A Capital Dream - 400g SPS build

[rockworm]

I had my first official flood yesterday. :lol: I put the sand in the tank, about 350 lbs of it. I rinsed it using tap water through the garden hose. I went outside for something and, of course, the garden hose decided to pop out of the tank. My wife got to it in about 10 seconds. Ya know, a lot of water can come out of a garden hose in a few seconds. :uhoh3: I did some more rinsing today, without the flood.

I placed an order for 250 lbs of dry shelf rock. The vendor posted a video on youtube that showed some of the rock available. He has some very nice shelf:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-P9yaiNoBTY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Usernam Invalid]

That's some serious shelf rock

 

[rockworm]

Today was a great day. I got nothing done on the build except to buy the 1" bulkheads for the return.

Today is my son's birthday (27 yrs old) and the family went out to dinner. There was my son and his wife and my daughter and her boyfriend. I found out that I am going to be a grandfather. Yippee. Cake and ice cream, here we come. I so plan to spoil him/her. My daughter is pregnant and while we don't know the due date, it appears thay she is about 4 months along.

She will be followed as high risk because both our kids were premature. My son was born at 26 wks and my daughter at 30 wks.

I aleady have plans for my grandchild to help. I will get some small goggles and s/he can help me rearrange corals.

 

[Rybren]

Congrats Ward.

 

[rockworm]

Congrats Ward.

Thanks. I am looking forward to the little nipper.

 

[McPuff]

Excellent build. Following...

 

[rockworm]

I think it is time for an update. I have not posted anything in a while, but I have not been idle. First, and foremost, I had an electrician in to add three 20 amp circuits. One is located beside the tank and the other two are located in the sump room. This is an important addition because I have a limited number of circuits in the house. With the current 220g, I have had to juggle power lines to try to evenly distribute the power use across various house circuits. Just when I think I have everything solved, I would start up the vacuum or a power tool and a breaker would pop. No more.

With the tank in place, the sand rinsed and electric in place, it is time to start the smaller projects. I plumbed in the return lines. The return comes through the middle of the overflow on each end.

I was originally going to run the return over the top. However, I changed my mind on that because I will be putting a screen top on the tank to discourage my jumpers (wrasses). I did not want to shape the screen around returns. I created two return manifolds, one for each end.

I had to remove 3 teeth from the overflow weir in order to run the pipe through to the inside of the tank. I tried to attach the pipe to the underside of the eurobrace using polyurethane glue. Unfortunately it did not work. I used two pieces of black abs to wedge the return manifold to the glass.

You can see the two pipes, one in the foreground and one a third from the left. I drilled a bunch of holes in each of the support pipes to prevent water from stagnating in there. The pretty little gray elbow will be replaced with a lockline as soon as I get the FTP union. (I was short one)

It was now time to level out the sand. I had just dumped it in and rinsed it, so there were hills and valleys everywhere. I used a basic tool for this:

A good old fashioned garden rake. It made quick work of the leveling.

 

[rockworm]

I installed the Lumentek ballast and radium bulb in the light rack. I put a mounting plate beside each side of the tank.

I left room for a second ballast to the left of the Lumentek. I will mount two on each side of the tank. The black box is the Reefbrite ballast. I ran the ballast wires up the wall and attached them to the rail support.

It is a little messy right now and will be cleaned up to fit inside a cabinet that I will build later.

I had to ensure that there would be no problems with wires snagging or dropping in to the water as a result of sliding the light rack out and in.

There is still some slack in the wire when the rack is fully extended out from the wall. There will be no tension on the wire.

Here you see the maximum drop opf the wire when the rack is returned to its over tank position.

I am satisfied that there is no binding or excess sagging.

 

[rockworm]

I started the tank fill on Saturday at 4:00 pm. Here it is 45 hrs later.

It is getting there

I am going to be unconventional and add the salt to the tank for mixing. I dont feel like taking out 350 lbs of sand that has been rinsed, only to add it back later. I won't be adding livestock for a while, and it will be totally dissolved when I do.

I finally made a decision on the T5 selection. I am going with ATI coral+ and ATI Purple+ to supplement the MH. This combination, with the blue LED's, should give me a pretty good colour. I wanted the coral+ to help reduce the shadowing caused by the narrow spread of the Lumenbright reflectors.

I ordered them yesterday and will receive them tomorrow. Great service from a Canadian reef supplies mail order company. :thumbsup: At the same time, I will be getting another 8" x 8" x 4" MarinePure block and a Finnex 800 watt heater. I placed the shelf rock order last Tuesday through my LFS. Optimistically, it will be here this Thursday. Realistically, it will be in sometime during the first week of July.

If all goes as planned, the livestock will be in their new home by the end of July. :bounce1:

 

[zchauvin]

Looking good so far!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[McPuff]

You might consider doing something to shelter and/or raise those ballasts a bit in case of any splashing from your fish. They are close enough that they could easily be hit with some saltwater.

