Dana's 150g build thread

[Linkblaze]

Ok, after TONS of planning and wimping out at least once so far I'm finally diving into my first reef tank head first.

Here's a sketch of the aquarium that is currently being built for me by John at Advance Acrylics here in SoCal. It's 60X24X24 made of 3/4" acrylic eurobraced. I'm going to have an external overflow with two 1.5" drains and a 3/4" return.



Top down to see overflow



Here's a sketch of the sump. 40X16X20. Internal dimensions are from left to right:

Sump section: 12X16X10
Return section: 10X16X9
Refugium: 13.75X16X16



In case you are wondering why there is a hole in the black background on the aquarium, it's because the aquarium will be partially viewable from 3 sides depending on how high I make the stand. Here's two pics of where the aquarium will be.

Front view:



Side view:



GFCI

[Linkblaze]

Here's my equipment list.

Lights: Current USA Outer Orbit fixture 150W HQI/T5

Skimmer: MSX 200 (currently on backorder....loved the owners thread, originally was going to go with a Tunze 9010 but decided in the end to just go big).

Rock: 150#'s of dry Ecorox from Bulk Reef Supply. Being that this is dry rock, may be a tad much but I wanted to get a variety of shelf, fiji, and pukani. Plus, my wife is a geologist and the part she is looking forward to most out of this whole enterprise is playing with the rock! (Heh, no off color jokes gentlemen). Already shipped out as of today.

Return pump: OceanRunner 3500. Should be returning about 650 or so gallons after head loss. One of my 1.5" drains should be able to handle this, the second drain is for redundancy.

Powerheads: Ecotech Vortech X2 + wave controller and battery backup. This was an agonizing choice; these guys are not cheap but decided they are just way too cool and the battery backup feature is very handy. Waiting on the Gen2 upgrade to be available before ordering.

Substrate: Kolorscape play sand (if I can find it). Using a DSB in the refugium and a 1" to 3" bed in the display, depending on which I like the look of best. I got no problem spending big bucks on other stuff, but no way am I paying the asking prices on hobby sands.

Phosban reactor: Two Little Fishies. Will set up my plumbing to be able to gravity drain to this. Just one for now for carbon; will add a second one later should I need/want to run Phosban.

RO/DI: Filter guys. Already ordered.

Controller: pre-ordered Reef Keeper Elite from Digital Aquatics. I'm a sucker for technology, plus this looks like it's going to have everything I want...especially want something that I can easily expand the number of controllable devices on. It being new on the market, I realize that I'll probably have to be working out some kinks.

Algae cleaner: Magnavore 4ER. Still unsure about this, I'm a bit nervous about scratching the acrylic. Seems to be no real agreement on what's the best way to do this.

Water storage: a couple of 44g Brute trash cans.

Heaters: 2X 250W Visi-therm Stealth. Everybody hates heaters of every brand it seems.

Chiller: None, we'll see how this works out.

Auto top off: from Autotopoff.com

A bunch of misc stuff: hospital tank, salt, airline tube w/pump, etc.

[Linkblaze]

One of my main issues is power use. First of all, I don't want to see a gigantic jump in my electric bill. Hence, I've tried to keep total power consumption down AND try to keep as much heat out of the tank so I can try to avoid the use of a chiller. Temperatures where I live are quite mild, I'm literally one block from the beach and I've got plenty of fans for the few days the thermostat breaks 90 (or God forbid the occasional 100 once or twice a year).

Also though my place sucks the way it's wired. Nearly everything is on one 15 AMP breaker. Washer, dryer, kitchen appliances (except fridge) both bedrooms, the front room. There's several other breakers, but they control little as I can tell...some outside lighting and what not. So...I don't want to be pulling too many amps at one time if I can help it. Probably won't run the MH at the same time as the actinics (will use those for dusk/dawn). Unfortunatly, I'm not terribly handy, but one of the under used breakers is powering a light switch for some overhead lighting not 10 feet away from the outlet I plan to use for the tank. I may try to get brave and run some wire from that switch to the tank outlet to put it on this under used breaker. That would be good...but it looks scary in the house crawl space. We'll see, maybe one of you guys can convince me of how easy it is.

Second, it's got to be quiet. Of course, that's standard of everybody's tank so nothing new there.

Finally, the topoff is giving me some fits. I could drill a small hole in the floor, and run some tubing through the crawl space to a nearby closet to make something of a fish room/water storage area (the closest is freaking enormous). But that would again involve a trip to the scary crawl space. Or, I still have about just under 20X20 amount of space under the stand to put some other kind of topoff but that would leave me with little room for electrical (probably in an area walled off in the upper right part of the stand).

