Project 150!!

[maxxII]

03-18-2007
I've had my 58 gallon tank Project 58!!! (Image Intense) set up for a little over two years now, and its time to upgrade. The idea behind the tank was high flow and bare bottom, and it honestly just wasnt as successful as it should have been. I dont think the BB philosophy was the problem, but rather my interpretation of it. I dont think I had enough flow to make it work well.

I also created some problems with the way I set it up. Specifically, in trying to save space, I placed two of my returns through my overflow. This created problems in servicing anything in there. I also made my stand short and that created more issues in terms of maintenance.

The tank also uses alot of electricity, just by the way its configured. My closed loop pump and my chiller take up 10 amps of power alone.

I've also learned alot in the process of running the 58.
I dislike relying on any one piece of equipment for circulation in the tank. When you least expect it, things will go down.

So the goals for this tank are this:

Provide a healthy stable environment for my critters.
Use less electricity
Easier to do maintenance


Nick

[maxxII]

So with those goals in mind, I started out.

The tank is a 120 gallon RR Oceanic tank with two corner overflows.
The sump is a 55 gallon tank which has been sectioned off with 6 panes of glass to create a skimmer section, a small refugium, and a return section.

Total system volume is about 150 gallons, (152 really, but hey, who's counting).

I chose to have all the holes in the overflow be used as drains. The tank came with two 1 inch drains, and two 3/4 inch return lines. With all 4 being used as drains, I have less to worry about in terms of blockages in my drain potentially causing a flood. All 4 drains empty into a 1 1/4 inch main line, which then dumps into the sump. Along the way it T's off and feeds my skimmer.

The skimmer is an H&S AF 150-2001 from Fins Reef. This is a re-circulating skimmer. I have an older model Euro-Reef skimmer on my 58. Its not a re-circ skimmer, but its adequate. While pricing out skimmers, the ER version of this skimmer was more expensive, and based on my experiance with the ER skimmer I already have, not worth the added expense. While researching on skimmers, two main manufacturers kept being mentioned consistantly as good skimmers...H&S and Deltec. Based on what I read, and the people I spoke with, both are excellent, and either one will do what I wanted and needed from a skimmer. I chose the H&S over the Deltec because I'd heard from a few people that the Deltec looked a little worse that the H&S in terms of build appearance...
Its stupid, but if two things cost about the same, do the same job, and do it equally well, are you gonna go with the pretty one, or the ugly one?
Riiiiiiiigght.

Anyway,
feeding the skimmer from the overflow does two things for my tank:
1..cuts down on electrical usage since I dont need a feed pump, which cuts down on heat....which could keep me from needing a chiller, (which uses more electricity)
2...provides the rawest water to the skimmer possible for cleaning.

Here are some pics...





Nick

[maxxII]

This tank is located in my basement, in the unfinished side, (The side my wife lets me have), and as such is more utilitarian than art work.

As such, the stand has one purpose only...keep my tank off the floor. I initially was not going to put doors or sides on it in an effort to aid cooling and make maintenance easier, but I may change my mind.

I found a thread where a guy was going to use eggcrate on his stand.
Fish's new tank build w/ pics. So I may put doors on the front, and eggcrate on the sides to allow airflow through the stand. I havent made up my mind yet, but the wife is saying I should which most likely means I'll end up doing it. Sigh...

The return pump is a Pan World 100PX-X which is basically an Iwaki MD40X. With zero attachments and zero head, it puts out 1270 gph. With my plumbing however, the return rate, (according to RC's headloss calculator) is 750 gph, which translates to about 5x system turnover through the sump. This is about ideal IMO. Much more than that and it gets loud, much less and detritus builds up.

The return is plumbed up to a WavySea Plus. I ordered a regular WavySea, and was sent a WavySea Plus....oh well, I wasnt gonna complain.

On the 58 gallon tank, Main circulation was provided by an OceansMotions 4 way unit. I've had some minor issues with it since I've had it. Oddly enough, no one else I've spoken to who has one has had these issues. So with this system, I wanted to go a different route. In addition to the WavySea for my return, I'm going to be running two Tunze Stream 6000's on a multicontroller.

The 6000's are the smallest ones that can be controlled, but they still push 1850 gph when at 100%. Between the Streams and the Wavy Sea, I think I'm going to be alright on flow.

Nick

[spooda420]

Nick,

very nice, I will be following your progress. One can only assume that you will be using most of the equipment from the 58? It looks like somebody has been busy planning and adjusting.

Very nice. I look forward to a finished product, I also expect lots of pics to go along with this build.

[Cprowler]

Looks good Nick, I'll be following along too.

I like the height of the stand, how tall is it?

[inwall75]

Lookin' awesome bud!!!

How do you feed water to the wavy sea plus?

