Jump to content

Richard's 225 g Build


Richard L

Recommended Posts

Several months ago I started thinking about moving up a much larger reef tank. Currently I have a 40 gallon breeder located in my man cave. I also have a 30 gallon frag tank plumbed into the display tank and both are bursting at the seams.

post-2030-0-29097500-1320642175_thumb.jppost-2030-0-95610500-1320642204_thumb.jp

After endless research and analysis I decided on a 125 gallon tank. It took a lot of effort just to make that decision so I then became concerned about the hundred other decisions that needed to be made – lighting, sump, skimmer, circulation, rock, sand, etc. I shot off an email to our local celebrity, Mark Callahan (Mr. Saltwater Tank TV) to see if he could help me out and luckily the quirky t-shirt wearing guy squeezed me into his schedule. I’ve followed Mark’s YouTube TV show for quite a while and subscribe to his keep it simple and easy philosophy, so he and I are a good fit. And yes, he wears those quirky t-shirts off camera as well!

The first decision we made was that 125 gallons was the wrong decision. Based on the goals for my tank we then decided that I needed to go up to 225 gallons. (Gulp.) For a couple of minutes I was apprehensive about even thinking about such a large tank. Quickly the reef junkie in me took over. I thought about the potential for a huge coral display and all of that cool, oversized equipment. That's all she wrote - the custom 225 arrives on Tuesday!

Here is my schematic drawing of what I'm shooting for, always subject to change:

post-2030-0-61079800-1320642237_thumb.jp

Yesterday Mark got the water making/mixing station up and running in the adjoining garage. We figure we need about 400 gallons of saltwater to get this tank started up so the water station was the first step.

post-2030-0-96136800-1320643637_thumb.jp

Tomorrow, with the help of a few friends from ARC, I am moving my livestock to a gorgeous 50 gallon tank (did I mention I am a reef junkie?) in the garage while the 225 is built and acclimated over the next two weeks. I'll go into how we are doing that so quickly later. I'll keep you posted as the build progresses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 119
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Moved the new 50 gallon rimless (thanks Marco!) and my 30 gallon frag tank into the garage and transferred all the livestock. Thanks again Miasma and Dshel1217 for your help. Everything is looking good.

post-2030-0-98152800-1320812882_thumb.jp

Now for the tankbuild:

8:30 am - Custom stainless steel (oh yeah) stand arrived

8:45 am - Movers arrived

9:00 am - Tank arrived

9:30 am - We realize the stand is 5" wider than the tank

9:35 am - Shut it down, send everyone home

Bummer about the stand but the contractor stood behind his work, loaded it back up and is redelivering it tomorrow. We reset the countdown for Thursday. The tank is georgeous and it's a monster! My wife and I call it the BFT (you can figure it out).

post-2030-0-16570000-1320812915_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I'm waiting on the stand we are getting a lot of other things done like temporarily expanding the mixing station. I'm shooting for having about 350 gallons of saltwater ready so that's a lot of RO to produce. I've had my BRS cranking out about 75 gallons per day since Saturday. I'm trying not to have the garage doors open too much since it looks like I'm running a meth lab out of my garage.

post-2030-0-41554500-1320857814_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stand redelivered and is as sexy as a tank stand can be. 2.5" stainless steel tubing with 1/4" walls make up the beams and post. Overkill? Maybe, but those beams are spanning 6' and will hold about 2,400 lbs of water, rock and glass.

post-2030-0-11769500-1320986246_thumb.jp

Tank and stand together at last.

post-2030-0-90245800-1320986443_thumb.jp

Custom sump arrived this afternoon. Mark wasted no time getting it plummed up.

post-2030-0-29373900-1320986504_thumb.jp

post-2030-0-67566400-1320986623_thumb.jp

Made a lot of progress today. Tomorrow finish plumbing ATO, fill it with saltwater and aquascaping.

post-2030-0-55774900-1320986690_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Time for an update....

Here's a quick rundown of the hardware:

  • Apex Aquacontroller with ph, ORP, salinity probes
  • 2) Encotech Vortech MP60W's and 2) Encotech Vortech MP40W's sync'd together and controlled by the Apex
  • 3) Encotech Radion XR30W's quasi controlled by the Apex (waiting for Neptune to do a firmware update since the Radion is so new)
  • Super Reef Octopus XP5000 protein skimmer
  • Tunze Osmolator (Auto Top-off)
  • BRS Phosphate and Carbon reactors
  • BRS Peristaltic Dosing Pumps for calcium, alkalinity and magnesium controlled by Apex

For safety and organization, I kept all of the electrical components on the right side

post-2030-0-12106300-1321846884_thumb.jp

Wet components like the reactors and dosing pumps are on the left side. The two pipes at the bottom of the pic are the waste line and the incomming water line from my garage from the saltwater mixing station for quick water changes.

post-2030-0-60111900-1321847767_thumb.jp

I mounted the Radions to two pieces of aluminum "c" channel and suspended that from the wall using stainless steel cable system attached to aluminum brackets that were made by the same gentleman who made my stand.

post-2030-0-21111300-1321848020_thumb.jp

post-2030-0-51871500-1321848363_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After water testing with freshwater, we added a little over an inch of Carib Sea Special Grade reef sand. Mark then went to work on the aquascaping. We used Real Reef cultured rock. The pieces were really nice and the temporary faux coraline algae is very convincing from day one. The craggy nature of the product creates a miriad of caves for the fish and nooks for mounting coral. Mark used Ecotech Coral Glue to hold the pieces together. Then we pumped in about 275 gallons of the saltwater. After a couple of days of putting everything thru its paces and stabilizing the temperature and salinity we added a big bottle of Dr. Tims One and Only nitryfing bacteria and three chromis to kick-start the biological filtration. I'm testing the basics (ammonia, nitrate and nitrite) daily, looking for any spikes. I plan on adding fish to the bio load every three or four days as the biological filtration ramps up. Although I have faith in Mark and Dr. Tim, I sleep well knowing that I have 75 gallons of saltwater at the ready for a quick water change should any spike threaten the livestock in the tank. In one of my next posts I'll post a video of the really simple water change system that Mark created. After lugging all of those 5 gallon containers it is a true joy to do my water changes.

post-2030-0-46619700-1321850505_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is awesome.

When's the tank warming party?

Thanks Robb. I'd love to have everyone out to check it out. Maybe in a month or so once my livestock has been transferrred over and I've sold all of this surplus saltwater stuff I've accumulated to pay for the adult beverages!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice setup all around. Maybe put that Apex to use a bit more and setup an auto water change system to really make it "pimpin". punk.gif

Cheers,

That's sounds a lazy man's Rube Goldberg way to go about doing such a simple task so I am definately interested. hyper.gif How would you do such a thing?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can we get some details on the ro/di saltwater mixing/making station?

Sure thing 99. To start, the RODI dumps into the top tank which acts as a RO reservoir. By manipulating on of the three valves directly below it I can either:

1) add water to my ATO

2) add water to the saltwater mixing tank below or

3) pour water straight out into a bucket or other receptacle.

For example here's what I would do to send RO to my ATO tank:

post-2030-0-89024700-1321941028_thumb.jp

For creating saltwater there are just a few steps:

1) open valve to let RO gravity flow into lower tank

2) add salt

3) change valves so that water circulates thru a continuous loop using the pump until the saltwater is sufficiently mixed

4) change valves so the water is pumped directly into my the sump of my display tank.

Here's another diagram to help explain mixing saltwater:

post-2030-0-17152400-1321941486_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...