I'll be using Rocket's design for a DIY stand.

[savethereef]

What part of LBC are you in?

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by savethereef
What part of LBC are you in?

I'm in the "Bluff Park" area. Near Temple and 1st. How about you?

[FUA]

excited to see the build

[Linkblaze]

OK, so my dry rock arrived to today from Bulk Reef Supply. I ordered a total of 150 pounds of Fiji, Pukani, and Shelf. Total shipping weight was 165 pounds, so they definetly don't short change you (of course maybe I got 15 extra pounds of packing peanuts!).

People, when you see pictures of rock on build threads and they tell you it's a lot...believe them! Some of these pieces would be better termed "boulders."



You can see the shelf in the upper left, the Fiji on the upper right and the Pukani center bottom. Unfortunatly, the box of Fiji look liked it got a bit beat up in transport so there was a fair amount of rubble. However, this was the least impressive looking of the three so no biggie. I'm going to probably need to audit this down some when I put it in my tank anyways!

Close up of the shelf:



Close up of the Pukani:



Very pleased with the rock overall, and very quick shipping from Bulk Reef Supply.

In other developments, my RO/DI is here from The Filter Guys, but I needed to order a few more parts to hook it up the way I wanted so I'll have a pic of that up once it's installed. Also, pretty much all the other equipment I ordered is enroute (except the RKE controller due around the beginning of July). Was able to get the gen2 Vortechs from Champion Lighting...the first place I've seen to have them in stock.

The tank should be ready near the end of this week, but I'll be pretty busy with work around that time so next week I'll be building the stand and beginning the setup. In all, things are actually rolling along quite a bit quicker than I thought they would be.

[Beachbaby]

That rock looks great! I like the big boulder look. I can't wait to see your next phase! Hurry up!!

[jthao]

nice build so far. if you want quiet, the vortechs aren't the best choice, although they're not very loud, they're not the quietest. at full speed they do make quite a bit of noise. also, if you want less heat, I'd go with T-5s. also with the 150w mh, it's pretty minimal on a 24" deep tank. I have 150w mhs over my tank temporarily as of now, and I can tell you that it's not very bright at all (but it's ok if you're not planning sps) IMHO though, I think that with 150wmhs it's not worth it to have mh, in this case T-5s are the better choice.

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by jthao
nice build so far. if you want quiet, the vortechs aren't the best choice, although they're not very loud, they're not the quietest. at full speed they do make quite a bit of noise. also, if you want less heat, I'd go with T-5s. also with the 150w mh, it's pretty minimal on a 24" deep tank. I have 150w mhs over my tank temporarily as of now, and I can tell you that it's not very bright at all (but it's ok if you're not planning sps) IMHO though, I think that with 150wmhs it's not worth it to have mh, in this case T-5s are the better choice.

Yeah, I definetly hear you on both points...with lights and the powerheads being the two biggest outlays besides the tank I've mulled it over quite a bit.

I've heard that the Vortechs are not dead silent, but I figure their low profile and cool feature set (battery backup and wave motion etc) means it's something I definetly want to try. If it doesn't work out, they seem to hold their resale value pretty well. Originally I was going to go with a closed loop manifold system, but finally decided it was just going to be way too much hassle and cost wise it was approaching the cost of the Vortechs.

For the lighting choice, I decided I didn't want a canopy...I hate the look of a gigantic box nearly 1ft in height sitting on top of the tank so I decided to go with a fixture. I also like the look of the MH over the T5's which is why I decided to go with them. I've read quite a few opinions on 150W vs 250W MH's...some say they get fine growth, others say they are garbage. I don't plan to do all SPS, but I do plan to have some with the realization that they'll probably need to go near the top.

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by Beachbaby
That rock looks great! I like the big boulder look. I can't wait to see your next phase! Hurry up!!

I know, all I can think about are fish tanks! All this waiting sucks.

[BangkokMatt]

It all looks good. Nice rocks! You may have 'sandstorm issues with the vortechs unless you are will ing to place them on both sides of the tank. If you want them at the back you won't be able to run them at full power.

[Playa-1]

Looks gr8 so far. I think the drains are a bit overkill but that shouldn't be a big deal It sounds like you thought the issues through. I'm looking forward to your Aquascaping

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by Playa-1
Looks gr8 so far. I think the drains are a bit overkill but that shouldn't be a big deal It sounds like you thought the issues through. I'm looking forward to your Aquascaping

Yes, the drains are probably more than I needed, but figure this way I'll have some options. I may set one a bit higher and use it as a backup, don't really know until I have a chance to play with it. Originally I was going to go really conservative and use a two inch drain, lol. Then I saw the size of the plumbing for pipes that size and was like, no way that's going to work...it's like nearly as big around as my neck.

