1500 gal. Reef from Start to Finish...

[Elliott]

stunning display, thank you for sharing

regarding your flow, it appears you have the sump return hammerhead and the Dual Tunze® Turbelle Stream 6301's, is that it? no CL? How many holes did you drill in the tank? Are you planning to add more Tunze's?

It appears you have the Tunze's located on each rock pinnacle, where are the cords? how do you remove them for cleaning?

I've read so much about keeping the depth within 36" or so for light penetration. obviously the livestock on the bottom are doing fine despite the 60" depth, would you do anything different with the lighting? lumenbrights, light rail, etc?

lastly, is your 1 hp chiller outside? if not, does it result in any heat issues?

sorry for all the questions, had to ask

 

[bmwardo]

Elliot- good questions, no need to apologize. I will answer the ones that I can, and Cris can comment on what he would have liked to have done differently.

Currently all of our flow indeed comes from the return hammerhead and Dual Tunze 6301's. No Closed loop. So all holes drilled are within the overflows.

The Cords for the Tunzes (which you may be able to see in some of the pictures, because they are growing coraline on them) are in the corner between the overflow box and the back wall. There is just enough space between the top of the overflow and the acrylic bracing on the top to fit the small Tunze "controller box." So we are able to pull the Tunzes out of the water for basic cleanings, and if we need to soak them overnight or send them out for repair we pull the controller box through the gap between the overflow and bracing.

I will let Cris comment on the lighting, but I think we are pretty happy with the reflectors (only so many are made to house 1000watt bulbs) and the lightrail.

I should take some more photos underneath the display itself, but the Chiller is inside the stand, under the tank. We found that over the summer the room itself would get warm but the water was kept easily under 80. We have a fairly powerful fan mounted to blow over the water surface and towards the room vent. I imagine it also helps that our ceilings are so high, even above the tank. The fish room temperature control is also directly connected to our client's office, and he likes to keep it fairly cool.

 

[Elliott]

thanks Brandon
can you comment on the flow, do you feel it is adequate with the two 6301's given the size of the display?

 

[bmwardo]

Elliott,
It is hard to describe but with so much water volume above the rock structure and corals and the current placement of the Tunze I feel we only really benefit from ~ half the flow of the Tunze. Since the Tunze blows out in all directions and not straight ahead (which is great for tanks half the height) we seem to be really blasting the top 2 feet of the tank. Does that make sense? Certainly we benefit from the motion elsewhere, but maybe not as much as we would hope.

Even as large of a tank as it is, we really aren't given many choices of placement for the Tunzes because we need to have access to them for cleaning and in order to aquascape the display we were forced to go pretty vertical. We would love a high powered magnet that could hold through 2" acrylic for mounting a Tunze or Vortech. We are kicking around ideas for mounting a wet sided magnet on the inside of the overflow since it is only 1" thick.

So, the answer is no, I don't feel the flow is adequate with the two 6301's, given where they are placed, and the dimensions of the tank. I am sure Cris can elaborate. We will definately update here when we decide what flow additions we make.

 

[Elliott]

Brandon, did you decide not to run CL's because of the potential for leaks or just prefer in dwelling pumps such as Tunzes and Vortechs?

 

[bmwardo]

Elliott- I know Cris may have touched on this approach on one of the first posts but being an Aquarium Maintenance company we have to put liability, safety, functionality, and just a professional look and feel in front of our possible "hobbiest" methods. So, in the sense of a Closed Loop, if we were to have the same tank at our house and the same budget we would have done a lot of things differently to maximize flow throughout the display and there would probably be ball valves, pipes and bulkheads everywhere (at least that would be the case for me). But, like you mentioned, the potential for leaks or failures is so high - it just is not a risk we want to take- especially since we aren't there all of the time.

We have had a heck of a time with these Tunzes seizing up, and I don't think we necessarily prefer them at this point, they are just safer, and have done a decent job thus far.

I can tell you that we are installing 5 (smaller) aquariums at a childrens museum and for the reef tanks we are pretty sure we will just use Vortechs.

 

[bbrantley]

Hey Brandon,

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13852415#post13852415 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bmwardo
We have had a heck of a time with these Tunzes seizing up, and I don't think we necessarily prefer them at this point, they are just safer, and have done a decent job thus far.

Can you talk more about this seizing issue you're seeing? I'm waiting on 6305s (with magnets that might be capable of 1" spread and better pointability), so I'm not exactly thrilled to hear this.

