumps and returnpump.
We together did 80% of the LR-work you can see in the actual reef initialy.
Of course, running a company he's had experience and it wouldn't have been as good
if I would have done it on my own.
And of course, if you receive 700 pound precycled LR, its not precycled anymore, if you have drilled, sorted and placed it in the tank all on your own... (It took about 10-12 hours with us 2).

Claude Schumacher you might know from his company Faunamarin, also a well known person in the German reef-scene, also gave me advice and did some of the planning regarding the tank itself.

The tank itself was glued in its current position by Ralf Geis, the guy who usually does that for Claude.

I paid a company to cut the hole in the wall and bring the steel joints in it to absorb the
rest of the house, they helped also sanyfie the rest of the house during this period.

It was another company which built the high-grade stainless steel stand and lighthood because i don't know how to work with that material, and another company which glued the multiplex birch above the stand.

I paid a carpenter for doing the cladding around the tank.

The split-level aircon was installed by the aircon company.

An electrician installed the fuses, powerlines. If u do that on your own, in Germany, no insurance will pay if your house burns down.

Well, the equipment was installed by myself, including room in the cellar etc.
20% of the pipes were installed, 60% glued by myself
LR see above
I did all connected to the livings in this tank
My previous tanks i did completely on my own, including glueing the glas.

So lets call this something like teamwork? co-operation?

Sorry for getting this long with my answer,
but i thought i'd have to give credits to the ones who gave me advice and did work for me.

The short answer would be:

Doing all with my previous tanks (up to 90 gal) totaly on my own (including glueing the glas),
I decided this time to get advice and active help.
I feared that building a 870 gal totaly on my own could be too much for a single person and also running it later, if its not thorough thought-out, would be way too much work.
I needed advice.

Additional I wanted a high class tank with things done in the best way possible.
In the past I had to learn, that I am not the best possible choice for each and every job to be done.
There are pros around ;-)

Hope that answers your question, and of course no problems on asking :-).

best,
Ralf

[dgasmd]

Ralf:

Thanks for the answer. Just curious really. Seems like reefers are not what they used to be. Many guys coming up with long threads filled with pictures of nice looking tanks set up overnight by someone else they paid a ridiculous sum of money. It used to be that you do your own, but I guess having a thread filled with pictures is more important.

Like you, I also have a larger tank and did lots of it myself. Like you, I also learned a long time ago that some things are better left to pros if you want the entire thing to do well and so I did. Nobody knows best about everything is the bottom line. You certainly have a very clean and nice set up there. Certaily built to last a lifetime.

[mikekman]

WOW! Very nice tank!

Like the aquascaping

Post more pictures.

[finding nemo]

HI Ralph, you are so right on may of your coments.
I to just sit back and let things grow where they like. I have BTA's in the back of the tank and front and I don't care, they are happy where they are.
I have xenia growing in funny places, on caulerpa blades and between rocks. If they are happy that is fine with me.
I don't move anything around, don't adjust things to better suit me.
I set up my tanks then let them develope as they would in the ocean.
If something gets overtaken and cant move then that is the way if will be.
As in nature, all will find their nitch.
I don't do fuges nor sumps, I run my tanks as nature does, clean up crew and the right size fish and right quantity of them in each tank.
They maintain themselves other then I do run skimmers on the 2 big tanks and a hang on filter with floss to catch the big junk like fish poop, but most of that is eaten by something or another.
So I completely understand what you are talking about.
I set up my tanks myself, my husband is'nt into fish but he does help me with the buckets of water or moving the tanks to there place in the house. Otherwise I do it all.
People fiddle with their tanks way to much, hands in the tanks daily introducing who knows what and always scrubbing a rock because it has some sort of strange growth on it.
I love new growth (unless it's hair algae) otherwise I leave it to its own devices.
I have sponges that are purple, yellow, white and green and have know idea where they came from as I have had this rock for over 6 years now and it is just now popping up.
I would love to use the picture of your Anthias and full tank for my desktop if that is ok? I can shrink them down to fit.
Thank you for the permission to do so.
You can see my tanks under my little red house.
And again. The best tank I have seen on RC.
And one of the most loved I can see.

