1000 Gallon Build- Here we go- Lots of Pictures
- Thread starter Socaltoaz
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michaelrc51
Member
Nice 488.......but when is the LaFerrari coming[emoji4]?
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LaFerrari is a different beast all together. 4 million for the car. Too rich for my blood. 488 is plenty although seriously eyeing the new 720s from Mclaren. Might be time for a trade.
Its quite functional and easy to install and operate.
michaelrc51
Member
Yeah......I know. The 720s looks pretty good. The P1 or LaFerrari are just insane. Unbelievable how composed they are for normal driving and how much of an animal they are on the track. Just awesome!
Beautiful 488, not big on the wheel choice tho.
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Sorry- been waiting for My electrician to come and clean up some wires in the fish room and was going to do a proper photo shoot but I'll get you a shot when I get back from work tomorrow. My bad.
Thank you for the nice words. Will do tomorrow when I get back from work on the feeding video.
No problem. Will get new wheels.
michaelrc51
Member
RonMidtownStomp
You can edit this?
I love the cars, the build and the house! I know there have been a couple of people who have commented about the house photos being not as cool as the tank photos, but I have maybe enjoyed the house photos even more. Do you ever get track time in the cars?
I do want to mention that for a simpler system, setting up an Apex is pretty straightforward. I don't have a display for my Apex (the new $800 wifi one) and I had it up and running with Fusion using my iPad in about an hour. I do have an engineering degree, but I just followed the step by step instructions on their website and did what they told me to do. For monitoring, temperature control, and the ability to do things like turn off my skimmer with my phone, it was a very simple setup with no code editing required. So much better than the old Reefkeeper Lite I had on the old tank. I fully appreciate the difficulty of your situation with the firmware update required and the tank and sump separated by so much distance.
I'm also glad you've chosen to go with fish-only as that's what you wanted from the beginning and I feel like you were being pressured to build and maintain a reef tank. I feel like there's a sweet spot around 400 gallons system volume where changes are easier to make and you have good stability. It's been a great learning experience reading your thread and realizing to going from ~400 gallons to ~1000 gallons is a lot more than 2.5x the complexity.
I do want to mention that for a simpler system, setting up an Apex is pretty straightforward. I don't have a display for my Apex (the new $800 wifi one) and I had it up and running with Fusion using my iPad in about an hour. I do have an engineering degree, but I just followed the step by step instructions on their website and did what they told me to do. For monitoring, temperature control, and the ability to do things like turn off my skimmer with my phone, it was a very simple setup with no code editing required. So much better than the old Reefkeeper Lite I had on the old tank. I fully appreciate the difficulty of your situation with the firmware update required and the tank and sump separated by so much distance.
I'm also glad you've chosen to go with fish-only as that's what you wanted from the beginning and I feel like you were being pressured to build and maintain a reef tank. I feel like there's a sweet spot around 400 gallons system volume where changes are easier to make and you have good stability. It's been a great learning experience reading your thread and realizing to going from ~400 gallons to ~1000 gallons is a lot more than 2.5x the complexity.
Thank you. Been on the road traveling and no time for anything. Will get some updated pictures up soon. No tracking of the cars. SLS hardly gets driven. It's a 2011 with 5000 miles. Mint condition. Keeps going up in value so hard to put a ton of miles on it. 488 is relatively new so just haven't had the time to go to the track.
RonMidtownStomp
You can edit this?
That 488 deserves to be driven 
I can understand keeping the miles off of the SLS.
Hopefully the AMG GTS depreciates like a normal Mercedes and I will be able to buy one in a few years!
I can understand keeping the miles off of the SLS.Hopefully the AMG GTS depreciates like a normal Mercedes and I will be able to buy one in a few years!
Last edited:
I finally finished this thread after about a week. Love the tank and house and cars, you are clearly enjoying life to its fullest haha. Now I have to get to work because I got so caught up in the final pieces I'm a tad late
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Thank you. I appreciate the kind words.
Ive been remiss in giving updates and I owe you guys some photos. Unfortunately life has been in the way with travel and work and I have just been unable to find a good time to grab some quality photos for the thread here. Regardless I thought I would give everyone an update as to what has been going on with tank.
The theme of the tank has been to simplify. When I started I wanted to get every single gadget for the tank- every single filtration equipment and piece of automation. Frankly it was too much. Everything was getting cluttered and messy and it really wasnt my vision for the tank.
