My new 180 build in progress.

[swannyson7]

I'm not getting much feedback in my local reef club forum, so I thought I would post the thread here as well...

Due to the lack of adequate sandbed real estate and disliking the aquascape of my 125, I was able to convice my wife to let me upgrade tanks. I bought a used 180 a few months back, but due to my hectic schedule the project was put on hold. Over the past couple weeks I've made quite a bit of progress on building the stand and have some new lighting with more coming. On my 125 gallon setup I have 250 watt 14k Phoenix DEs and 48" T5s. On the 180 I'll be upgrading to twelve 36" T5s and I'm undecided whether to keep the halides or upgrade to LED. I'm seriously considering the upgrade, but we'll see what the buddget is looking like when the time comes. Here's a few pics of the tank stand thus far:

The frame made from 2x4 and 2x6 from the plans on reefcentral:


I added some drawers on ball bearing slides so I have a place to put things down while i'm working (and a beer and my elbows once it's up and running):


Here's the skin being tacked on the front:


And then I did quite a bit of work without taking any pics so there's a big jump...




On the other end of the stand, there's a door to slide the sump in and out, and a flush mount for my RKL. For a skimmer I'm running an Octopus Extreme 250, but I just upgraded the pump from a Sicce to the bubble blaster 3000 which supposedly pulls about 50-60 SCFM. The canopy is framed out, but that's about it at this point. The full design is still up in the air depending on what I end up doing for lighting. I plan on using 1/8" braided cable with a pulley system and a ratcheting winch so that I can raise and lower the fixtures for maintenance/light acclimation.

Any comments/concerns thus far would be greatly appreciated. Now it's just a matter of finishing up the setup and moving the contents of the 125 over. I can't wait!!

[swannyson7]

Got a bit more work done today. Finished the facing on the left drawer pull out, mounted the door for the sump, and added hardware.






Here's the frame for the canopy... the next project to undertake.


The whole top will be hinged, with false doors on the front the match the stand and it will use the same column design to match. I may use heating register vents in white for ventilation of the canopy, but I'm undecided. I was trying to track down a small ratcheting winch or high torque, low RPM DC motor to spool the 1/8" steel cable I planned on using to suspend the lighting fixtures. Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything that would work besides a $150 linear actuator, so I decided to go with adjustable/spooling light hangers sold in a hydroponics store.

[swannyson7]

I finally got some more work done today. Added some under cabinet lighting for the inside of the stand. Originally I planned to use door switches so that it would be auto-on when I opened the door, but there was no good way to mount them seeing as it was an afterthought, so I just hooked them up to the rocker switches on the side. I also added the bottom shelf inside the stand, and lined it with 1x3 which I'll caulk in place in case of any accidental spills. The whole inside will be coated with Kilz exterior primer and polyuerathane to make sure it's water tight.

I decided to go a different route than originally planned with the canopy. Instead of the entire front hinging with false doors, the new plan will have matching doors and a hidden door on the end so that the fixtures can slide out for bulb replacement. I ordered 3 LED fixtures that have 119 3W led's driven at 1.26w a piece for 150w. They are blue, white, red and violet diode's and have 60 degree optics. The guy selling them was getting 250 par at 24" deep with the fixtures 4" above the water and they were able to easily cover a 2'x2' area. Plenty of light for anything I want to keep even down low. He said they should be in next week...so hopefully they'll be here by the time the canopy & plumbing are done so that I'll be good to go. I'll be running some Koralia Evos from the 125 on a timer with the RKL so hopefully I'll have plenty of random flow, but I was still contemplating running a closed loop system as well.

[swannyson7]

This was the original plan for the plumbing, but I eliminated the closed loop from the equation for now, so both drain lines and return lines will be used for the sump.

[swannyson7]

I got some work done on the canopy, the plumbing, and made some tank tops for any suicidal wrasses. Here is the progression on the canopy....




The side of the canopy in hinged so that the 72" T-5 fixture can slide out for bulb replacement...


