265 gallon project

[niloc16]

i have been studying and collecting components for this setup for about 4 months. and boy has it taught me patience. it is a 265 gallon 84"L X 24"W X 30"D. it has dual layer 1/2" glass laminated together. it weighs 1000 lbs dry. i'm using a 75 gal for sump. i paid movers to move it to my house from the store and the guys chipped the corner of the tank, most of the damage was the cosmetic plastic trim thank goodness but what a stressful day that was. so i fired them and didnt pay them a cent. i built a skid to mount the tank to and 5 of us moved the tank up 13 stairs. we had 2 guys at the top of the stairs with a roped wrapped around their waists and attached to the skid and the rest of us pushed it up the stairs. it moved fairly easily on the skid. that was fun hey marc! i'm not moving it again it will be sold with the house.

in the sump i'm running 2 250w ebo jager heaters that maintain 78.5 degrees for skimmer i'm using an H&S A200-1260 that i had to modify the base to fit in the sump a little easier. i'm using a dart pump for the return as well it supplies the skimmer that also uses the eheim 1260 for recirculation. currently i'm using coarse and fine filter media in the sump to clean the water a bit since it has only been running for about 3 weeks.

left side of sump

middle

right side

 

[niloc16]

i'm using a barracuda pump for a CL with 2 outlets split into 2 each for a total for 4 locline outputs. 2 of them i direct behind the rock structures to keep it clean. i also used 2 vortech pumps for extra circulation but in the future i will be using them as my wave device once the controller comes out. i was sold on them for a wave device once i seen the movie from macna. i turn down the output of the dart return pump so there is only about 1500gph actually gettin into the display tank but in total i have approximately 11000 gph of flow in the tank.

i plumbed a 75gpd RO/DI unit the in the laundry room on the bottom floor and also hooked it up to a timer so that the water supply is only on for 9 hours a day. the RO output line is drilled through the floor and wall and goes directly to the sump with a float valve. i have a 30 gallon garbage can in the basement for mixing fresh SW it is also plumbed through the floor and to the sump so that i when i turn the switch on it pumps the fresh SW right to the sump, so no carrying buckets.

 

[niloc16]

i used pvc structure for the rock work. 2 main structures actually. 90% of the rock was drilled and slides over the pvc tubing and then tyraps were used to secure the rock to the pvc. there is about 190 lbs of rock right now. i have about 25 lbs that i will transfer from my 55 gallon. i put 100 lbs of #2 grade crushed coral. sorry the pictures are dark but i dont have lighting yet. i'm still researching what to use. i would like to go with 3 400W MH and t5's with moonlighting mounted in the canopy.

left side

right side

once the reactor is going the coralline will cover most the pvc and disguise it. i'm also planning on placing corals in the spots to hie it more.

 

[niloc16]

its not connected yet but i have a 2 stage calcium reactor with a 10lb CO2 bottle that i made brackets for to secure it in the stand for safety reasons. the tank has been going for 3 weeks now and the parameters were ideal so i added 8 chromis to load the tank a little before the big addition of the 55 gallon coral and fish. i dont have any pics of them or the vortechs but i'll try and get some. let me know what you think, advice, questions, good or bad.

you'll have to excuse the wiring nightmare right now. i have purchased a profilux controller but it has not come in yet and once i get that the wiring will be all cleaned up and hopefully out of sight.

 

[thor32766]

great work so far, looks great

 

[glaspie69]

I love the rockwork......can't wait to see the progression

 

[niloc16]

i'm going to change out the barracuda with a dart because it is so noisy. the vibration travels along my laminate so much that it is hard to hear the tv in the room.

thanks for the compliments.

i'm reallly hoping that next week my light should be done so i can see what the tank really looks like. the ambient light doesnt do much justice right now.

 

[Craig Lambert]

Looking good! I really like the 84" length. The extra 12" makes it looks much larger than a 72" tank. How will you light it when working with 84" vs 72 or 96"?

 

[niloc16]

i was talking tonight with a friend of mine at the LFS and i am going to go with the new icecap 250w/400w pendants with 14k 400w aquaconnect bulbs and icecap 400w electronic ballasts. and 8 54w T5 actinics. the canopy top has been routered out about 50% of the surface for venting but we are also going to mount fans in the canopy to pull in cool air. hopefully i dont get alot of light reflection out the top but we'll see how it goes

 

[invincible569]

keep the pics coming!

 

[FishyBiz]

Very nice! Love the rockwork.

 

[niloc16]

wow, i'm way behing in updating this. lots has changed. i removed the barracuda and closed loop all together and went with 2 vortechs which i'm going to replace with tunze wavebox this week. it is taking too long for the wave controller for the vortechs to come out. i have installed 2 tunze 6100's which i installed on 2 wavyseas. i absolute love the current and flow that this achieves. i got the idea from fudge.

this is the mod i used to to mount the bracket from the tunze to the wavy sea. it is a standard 1" pvc cap.

and here it is installed

 

[niloc16]

i also purchased the profilux II controller with WLAN. i have 2 ph probes (one for reactor), redox, conductivity, temp. this unit rocks, very easy to use and program. i've been having a bit of difficulty hooking up the WLAN but i'm inexperienced with wireless networking so that is my issue right now. it controls my tunzes on random circulation, my LED lunar lighting, halides, actinics, heaters well you guys know what it does. i designed and built a bracket to mount it in my stand, i dont have pictures of that yet because i'm still tidying the wiring, to me its too messy right now.

 

[niloc16]

i finally got my canopy and modded it. my lighting i went with 3 lumen max 2 400w pedants 14k aquaconnect bulbs and 400w icecap electronic ballasts. the canopy has been modded that the top is cut out to mount the pendants on top of the canopy. the lighting is about 10" about the water give or take an inch or so. i had to build brackets to mount the pedants.. i bought a set of blue led lighting from ikea that comes with 4 light strips to use for lunar lighting. in addition i have 2 54 t5 actinics with GLO reflectors and GLO electronic ballasts. this ballast is dimmable and i want to hook it to my controller but have not got around to modding it. i had to mod the t5 reflectors as well to get them mounted.

 

[niloc16]

here is some tank shots for you. all this livestock was put in over about 2 months so dont think i just dumped them in last night.

 

[niloc16]

 

[niloc16]

 

[niloc16]

 

[invincible569]

Love the picture with your kid in it. Brings the tank to perspective.

 

[Elliott]

ahh, great shot with your son, that's what this is all about...