Ben

 

[Elliott]

thanks Brandon, all makes sense
I am planning a large reef, hence all the questions
many thanks

 

["Umm fish?"]

Ben--My Tunzes used to seize, especially right after cleaning. They kind of need the bio-slime in there to keep the magnet lubricated. After a day or so they'd work fine again until the next cleaning.

 

[bmwardo]

Hi Ben,
From the little I have seen, it sounds like the new series of Tunzes seem to be running much better without seizing up. The issues we have had just seems like they are so touchy with the amount of Calcium buildup that they can take leading to cleaning fairly often. I think our current issue with one is a broken or faulty controller box (it only operates the pump with the dial turned all the way down).

This is a little theory I have had, but my sample size of 3 different pumps isn't all that large: In the past I ran the Tunze's from 30-100% most of the time (different code for night time), but basically I was running them all of the time, and they always seemed to be building up Calcium. Now that I have changed the code to 0 - 100% the impeller itself completely stops and then starts full on. My observation has been that since doing this change in code we have not had a pump temporarily seize due to Calcium build up. So it is possible that this full start and full stop dislodges some of the calcium we dealt with in the past.

So Ben, I think we may order a similar model Tunze, and I am much more confident about their new shaft design, let us know how you like it.

 

[bbrantley]

Thanks guys. It's good to hear that you think the problem might have been intermittent. I generally run mine at 100/50 with a very slow cycle, and I've never had one bind. (I have 4 62xx's.) They get lots of build-up, but seem to keep chugging. Hopefully the new models will bring more of the same experience!

Ben

 

[Elliott]

My opinion is that anything you leave in salt water is doomed to stop working unless cleaned often, which is why I prefer CL's with external pumps not in contact with water. Even if you clean an in dwelling pump often it's peak performance is quickly lost by the build up of slime on the impellers. I'm also too lazy to keep up the required maintenance. I realize the added cost of electricity with external pumps however I'm using a VFD which significantly reduces the power consumption since as the pump ramps up and down so does the consumption. Now in this application with no one being around to keep an eye on things it makes sense to keep things simple and avoid a possible catastrophe.
JMO

 

[crisc]

"The other tank"

"The other tank"

I remember a couple of requests for pictures of the other aquarium in this same office. This one is up by the reception desk and is fish-only. It is 10' long, 3'wide and 4' tall. The artificial reef inserts were special ordered and the aquarium was made locally by Aquatic Design Habitats. Here are a few pics that we took a few days ago:

 

[crisc]

Thanks for answering the questions Brandon! One of the things that was missed was the ability of the client to change the flow patterns himself using the Aquacontroller. Being a tech wiz it seemed like a cool option to be able to do if he chose to do so. What we have found is the water volume is so large that it is hard to see the change, even from 100-0. When you get to this sized aquarium there are limited options as far as submersible pumps go.
As far as lighting goes, the 1000w halides seem to give us enough penetration. We used the sunlightsupply reflectors and really have liked them, there is more of a description in the first few pages of this thread. We are debating on what kind of bulbs to use next time around, I am a Radium fan and the thought of 1000w Radiums is very exciting to me. The changing every 7 months is the downer part...

The chiller is under the aquarium and does produce some heat. All of the equipment is in a "filter room". We requested that the room have makeup air which helps control the temp. It did get warm in the room during the summer months but seemed to work out fine. We also have a fan blowing on the water surface which comes on before the chiller helping keep the chiller off as much as possible.

Elliot- how big of an aquarium are you planning? If you already have a 300g, what's next......It's funny my 300g was giant until we started this project.

 

[jrpdriver]

awesome system! I can't find those acrylic holders for the AC Pro anywhere, do you happen to know where to find them? Thanks

Jason

 

[crisc]

They were on ebay....I will see if I can find the link.

 

[Elliott]

hi crisc, I'm planning a rather large reef in a wall backing into my garage, will be 15'Lx5'Hx6'W with natural lighting and VFD CL's, the 300g has been my experiment

 

[bmwardo]

Wow, that is a pretty large reef display. At least at that width you shouldn't have as much difficulty aquascaping, if you plan on getting 3+ feet high with rockwork.

 

[Elliott]

I'm planning something similar to Steve Weast's display with a deep ravine between two large walls:

http://www.oregonreef.com/images/photos/p_011_l.jpg

 

[xXReefXx]

Very Nice!!