Back at it again but this time I'm going Big

C

Chi Town Reefer

Member
Last winter I decided to take down my 240 gallon reef tank because I quickly ran out of room in it. I am now in the remodeling phase of my kitchen and dining room and decided that I want to add a huge tank as a room divider between the two rooms. I started off with thinking a 400 gallon was going to be big enough and now I am up to a 775 gallon tank and currently working with Custom Aquariums on designing the build. Before I finalize anything, I want to get some other opinions on the best way I should be doing this so I don't make any mistakes along the way. I am thinking of doing a closed loop system to enhance the flow through the tank, along with two top overflows that will be going down into the sump for the filtration. Anyone have any suggestions or comments on anything I might be doing wrong or can be doing better? I appreciate any feedback possible. Here is a design of my room and a rough sketch of my tank idea.
a>


a>
 
I think one of those cabinets on the kitchen side should be converted into a floor to ceiling cabinet for tank systems and for venting both the stand and the hood out of doors.

Dave.M
 
dave.m said:
I think one of those cabinets on the kitchen side should be converted into a floor to ceiling cabinet for tank systems and for venting both the stand and the hood out of doors.

Dave.M
Click to expand...

The cabinets in the Kitchen will only be bottom cabinets so you can see through the tank into the dining room. The back side of the tank will be all open into the utility room where I will have plenty of ventilation.
 
Chi Town Reefer said:
The back side of the tank will be all open into the utility room where I will have plenty of ventilation.
Click to expand...
You will have to consider the effects of salty humidity in your living space if you have not made allowances for ventilation of evaporation from the tank to the outdoors.

Dave.M
 
oldbones said:
Are you envisioning this as an in wall peninsula, with the hood area as an extension of the utility room?
Click to expand...

Yes, the tank will be visible from three sides and the back of the tank will be open in the utility room as well as the hood of the tank. The hood will be mounted from the ceiling with plenty of doors to get into it. There will be ventilation fans in the hood and also in the utility room that will be exiting through the roof to help with the humidity.
 
After a lot of research and discussions, I decided to go with a 630 gallon 96 x 48 x 30 tank. I am doing my research on lighting now and I really want to go with 400W MH / T5 lighting but due to my calculations on the monthly cost to run the tank I am now looking at LED lights. My two choices are the Kessil AP700's and the EcoTech XR30W G3 Pro's. I have attached a picture of "my", layout ideas of the two brands and would like to know your input on my selections. I plan on running a mixed tank, with lots of SPS corals. Is my ideas under kill or over kill to the quantity of light? The tank is 30" deep so I want to make sure I can still have clams on the bottom. Any suggestions I am open too.
Lighting%20Options.png
 
Can't wait to see this thing up and running. Any plans for a RC open house for a viewing one day? Could be a fun meet...
 
Why 400W MH? You could probably easily get away with 250W as long as you have a decent reflector (Lumenarc style) that really captures light and spreads it out. And on a watt for watt basis I think LEDs and MH come pretty damn close, while LEDs are a bit more efficient they really aren't that much more efficient. The upside is you can ramp down the power throughout the day where MH are more off/on states.

But based on your choices, I'm more of a fan of the Kessils, although I am a bit biased on that. However based on your layout you are going to get more output from the Radions, since you have 8 of them @ 170W versus 5 Kessils at 185W.

I also would be a fan of mixing LEDs with halides too, keep your halides on for 4-5 hours a day and let your Kessils essentially be the "T5s" to do your color mixing and ramping of intensity.
 
If you can control the heat, MH in my opinion is the way to go. Many would disagree, but its what I know works and is pretty much fail safe. Yes there are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, there isn't much playing around with metal halides. Just plug them in and your good to go.

Have you looked into dimmable MH ballasts? 250 with lumenarcs would probably be enough, but at least you would have the option to add power if it isn't. Now for a bunch of questions.

Is the attic above the tank or a second story?
Is there a finished basement under the tank?
Are you doing all the electrical and ventilation yourself?
Are you doing all the maintenance or having a company do this?
What is the plan for supporting the tank as far as the house structure goes?
How are you planning on utilizing all that space under the tank?
Is there anything in the utility room that could be transferred into the garage to make more room?
Why go thru the roof for the venting instead of thru the soffit?
 
