RGrycki's 120 3-side viewable in-wall build

[RGrycki]

I have been lurking here on RC for quite some time now and figured it was time to start my first build thread. It all started when my wife and I moved to Raleigh and happened upon one of the many great LFS's in the area. I had to have a reef, and after some months of mentioning how awesome it would be to have one, to my wife, she finally broke down and bought me a 12g nano-cube. It is almost 1.5 years later and now she says that she wouldn't have got it for me if she knew the tank and stand were going to be the CHEAPEST part of the hobby! Well, I finally graduated from NC State and got a job in the mountains. We have started building a house and my wife thinks I am building her dream house, little does she know that the house is really being built around the tank/fishroom.

Like the title says, the tank is 120 gallons and will be an in-wall design with three sides viewable. This is a picture of the floorplan with tank in it.


Last Saturday I picked up the 2x2x4 ft tank from the glass cages delivery man. It has black silicon seams and a black acrylic overflow cover. The overflow is on the narrow end of the tank and will be the only side that is not viewable. No large tanks meeting my requirements were listed in craigslist. I used glass cages because of their ease of customization and price. I had heard some stories about their service, but for me they have been great to deal with, and I couldn't have gotten the same tank any cheaper. Pictures will be up soon .

I really want to keep the tank as inexpensive as possible, with a new mortgage and hopefully kids some time in the future. With that in mind here is the planned equipment.

Lighting: I have access to some T5 high-bay lighting at wholesale through the company I work for. It is 6x54w with individual reflectors and will cost me ~$160. The bulbs will probably be another $140, and I will retrofit a fan to cool the unit.

Sump: 65 gallon stock-tank ~$75

Skimmer: Octopus Extreme 200 ~$300

Sump pump: Reeflo, either Blackfin, or Marlin. It must pump 1200 gph or more at about 15' head-loss (Basement sump). ~$325

Water Flow: 4 Koralia #4's on each side of the overflow, alternating off and on every minute for 4800 gph wave action. ~$380

Refugium: 29g I have laying around ~$0

Phosban/carbon Reactor: TLF I have on the 12g that will be converted to a softies tank once the 120 is complete.

Calcium/Alk will be done via two-part with peristaltic dosing pumps from nano cube.

Top-off will be done with tsunami AT1 unit from nano-cube and a dosing pump with limewater. ~$100 for another pump.

Expected livestock and aquascaping to come tomorrow.

[RGrycki]

Some more equipment thoughts;
I am still undecided on the controller I will use. It will either be an AC jr or a RK2. I want to be able to program in VB from my laptop, and it should be capable of the wavemaker functions, dual device temperature control, and allow me to dose every other hour alternating between calcium and alkalinity.

I will use the visi-therm stealth heaters, a fan over the sump, and hopefully will not need a chiller.

The lights will be installed on rails so that they can be slid out of position and then tilted up for maintenance.

All of the sheet rock near the tank will be concrete board instead of regular drywall.

That's all I can think about for now, I'd appreciate any advice or comments on the above equipment list, or anything else you think would be helpful for this build.

[RGrycki]

Planned livestock:

Mostly SPS Corals and Tridacnid clams, but with plenty of sand space for LPS.

Very open space with two rock islands connected by a rock bridge.
PVC to support the rock up from the sand bed

Fish: A group of Anthias or Chromis, Two Occelaris clowns, A tang of some sorts or two, A shrimp goby and pistol shrimp, Cleaner shrimp, hermits, snails, some multi-color linkia (after appropriate maturation of 6-8 months or more)

Any Recommendations?

[austin93]

It looks good, only thing I would suggest is getting rid of the K4's. You will hate looking at those things eventually. I am thinking about the same setup almost but for circulation I was going to go with a SCWD 1" and use either the return pump or a closed loop for movement. The tank looks well planned and I am very interested in the glasscages tank.

[RGrycki]

Thanks or the advice on the K 4's. I took the time to look at tanks with several of these stream pumps in them and all but the most cleverly disguised ones are ugly. With that in mind I think that a closed loop with eductors and some sort of SWCD would be good. I want a flowrate of around 5000 to 6000 GPH so I think I am looking at a Reeflo Hammerhead and some sort of electric flow switching device. Either that or get two of the Tunze 6102's and a controller. The Tunze's cost more but use less power and will be quieter. It would take nearly 3 years to recoup the electricity costs, but the pumps would be more intrusive in the display. This is a hard one. Has anyone had a hammerhead in a closed loop? Are they loud? Advice?

After some more research I also think that the Reeflo Barracuda would be better suited to my application (filtration pump) than the marlin.

I also found the Turboflotor 1000 in my searching and could get it for about $70 cheaper than the Octo Extreme 2000. Any thoughts on which one I should choose?

