Chance's 180g reef LED build

[ReefPharmer]

Hello fellow reefers...
I am Chance and my owner and I decided to finally set up a proper reef tank.
Here I am in case you were wondering
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=chance.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/chance.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

We picked up a used 180 G Leemar Eurobraced tank along with a pretty tall stand and low profile canopy. It took 4 guys to move it, although one of the guys suspiciously kept trying to pick the tank up via the drilled holes in the eurobracing... What a weirdo.

Equipment for this setup is as follows:

180 6x2x2 eurobraced 1/2 glass tank on a 41" tall stand (height was specifically sought out) to accommodate higher skimmer
60 gallon sump
2 separate single brs reactors for gfo and carbon
Rio hf 26 return pump
SWC extreme 200 skimmer with long neck / askoll 1500 skimmer pump
refugium for chaeto / fish detention center

Lighting: 4 120w 2:1 blue dimmable bridgelux led fixtures mounted low profile over the tank

Water movement provided by mp60 / mp40 combo along with 2-4 tunze 6025 modded powerheads.

ATO: 10 gallon tank hooked up to a aqualifter using autotopoff.com sump topoff unit

Some of the fish are coming in from an older 180 and several fish are new.

Live rock is from the old 180, rearranged to lower tang aggression and because my owner didnt remember how the rocks used to sit before.

[ReefPharmer]

This is what the tank looked like a few days after initial set up. I will go into the plumbing and whatever else soon.
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=fulltank.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/fulltank.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Ok back to the beginning. When we picked up the tank, it had a blue background. It was agreed that the blue had to go since it was one of the reasons we were changing tanks. We...dont like... the blue. For anyone trying to remove old, dry paint from glass--dont just razor it, you will waste many razors and cut appendages. What you want to do is get the paint wet. We did this by having the tank outside on padding and putting wet towels onto the painted side. When the towel got semi dry, we hosed it down again. The paint peeled off like skin off a tender chicken...

To get the back black, we used car tint from walmart. It may have not been the best idea my owner had because he did it in the evening and didnt see some small bubbles which formed. They are removable with a needle or a heat gun I believe. Careful with heatguns however as you do not want to overheat the glass and crack it.

Anyway, the stand was put in place and the tank was placed on a 1/2 inch thick foam pad from HD to prevent possible stress to the bottom glass...

<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=P1050110.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/P1050110.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Ofcourse the overflow was also blue and since we did not want to remove the whole overflow, the teeth were dremmeled off and a new black skin was siliconed onto the blue overflow. You can either dremmel the teeth into the black acrylic or do it with a tablesaw, which is what we did. Teeth were approx every 3/4 inches.

The return was soft PVC 1 inch pipe that ran up the back and over the overflow. There it split into 2 3/4 loclines and into the tank. If you look, you will notice that due to the height of the teeth of the overflow, we had to remove the back teeth in order to run the locline neatly into the tank. Without the back teeth, the aquarium has a distinctly southern feel.......

Here are 2 pictures. You can see remnants of the blue if you look from the top view. For those who ask why we did it this way and not bring the returns to the corners of the tank, we decided this to prevent as much headloss as possible after using the calculator here http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php/head-loss-calculator

<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180beginoverflow.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180beginoverflow.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=overflowback.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/overflowback.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=overflowtop.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/overflowtop.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[ReefPharmer]

My owners wife (ok fine, she does feed me sometimes, so i pretend to listen to her commands when she has treats in her hands) hated the regular hanging led look due to the high pipes you can see on the smaller tank.

To combat this, we bounced some ideas around and were going to do a hanging canopy or come up with a way to have a low profile open look. This is exactly what we ended up doing.
Off to HD again...

<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=gene.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/gene.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Oh here is a pic of some hobo my owner picked up by McD to hold the pipes in place. This guy constantly complained that they are driving too fast and that sliding pipes can take off his head..... what a pansy ..

We purchased 3 x 10 foot 1 inch metal pipe conduit. Since bending this would not come out exact, we also picked up 2 90 degree conduit bends. Using pipe connectors and a hacksaw, we got an upside down L look that went over the tank. Unfortunately there are no pictures just of this but it worked out pretty good as the light rack is approx 6 inches above the tank.

To get the lights to sit properly, we used 1/4 inch aluminum L channels to construct a rectangle. These particular lights have hanging eyes which were taken out and used to screw into the aluminum frame. You can see the close up below.
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180rackclose.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180rackclose.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180lightrack2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180lightrack2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

We drilled the rack only in the exact spots to fasten to the lights. Then we placed the rack OVER the conduit pipe, thus avoiding hanging wires and high metal pipes over the tank. We ordered/used 90 degree power cords to avoid using the erect regular power cords the lights came with. The look came out ok in this dogs opinion.
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180frontview.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180frontview.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The LEDs are on at 35-40% power in these pictures and are dimmed to more blue. They are obviously dimmable and can be tuned to whatever. They are not on a ramp up/down controller and are just on timers. We have had good luck growing anything including sps with these in the 75 gallon to the right of this tank, so we decided to go with these.

