Come with me on my 480g journey...

[Mr31415]

Three months ago I decided my 120g predator tank will not be sufficient to sustain a Volitans Lionfish, Snowflake Eel, Zebra Eel, Dragon Wrasse, Twinspot Coris, Birdwrasse and a Comet. I could see how the Nitrates started to rise and currently - at about 300ppm - it is obviously starting to affect my livestock (in particular - all my snails died and my starfish are not too happy).

I cannot physically add more LR to that tank due to space constraints - I already have a DSB and a Tunze 9010 skimmer, with a fluidized sand bed filter. I have cheato growing in the fuge but to no avail...

Well, that is the quick background. So I decided to get a bigger tank - this time doing it properly. I placed the order about 3 months ago, and one month ago the tank was delivered. It measures 2.7m long by 0.85m wide by 0.8m high. The tank was built using 12mm glass side panels and 2 x 10mm double layer base. The tank's stand was made of square metal tubing and a nice black stained oak wooden frame surrounding it. Sumps are two large 400l units joined by a bulkhead. The motivation behind this was to separate the equipment from the cheato - I learned my lesson having algae grow in every pipe and piece of equipment I had in the sump. Now at least I can shade the equipment from the light.

Filling it takes a lifetime since I can only generate about 30g of water per day with my RO/DI unit. Eventually I had it filled (only the tank - plumbing was not yet done). I had some LR in there to finish curing and some powerful flow. No skimmer yet...

I made the stupid mistake of filling it like this and two days later went on a 10 day holiday to Namibia. Three days in to my vacation and there I got the worst phone call a reefkeeper can get - my tank broke, flooding my living room with all 480g of water... And I was about 1000 miles away from home by car...

I got some friends to help clean the mess and when I got back, had the LFS take the tank and stand back. They determined I was not at fault with my installation and that the tank was not properly built. So they replaced it for me.

Tuesday last week they delivered the new tank. Same dimensions, but this time 3 x 10mm glass panes at the bottom, the square tubing frame is not 38mm tubing but 50mm, and the wall thickness not 1.5mm but 2.5mm - so all in all the stand is MUCH stronger. They added two extra center braces for supporting the tank underneath.

Since then I started working on the plumbing and washing sand. My hands were so tired after I washed all 350kg of sand... That is what it takes to fill that tank about 16cm deep... I used fine crushed coral for the bottom layer and some fancy coral sand for the top layer. Currently I managed to make about 300g of RO/DI water which I am adding straight to the tank as it gets produced - so I am not premixing the salt. See - here in South Africa salt is extremely expensive - I guess it is due to ridiculous shipping costs. One 25kg bucket of Tropic MArine Pro Reef salt costs about USD 100 here... So needless to say - if this tank breaks again at least I will not have lost 50kg of salt again... (Fortunately my LFS was kind enough to replace that salt for free - guess they felt kind of guilty).

My plumbing is finished - skimmer and chiller and return pump all connected. Once my main tank is filled I'll remove the LR from the sump where it finished curing a week or so ago, and place them in a drum for the time it will take to fill the two sumps.

Once that is done, I'll start the circulation and cross my fingers that nothing leaks.

Some pictures are now in order...

This is my current predator tank - 120g and obviously not very healthy...


The new tank now stands where this room divider wall was:


That was broken down by a builder and replaced with a concrete slab:


The first tank filled with 85kg of coral sand (that was all I could get my hands on):


Filled with about 200g of salt water:


Filled with some more water. Notice the nice sand:


A full tank shot (from the dining room):


and the living room:

[Mr31415]

Some photos of the plumbing work I have been doing over the weekend:







I will add some more pictures soon (to add context).

Please join me and any tips / comments / observations would be much appreciated.

[Mr31415]

Just now I got another RO/DI unit (a total of 3 units each capable of about 50gpd) connected in parallel. Since I have very good water pressure here, I get about 2.6 times as much water now as with only one unit.

Will take some pictures of the new tank and of the sump / equipment soon.

[purebullet417]

very nice looking foward to seeing it finished

[Mr31415]

Anyone else going to join my lonely journey???

[chrismhaase]

Looking nice. Keep it going. And add pics along the way.

[Ritten]

Gorgeous tank! Love the location. Can't wait to see it with fishies in it!

[drummereef]

Very cool, looks like a fun project.

[mg426]

Aewsome, More pictures please.