A preview of the doors that still need to be mounted-

[swannyson7]

Here is the plumbing that I worked on a bit. It's going to have to be trimmed once it's installed, but it's a start. Everything that will be out of the water is painted for walking my wife through any problems that arise when I'm not home, but anything that comes in contact with water will be unpainted.


The red is the drain line, the green is the return line, and the yellow is the A.T.O.. The tee off of the pump return is to throttle down the return flow if necessary without adding too much resistance on the pump. The yellow fitting on that same tee allows the coil of flexible tubing to screw in for draining during water changes. The 1/2" PVC that comes off of the return line will go into a portion of the sump seperated by a baffle to create flow for frags.

I'm still contemplating using a closed loop, but I've read so many mixed reviews about them that I'm not sure. It sounds like they get clogged up with detritus and can be a real PITA when they fail. If I use one, it will be a siphon off the DT instead of drilling the bottom of the tank, but I'm probably just going to use my Koralias. I'm thinking about chiseling out some liverock to conceal them a bit (like the tunze rock), but I just don't want it to be a nigthmare to swap them out if they fail. Any thoughts?

I used the aluminum framing parts for a screen window to make covers for the tank. I ordered some mesh netting the hold in with the screen spline. It's made of translucent nylon and the holes are slightly larger than eggcrate. It should be dense enough to prevent any jumpers, but open enough that it won't hinder lighting. Here's some pics:

And fitted on the tank...

[swannyson7]

LEDs arrived today,so here's some pics of them over the tank! Please excuse the bad pics, I was too excited to break out the SLR, so you're stuck with my P&S shots. The fixture is over the left third of the tank, while the right 2/3 is lit with 250 watt phoenix 14k bulbs on galaxy balasts and two 54watt T-5 actinics.
Here it is with just the center section on....about the same as the rest of the tank-

And with just the two outer portions and the center off-

And with the whole thing on-

As you can see, it's much brighter than the halides. The pic looks pretty washed out because the auto white balance kept adjusting for the halide portion, but the color is about a 18-20k look. I get the MH ripples on the sandbed and the color pop of LEDs. Heres a few quick shots with my P&S to try to show the colors-

[swannyson7]

Unfortunately, due to the unbearable heat that we've been experiencing, work on the tank was put on hold for most of the week. I did get a little bit done today though. the doors are now mounted on the canopy, I did some sanding, and I started adding the finishing trim. Another hour or two of work this weekend and it'll be ready for paint!! Here's a few pics of where it stands right now.



Unfortunately, I ran out of the trim that I'm using to hide the black pastic frame of the tank, so I'll have to head to home depot tomorrow and grab some more.

I also went on a bit of a reef tank shopping spree over to past few days, so they weren't completely wasted. I bought some Warner Marine Ecobac pellets (Solid vodka dosing to control PO4 & NO3), a couple peristaltic dosing pumps, some loc-line, GFO, filter socks, and some ATI Blue+s. I also caulked the 1x3 around the bottom of the stand for accidental spills and re-siliconed the tank. After a bit more work this weekend, I should be just about all set and ready for the move once I can round up enough people.

[swannyson7]

I also did a little rethinking on the sump design so that I can have a refugium and a frag setup. I think I'm just going to run a PAR38 20k LED fixture for frag lighting to grow out zoas & acans, and use a clip on flood light bulb for the refugium.

[swannyson7]

Any suggestions anyone??

[HASBRO]

Looks great, looks like a labour of love.

[swannyson7]

Just realized that I never updated this thread, only the one in my local forum. So here it is after 1 year

[swannyson7]

And some recent topdown shots...

[swannyson7]

[swannyson7]

[swannyson7]

[prop-frags]

Very, very nice corals, sir!
Your work is yielding some excellent results, and you obviously have some great husbandry going on.

Is that a spumosa?

[swannyson7]

Originally Posted by prop-frags

Is that a spumosa?

Yep, it's an ORA spongodes

[reeftanknewbie]

Man this is a great tank build...Nice work. I was wondering if you had anything on how you made those cool frag racks on the side....

[swannyson7]

I bought those from "the alternative reef." Scott does great work and makes anything from vortech covers like I have all the way up to full aquascapes