Tnt's 154 G SPS reef build

[tntneon]

Thx for the kind words Scej12 ,

-My mom has past away this wednessday.....
Now i'm there for my father , to support him thru these difficult times.
onces this period of heartpain and sadness has fadded a bit i'm gonna place my reef inside .
Now i don't have the energy to do anything...

I think things will get started again some where in july when i have my anual vacation , and i'm not going on a holliday this year so i will have the time , only finding the energy for me and my father to get started again , especialy my father who i want to involve more now so he can get his mind of things .


greetingzz from a sad reefer tntneon

[sahin]

I'm so sorry...This is a very hard time for you...be there for your father...getting him taking part in the reef hobby. Hope you have betterand easier days ahead.

[tntneon]

Thx for the very kind words Sahin ,
I'm already feeling alot better , still not as i want to be.
Though i accepeted the new situation and i have peace with what has happened...

greetingzz tntneon

[rcpaul]

Sorry to hear about your mom. hopefully doing this together can help you two heal. Paul

[tntneon]

Thx rcpaul , i hope it will...

I guess i'm on the betterhand as i am starting to do some little jobs on the tank again

Today i have been managing the tight space in the electrical section of the sta , where i have to house two led controllers , a 3 channel dosing pump , andnd about 10 electrical outlets and a switchboard where i have 4 timer outlets on.
Not an easy job , with the limited space there !!

I will post some pictures tommorow, as i'm now at work

Normaly i will be putting the tank indoors this sunday....

greetingzz tntneon

[tntneon]

hi reefers ,

-I have done most of the electrical wirring and space managing of the dry compartment of my stand.
I say magaging because with all the controlboxes and oulets , i found it a challenge to sort it as clean and ergonomic possible.



-stil not all electrical connectors are plugged in on this picture , i still have to plug in two or more streamers , a 36 w LED refugiumlighting , the 48X3 watt led fixture that's now hanging over my nano and a sump cooling fan....
The refugium lighting i'm gonna use will be sort of an experiment , i'm gonna use a 36 W grow led lighting with red /bleu bridgelux leds in them.

this one :
http://www.eshinesystems.com/grow/4g...row-light.html

To see if Chaeto stays alive in nutrient poor conditions (less then 0.1ppm no3 and undectable po4), but not light limited , i think it will stay healthy (opefully) hopefully)

-Where the box of the dosing pump is on this picture , the reservoirs for osmotic water / Ca and osmosic/ Alk will be , in total about 40 l or 10 G.
The third channel of the dosing pump will be for vinegar dosing.

sump and stand overview ...



-The space for the refuge will be created with eggcrate , one space in the return section and one in the skimmer section.




I could resist to put on the 156 w T-5 and the 60 w cree led box , what a blast of light !!
And still this is 156 w short of what will be shinning in the future , because the 156 w G4 LED box that now is shinnig at 40 % over my nano , will also be mounted on the right side of the rack.
You can see that on the right side there is less lighting , because of that.

But the bad news is that the tank is still not inside , it will be in the near future but not today ....

greetingzz tntneon

[sahin]

Looking good my friend. Looking forward to seeing this wet. Cant wait for the corals to go in.

[jadendo]

Skilled!

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by sahin

Looking good my friend. Looking forward to seeing this wet. Cant wait for the corals to go in.

Thx , just another week of work and then i'm in vacation and plenty of time to put the tank indoors

Originally Posted by jadendo

Skilled!

THx alot ,nice to hear !
I took enough time to plan think and build the system , it paid off i guess

greetingzz tntneon

[tntneon]

Hi reefers ,

-At last i have managed to put the tank inside , it took about 2 houres with my 2 friends and my father , and thrust me 4 guys was the absolute minimum for the job !
Now that it's inside you really see the dimensions of the 154 g now it's standing besides the 20 g nano .

picture is a little bit overexposed , as the sun litted the whole room







Next time i wanna make it wet ......

greetingzz tntneon

[sahin]

Looking good! I really like how the design blends in with the decor of the room.

[tntneon]

Thx sahin ,

- but still we have to adapt to the size of the tank , it looks a bit croweded in the house now.
But when nano is gone i think the room will be less croweded again.

-This week it's gonna be bucket -and can- week , in search of 500l seawater or osmosic water

greetingzz tntneon

[TheFishTeen]

Absolutely amazing handiwork.

I love everything about your tank. The stand is incredible, the canopy is elegant, and I can't wait to see your tank grow.

[tntneon]

Thx TheFishTeen ,

-It is due to the support and learning here on the forum that the tank looks like it does now.
thx for the support guys ....

[tntneon]

Hi reefers ,

-Here some informatif threads that inspired me to make the stand and gleuing the glass...

if you wanna make your stand checkout this thread

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1688446

-And if you are intrested in gleuing your own tank or sump check this...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1976233

-Today i went to my big boss hear on my work and told him about my build , and that i was in search of 500 l osmosic water.
And asked him if i could fill 8 new ( unused) barrels (15 g) with osmotic water ( i work at a chemical plant).
He told me no problem , and that i could pick it up next thuesday
So it i will get the tank wet next week

greetingzz tntneon

[sahin]

Thats very nice of your boss.

Look forward to the progress.

Oh, are you going SPS dominant in this tank? - I hope so!

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by sahin

Thats very nice of your boss.

Look forward to the progress.

Oh, are you going SPS dominant in this tank? - I hope so!

He already knew that i was a reefhead , and he's realy friendly...
How to motivate a reefhead at work .... give him some osmotic water ...

