Build Thread: TKERacer619's 600gal SPS Tank

[tkeracer619]

Move Washer/Dryer

Move Washer/Dryer

My house has an over sized laundry room and a lot of stairs. Doing laundry kinda sucks and walking 3 flights of steps to do it doesn't help. The aquarium project kicked the washer and dryer out like a bad roommate. Interestingly enough they used to be one level up in what will be the display room and there is still a nice nook so I'm putting them back where they belong!

I ran a new 10/3 circuit and new ducting. The water and drain were still there.

The new ducting... which I have since strapped up to be straight. You can see part of the old ducting on the left side of the room.

The new electrical for the dryer and ducting going through the wall to the nook. This is in the furnace room.

Washer and Dryer in their new/old home. I only need to use 2 sets of stairs now. Less underwear on inside out :bum: ... jk of course.

The to do list just got one line shorter :bounce1:

 

[tkeracer619]

Level the Tank

Level the Tank

Leveling went super easy. My friend and local reefer Atul (BigBlueTang) came over and helped out. We used my hydraulic floor jack to lift the tank, a 4ft level to get it close, and then put 3/4" of water in to get it as close to perfect as possible.

We cut out a bunch of thin ply into large shims to take up the slant in the slab and worked our way around with composite shims.

Thanks dude!

Shims...

Water for the final level.

And... it's level. Painless.

 

[tkeracer619]

The Fish Room Begins!

The Fish Room Begins!

Say hello to the fish room! Time to get to work :hammer:

This is how it looked at this point. I have my water mixing station, the sump for the 600gal, and the skimmer in the room. There are also a few pumps laying around for a general idea of how I will lay them out... Turning clockwise

 

[tkeracer619]

Move Fish Room Door 4ft to the left.

Move Fish Room Door 4ft to the left.

To fit everything into the room how I want it I need to move the door.

1. The door is not in the right place.
2. The door is 36" wide and there is no slab.
3. If there was a slab I bet it wouldn't close right.
4. I have to plumb the drain in a complex manner and it ends up running the last 3 feet across the hallway and into the sump under water level. There just isn't any way around it. Not wanting to have the plumbing run across the hallway I need to make a landing for the stairs that is the height of the first two steps. To meet code I need a 3 ft landing and this would have been in front of the original doorway. If there was another way to run the drain I haven't thought of it after daydreaming for 3 years... :debi: :sad1:


At this point in the thread, I would like to point out that I have no idea what I am doing in regards to remodeling homes but... I do have "The Nack" so I am going to give it an honest effort. Should the need arise and I cannot figure something out, I'll book a room at the Holiday Inn for a night or two. :lol2:

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My first step was to mark the studs in the wall.

The next step was to take a hammer and pull down one side of the drywall.

Tear down the other side of drywall.

I don't have any load supporting walls in my basement so I went ahead and pulled out the studs I can't re-use.

 

[tkeracer619]

Move Fish Room Door 4ft to the left... continued.

Move Fish Room Door 4ft to the left... continued.

Frame the wall.

Install the door. Not to toot my own horn... but this is the best closing door in the house :lol:

I didn't want to trip over everything trying to get to the light switch. It currently resides by the broom handle in the previous pic. I want to move it next to the door and have it on the outside of the room. Not trying to create more drywall work I got this fancy drill bit that let me drill through the two studs and into the box without taking out any extra drywall.

If you notice the new drywall is up but for some reason I guess I didn't take any pics with the new drywall. Also, I forgot about the lightswitch until all the drywall was up... so I had to pull down one piece to make it happen. :facepalm:

 

[tkeracer619]

Install the HRV

Install the HRV

My basement is already pretty damp and it has your typical basement smell. I live in Colorado so other than a few days a year it is pretty dry outside, usually between 35% and 50% relative humidity. I decided to go the energy saving route of a whole house HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator). This should also get rid of the basement smell.

For those who don't know what a HRV is or does it's a ventilation system that swaps stale humid indoor air with fresh dry outdoor air. It passes the exchanged air through a heat exchanger and heats or cools (depending on season) the incoming air with the exhausted air.

I went with a Honeywell VNT5150H1000. It's a high quality unit that makes balancing the system easy as pie. It's quiet, has a defrost cycle, and has two filters. It require a fair amount of ducting depending on how you want to use it. I chose to pull stale air from the 3 basement rooms and return fresh air into the forced air HVAC system. This will remove the basement air and supply the whole house with fresh air.

Sitting on my office floor. I've been waiting for a while to buy this thing. I'm pretty excited!

