180 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[Blue Reef 06]

Hi Everyone,

I currently have a 125 gallon mixed reef, but am getting married in July. We will sell my place and live in my fiancé's home....which has a full basement....which means I can get a bigger tank! We are remodeling the basement this winter and I can start my new tank build after that. I am shooting for having everything set up and running smoothly by July. I am planning for a 180 gallon tank and custom stand/canopy. I can't put the tank in a location that would allow a separate fish room, so will need to have the sump in the stand. There is room in the utility room to set up a mixing station and utility sink, which I am super excited about. This is all still in the planning phase until the basement remodel is done. I have a few questions for everybody as I get started.

1. Is it worth spending the extra $$$ for low iron glass with a 180 gallon tank?
2. Should I consider acrylic instead? I haven't because I am afraid it will scratch and do not want to give up my tuxedo urchins"¦.even if they are currently carrying my polyps around the tank.
3. Anything you absolutely love about your build and would do all over again if you had to rebuild?
4. Anything you wish you had done differently?

Will post pictures as we get this together, but there won't be much action until late winter/early spring.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Congrats on your upcoming marriage. Good luck with the remodel of the basement. 180s are awesome. I think you'll enjoy that size a lot!

1. Is low iron glass worth it to YOU? Consider the option of using it only for the viewing panel(s).
2. I love my acrylic tank. Sure they scratch, but they buff out easily. Glass is very tough to buff out. Acrylic is a much better temperature insulator, which could be very helpful in a basement, which often have big temp swings. Maybe my favorite reason to go acrylic is the ease of modification. I have taken a jig saw and hole saw to my tank a lot! No matter how well planned out your tank is, after you're up and running for a while, you WILL find things to fix. The first mod I made was to greatly enlarge the top access openings. Mine were way too small, making cleaning the tank sides very difficult.
3. The best thing about my tank is the viewing and relaxing experience. I spend hours on my perfectly placed couch, watching the tank. Be sure to take the most important species, YOU, into account, so you can thoroughly enjoy your handiwork.
4. I wish I could have done what you are doing! Being able to remodel a part of your house to accommodate an aquarium is a dream scenario. Think long and hard about your maintenance activities and how your build setup can make them easier. Function is king!

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Personally glass is my choice, Starfire is slightly"softer" but IMHO still not plastic.
Any way to have the sump in the other room on a bench? SOOOOO much better than being on your knees. No basement for me.
A bean animal drain would have been a little better than my Herbie.
Think about it.

 

[five.five-six]

Plastic pros:

Lighter, you can lift and place it with 2 able bodied men

Stronger, you almost never hear about a plastic tank leaking or breaking... like once or twice in my life have I heard of this

Easier to cut and drill

Clearer until they scratch

Better thermal insulation

Can get rounded bent corners

Cons:
They scratch
The always scratch

Look: there’s another scratch

You can’t use razor blades to remove coralline
They scratch

You have to use weak less effective acrylic scrapers

They scratch

Generally and almost always the top bracing takes up a lot more real estate

They scratch

They are more expensive.

Glass

Pros:
Harder to scratch

Less expensive

Unobtrusive bracing

Cons:

Heavy

Need a dead nuts stand

Not as clear

Can break

Can leak

 

[Oldreeferman]

Plastic pros:

Lighter, you can lift and place it with 2 able bodied men

Stronger, you almost never hear about a plastic tank leaking or breaking... like once or twice in my life have I heard of this

Easier to cut and drill

Clearer until they scratch

Better thermal insulation

Can get rounded bent corners

Cons:
They scratch
The always scratch

Look: there's another scratch

You can't use razor blades to remove coralline
They scratch

You have to use weak less effective acrylic scrapers

They scratch

Generally and almost always the top bracing takes up a lot more real estate

They scratch

They are more expensive.

Glass

Pros:
Harder to scratch

Less expensive

Unobtrusive bracing

Cons:

Heavy

Need a dead nuts stand

Not as clear

Can break

Can leak

You sold me with that list, if i was "itching" to get a new tank.... id go glass.

 

[Blue Reef 06]

Thanks all for the responses!

