Im finnaly completing my 400g setup

[bnlimit10]

After almost a year of planning, I am 3 weeks away from completing my setup. The tank stand is built, I still have to stain it, the sump is ready, the canopy is almost completed; now all I need is the tank to be finished and delivered. I will be adding pics as soon as I take some, although it is kind of late right now and the wife would shoot me if I started making noise to take pictures right now, so will have to load some tomorrow. So far heres how the setup looks like:

Tank 240G 6'x3'x2.5'
sump 160g 4.5'x 2'x 17"
Return pump: Iwaki 40
Closed loop: Dart pump
Skimmer: RFK 500
UV sterilizer: Pending
Denitrator with Phosphate option: Natureef cdx 200
Chiller: 1hp jbj

Lighting system:
8 54w T5
4 80w t5
2 250 mH ushios
1 400 mh 10k

I still need to order additional liverock for the new tank, currently I already have approximately 200lbs of liverock that will be going in that tank, and 150lbs worth of fine grade sand from Fiji.

This will be a mix reef that I will try to blend as to reflect the type of reefs you can actually see when you are out on the big blue sea. I hope I can recreate the natural environment as close to reality as possible. I am going to be controlling the lighting schemes with a variety of methods, first the moonlights are computer chip driven to reflect the natural moon cycle. The T5 and the MH bulbs will also be computer driven to reflect the light cycles as far as light intensity goes of an actual reef. In other words the photoperiod will be longer during the summer months and shorter during the winter months, except since I am in the valley of the sun, I will be flip flopping the seasons, therefore I will have the summer timeframes on during our winter, and so on.

I know this original thread is running long so I leave you with this to ponder and I do welcome suggestions as I want to be as close to reality as possible.

Thanks

[bnlimit10]

the corals in this picture are temporarily awaiting their new tank, so while their anchors are not very pretty to look at, at least they are thriving in their temporary home.http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029super_teardrop_maxima1.jpg

[lucubrator]

From the specs, it looks like the tank I've been wanting to make. I'll be following closely, and hope it works well for your sake and mine.

[bnlimit10]

Ok Im at work so Ill owe you pictures till tonight, just wanted to share with you how this tank will be setup. It will be an island setup, or room divider between my formal living and formal dining room. I havent bothered yet to purchase the furniture for either of those rooms, but thats maily because they will be accenting the final product in the tank.

lucubrator- I hope the tank can live up to your expectations, and lets have fun with it.

[bnlimit10]

question for all you big tank guys, where can you find those huge rubber maid vats, as I am going to need something for automating water changes?

[javatech]

At a farm and ranch store
http://www.mytscstore.com/detail.asp?pcID=8&paID=1039&sonID=214

[P-91]

nice.

[bnlimit10]

I know it took me a while, but here are some photos for you guys, but before I show you I must admit I am not really that much of a hands on type of guy, so Im sure my woodworking needs some help, but I am happy with the outcome of the stand, and the canopy is about half way done, so dont judge it yet.http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029Picture_011.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029Picture_012.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029Picture_015.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029Picture_017.jpg

[bnlimit10]

I figured you guys might like a picture of some of the equipment, that has been installed and awaiting the tank, so heres the denitrator, which is currently being fed by a 90 gallon tank to keep the bacteria going

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029Picture_014.jpg

And a picture of the skimmer just making bubbles with some water I put in the sump from a water change I did on the 90 gallon tank.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029Picture_013.jpg

[bnlimit10]

heres a couple of pics of some of the corals that will be joining the new tank by the end of the month.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029green_monti1.jpg

pic of the mother elkhorn colony without the MH on

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029mother_elkhorn1.jpg

[Zoos]

Nice tank, looking foward to seeing more pics

[bnlimit10]

Today, I finally got confirmation of the tanks completion, it will be delivered to me on May 20th, So I have a week and a couple of days to finish the canopy and stain all the woodwork. As well as ordering some of the last minute stuff.

[ruiny]

Great tank
But at 6 x 3 x 2.5 it comes to 335 gal not 240.
Those are the kind of errors we like eh :)
unless the weight will be an issue.

[bnlimit10]

I like those errors too, weight wont be an issue. so if you say that comes to 335, I guess I should amend the thread to read my 500 gal setup.

Cool

[bnlimit10]

I have been planning this tank for so long, I cant even beging to tell you guys, but a great question was asked of me this weekend during one of our reef club meetings. The question was how are you going to manage your tank without using a calcium reactor?

So I ask you bretheren of the big tank, How would you do this, I have never had a problem keeping my calcium levels between 400 and 440. So the question struck me as odd, but at the same time, made me think about how much more calcium will be used in this tank. what products would you recommend if you were in my shoes?

[javatech]

do you use lime water for your top offs
and as far as the gal of the tank you need the inside size
i would say with the size of the tank they are using 1" glass ?? and then how far up are you going to fill it. around 288 gal

[bnlimit10]

To this day, I have not used lime water or kalwasser. I simply do a 10% water change weekly, so I would say that my added calcium levels come from the salt mix. As far as the gallons of the tank, the manufacturer says it will hold approx 260 gallons, once you take into acct the wasted volume caused by the overflows.

[master_wise]

What Salt Mix are you using?

Going to be cool follwing your tank because in about two months time I am also building a tank the same size.... though my sump size will be 5 feet long...

[bnlimit10]

for the last 2 years I have been using Oceanic natural sea salts

[master_wise]

I don't know if this link will pop up... but there is was an article by advanced aquarist that cmopare the content of the different salt mix... and oceanic tend to come with one of the higher or actually highest calcium level...

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/11/aafeature1

the second link will give you abbreviation used for the graphs at the end of the article...