So after my last bout of ich last fall, when I lost my coral and a bunch of fish, I decided to simplify. I removed some equipment and got rid of stuff that I wasnt using and really tried to clean up the system completely. Here is a summary of what the latest with the tank:
Reef Genesis- this is the automatic water change system. I had it set up where everyday it would change 5 gallons of water automatically. I removed this- I do manual changes now. Manual in the sense when we vacuum the sand bi weekly, we remove about 75 gallons of water. I just pump it back in from my holding tank. I love this system but it was just one piece I decided to remove to clean up the fish room. I ended up selling this to a forum member.
APEX DOS - I removed the dosing system. Now that I am no longer doing a reef and its a FOWLER only, no need for dosing, Another piece of clutter removed. I also ended up selling this to a local fish geek.
Genesis Renew- Love this piece. Its the second half of the Reef Genesis where its an auto top off. I have a fresh water RODI holding bin that pumps water back into the tank to account for evaporation. You can set the timer for how long the water will pump back in. If after 2 cycles of putting water in the sump doesnt get back to the right level, it will shut down so as not to fill your entire tank with fresh water. Really its a set it and forget it. Love this equipment.
APEX Fusion- all my return pumps and skimmer pumps and UV as well as the reactor pumps are on Fusion. Im still learning to program beyond the basics but this has been relatively fool proof.
Corals- all corals are gone like I mentioned. Really enjoying my fish and after the massive losses last fall, things have really stabilized. Every fish that goes in now goes through a quarantine period in my QT. This is an isolated 20 gallon tank in my fish room. Have had no issues recently with losses which is great. We went through a period where everything was bullet proof and then the massive debacle with ich- now it seems we are back on track.
I still run my eco smarts - have 6 of them. I run them about 35% brightness and algae has been minimal with the low light intensity. Previously I was cleaning the tank almost daily to get rid of algae but now its only needed about once a week. My mighty magnet is invaluable for this.
I have finally cleaned up all my loose wires in the fish room and as mentioned, gotten rid of the clutter so things are nice and neat and clean. The room is held at a constant 65 degrees to help with the summer heat which is coming in AZ. This keeps the water temp right around 79 degrees. I dont run a heater or chiller. Temp fluctuates a degree or two in either direction but no major changes in water temp.
I have to do some touch up paint tonight on my fish room walls and will post some photos.
thanks for reading. and thanks to all those that have followed this build. I cant believe there are close to 600k views on this thread.
The theme of the tank has been to simplify. When I started I wanted to get every single gadget for the tank- every single filtration equipment and piece of automation. Frankly it was too much. Everything was getting cluttered and messy and it really wasnt my vision for the tank.
So after my last bout of ich last fall, when I lost my coral and a bunch of fish, I decided to simplify. I removed some equipment and got rid of stuff that I wasnt using and really tried to clean up the system completely. Here is a summary of what the latest with the tank:
Reef Genesis- this is the automatic water change system. I had it set up where everyday it would change 5 gallons of water automatically. I removed this- I do manual changes now. Manual in the sense when we vacuum the sand bi weekly, we remove about 75 gallons of water. I just pump it back in from my holding tank. I love this system but it was just one piece I decided to remove to clean up the fish room. I ended up selling this to a forum member.
APEX DOS - I removed the dosing system. Now that I am no longer doing a reef and its a FOWLER only, no need for dosing, Another piece of clutter removed. I also ended up selling this to a local fish geek.
Genesis Renew- Love this piece. Its the second half of the Reef Genesis where its an auto top off. I have a fresh water RODI holding bin that pumps water back into the tank to account for evaporation. You can set the timer for how long the water will pump back in. If after 2 cycles of putting water in the sump doesnt get back to the right level, it will shut down so as not to fill your entire tank with fresh water. Really its a set it and forget it. Love this equipment.
APEX Fusion- all my return pumps and skimmer pumps and UV as well as the reactor pumps are on Fusion. Im still learning to program beyond the basics but this has been relatively fool proof.
Corals- all corals are gone like I mentioned. Really enjoying my fish and after the massive losses last fall, things have really stabilized. Every fish that goes in now goes through a quarantine period in my QT. This is an isolated 20 gallon tank in my fish room. Have had no issues recently with losses which is great. We went through a period where everything was bullet proof and then the massive debacle with ich- now it seems we are back on track.