[matt & pam]

I may have missed this, but how are you handling humidity from the tank?

Beautiful setup, by the way.

Matt

[RalfP]

Hi all,

dgasmd,
i have way too much fun with figuring out things, testing new equipment and ideas etc.
no way to keep me off this, thats what reefing should be IMHO. I am doing it for about 14 years this way and will certanly not change it :-).
Originally I simply wanted to say: hi all, great that there is a forum where you can talk about larger tanks without beeing off topic immediately....thats me and my tank. Thats it.
I am supprised by the reaction I produced, and of course a little proud that people want to see pics of my tank, so of course i keep/kept on posting.
But back to your posting, I think I know, what you mean. I once participated on a thread in a german forum, were someone showed a beautiful reef and stated, that he did it all but does not do any Calcium additions, but his SPSs growing rapidly. No Ceramics, Argonites, additions or whatever.
It took us weeks of discussion, finally one visited him and found out, that the Calcium
came from the LFS guy that was showing up once a week doin' maintenance. :-(.
Btw. i've had a look at the gallery and your great reef there. Whow!
As i do "Balling" method for Ca support and the biggest reactor I've ever had was one from Shuran with my previous 90 gal, i am also deeply impressed by your reactor.

finding nemo,
thats what your name is from. I've had a look at your superb site, clearly to be seen, that you love your roses. It happend to be, that i had to rescue a bleached green BTA from a dying tank of someone i got to know in a forum. Its recovering quite good and eating again, but is living a lonely life in the algae partition of my sump :-(. I plan to change that in the future and give it some company in a small tank. I will certanly come back to your site to get advice, 'cause i never kept anemones before.
I uploaded the hopefully right pics to my gallery software at http://cashh.de/wp-gallery2.php?g2_itemId=1661 the "Download" links on the individual pages should lead to the highres file.

Matt,
that kept me busy...
Its a relatively good isolated room, the tank is in, also quite small.
If its warm enough in and outside there is an split-level aircondition (Toshiba) in that room which also does dehumidify the air. Last winter i discovered, that its simply turning itself off when below 0 degree Centigrade (freezing) outside.
After drilling two 5" holes in the outer wall, I installed a Stiebel Eltron DL13 cross flow heat exchanging fan there.
Additional there's a fan in the wall between the fishroom and the winter garden which reduces airpressure in the tankroom, keeping damp air from getting into the livingroom, and supporting my orchids in the wintergarden with damp air.
Its working sufficient for the moment.

Ralf

[dgasmd]

I apologize for derailing the thread momentarily. I am glad that you made more specific comments about the build up though. Love the clean set up. Very nice indeed. If I may ask ome more question about your lighting. I see you use a lot of T-5 in addition to the metal halides. Did you play with different configurations and to get to what you currently have, or is this the arrangement from the begining? i like the idea of lower electrical use T-5 for supplementation, but not for the main source of lights. They tend to become cost inefficient when you add tons of them as their replacement costs add up too.

[jumboshrimp18]

Fantastic tank. A great accomplishment.
I am interested in your dosing. How many Grotech dosing pumps are you using? What are the additives--the actual brand names--that you are using? How long is the shelf life, which means how long are these additives good for?
You mentioned Iwan's tank. Are you using or have you tried the Prodibio proucts?
You also mentioned you are using Rowa--is that in a seperate reactor and how much and how often do you change it?
Thanks for sharing.

[littlevietnam]

BEAUTIFUL...I am speechless.

[RalfP]

Thanks for your compliments!

dgasmd,
if one presents a tank here, it should be allowed to ask who did it, thats strictly on topic :-).
Regarding the T5 setup, it is the initial setup of lamps, only the bulbs have been changed inbetween.
In Germany more and more people tend to use T5 only (having no beautiful light reflections from the MH anymore :-( ).
Iwans beautiful tank (shown in this forum) proves, that its more than just possible to keep coloured SPS under them.
The engergy efficiency of T5 (i.e. lumen(lightamount)/watt) is a lot better than that of MH but the lamps take also a lot more room above the tank.
4*24watt = 96 watt T5 Lumimaster is about the same lampsize than Giesemann 1*400 watt MH.
Having a tank with higher waterlevel, than those normally run with T5-only I think that it's not enough light/surface area to get enough down to the bottom (for an SPS-tank).
You're right with high replacement-costs of T5-bulbs. I took a lot of the 24 watt bulbs, because the chosen combination fits perfectly above the tank.
Thats one of the decisions i have to pay for :-(... same wattage in bigger bulbs would be a lot cheaper as using the small ones.
The T5 lamps, with each 4 bulbs can be switched 2 at a time independently, so i use
2 blue and 2 15.000K coldwhite in each lamp. Lights switched in 5 groups: 1/2 blue, 2/2 blue, 1/2 white, 2/2 white, MHs with 12.500 K... turned off in reverse order.