[master_wise]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7371869#post7371869 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by master_wise
I don't know if this link will pop up... but there is was an article by advanced aquarist that cmopare the content of the different salt mix... and oceanic tend to come with one of the higher or actually highest calcium level...

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/11/aafeature1

the second link will give you abbreviation used for the graphs at the end of the article...



"O" Stands for oceanic..... There are other elements that measured... They are at the bottom of the page in the first link on my previous post... So with the Salt levels of you salt mix you should be ok.

How often do you do water changes and how much?

Calcium ppb Chart:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1_album/ca.gif

[bnlimit10]

Due to the fact that I am chemically exporting all my nutrients, I only do a small 5-10% water change, mainly to replenish the essensial elements, calcium, etc. I just purchased another piece of equipment that will even drop that down to a monthly water change.

[bnlimit10]

Well, after many months of planning, and many plans being scratched. In less than 24 hours the tank will be delivered and I will begin the assembly of dream tank. I will be traveling about 2 hours north to a truck stop to pick it up tomorrow at 10 am, I will try to document the delivery and setup for us to watch it come together. Heck I may even put a mermaid pic for you guys, I still have to convince the wife to do it though.

I will have to setup the closed loop with a temporary pump, since the dart has not arrived yet. Sometime this coming month I have to travel to Cali to pick up more Liverock and then aquascaping will be completed.

I hope that you guys enjoy this thread and the setup, Im sure I will enjoy it much more as the anticipation is killing me.

As always your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Pat

[bnlimit10]

Well, after a well deserved rest, here are some pictures of the tank, unfortunately right now you cant see much, cause after I added the sand, I had the bright idea of not turning off the closed loop when I was putting it in so needless to say the sand is all stired up and all over the water column, so right now I have turned off all pumps, expluding the filter to let the sand settle. later I imagine I will have to get some sand out of the wetdry.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029new_tank_2.jpg
a picture of the tank, still missing its cannopy.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029new_tank_1.jpg

side view of the tank

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029new_tank_3.jpg
and the mess I got to clean up, or the wife will kill me. lol

The fish are now exploring their new digs, tomorrow hopefully I will do some aquascaping, I got about 10 frags I have to position, the others are already set in their prespecive rocks. and I hope by tomorrow I can finish the canopy, I am just too tired to do anything right now.

see you guys soon

[bnlimit10]

The water finally cleared up, tonight I will do some aquascaping, and post some new pics, and set the canopy up. The next step after that will be to rig some sort of pulley system to lift the canopy for easy access to the tank, unfortunately there is no attic above the tank, so I have no to figure out a way to do this first.

[jetaero]

Very nice setup! As for the pulley system... Use some toggle bolts into the ceiling, and connect the wires to that to make the pully system. :D

Have pics of it clear yet? :)

[bnlimit10]

my next post will happen around 10:30 az time, I am just waiting for the daylights to come on. Also before all you guys start asking what is that blob on the overflow, well when I started filling the tank, I realized that the overflow as it was built would not allow me to fill the tank all the way, so I rushed to lowes got some plexiglass and silicone to exetend the overflow height. In my rush to do this I failed to pay attention to the color of the silicone. but I know that 2 years from now that overflow will be covered in calcareous alga so no one will ever see it.

Pics coming sooooooon.

[bnlimit10]

:) :D :cool:

well, I cant get you macro shots, cause my camera doesnt have that feature, so here are some pics, first I can see that some of the corals attacked each other while in the holding tank, cause as you will see some of them have bleached spots, but I am confident they will be fine in the long haul.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4376.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4375.jpg

The rock at the back of this pic has several frags that I still need to relocate to their final destination.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4353.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4352.jpg

A look at the depth accomplished by the length of the tank.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4351.jpg

A look at the tank with actinics on
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4345.jpg

A pic with all the lights on, however it looks much bluer than in reality, dont know how to fix the white balance on the camera.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4383.jpg

[bnlimit10]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4376.jpg
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4348.jpg
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029000_4349.jpg

[bnlimit10]

Ok fellow reefers, I am battling the temp swings in the tank. quite frankly I am a bit surprised due to the volume in the system, I would have expected for the temperature to fluctuate less. Nothing to really worry about as the chiller has managed to keep it under 81 degrees, but just wondering what you guys would recommend to stabilize the system.

would you think adding more fans to the canopy and stand?

should I upgrade to a bigger chiller with dual temp controls?

Or should I turn down the ac in the house to 75 and pay a fortune in electric bills?

[bnlimit10]

After 2 months of waiting on a back order, today I recieved my SLR reflectors, what a difference they make, Ill post pictures tonight.

[pyro383]

keep it coming

[bnlimit10]

well, its been a while since I posted anything to this thread, mainly because while I was trying to take some shots of the tank from above, I dropped the camera in the aquarium, lets just say camera and water didnt mix very well. After seeing how well all the other tanks that started at the same time mine did, I borrowed my daughters cell phone and finally took some shots. their not the best, but hey at least you guys can see an update.

Ill post in a few minutes.

[bnlimit10]

heres some updated pics, sorry for the bad quality, but again its a cell phone camera.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029purplr_tip_nana.jpg

this was a frag from eds blue tort I got a few months ago.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029blue_tort.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029orange_yuma.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029rbta.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029left_back.JPG

well I ran out of memory and my daughter is chasing me around the house cause she wants to call her friends, so I guess this will have to do for now, hopefully soon I can replace my camera and update this more often

[bnlimit10]

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029PICT01581.JPG

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029PICT01121.JPG

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029PICT01041.JPG

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029PICT01021.JPG

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/123029PICT01011.JPG

just a quick update and some pics of new corals to the tank. I am trying to get rid of some pesky algae bloom, but should have that under control in the next week. Sorry for the poor picture quality but the camera I was using was not very good.