I haven't had a chance to see the low-iron vs. standard glass side by side, so wasn't sure if the difference was noticeable with this size tank. I don't mind paying for it if it is noticeable. I'm not sure I would have the time/patience to buff out scratches and they would drive me nuts. I think I'll stick with glass.

I would love to have a separate fish room/sneak the sump in under the stairs, but I am already causing angst with my vertical water mixing station and tiny utility sink taking up valuable storage space under the stairs. Since I can't have a fish room, I was planning on making the stand a little bit taller than the norm to give me more room to work underneath. Will also be strategic about the doors to make sure it is easy to get to things.

We are meeting with one design company this week and are going to look at a couple more before making a decision on who to go with. I'm planning on building my water changing station next month once we get through the holidays.

 

[Blue Reef 06]

I have a question about the RODI setup in my new water mixing station. In my current setup, the RODI is plumbed to a Brute trash can with a float valve. When the can is full, the float valve will stop the flow of RODI water to the can, but water is still running through the RODI system/down the drain through the waste line until I turn off the water supply. (I hope this makes sense.) Is there a way to create a setup that automatically stops the flow of water into the RODI unit when the fresh water reservoir is full?

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

You need an Auto Shut Off valve & it will do what you want.

 

[Blue Reef 06]

How did I not know these exist?!?! Thanks for the reply. This may be the cheapest upgrade ever for my tank.

 

[mattgumaer]

Build a little fish closet/room with only the front of the tank showing through a cut out in the wall. That’s what I did for my 180. All equipment and supplies in the closet. No noise despite standard corner style overflows (wouldn’t do that again).

Matt

 

[Blue Reef 06]

I would LOVE to have a fish room, but need to sell my fiancé on that.... no luck so far.

I'm considering building the stand myself. I would like to have removable doors to make maintenance easier and was thinking of a pull out panel to mount my apex and other electrical stuff on. Has anybody made (or have) a stand like this? If there are posts with some guidance on how to do it, that would be great.

 

[mattgumaer]

I would LOVE to have a fish room, but need to sell my fiancé on that.... no luck so far.

Not so much a room as a closet in the corner of my finished basement. My tank is 6x2x2. The room/closet is about 7'7" by 5'10", really just enough room for the tank, accessories, equipment and supplies, and basically takes up a corner of the room. I built the stand and added some shelves on the 'back' wall (or side wall depending on your perspective). The sump is under the tank. Honestly, at this point, I think my wife would not be happy to have the tank 'free standing' in the room (in part because I lack the ability to avoid collecting a bunch of accessories, additives, test kits, equipment, etc., all of which remains out of sight in my little closet/room).

If you are going to build your stand, be sure to make the surface of the stand the tank sits on very flat. I think many 'tank failures' are actually 'stand failures', where the tank was effectively bent or twisted a bit due to a non-flat stand surface, causing failure over time.

Matt

 

[Blue Reef 06]

Gotcha. Something like that might work - will have to take a look at things.

I've started to look at tanks and am going with Planet Aquarium. The standard version with low iron in the front has a single overflow in the middle of the back of the tank. When I started reading threads about optimal overflow placement, I saw that several people recommended external overflows but that these can require thicker glass. Thoughts on pros and cons of internal and external overflows and optimal placement?

 

[hkgar]

Something not mentioned but to be considered would be the need an size of a skimmer for your tank.
I have a 180 SPS tank and I do have a fish room in the basement. My tank is on the main floor. The skimmer I use is external and quite noisy.

What are your long range goals for the tank? With a 180 SPS tank my dKH consumption is over 4 per day and without a calcium reactor I couldn't keep up with the dosing.

Have you considered auto top off? My evaporation rate is 3+ gallons/day.

 

[Blue Reef 06]

Long range goals for the tank would be to have it be a mixed reef, which is what I have now (I hope that answers your question).

I have an ATO on my current set up and am planning to have one for the new tank as well. Knowing that you have that much evaporation is helpful. Once I make decisions about the sump and such, I'll figure out where to put the ATO - I could create a reservoir that sits next to the tank with a bench of sorts to hide it.

My current skimmer is a reef octopus 2000 INT. It really isn't too noisy and is oversized for my current tank. It looks like it would likely work for my 180 as well.