[RGrycki]

A) Which is better, Turboflotor 1000 or Octopus Extreme 200?



B) Which is better, 2 Tunze 6102's on a wave controller, or a Reeflo Hammerhead closed loop?





There, now everyone won't have to wade through all the typing to get to my q's.

Oh yeah, and BTW....... Bump

[RGrycki]

I think I would also like a copperbanded butterfly and a mandarin once the tank is established. Still trying to figure if I should buy the Turboflotor for $209.00 and free shipping over the Octo. What do you guys think?

[RGrycki]

Wow, I'm having some problems planning how to build the portion of the enclosure above the tank without adding a post at the corner of the tank that I wanted to leave open. Any suggestions?

[RGrycki]

Ok so I was asking some questions that I could have found the answer to with just a little research, but I was hoping to get a little following going. I guess I just need to get a higher post count before anyone takes me serious.
Anyways I'll give it one more shot.

Turboflotor > Octopus? Anyone?

[Slakker]

A lot of people like the octopus skimmers...I haven't heard much positive about the turboflotor's in quite a while though.

I have an AquaC (which i LOVE), so I'm afraid I can't be of much help on those particular brands.

K4's are nice pumps, but they are huge. I don't know if those new Koralia "Magnum" pumps are out yet, but I thought I remembered them being about on par or slightly better than some of the smaller Tunze pumps.

[RGrycki]

Thanks for posting slakker, that is what I was thinking myself on the skimmer, you hear so much good stuff about those octo's. I'm really wanting to avoid a closed loop because it is increased power usage and drilling several holes in the tank. I'm also using T5's so I don't want to block any light with the closed loop returns.
So now I'm leaning toward the Tunze's. We'll see.

[reidcrandall]

Originally posted by RGrycki
A) Which is better, Turboflotor 1000 or Octopus Extreme 200?



B) Which is better, 2 Tunze 6102's on a wave controller, or a Reeflo Hammerhead closed loop?





There, now everyone won't have to wade through all the typing to get to my q's.

Oh yeah, and BTW....... Bump

I did a lot of research and for the money, you can't really beat the Octopus. That's what I went with, but I got the 250.

I went with the Tunze 6105 with the multi-controller. Don't have the tank up yet, but I am EXCITED about them.

[RGrycki]

Ok I think I have it figured out. I am going to use the Octopus skimmer, The Barracuda pump, and two Vortech pumps with wireless wave driver and battery back-up. Let me explain:
After seeing the price for those Vortech's I had written them off as too expensive. However, when faced with the decision to make, wanting controllable high capacity pumps, they were by far the cheapest option for the flow they provide. Additionally they have a way smaller in-tank footprint, put less heat into the tank, and provide a very dispersed flow. They will also have a battery backup. Plus I have not heard anything bad about them. Really a no-brainer!

[RGrycki]

I finally got off my rear and took some pictures.

My Wife, Jenny and my dog, Thor



The tank


Construction of the house

[PaulieWalnuts]

cool following this one!!!

[RGrycki]

It has been awhile since I've posted anything so I thought I'd give an update. Deer season has kept me pretty busy and it paid off the day after Thanksgiving with a nice 5-point. The other day I went down to the basement and found that the euro-bracing on the tank had developed a crack;


I knew that glasscages didn't warranty cracked or broken glass, and I don't think it would have been worth the trouble of sending it back to them anyways, so I called and asked their advice on what to do. They said to just laminate a piece of glass to the top of the brace and it should be fine. So $11 later I had two pieces of 1/4" glass cut to size and I laminated the top and the bottom of the crack with silicone adhesive;


I don't have any pictures but the stand for the tank is finished and I realized that if I don't change anything It will be impossible to mount Vortechs on either side of the overflow because 2x4's are in the way. I am pretty set against a closed loop so the only other option would be the second generation Tunze's, but I may even have a problem mounting the magnets on the outside for them.

Also on a side note my contractor had about $5000 in tools stole from the job-site out of a trailer he was locking them up in. I hate thieves, I really do.

Oh yeah, happy birthday, Thor

[PaulieWalnuts]

what a sweet name for that dog! and nice tank

[mille239]

Originally posted by RGrycki
Wow, I'm having some problems planning how to build the portion of the enclosure above the tank without adding a post at the corner of the tank that I wanted to leave open. Any suggestions?

Nice house! and tank project! I have a 120 in-wall, viewable on 3 sides, but a little different than yours... (mine is not anchored on a short end)

If you click on my lil red house for my build thread, you can see how I did the top of the enclosure without having to do posts at the corner. I made "L-shaped" doors. I know it's a little different than yours, but I think the same concept would work. fine for you!

good luck, and keep us posted.