[molder]

No wonder y i never see u out side.....LOL

Lookin sweet

[maxxII]

Originally posted by spooda420
Nick,

very nice, I will be following your progress. One can only assume that you will be using most of the equipment from the 58? It looks like somebody has been busy planning and adjusting.

Very nice. I look forward to a finished product, I also expect lots of pics to go along with this build.

Thanks for compliments. I had initially intended to re-use as much of the equipment from the 58 as possible, but wound up replacing a bunch of it. Bought a new dual HQI ballast and two new reflectors, (Lumenmax 2's they're the mogul based ones). So really, What I'm pretty much going to carry over is the phosban reactor, and the calcium reactor. I sold the Korralin reactor BTW, and bought a Geo reactor. For anyone who is on the fence about buying a reactor, the Geo is a much easier system to set up and dial in. No comparison.

Interestingly enough, When Rocio and I made a trip to Chicago, we stopped by Rods-Reef in Dekalb IL on the way back. Rocio, (my wife) thought it was interesting that Rod was raising clownfish in a smaller room. She's already mentioned/complained how expensive this hobby is, and she wondered if there was a way to make back some money in the hobby. So I'm pursuing the idea of raising something in the 58 after the 120 is set up and going well. Dont know what yet, might just be a frag tank...might be something exotic like anemones...wont be clownfish...toooooo much work.

Nick

[maxxII]

Originally posted by Cprowler
Looks good Nick, I'll be following along too.

I like the height of the stand, how tall is it?

Hey, Glad to see you here! Always loved your tank! Hopefully, the new job wont keep you away so much that you cant enjoy it like you do now.
The top of the stand is about 41.5 inches off the ground. My basement floor is NOT level to assist water to flow downhill towards the drain. So the whole stand had to be shimmed up and is literally not touching the floor at all. PKelly228 here helped me out in shimming it. I have pictures of how bad the floor slopes. Almost an inch on the right side of the tank.

I was really nervous about the whole deal, but Pat did a great job. Once the tank was set on the stand, we re-checked everything and filled it with water....I wasnt entirely sure the whole thing wasnt going come crashing down, but it didnt budge.
The stand is made of 2x4's and there are three per leg distributing the weight. I'll post those pics later on..

Its kinda nice having a taller stand. The top of the tank is at 5.67 feet. I had to measure for the RC headloss calculator. I need a step stool to reach into the bottom and I'm 6'3. But its nice not having to bend over to see things.

Nick

[maxxII]

While doing a wet test of my plumbing to check for leaks, I found out the return is moving water too well, and had to re-adjust things to prevent a wave of water overflowing my tank. I had to increase the depth the tip sits are, and move it to the rear of the tank. I initially had it on the centerbrace in the middle of the tank with the intent of setting it to run in a 360 degree pattern.

Because the flow was nice and strong, I'm a little worried about keeping sand in the tank. Just to be on the safe side, I bought more cutting board for the bottom of the tank, and siliconed it in place. Sand will initially go in on top of it, but if the flow is too strong for the sand, I can siphon it up and still go BB without having to worry.



Nick

[maxxII]

The plumbing was fun....except for that whole part where it wasnt.



The little black marks on the plumbing are to help me line up the angles when using pieces that needed to be at a set angle. BTW, the plumbing in the picture is V2.0. The first attempt got screwed up at the end, so the whole thing had to go....

One thing to note, (and something I didnt do the first time around), my plumbing is oversized. If there are fittings like Unions, ball valves etc...they are oversized to prevent constriction and head loss from the pumps. I increased the plumbing from the 3/4 inch drains to 1 inch. The unions were upgraded to 1 1/4 inch with adapters to 1 inch plumbing. This is because the 1 inch unions actually constricted down to 3/4 of an inch inside. The 1 1/4 inch unions constrict to 1 inch inside, so there is no choke point to worry about. For the 1 1/4 portion of the drain, I increased the union to 1 1/2 inch in order to get the 1 1/4 inch inside diameter I wanted.

This also applied to the return pump....I used 3 true union ballvallves for the return. Due to the location of the pump, (Its the yellow thing on the floor to the left of the tank.), I had to run some lengthy pvc, and I wanted the ability to take the pipe apart with minimal trouble.

Nick

[maxxII]

At this point in time, I'm just about ready to add water and salt.
In fact the RO is working overtime to make up enough water for the tank. I already have one 55 gallon barrel full of water, and I'm making up enough for another one as I type.

I'm debating whether or not to set the tank up, add Chaeto to the sump, and wait 3-4 months for the tank to mature before I move things over. The advantage to doing that is that I get to see how hot the tank gets over the summer, and I can then decide if I need a chiller to keep temps under control.

Either way, I need to build the canopy for my lights, which should take me a few days, and give me time to think it over. I need a chiller on the 58, but its closer to a large single pane window, and has a smaller volume of water with some pumps adding heat to the water...