Still waiting for some other designs on the basement remodel before moving forward with anything. Thanks for the input!

 

[Tastee]

You need an Auto Shut Off valve & it will do what you want.

I assume you are referring to a Pressure Sensitive Solenoid, if so I use one myself. They are very good, very dependable and very simple so not prone to failure.

The downside I have found is that they are noisy during the shutoff generating lots of strange hums and groans for an extended period. If water to the system is left on overnight this starts again when the water cools and the volume drops - it turns back on for a shortish period. I have tried a few modifications to try and eliminate this but although I have reduced it a little I haven't stopped it. As I run my water station to refill my RODI reservior manually every few weeks at the moment this is not a big issue but that is about to change.

I am about to upgrade my water station to automatically fill my RODI reservoir as needed. For this I will be using an Apex and optical sensors. I will keep the Pressure Sensitive Solenoid above the top level optical sensor as redundancy but the primary will be the optical sensors which will avoid the noise issue.


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[Kevin Guthrie]

Don't need a solenoid. I have an auto shutoff on my RO/DI that works when the float valve in the RO/DI reservoir creates back pressure, so once it fills the reservoir the inlet to the RO closes. It is mechanical, not electrical, and has worked flawlessly for 25 years.

The RO membrane will not work well if the RO water is constantly turned on and off to make up water as it evaporates. I fill another container once a day from it, causing only one pressure cycle per day at the membrane. A peristaltic pump draws water from the other container thru a kalk reactor into the sump to make up for evaporation.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Kevin is correct, the valve is mechanical.

 

[Blue Reef 06]

After having some designers out to look at the basement, there is no way to build a dedicated fish room and keep everyone happy, so I will need to put my sump in the tank stand. I can design the stand myself and the builder will create it and make sure it coordinates with the new cabinets/other built ins that we will be getting. In looking at other builds on RC, I have decided I really like the idea of a separate compartment for the electrical stuff and a door on the side of the stand to access it, a strand of LED lights that goes around the periphery of the stand to light it up while working, and doors that will move completely out of the way for maintenance. I will probably paint the interior "basin" of the stand with flex seal or something along those lines to minimize any chance of leaks. Any other things I should be thinking about? I haven't nailed down what I want for a hood yet, but will definitely want one.

Is it worth paying for a Trigger sump? I am thinking I can accomplish the same thing with a 40 gallon breeder tank and some homemade baffles, but have not tried creating baffles before. Thoughts?

Finally, I am going to need a new skimmer. This will be ultimately be a moderately stocked 180g mixed reef. I want an internal skimmer, preferably with a space saving design and it needs to be quiet. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks all!

 

[Blue Reef 06]

Update: we had a contractor out today and looked into the possibility of a fish room in the basement. It looks like I am going to have about a 6' 10" x ~4' space to work with with plenty of access to drains/water supply. We will basically build it out as a closet, so there will be two doors that open out making access to everything very easy. The only downside is that it is on the opposite side of the basement from where I would like the display tank. It won't be a big deal to run plumbing through the ceiling to get water from the fish room to the tank, but I am trying to think through the best way to set this up. If I can, I would like to have an automatic water changing system. This is what I am thinking and would love feedback on this:

Have the sump, skimmer, water station with a container for fresh water and one for salt water, and a small utility sink in the fish closet. The ATO and water changing system would need to run here too. This will take some strategic planning, but I can get everything to fit. I would need to have a pump powered enough to run the water from the sump back up and over to the display tank. The display tank would then drain into a frag tank inside the stand. I would need a matching return pump in the frag tank to send the water back up and over to the sump that sits in the fish room.

Another option is to keep the sump in the stand. My water source feeding the ATO and water changing system would be in the closet. The lines to the tank would need to run through the ceiling. I was concerned about the potential future need to change them out, but if I ran a PVC conduit through the ceiling, I could simply attach new supply line to the old and pull it through. What I was less sure of here was how well the pumps for the ATO and water changing system would work because of the distance.

Thoughts? It would be a lot simpler to put the tank on the wall next to the fish room, but I wouldn't see it as much because of the layout of the basement. With it on the wall we have planned, we can see it from the main seating area.