jumboshrimp18,
I use the grotech base unit with 3, and 2 of the expansion units with 4 channels each.
Thats 11 channels in total.
There is a thread in the SPS-keeper group about the method i use, where i tried to explain my understanding and my flavour of the "Balling" method used for makro-element support.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=861980
Getting chemical, i have to use so many channels, because some of the chemicals i.e. NaHCO3 (Soda) has a max solubility of about 82 gramms/liter and grotech only supports up to 2 liters dosage a day/channel. (As the tank needs more of that, I use 2 channels for that) etc..
There is no certain brandname of chemical pure Soda, pure CaCl2*2H2O, pure MgCl2*6H20.
LFS here sell them for about $2 a pound. At a chemicals trader they'll be even cheaper when bying in larger amounts. (Think about what a gal. of hardness ++ bottles to buy would cost you... many of them are nothing else than pure! Soda in water).
They'll be good for years, as they are pure chemicals. CaCl2*2H2O and MgCl2*6H2O are very hydroscopic, to be stored in a way that no air-humidity can reach them.
The other additives I use are a solution of Strontium-/Barium salts, which Michael at http://www.meeresaquaristik.de (LFS) mixes up. PVP-Iodine (a complex) which is in Betaisodona solution (used to disinfect your wounds while bathing in water with Betaisodona, or treating Acropora that have worms which eats them up).
QFI Traceelements.
Well, probidio, having seen Iwan's tank, I have to confess that I am currently playing around with them (for about 1-2 month) but haven't seen any improvement yet.
As I am adding LR from time to time to keep the biodiversity up, I maybe have no bacteria issue, that needs to be corrected. (I have never found PO4 nor NO3 in the water).

I have that Rowa flowbed filter in a bypass of my returnpump, its empty in the moment.
I used it in the beginning to catch PO4 from the newly put in LR with a kilo (2 pound) of Rowaphos Phosphateabsorber and once every 3-4 month with about a pound of active carbon from grotech (known for low on PO4).

best,
Ralf

[Sanjay]

RalfP:

Beautiful tank !!!

Do you have any pics of the rockwork, before the corals were added. ?

sanjay.

[moonpod]

Ralf, AWESOME setup. I need to consult you to clean up my mess under my stand. What I like is how clean everything looks. How often do you clean your Red Dragon pumps?

[RalfP]

Thanks again :-),

moonpod,
didn't took the pictures prior to cleanup and the camera, as usual, doesn't show all ;-)).
Skid-proof tiles are a fine thing, when messing around with water, but the rough surface also keeps dirt very well :-(.
I am cleaning the Dragons once in 6 months. good that they have the anti-chalk modification, which means that a little part of the water on the pressure-side is led back behind the turning magnet, so no chalk will turn up there.

Sanjay,
well, hate looking at the old pics ;-)... some of the pylons were subject to change slightly in positon and height. LR were added between and in front of them to get more "3D" later.
Good that Michael was here and prior had the idea of drilling the LR and putting them on PVC pipes.
Prior I used Silicone to glue drilled PVC-brackets to the glas right and left to fasten some pipes and the LR there with ?cable-stripes?.

receiving the LR


middle


left


right

[moonpod]

Hm, yeah, my Red Dragons don't have that feature...I'm trying to figure out how often to take them offline for cleaning....

Thanks.

[Sanjay]

Ralfp,

Thanks for the "naked' rock pictures. That is exactly what I was looking for. Interesting to see that the pillars are essentially flat slab rock drilled and stacked.

sanjay.