8ft 300g build

Okay......long time since I've done an update. Life has been busy which made the rest of my build go slow.

So this weekend I FINALLY moved the tank into the house!! Wooohhhooo!!! 60g's of SW already in it and I'm making more now. I limited to 60g's at a time with my storage drums in the garage, so it'll take a few days to fill her up.

I have about 180lbs of sand and 100lbs of rock in it so far (see pics). I'll be doing another 100lbs of LR out of my 90g too. I'm shooting for a minimalistic look in the DT. I'll end up with additional LR in the sump.

Now that it's in the house, I can finish trimming out the canopy and then I'm going to paint the entire thing in an antiqued white finish, both stand and canopy.

She looks HUGE sitting next to my 90! Another few weeks and the 90 will be going across the street to my neighbor who wants to take up the hobby.

Building the wrap for the stand.


To make sump access real easy, the entire front panel is one piece and is held on with magnets. It works extremely well and I can remove the entire panel to work on everything real easy.


First moved into the house.


Another view with the 90g on the left.


I need an 8ft step ladder to work on this thing! LOL


Getting wet!!
 
Perhaps you should remove the canopy and set it aside until the bulk of the set-up work is finished.

Dave.M
 
The setup is finished except adding the water and more rock. I can fit right through those huge doors, plus the canopy is bolted to the uprights from the steel stand. It actually doesn't even touch the tank.

More water mixing now.....
 
Tank is full and in full operation as of yesterday! I have about 25lbs of live rock in it along with 100lbs of dry rock to start the cycle. Hopefully it'll go fairly fast so I can transfer everything out of my 90g into it and then start getting more fish and corals!

All I have left to do is finish running the RO lines through the attic for the automatic water changes and ATO. Right now I have a temp ATO with the Spectrapure UPLC to keep the level good. Once the lines are run through the attic, the UPLC will still be used, but it'll pull the RO topoff water from a storage drum in the garage.
 
Thanks!

ATO and auto water change lines are finished being run through the attic (dang it's HOT up there!!)...so now the ATO with the Litermeter UPLC is up and running, pulling RO from my storage tank in the garage up through the attic and into the sump. No more constantly filling an RO storage container under the tank like I have to do with my 90g!

The water change lines are run as well, but the Litermeter I'm going to use to run that system is currently running kalk in my 90g. Once the 300 is fully cycled and I transfer everything over, I'll move the LMIII to the 300g for the auto water changes.

Now I just wait for the cycle...0.25ppm ammonia this morning with zero nitrites or nitrates....twiddling my thumbs and looking at an empty tank! ha ha ha
 
Here's the most recent shot. Ignore the different color canopy. I still have to redo the trim on it to match the stand, then I'm having a buddy come over and do an antique paint job on all of it for me. Still not enough rock in it, but I'll be moving about 100 more lbs out of my 90g into it.

There's also only one Photon 48 in it. The other is on the 90 and will move over as well.

 
pulling RO from my storage tank
Click to expand...
How big is the RO storage tank? The reason I ask is that, if your ATO pump should ever stay in the ON position, that is how much water is going to get pumped into your sump in one day.

Having an intermediate top-up reservoir limits how much replacement water can possibly get. Measure the intermediate top-up reservoir to match your normal daily make-up amount (takes a while to establish this). Then just automate the daily refill of the reservoir.

Dave.M
 
I'm using the Litermeter UPLC which also has a secondary float that shuts the pump off if that ever happens...but to answer your question the RO storage in the garage is 30 gallons.

Speaking of which, to prevent TDS creep in the drum, I manually turn off the RO and booster pump so that it doesn't automatically kick back on every time the UPLC draws water into the tank. When the drum gets about halfway empty, I'll manual turn the RODI back on and let it run until the float switch turns it back off.

Is there a way to have it stay off and then automatically trigger back on when the drum is say half or 3/4 empty and run until the float turns it off to prevent TDS creep by constantly cycling?
 
Float switches are guaranteed to fail, and most likely when you are not there to catch the problem. However, 30 gallons is not enough to flush all the salt out of the system in the case of float switch failure so it doesn't sound like you are in too much danger.

I prefer to have the ATO reservoir no bigger than one average daily top up for the display system. Then I put the RO/DI on a timer so that it only runs long enough to fill the ATO reservoir and then powers down again.

When the float switch in the sump fails and the ATO keeps pumping freshwater into the sump it can't put in more than what is in the ATO reservoir until the timer powers the RO/DI on again next day - time enough for you to catch the problem if you're there.

When the float switch in the ATO reservoir fails the timer shuts the power off to the RO/DI so that it can't put in any more than the ATO reservoir can hold in one day. If you're not around to catch the problem the effects are limited to how much water the ATO reservoir can hold in one day.

It's not perfect but it minimizes the damage until you catch the problem and correct things.

With float switches it is important that you disassemble them once every month or two and give them a good cleaning. You want to make sure that neither bio-film nor salt creep builds up on them making the float switch inoperable.

HTH

Dave.M
 
So today was the big day of transferring the 90g fish, corals, and extra rock into the 300! Everything is getting used to their new surroundings, so I'll wait a day or so to take some pics. I also have to work on the aquascape some. I was just grabbing rocks as my wife handed them to me to get them into the new tank so we could catch the fish! LOL.

Tomorrow I'll drain and clean the 90 and start to move it out so my neighbor can have it. I can't wait to use up my LA gift card on some fish to fill this thing!
 
dave.m said:
Float switches are guaranteed to fail, and most likely when you are not there to catch the problem. However, 30 gallons is not enough to flush all the salt out of the system in the case of float switch failure so it doesn't sound like you are in too much danger.

I prefer to have the ATO reservoir no bigger than one average daily top up for the display system. Then I put the RO/DI on a timer so that it only runs long enough to fill the ATO reservoir and then powers down again.

When the float switch in the sump fails and the ATO keeps pumping freshwater into the sump it can't put in more than what is in the ATO reservoir until the timer powers the RO/DI on again next day - time enough for you to catch the problem if you're there.

When the float switch in the ATO reservoir fails the timer shuts the power off to the RO/DI so that it can't put in any more than the ATO reservoir can hold in one day. If you're not around to catch the problem the effects are limited to how much water the ATO reservoir can hold in one day.

It's not perfect but it minimizes the damage until you catch the problem and correct things.

With float switches it is important that you disassemble them once every month or two and give them a good cleaning. You want to make sure that neither bio-film nor salt creep builds up on them making the float switch inoperable.

HTH

Dave.M
Click to expand...

That's a very good observation on ATOs Dave
 
Cellphone pics don't give the best color.....but here she is. All I have left to do is paint the stand and canopy, and I'm getting that done this coming weekend.
FTS


Left Side:



Right Side:
 
Not sure about that bit leaning against the back corner but the rest looks very nice. A great start!

Dave.M
 
What if you laid it horizontally across the two bits in front of it's current location, smallest end towards the front of the tank? Or you could just break it in half and have two pieces that are easier to position.

Dave.M
 
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