It would be nice to get away w/o a chiller, but I'm not sure if thats a smart idea in light of the power outtages we've had out here in the past year. We own a generator, but if the AC doesnt work, and I dont have a chiller on the tank, its gonna get hot.

I guess the smart thing to do would be to get an electrician out here and have him/her wire up a transfer switch for the generator so we can run the house AC....

Nick

[maxxII]

Originally posted by inwall75
Lookin' awesome bud!!!

How do you feed water to the wavy sea plus?

The return pump is a PanWorld 100PX-X. I'll take some pics of the return plumbing here shortly. My thinking on the plumbing was if there might be an accessability issue, I slapped an oversized union in that spot. All the drains have a union. There is a union on the main drain pipe the others empty into, just ahead of the skimmer. There are two unions on the intake plumbing to the return pump, and there are 3 true union ballvalves on the return pump. The 58 had some accessability problems, and I dont care to repeat them with this tank. No doubt, I'll have other issues with this tank, but at least they'll be new issues and not repeats.

Interestingly enough, running wide open, without the Durso tops on the standpipes...this tank is quieter than the 58. Thats a nice bonus.

Nick

[maxxII]

Originally posted by molder
No wonder y i never see u out side.....LOL

Lookin sweet

Thanks!

Yeah, between the new job and the new tank...I dont ahve much free time.Spring is coming up and I've got to find a way to get some yard work done too.

Nick

[spooda420]

Originally posted by maxxII
Thanks!

Yeah, between the new job

Nick

Are you still a police officer? or have you started your full time adult entertainer at the local retirement home? (I know we both share this dream.)

[maxxII]

Originally posted by spooda420
Are you still a police officer? or have you started your full time adult entertainer at the local retirement home? (I know we both share this dream.)

Still a Police Officer, but moonlighting as an Adult Entertainer at the retirement home. Hopefully some day Melev will let me go full time to follow my dreams....






BTW, I may be hitting you up for more chaeto here soon if you've got some available?

Nick

[maxxII]

Here's a pic of the stand before the tank was on it, and before it was leveled out....this is not what my friend did. He used alot of different shims, and leveled the whole thing completely. This was my attempt at it. The arrows show which direction the floor slopes for drainage.

It took him something like 20 minutes to get it leveled out completely. After it was leveled, I made wooden "skirts" to cover the shims. The skirts keep the shims from being knocked loose, and make it look a little cleaner IMO. I did not bother trying to make a skirt for the sump, (Which also needed to be leveled out). Because the skirts that I made took an 1.5 inches of available space under the stand already. I also felt that more air movement under the sump would allow for better cooling, and I'm trying to avoid using a chiller if at all possible.



Here is the tank with the shim skirts in place.



Nick

[maxxII]

And here is the pic of the broken H&S skimmer...



And here is a pic of what broke off.



The re-circ pump mounts to those unions, and provides a tight seal. I was soooo ****ed that the skimmer broke. It didnt help much that I had told myself seconds earlier to be careful and not drop it.

I contacted Fin's Reef regarding the damage and what I could do about it. They immediately asked to see pics of the damage. When I sent them the pics I just posted, they said it was most likely repairable since it was the PVC reinforcing bands around the skimmer that broke and not the acrylic skimmer body. I just used some PVC glue and went very carefully around the edges. Shortly after it was dry, I went upstairs and did a quick leak test in the sink. No leaks, and it only had a small visible seam where the two pieces were joined back to the body.

Nick

[spooda420]

sure... Chaeto is always here... although it has been dwindling... I have been feeding it to my tangs...

[maxxII]

I just looking to get lots of pods, worms and sypha sponges in the tank, (along w/ the bacteria), to get it going. If you cant spare any, its okay, I'm sure I can hit up somebody for some.

BTW, after reading an interesting thread on feeding fish for optimal nutrition, I started feeding my regal angel broccoli. She goes nuts for the stuff.
You need to blanch it first, (pan sear it on the stove to "wilt" it), as the fibers are too tough for fish to eat..but sahe goes crazy for it, and my Tomini Tang eats the little florets the regal knocks loose. Oddly enough the regal wont touch Nori.

I'm wanting to add a purple tang to the 120, and hoping that it will teach the regal to go after Nori...just another food source.

Nick

[spooda420]

call me.

[maxxII]

Cant find your number anywhere, must ahve lost it. Send me a PM with it?

Nick

[jnarowe]

nice job on the plumbing!

[ninjafish]

Nick,
Things are coming along great! I love the shape of the tank and I think it is awesome how it is a bit higher off the ground. It will be like standing in front of a painting at an art gallery. If you decided to later, you could always paint the wooden stand too.
Keep up the great work,

- Chad

[jnarowe]

love the vid Chad. That is some serious art IMO.