To be continued...

[mrbncal]

Very nice idea. . . would love to see how this is anchored on the back side. . .

[ReefPharmer]

I used 1 inch metal brackets. 2 for each conduit post and screwed them into the back of the stand by the floor and by the top of the stand. It's pretty snug but turnable. One good point about something like this is that you can adjust the height of the conduit by moving it up higher off the floor before tightening the screws of the brackets. To avoid sliding down, place a piece of wood (cut piece of 2 x 4) under the pipe so the bottom end of the conduit rests on the wood and doesn't slide down due to weight.

[coolbreeze]

Great idea good job

[mrbncal]

^^^^
Thats what I was gonna say . . .

[Phantom54]

wow the light rack is awesome I have 3 of these light and hung them from the canopy but that looks a lot better Great Job

[ReefPharmer]

its all my wifes fault, my friend and i were thinking how we can come up with a way not to hang it using wires as you see in the 2nd pic from the top. She hates that look. So she forced me to adapt and overcome :)

[ReefPharmer]

ok continuing with the build, I'm taking over for Chance since he has a hard time typing....

The filtration is a 60 gallon long tank, baffled to fit the swc extreme 200 skimmer and scw 1500 pump (askoll 1500). The skimmer was modded to take this pump and it works wonders. I picked it up used from a local member and love it.
Here is the skimmer and pump.

<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180swcskimmer.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180swcskimmer.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180lagunaswcpump.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180lagunaswcpump.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The return pump is a Rio HF 26. I Tee'd off the return to a brs canister (and will do a 2nd one). The pump is still overpowered and I have to tone it down a bit. You can see this in the picture below.

You can see that I need to clean the wires a bit. 2 of the ES vortechs controllers are hung above the water top off container (which i covered up with eggcrate. Ofcourse, one of them fell off and fell right on top of the eggcrate. I am glad I thought of that one ahead of time.
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180sumpleft.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180sumpleft.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The drain is shown below. The drain itself is 1.5 inches. You can see I split it into 2 1 inch drains and ran those into 2 socks. I got the idea of the DIY sock holders from others in the forum. If anyone wants a closer pic, I can certainly post one. One mistake I did is use 4 inch short socks. They get clogged very quickly and overspill the water (making waterfall noise). I will purchase longer socks in order to combat this issue. When the return pump is on full blast, the drain makes way too much noise with water falling and gurgling on its way to the sump so I had to find a happy medium.

<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=plumbingunder180.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/plumbingunder180.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[ReefPharmer]

I was able to find a picture of the back of the tank with the brackets for light holding conduit pipes.
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180backbrackets.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180backbrackets.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

You cannot tell in this picture, but the pipes are 1 inch and the brackets are labeled 1 inch but they were very loose. What I did is take a rag and cut it into a 2 inch strip. I wrapped the strip around the pipe several times and that gave it enough of a snug fit not to move up and down. I can still turn the pipe in a right or left direction but it doesnt move up or down or side to side.

Ok, so I had to move the residents in quite fast due to another tank's breakdown. I am a big tang fan so I have "a few" tangs.

Currently my fish are as follows:
Blonde Naso tang - new fish
Achilles tang
Powder blue tang
Desjardini tang
Yellow tang
Chevron tang - new fish
Potters Angel
Flame Angel-new fish
Pair of B/W clowns

New fish are fish that were not QTd properly and were obtained about a week prior. The other fish were QTd and were JUST getting out of QT in my previous 180. All the liverock was in that tank under complete hypo of 1.008-1.009 and after completion of 2 months, I started raising the salinity. I got to 1.015ish and had to break down that tank and move the fish here.

Ofcourse I realize that tangs are a very hit/miss when it comes to adding them one or two at a time due to aggression so I made the decision to add all of the fish together. I realize that this added to the bioload but I decided that its better to do it this way and risk bioload vs risk total death due to fighting.
I also added the flame angel and was hoping that Potter's would fight too much but much to my surprise it wasnt the Potter's that went crazy but the Chevron tang. He pecked at the Flame and hit him with the tail for a solid 3 days. The only place the tang wouldnt follow the Flame is midway on the left side of the overflow. Anywhere else and Chevron would chaise the angel down and peck him. I honestly thought Flame was done but somehow he/she survived and now is swimming everywhere in the rocks / eating / pecking at the rocks.

The tangs are all getting along with occasional flashing but nothing serious. They eat nori like champs. Most eat flakes and NLS also but Achilles and Naso eat just nori. I do use garlic and selcon and soak the food in it.
Here are some pics...

<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=achilles-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/achilles-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180potters.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180potters.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180PBT.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180PBT.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180naso.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180naso.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/?action=view&amp;current=180desjardini.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/dlkley/180desjardini.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
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