 

[rockworm]

Looking good so far!


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Thank you. I have to tackle the spaghetti mess in the basement, now that I have the new 20 amp circuits. For me, this is one of those mundane tasks that has to be done. You can't see the results in the aquarium, but it is important.

I will use this time to reorganize my profilux connections. I have two 6 socket power bars and will put one on each circuit.

 

[rockworm]

You might consider doing something to shelter and/or raise those ballasts a bit in case of any splashing from your fish. They are close enough that they could easily be hit with some saltwater.

You have a good point there. The eurobrace is 4.5" wide but there is a still chance of splashing. Especially when my yellow coris wrasse tries to jump. The net cover keeps him in the tank, but the splash can sometimes go 3 to 4 feet outside the tank.

I will put a temporary block or cover until I build the cabinet beside the tank. I can incorporate a permanent solution at that time.

 

[Rybren]

It's coming along nicely Ward. Glad you got those extra circuits - you needed them

 

[rockworm]

It's coming along nicely Ward. Glad you got those extra circuits - you needed them

I did, didn't I. [emoji6] The new circuits make it so much easier. The MHs on one, heaters on another and hi watt pumps on a third. This looks after all the high watt equipment and leaves me lots of room for the rest of the equipment.

 

[reefmutt]

Wow, what a build thread.. I am usually so cought up in my little sps world that I seldom wander out of that forum..
I'm glad I did, today!
Ward, your build thread has both astounded me and brought back a few memories.
First, your hoist was an absolute beauty to behold.
It looked like a Trojan horse, only built better. Really nice!
The names mentioned a few pages back from MASO also rang a bell.. I remember a few of them from Aquariacanada... Remember that?!?
Goes back a ways..
Anyways, a hearty congratulations on becoming a granddad and I'm looking forward to watching your latest baby take shape.

 

[rockworm]

Mission accomplished. I reorganized my profilux powerbars and have connected all the reef equipment to the new circuits. I have one switchable socket left. I guess I will have to scour the mail order places to see what else I can add. I hate to waste a socket. lol

The water is almost to the overflow. It took 73 hrs and it now sits ~1/2" below the teeth. I kind of overshot the salinity. It was at 1.023 a couple of hours ago so I threw another 50g bag in. Now it is at 1.027. I will let it mix until tomorrow, in case there is some residual salt left to dissolve. After that, I will adjust the salinity to 1.026 and very slowly bring it online with the other tanks. I think there would be too much of a system shock to add all 400g of fresh saltwater into an existing 375g (sump + 220g + 75g) system.

The wires on the left are not in the tank. This is the connection for one of the MH sockets.

The goal is to have the 400g fully integrated into the existing system so that all tanks share the same water. This will give me some flexibility to move corals first. I can make two temporary shelf units out of the half inch light diffusers from home depot. I can put one in each of the 400 and the 220 and put corals on them. I can then move the live rock, the MH's and Reefbrite from the 220 in to the 400.

 

[rockworm]

Thanks a lot Matt. I spend most of my RC time in the Large Tank and the SPS forum. There are some great builds here and great inspiration in the SPS forum. My goal is an SPS tank so I follow a number of the SPS threads, yours included.

I remember Aquariacanada well. Ivan was instrumental in helping me set up my first tank. I got a lot of the livestock and equipment from him. I also got advice from him and many others on the AC site.

We found out yesterday that my daughter is due in January, so a new years baby may be in order. I should be able to find an appropriately themed mask and snorkel so I can get the baby involved early. A "little" helper will be great.

Wow, what a build thread.. I am usually so cought up in my little sps world that I seldom wander out of that forum..
I'm glad I did, today!
Ward, your build thread has both astounded me and brought back a few memories.
First, your hoist was an absolute beauty to behold.
It looked like a Trojan horse, only built better. Really nice!
The names mentioned a few pages back from MASO also rang a bell.. I remember a few of them from Aquariacanada... Remember that?!?
Goes back a ways..
Anyways, a hearty congratulations on becoming a granddad and I'm looking forward to watching your latest baby take shape.

 

[rockworm]

I installed the flourescents tonight. I turned them on along with the MH that I have aleady hooked up and did a par test. I am getting 450 par at 6 inches and 200 on the sand bed. This is roughly centred under the middle of the MH. I forgot to turn on the Reefbrite, so it may be a touch higher. The water is still a little cloudy so I am happy with these numbers.

 

[reefmutt]

I did the drive to Ivan's on a couple occasions as well..
It was a good little community for a while there.
It was fun to be a mod on Aquariacanada.
That's some pretty good par. Curious to see how much it goes up with the reefbrites and clear water.
You'll want some real light lovers up near the top.