[Mr31415]

I have just filled the main tank - it started overflowing my overflow weir. I made my first Durso standpipe and that is fitted to a bulkhead to the bottom of the tank, standing upright.

I see that it is a bit high - the water does not really flow over the weird anymore as it is about 3mm above it - then falling down the durso standpipe.

Is this going to be a problem for surface skin removal of the water? I.e. is this going to be less effective?

[Mr31415]

Here is a pic of the overflow:



My Deltec AP902 skimmer and Haelia H1000 chiller:



A (bad) top shot of the return line:

[Mr31415]

Lighting is always one of the major factors in determining a successful aquarium. For the initial period this will be mainly a predator tank - however I intend to start growing corals a bit later on. Initially soft corals, but maybe lateron I want to add some Acros etc.

Since the tank is 2.7m wide (almost 9ft) and 800mm deep (2.6ft), I guess I need some powerful lights.

The top is an open design - so my idea was to suspend the lights over the tank. The lights I had in mind was to use two of these next to each other:

Giesemann Infinity

What are your opinions? Good enough?

[loweryster]

I have a infinity, it's excellent but may not be enough for your tank. I would recommend trying to get one or two of these http://giesemann.de/145,2,,.html

check this thread
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...&pagenumber=27
its SE as opposed to DE

[Mr31415]

Tonight I am a bit depressed.

I manage to get the closed loop going when I added the last bit of RO/DI water early this mirning. All seemed well apart from my Durso standpipe issue which is partially resolved.

So I started adding 600g cups full of salt to the main display - in front of my Tunze Stream 6100 pump. The idea was as each cup full was added, the Tunze would disperse it immediately in to the water column.

I did this over a period of 2 hours with 68kg of salt. The total actual water volume of the whole system is 2000l - or 528g. According to my calculations, 68kg of salt is the right amount for that water volume.

I started adding the salt when the water was at 14C (57F) - as I only started heating it this morning. The last salt was added when the water reached 19C (66F). Currently the temperature is about 22.5C (72F)

The problem is that my water is suddenly slightly cloudy (milky like - definitely from the salt and not the DSB). The bigger problem is that my specific gravity tests at 1.015. I have confirmed this with my refractometer and electronic conductivity meter.

The SG had been at this level since I added the last salt - about 6 hours ago.

All the while my 5900l/h actual turnover return pump is running and my one Tunze Stream 6100. I can clearly see all visible salt that fell on the substrate had dissolved. I can also see that there is enough flow in the tank that no single area is a dead spot where salt could accumulate.

So how come the salt level is not at 1.025 where it should be with the amount of salt I added? If it was still dissolving then surely in 6 hours' time I'd see some increase in that 1.015 figure?

Then I discovered water pooling under my chiller. My guess is the chiller is leaking somewhere underneath. Not massive amounts of water, but at least 200ml in 8 hours time. So I am trying to track it down.

Then the return pump is quite loud - and I cannot see an easy way to fix this. It is a submersible Haelia pump rated at 7000l/h.

Trying to find the right lights - the soonest I can get the lights I want is 3-4 weeks, and the lights are EXPENSIVE. The cheapest quote is about USD 3500. Ouch.

Lastly, with that kind of lighting, the heating and with the chiller I will have to get an electrician to install a separate circuit breaker for the big tank. No way I can pull all that stuff from a 16A plug... But my DB board is already full... So this will be another mission.

I am grumpy because I had been struggling with this tank for 3 months - 1 month waiting to get it delivered, then it broke, then 1 month waiting for the new one, then trying to set the new one up. All the while my living room looks like s***. I just so wish I can get the tank to a state where I can have my LR back in and clean everything and know there are no leaks, noise issues etc.

Sorry for this rant but I am really frustrated.

[Mr31415]

@!@#!@#%$%

I discovered a crack on the bottom of the tank...

It runs from front to back for about 10cm between the centers of the two bulkheads, and about 1cm past one of the bulkheads.

As far as I can see it is only the bottom 10mm glass pane that is cracked - it seems the other 2 x 10mm panels are still intact (but this is difficult to verify).

Is this a major cause for concern? Or should I just watch it? No water is leaking from it - it is located in the overflow section. Here is a simplified drawing of the underside of the tank:

[Andrew]

Very nice tank! Will be subscribing to this.

[J. Montgomery]

Dude, you've been getting some $h!tty luck with these tanks.