At first I was looking forward to aquascaping too. Then I had to unpack all that rock; boy was I building up a sweat, that stuff is heavy! Oh well, my wife is the rock lover...hehe I'll make her do all that heavy lifting while I cool it with a cold one!

[Linkblaze]

OK, so finally an update. Over the past week or so I've been accumulating equipment. First off here's a pic of the aquarium itself. John at Advance Acrylics did an awesome job on this and the sump. I've still got them wrapped in the shrink wrap they came in so they don't get scratched up while I build the stand so these pics don't do them justice. That's the Outer Orbit light fixture sitting on top.



The sump with the MSX 200 skimmer in it.



The RO/DI from The Filter Guys. Awesome service from these guys, I had a broken part from shipping and they sent out a replacement super quick.



Here's a sketch of the stand I'm going to be building.



And, here's the wood laid out to do it. Stupid big box stores wouldn't cut my freaking wood; luckily my brother helped me out here.



Hopefully I'll have the stand together in a few days here, then just plumbing and I'll be ready to go. All other parts are here.

[new_world_disor]

loookin nice :P cant wait to see some more progress.

what are the stocking plans ?

[kar93]

Everything is looking good, Rock looks great. What is that wood, 2x4's?

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by new_world_disor
loookin nice :P cant wait to see some more progress.

what are the stocking plans ?

Well, hehe who knows! Really though, will be your standard mixed tank I imagine, but since I'm not throwing as much light on top probably be more softies and LPS. I'll probably try my hand with some SPS near the upper half though.

For fish I've made a list, but it's still unedited at this point. I won't post it yet so the fish police don't start falling out of the chairs. Suffice it to say, it's mostly community type fish that don't get too terribly large; ie. a couple of the smaller tangs, your standard pair of clowns, some gobies, maybe a mandarin when the pod population is up as well as some others.

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by kar93
Everything is looking good, Rock looks great. What is that wood, 2x4's?

Yes, all 2X4's except for some 2X6's for the upper rails. I'm following the template put forth by RocketEngineer here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=1

Only thing I changed was I added on the end section to cover up the overflow. The sketch shows the stand covered in plywood. The pic of the wood is just for the frame, the plywood skin has been cut as well, but is still in the garage. I'm building the stand at the site because it's much more level than the garage and plus I don't want to have to lug that thing around.

[FUA]

that set up is going to be sweet, I can tell something great is in the midst

[InsaneClownFish]

Lookin great so far. Going to order some of that Pukani for my upcoming build.

[Linkblaze]

OK, so finally some updates.

Here's the frame complete, have been working a ton this week so haven't had much time to get things done.



Now I've got this weekend off, and luckily for me both my brothers were free to help so the thing is practically complete! Sorry for the lack of in between pics but we were flying today.



The stand needs one more coat of stain, so hopefully I'll have the tank up on it tomorrow.

[Linkblaze]

Ok, I've been lazy about the updates but here's a few pics of my progress.

Here's the tank on the stand.



Stand pipes I made using the Hofer gurgle buster design.



Here's a look at the plumbing.



And some water test pics.



http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...m/DSC_0006.jpg

So far in this whole process, there's two times where I've been really scared/worried. The first was when I decided to go ahead and do this, my first saltwater build, and collected all the gear and the tank and I began to wonder what I got myself into.

The second time was the water test. Man, that was stressful...I'm sitting there wondering is the tank going to fail, is my stand going to fail, is my plumbing going to fail, is the floor going to fail? Thankfully, everything went off without a hitch. Next up comes the aquascaping that I'm doing today.

In all, everything has been coming together really nicely. There's a lot to be said for planning, plus all the excellent advice here on RC. I've only had to make a few minor modifications so far - the holes for the 1.5" bulkheads were a tad small (fixed with a dremel), the measurements for the little cabinet on the side of the stand to hide the plumbing were a tad off (just a bit too short, interfered with putting the tank on the stand and my brother just manhandled it off when we put the tank on the stand). However, now the door for the little cabinet is a little tweaked, I'll get a picture up in a bit and see if anybody has a solution for a fix.

[hotwired99]

Looks great.
I like the stain color. Do you have any pics of the stand pipe assembly process? That looks like something I would like to use on my tank.

[Linkblaze]

Originally posted by hotwired99
Looks great.
I like the stain color. Do you have any pics of the stand pipe assembly process? That looks like something I would like to use on my tank.

Here's the link to the site I used.

http://home.everestkc.net/jrobertson57268/HGB/