-Yes it will be SPS dominated , only a the torch coral i gotten from my mother will go in the new system ( my clowns hatch bi - weekly on this coral).
Will put it at a safe distance of the SPS's

greetingzz tntneon

[Fig70g]

AMAZING build, I'm really impressed with the look of the wood trim. I recently completed a 75g build where I only had to build a new canopy and even that seemed like a ton of work. I hope to build a steel stand for any future reef, I really love how the stand and wood finish look!
I do want to mention one small problem that I ran into, and by your pictures I wonder if you will as well. Without realizing it, I drilled my return plumbing hole a bit lower than my overflow box height (my first time doing a return thru the glass). When I ran my freshwater test, when I turned off the main pump to see how much drained back to the sump, I was surprised to see that the main tank water level dropped all the way down to the return pipe. I expected a siphon, so I created a siphon break but that didnt help because the water was just going down the pipe with gravity. The only way to fix it, since I already drilled a hole in the glass, was to have my return pipe plumbed higher than the top of the tank, than use an elbow back down to the hole into the tank so gravity doesnt drain the tank as low.
Your setup looks much closer to the height of the overflow, but wanted to point that out! Again, fantastic job, I thought I would share my experience. Looking forward to this becoming a full blown reef!

[tntneon]

THx Fig70G ,

-That's treu it will syphon some waterlevel out of the display to the sump , but taken the low level (20 cm or 8") in sump it normaly ( if my calculations are correct...) can handle the flood in there , hopefully keeping my feet dry.
-I will have then a lower level in display probably only with powerbreaks and /or returnpump failure.
Powerbreaks are very rare here (luckly , like once in the 3 to 4 years , and only for a coupple of minutes.
Only onces in hard winter conditions we had 2 days of no electrical power (10 years ago)

greetingzz tntneon

[Fig70g]

Awesome! I certainly wasnt trying to take anything away from your beautiful build. Unfortunately in my situation, Im using the same sump from my 40b setup so I didnt have as much room for water coming back down from my display. Luckily my ugly fix works well, plus its hidden behind the tank! I turn my return pump off from time to time when I feed the tank so the leftovers are kept in the display longer before getting pulled down to the sump and skimmed.
Keep the pics coming, great work!

[tntneon]

- Hi Fig70G ,

-Maybe i wanna do that too , turn return pump off or reduce flow when feeding , nice tip !
-When doing this one could also close the return valve a bit more closed , so that flow is reduced .
But then also the level in the sump wil rise too , and drain pipe valves have to be adjusted again not to have those toilet flush sounds

-The drainpipe would be moire flexible when i had mounted a membrame valve , has a much finer adjustment... ( first point of self critism )

-Tank is now filled with tap water to flush all gleu /silicones/dust and others into the filtersock.
With all the lights on i think it's gonna be a little bit of a overkill !!
-I love the looks when the back t5 unit (bleu+ /fiji purple) and 60 watt led fixture (100% roy bleu / 50 %white) are on , when i put the front t5-unit ( bleu+/ 15K°) also on i get tmuch more lighting into the room and a bit more in the tank.
So i think i'm gonna turn-on the front t5 unit only for a coupple of houres , and still i have to mount the 156 w LED unit at the SPS section ( right side).

-I will post some pictures soon , my battery of camera is empty ....recharging....

greetingzz tntneon

[sahin]

Look forward to the photos my friend. Do you own a PAR meter or have access to one?

I ask because you need to be careful with the amount of PAR that your corals get. T5's and PAR lighting are PAR monster. You have combined the two...you dont want to fry your corals.

I had to reduce my LED's to run at 1watts each because the PAR levels were too much...I was hitting 350 PAR on the sandbed!

I now run 120watts T5 and 24watts LED. I run two actinic T5's for 9 hours, the LED's for 6 hours and full lighting for only 4 hours.

I spent £260 ($400 US) on a PAR meter and feel it is very useful. I still use it to locate suitable areas when adding new corals. Without it, I wouldnt have realised just how powerful the LED/T5 hybrid lighting is.

[tntneon]

Hi Sahin ,

-I don't have a PAR - meter , but i saw something cool at the LFS last time i went there.
I is called sense-eye or something like that , it is some sort of electronic multimeter , that measures Ph , PAR, K° , NH4+ , o² , T° and others 24/7 and you can log it onto your computer !
It only costs about 125 € , althought i don't know for sure how accurate it will be ?
Maybe i'm gonna buy me this gimmick , and perhaps i can measure then both nano and 154 g on PAR numbers.
Anyway i'm gonna slowly adjust the light intensity when introducing my corals , a real Quantum or PAR-meter would be better though , but i already spend that much that a PAR meter is not on top of my priority -list

-No pictures , because i already drained tank from tapwater as it was becoming very couldy and i only had a filtersock as filtration , skimmer was running but in fresh water it doesn't catch much .
-Refill for good on thuesday

greetingzz tntneon

[sahin]

Hi there my friend. Reports of the Seneye are not too good. I wouldnt waste your money on it. Maybe if you can find a use one...

As you say, take it easy with the lighting and watch your corals closely for lightening. Decrease the LED light hours if you start to notice corals lighten.

[tntneon]

Hi my friend Sahin ,

Thx , for the tip about senseye , sounded already a bit to good for 125 €...

I already experienced some bleaching on green top acro , when i swapped my nano cree 60 w LED lighting with the 48 X 3w g4 LED.
I calculated an power ratio that would be close to the 60w fixture ( 40 % white / 60 % royal bleu) , but because this fixture has much more light spread and the acro was at the top but a little off-centre it received a bigger punch off light then before.
Leaving some top branches bleached at the side facing the light , rest of branch is still green.
-The first stony's i'm gonna put into the tank after the cycle will be the four slightly different poccilopora dermacornis i have and watch them very closely before moving the acro's to the 154g .


greetingzz tntneon