[Mr31415]

Talking about bad luck. This is not as serious but whilst trying to put the top open canopy back on, me and my wife struggled for about 10 minutes with the awkward position it has to go in when I realised once it was finally in place - the #$%$%@ LFS built the support beam joining the two sides of the canopy too low - it presses on the blue return pipes. I mean they designed the tank with those two return lines in mind - so why not design the canopy to fit. I was VERY angry because trying to get that canopy off was not easy.

Look - this is where I added two 20mm strips of wood. Unfortunately my tools for woodwork is lacking so it is not as neat as I could have made it but then again nobody will ever see this:


Wife painting some more:


I fixed it by adding extra pieces of wood - so now I am just waiting for a friend to come help me put it back on.

Yesterday evening just before adding the canopy back on we put the live rock back in. The LR was in a 120l bucket with a powerhead and heater. Was like that ever since I removed them from the sumps when I refilled the tank with water. They had been in there curing since the first tank broke - about 6 weeks ago. I think there is some nice caves for my Comet and Lionfish... Will take a picture of it once my cloudy water becomes less cloudy.

Here is how my cloudy water looks like:


Tunze sucking up salt like a tornado:


Closeup of cloudy water:


I know this will go against the better judgement and advice given to my on this site by some others, but I decided I am going to take a chance with the crack. I am just so tired after setting up this tank twice - and I am running out of time. I work for myself so usually I work 16 hour days. Setting up this tank took a huge cut of that time away and I cannot indefinitely spend so much time on setting up tanks. I'll monitor the crack every day and at the first signs of trouble I'll tear it down. Fortunately I still have my 440l tank so if all hell breaks loose I have a safe haven for my livestock.

And I work from home - so I am almost always here.

[uscharalph]

We're pulling for you!

[chris wright]

G'day Mr31415,

The size of your tank is awesome. Its a shame about all the bad luck you and your wife are having. That really sucks, but i suppose its better know than later on down the track. As for the crack, is there any way you can get to the bottom of the tank and silicone a piece of glass on the cracked area? You might want to let your overflow dry out and do it internally. This way you dont' need to brake your tank down.

Can't help with the salininty problem. Your just going to have to add more salt. I find inconsistences sometimes when mixing up water, but not a great variation.

Stick with it mate, you'll get there. Just think how mad its going to look with the lion fish in there

[Mr31415]

chris - remember there are still 2 x 10mm panes on the inside of the tank not affected by the crack, on top of it. It is only the bottom most 10mm pane that has that small crack in.

Salinity - yeah I posted on the Chemistry forum so it is not updated here yet. I added more salt by draining 110l of tank water in to a bucket, then adding salt to make 1.058 then mixing with a powerhead until all salt dissolved. I then pumped that back in to the tank, let it mix and repeated that 5 times. So my salt is now 1.0245 - right where I want it.

I can't wait for the tank to be stabalised and see my Lionfish upside down in its cave... Will post pictures of the cave soon.

[Mr31415]

I see my plumbing is slowly leaking where I joined the red and blue pipes with high pressure PVC glue. I know they never had a tight fitting even though they were the right sizes so that is most probably why it is leaking.

Any ideas on how I can fix it?

[Mr31415]

With the cured 38kg of LR in the tank - how long should I wait before adding the first fish from my existing tank? It will be one small angelfish.

[Mr31415]

A couple of updates before I leave on a business trip to Capetown for 3 days (I will be back Wednesday evening) - and I am leaving this fragile tank in my beloved wife's hands...

Canopy back, LR in and now just waiting for cloudy water to go away and verifying Ammonia/Nitrite levels:


Closer shot:


Closeup of LR - with nice cave for my Lionfish to hang out upside down in:


Naturally I have to show everyone that setting up a reef tank this size causes quite a mess:


My salt nightmares... 100kg of salt went in to this tank, 28kg disappeared in to tiny black holes between some water molecules...


My mixing area - am planning on making this really neat. For now it was a bit of chaos trying to make 528g of water with three 50gpd RO/DI units.


Finally, my whiteboard where I tried to work out how to get my salinity up:

[kathainbowen]

I used to have a whiteboard to write out equations and schtuff on. This one time, I actually worked out some really cool stuff about theoretical wormholes and some validation to the supposedly "out-dated" string theory. Then, my roommates erased the initial equations that defined variables I used later to leave a note about a party and to draw a weird little picture of an Avatar-esque wizard.

.... the moral of the story: taking pictures of equations on whiteboards suddenly seem smart.