600 Gallon Surger Reef Build
- Thread starter mdreef1
- Start date
o2manyfish
o2manyfish
Any Progress ?
Coral Hind
New member
How about an update?
roxbury003
New member
^^ ^
kevinandnadine
New member
Still hoping to see an update 
I too have a GC's tank and am very happy. Hopefully our next one will be of similar deminsions to yours. To bad we basicly need to build a new house to make it practical.
I too have a GC's tank and am very happy. Hopefully our next one will be of similar deminsions to yours. To bad we basicly need to build a new house to make it practical.
Still hoping to see an update
I too have a GC's tank and am very happy. Hopefully our next one will be of similar deminsions to yours. To bad we basicly need to build a new house to make it practical.
You're absolutely right.. I had good intentions to document the process when it all started, but poor follow through. Anyway, the tank has been fully setup for quite some time now. I'm away at the moment and don't have any pictures with me, but I did take quite a few during the setup process.
My time is short now, but I wanted to speak and say that I'm still alive, and the tank it up and running more or less the way it was planned to be.
wilsonline
New member
waiting for updates. want to know want equipments and light are going to be.
BRS Rock
BRS Rock
Ok, here are some updates. These are way retro in the past now, but I'll walk through it the way it happened.
I ordered a few hundred pounds of dry rock from BRS, and I have to say I was pretty impressed with what was sent. It was a mix of
50LBs Tonga branch
50LBs Fiji
50LBs Shelf
100LBs Pukani
The pieces were huge. There's a yard stick in this picture to give you an idea of scale:
Here's a shot of most of it laid out:
Shelves:
Tonga branch:
BRS Rock
Ok, here are some updates. These are way retro in the past now, but I'll walk through it the way it happened.
I ordered a few hundred pounds of dry rock from BRS, and I have to say I was pretty impressed with what was sent. It was a mix of
50LBs Tonga branch
50LBs Fiji
50LBs Shelf
100LBs Pukani
The pieces were huge. There's a yard stick in this picture to give you an idea of scale:
Here's a shot of most of it laid out:
Shelves:
Tonga branch:
Mounting Rocks
Mounting Rocks
One of the ideas I had in my head was to keep all the rocks up off the sand to improve flow around the rocks and minimize places where detritus can settle.
I ordered a bunch of acrylic rod in 3/4" and 1/2" and matching concrete drill bits. The Tonga branch and shelf rocks were VERY hard to drill (solid stuff). The Pukani went much faster, but crumbled a lot due to its open, lightweight nature of it. Where possible I tried to drill three holes in each of the larger pieces to setup a tripod of acrylic rod, and glued those to acrylic sheets where necessary for stability.
Sadly, I had to break up the huge Pukani piece to get it to fit where I wanted. I also was only able to use one of the shelves.
The left over pieces and rubble were glued to the center concrete section to further obscure the fakey nature of it.
Left side looking in from the front:
Left side looking in from the top:
Right side looking in from the front:
Right side looing in from the top:
In this shot you can see the overflow chute from the refugium.
Here's the center concrete section after some of the rubble was glued on:
And finally a full tank shot from the front:
Mounting Rocks
One of the ideas I had in my head was to keep all the rocks up off the sand to improve flow around the rocks and minimize places where detritus can settle.
I ordered a bunch of acrylic rod in 3/4" and 1/2" and matching concrete drill bits. The Tonga branch and shelf rocks were VERY hard to drill (solid stuff). The Pukani went much faster, but crumbled a lot due to its open, lightweight nature of it. Where possible I tried to drill three holes in each of the larger pieces to setup a tripod of acrylic rod, and glued those to acrylic sheets where necessary for stability.
Sadly, I had to break up the huge Pukani piece to get it to fit where I wanted. I also was only able to use one of the shelves.
The left over pieces and rubble were glued to the center concrete section to further obscure the fakey nature of it.
Left side looking in from the front:
Left side looking in from the top:
Right side looking in from the front:
Right side looing in from the top:
In this shot you can see the overflow chute from the refugium.
Here's the center concrete section after some of the rubble was glued on:
And finally a full tank shot from the front:
Sunlight is the primary light with some extra T5's over the 'fuge. I was tinkering around with blue LEDs that I could individually point as spotlights to show off corals, but in the end it was cheaper and more reliable to use Eco Exotic 100W cannons in royal blue. :dance:
Here's the equipment list (at least the first main purchase list)
As I recall, the shipping weight for all this was over 2400 LBs..
reeftanknewbie
New member
I agree with Dave here since your goal is to get away from " the pile of rocks" thing. Otherwise great looking tank and build. Can't wait to see your ingenious surge in operation.
Admittedly, I'm no master aestheticist (is that a word?), and I tend to prioritize function first. Here's a couple of things about that center section:
1. It's only about 1 inch think concrete, hollow, and open from the back. It's basically an enormous cave for fishes to hide in.
2. Inside it is the distribution manifold for the closed loop system, and there are a few eductors that poke through the concrete to direct water flow where it's needed.
3. The right side of the tank is VIOLENT. The tank needed a wave break to provide a calm space on the left of the tank.
Long story short, the center can't be removed, but I suppose if it gets mistaken for a pile or rocks instead of slab of concrete, then that's at least partly positive. I'd love to hear some idea about how to make it better.
Thanks for posting the build thread, Jon.
Do you have any video of the tank in action? I've always liked the idea of the CSD but I had a problem with all the bubbles because I don't like salt spray and salt creep around the house/tank area. Looks like you created a device to try to solve that and I would like to how it worked out.
Do you have any video of the tank in action? I've always liked the idea of the CSD but I had a problem with all the bubbles because I don't like salt spray and salt creep around the house/tank area. Looks like you created a device to try to solve that and I would like to how it worked out.
I'm afraid I don't have any video, but the CSD empties in to the refugium, so the bubbles dissipate before hitting the tank. I did have some problems with water bubbling out over the fuge walls so I added a cap on top to keep it contained.
Rocks sand and water:
After everything was in place, I let the RO/DI do its thing for about a week, added salt, and then spread about 800LBs or about 3-4 inches of sand around the bottom. At this point there's some basic circulation between the sump, tank, and fuge, but no surges yet. The closed loop is also humming away. I never did figure out a way to hide the locline and eductors on the outsides of the tank. There's a more or less constant flow of 10,000 GPH moving through the tank at this point.
Using some rock chisels, I was able to shoehorn in a huge piece of Pukani over on the right side. It's resting partly on the PVC pipe in the back and partly on acrylic legs. It all the way in the back, and not easy to see, but I think fills out the right side a bit so that left and right are at least a little more balanced.
So that's the basic structure of the tank. There's nothing electrical that makes contact with the water as the pumps are external and shaft driven. Eventually there will be some submersibles in the sump, but never anything magnetic or electrical in the display itself.
After everything was in place, I let the RO/DI do its thing for about a week, added salt, and then spread about 800LBs or about 3-4 inches of sand around the bottom. At this point there's some basic circulation between the sump, tank, and fuge, but no surges yet. The closed loop is also humming away. I never did figure out a way to hide the locline and eductors on the outsides of the tank. There's a more or less constant flow of 10,000 GPH moving through the tank at this point.
Using some rock chisels, I was able to shoehorn in a huge piece of Pukani over on the right side. It's resting partly on the PVC pipe in the back and partly on acrylic legs. It all the way in the back, and not easy to see, but I think fills out the right side a bit so that left and right are at least a little more balanced.
So that's the basic structure of the tank. There's nothing electrical that makes contact with the water as the pumps are external and shaft driven. Eventually there will be some submersibles in the sump, but never anything magnetic or electrical in the display itself.
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