I still run my eco smarts - have 6 of them. I run them about 35% brightness and algae has been minimal with the low light intensity. Previously I was cleaning the tank almost daily to get rid of algae but now its only needed about once a week. My mighty magnet is invaluable for this.
I have finally cleaned up all my loose wires in the fish room and as mentioned, gotten rid of the clutter so things are nice and neat and clean. The room is held at a constant 65 degrees to help with the summer heat which is coming in AZ. This keeps the water temp right around 79 degrees. I dont run a heater or chiller. Temp fluctuates a degree or two in either direction but no major changes in water temp.
I have to do some touch up paint tonight on my fish room walls and will post some photos.
thanks for reading. and thanks to all those that have followed this build. I cant believe there are close to 600k views on this thread.
iced98lx
New member
Glad to hear things have landed where you want them and can enjoy the tank in the way you want to! Many of us thrive on the "Build" and get bored/ lose interest easily if there aren't a billion gadgets to play with. Finding a place where upkeep is easy and predictable and you're able to enjoy the tank on your terms is clearly very important to having success, FOWLR or Reef. I look forward to updated photos.
Ok- as promised- some updated pictures. Still have a bit of clean up to do. I'll attend to this as time permits this week and this weekend.
So here is a view of the garage with the fish room. 2 of the doors have glass panes so that when I drive home, I can quickly see if the levels of the sump are proper. If levels are too low, I can diagnose what's going on and adjust accordingly. Luckily- there are failsafes built in so problems have been minimal.
Here is my water change system. On the left is my RODI tank. It's controlled by the Genesis Renew system. When the water gets too low, the ro system kicks on and refills the tanks. When the water level in the tank gets too low, the Renew pumps water back in. On the right is my salt water holding tank. I make about 125 gallons at a time. With the flip of a valve, I can pump water from the salt water tank back into the sump for a water change or from the RO tank to the salt water holding tank and then by adding salt, I can make salt water. I keep salinity at 1.021.
This the the Genesis Renew water top off. I can set how long the fresh water gets added back. There is a fail safe that if after 2 rounds of adding fresh water, if the level doesn't get back to normal in the sump, the Frease water turns off. This prevents the system from dumping all the ro into the main tank accidentally. There is also a float valve in the RO tank as a fail safe in case something goes wrong and too much water goes into the RO tank. The default if the power goes off is to shut down the ro system so nothing gets addred to the RO tank.
Below this is my ro system to make water. The waste water is used to clean the skimmer cup. More on that later.
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So here is a view of the garage with the fish room. 2 of the doors have glass panes so that when I drive home, I can quickly see if the levels of the sump are proper. If levels are too low, I can diagnose what's going on and adjust accordingly. Luckily- there are failsafes built in so problems have been minimal.
Here is my water change system. On the left is my RODI tank. It's controlled by the Genesis Renew system. When the water gets too low, the ro system kicks on and refills the tanks. When the water level in the tank gets too low, the Renew pumps water back in. On the right is my salt water holding tank. I make about 125 gallons at a time. With the flip of a valve, I can pump water from the salt water tank back into the sump for a water change or from the RO tank to the salt water holding tank and then by adding salt, I can make salt water. I keep salinity at 1.021.
This the the Genesis Renew water top off. I can set how long the fresh water gets added back. There is a fail safe that if after 2 rounds of adding fresh water, if the level doesn't get back to normal in the sump, the Frease water turns off. This prevents the system from dumping all the ro into the main tank accidentally. There is also a float valve in the RO tank as a fail safe in case something goes wrong and too much water goes into the RO tank. The default if the power goes off is to shut down the ro system so nothing gets addred to the RO tank.
Below this is my ro system to make water. The waste water is used to clean the skimmer cup. More on that later.
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Here is my RO system. I can make about 200 gallons a day of RO water. My holding tank is only 100 gallons so plenty of water coming through. I've got two TDS meters on there to check water going in and going out. TDS readings have been 0 for water coming out of the system.
You can also see I've got a bit of space here to store salt and bulk carbon and other supplies. You can also see the whole sump.
These are my two Royal Exclusiv 230 watt return pumps. I run them about 160 watts. I've got two pumps for redundancy. One return line goes through a UV filter and the other is hooked up to a valve that I can turn to drain the tank if needed.
Here is the left side of my sump room. To he left is a sink I can use to rinse off filter socks or clean any of the supplies. I've also got a QT tank set up where all new fish go in prior to going into the main tank.
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