Sorry my pictures got all messed up I'll upload new ones now that i got them fixed. I originally wanted to go the Metal Halide route because my previous tank had the Kessil A360W lights and I was not impressed with the coral growth I was getting from them. Now that I'm going to a deeper tank, I wanted to make sure there was going to be enough Par at the lower levels of the tank to satisfy the tanks needs. The Metal Halide Complete Kit Lumen bright Reflector, Reeflux bulb, Ballast i was looking at is adjustable from 400 watt to 250 watt so if the lighting demand are more i can run the 400's and if there less, I can run the 250's.
 
rygar said:
Is the attic above the tank or a second story? Attic
Is there a finished basement under the tank? No basement, house is on a concrete slab
Are you doing all the electrical and ventilation yourself? Yes
Are you doing all the maintenance or having a company do this?I will be doing all the maintenance
What is the plan for supporting the tank as far as the house structure goes? Concrete slab
How are you planning on utilizing all that space under the tank?There will be a large sump and all the filtration and pumps will be under
Is there anything in the utility room that could be transferred into the garage to make more room? No, the garage is detached
Why go thru the roof for the venting instead of thru the soffit?I just had all new siding and soffits installed and because of how my attic is on space and the way the soffit was installed, I will ruin it if I try. There is already vents in the roof from the exhaust fan in the kitchen that I was planning on tieing into.
Click to expand...
 
Ok. Just trying to see how your gonna go about this. Might be a good idea to have an electrician do the electrical. They can do pretty much anything you can dream up. And give you ideas that you may not have thought of. I put a bunch of things on actual switches. So you can just leave things plugged in and flip a switch and do your maintenance. So the protein skimmer is on a switch, the main pump is tied to different switch, powerheads on on another switch, etc...

Maybe put 4 metal halide fixtures instead of 8. Especially in a peninsula where you most likely won't have anything growing within 6" or so from the edges. This leaves a 3' footprint to light, and metal halides with lumenarc reflectors will cover that space just fine.
 
Last edited:
Electricity is all in besides the exhaust fans that will be going in the ceiling above the tank. I was thinking 8 lights only because I wanted to angle each row of 4 in toward the middle so I can eliminate some of the shadowing effect there will be if I only run a single row down the center.


rygar said:
Ok. Just trying to see how your gonna go about this. Might be a good idea to have an electrician do the electrical. They can do pretty much anything you can dream up. And give you ideas that you may not have thought of. I put a bunch of things on actual switches. So you can just leave things plugged in and flip a switch and do your maintenance. So the protein skimmer is on a switch, the main pump is tied to different switch, powerheads on on another switch, etc...

Maybe put 4 metal halide fixtures instead of 8. Especially in a peninsula where you most likely won't have anything growing within 6" or so from the edges. This leaves a 3' footprint to light, and metal halides with lumenarc reflectors will cover that space just fine.
Click to expand...
 
Remodeling should be complete within the next few days so I am starting to dig into this again. After running the numbers multiple times I am figuring that the tank will cost anywhere from $200 to $225 a month in electricity and would like to shrink that down as much as possible. The last decision to make is still the lighting option. By my calculations it will be cheaper to run Metal Halide lights rather than LED lights. Reasons being, (1) I live near Chicago and we have some pretty cold winters and would be running a lot of heaters to maintain a good water temp of 80-82 degrees if I run LED lights, (2) I keep my house at 70 degrees both summer and winter and would again have to run the heaters to maintain a good water temp. (3) Metal Halides will help with heating up the water and will not need as much heater usage to make up the difference in temperature. What I do not know is, how much will the Metal Halide lights actually heat the water up. The plan is to run 8 x 250 watt bulbs for about a year or so till the system is nice and settled in, then up them to 8 x 400 watt bulbs once I putting in the SPS corals.
 
I have 3 ap700 over a 96 x 32 x 24 tall you could get away with 6 and not 8 without a problem the 4 ft width is the killer. Mine are 6 inches off the water line and look amazing. I just set the tank up so not a lot of coral but plan on SPS. The new Kessil ap700 are really nice can't go wrong
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

D
Structural support for 125 gallon aquarium
Replies
7
Views
658
ddang
D
S
WTB: 100 gallon tank
Replies
0
Views
402
Solais
S
J
Corals for the first time!
Replies
14
Views
2K
griss
griss
AZBigJohn
New Build... I'm back
2
Replies
25
Views
2K
Dustin07
D
D
Turning Sump into Frag Tank?
Replies
2
Views
377
Dustin07
D
Back
Top