You need two 6" ducts running to the outside, one for exhaust, one for intake. A little shout out to my drill, while it couldn't handle turning this 6.25" hole saw in the forward direction, it ran the hole saw backwards and cut through the wall with ease! Brushless Dewalt FTW!!

If I've learned one thing about my house... it is to measure 10 times, drill a small hole, remeasure. Here is where I wanted the first hole so I drilled the pilot from the inside out.

First hole done...

Second hole done...

Layers...

This is probably a perfect time to plug an old time favorite. I don't drink a lot of soda but I'm an 80s kid and loved this soda back in the day. Luckily the grocery store by my house has a steady supply of Crystal Pepsi if you know where to look I've had my fair share of it this summer while working on this stuff. It's Pepsi and it's clear :dance: Throw back thirsty!!

 

[tkeracer619]

Install the HRV... Continued

Install the HRV... Continued

It also needed a 6" duct into the HVAC. Easy with left and right handed tin snips.

Intake, exhaust, and the 6" suction duct crossing the hallway from the furnace room into the filtration room. It's a tight fit!

Here is what the plumbing at the unit looks like... nothing to it :lolspin:

And a quick peek inside the unit.

 

[tkeracer619]

My current checklist consists of...
Polish Glass Defects (Cerium Oxide :uhoh3
Epoxy Fish Room Floor (linoleum is more probably)
Run 20a & 15a Electrical Circuits to tank.
Run 3x20a Circuits to fish room. (75% completed)
Install Shop Sink in Fishroom (It's now going into the furnace room.)
Fix Hammerheads
Standpipes, Drain, Return Plumbing
Plumb Skimmer
Fresh test Tank
Built Light Rack
Fill with RODI
Add Salt
Add Sand
Add Rock Vat in Fish Room
Run skimmer and GFO
Start to move LR from 360 Display
Move Sunburst Anemone Farm to Fish Room
Move Assorted BTA Farm into individual 20L systems in Fish Room.
Transfer Lighting from 360 Display and Assorted BTA Farm
Transfer Remaining Rubbermaid/Sump Liverock, ATO, Calcium Reactor, and Biopellets to Fish Room
Transfer Live Rock and Livestock from 360 Display
Move 4x4x12 Frag tank to basement.
Remove 360gal Display and its Remnants from 600gal Display room.
Build Dry Boxes and Install Vortechs
Cabinetry

Knocked a few things off the list and have a much better grasp on what I need to do.

 

[biecacka]

Looking good man!! Great call on the exchanger for the air. I also love the size of that skimmer......

Corey

 

[tkeracer619]

Looking good man!! Great call on the exchanger for the air. I also love the size of that skimmer......

Corey

Thanks! The exchanger is great, really impressive how much air it moves. It took 3 minutes to balance and right now I'm running about 35% of capacity. The skimmer is pretty awesome, I should be able to keep the tank well fed :spin3:

 

[Reel North]

This is awesome.

I'm looking at doing a 400g system. Approvals pending but once I give her my office I can can take the treadmill room for a fish Room!

Can't wait to follow this build. Subscribed!

 

[tkeracer619]

This is awesome.

I'm looking at doing a 400g system. Approvals pending but once I give her my office I can can take the treadmill room for a fish Room!

Can't wait to follow this build. Subscribed!

Thanks! Good luck with the approval system, I'm super fortunate in that department. She's doesn't get too involved but she likes the tanks and I also gave her an office :lmao:


This is what I am going to do in the fish room. There are 2x60gal all in one tanks for fish QT, 6x20gal all in one tanks for my different BTA anemones, my 100gal frag tank (currently houses btas), my sunburst bta farm, the sump, skimmer, and water mixing station.

The RODI is across the hall in the furnace room as is the sink.

I have a few thousand lbs of live rock that will go underneath the frag tank but I will need to find a 46x46x20 or so square container that fits under it for that to work out.

Here's a sketch.

 

[BigBlueTang]

Everything looks great Mark! Apologies on not being able to help more, school is really ramping up. And my phone crapped out, so if I haven't responded to texts I'm not ignoring you
I'd love to come out and see the progress and help out soon!

 

[tkeracer619]

Everything looks great Mark! Apologies on not being able to help more, school is really ramping up. And my phone crapped out, so if I haven't responded to texts I'm not ignoring you
I'd love to come out and see the progress and help out soon!

Thanks! No worries man. Get a new phone :lol:

You totally dodged a bullet. The pump on the media reactor I let you borrow malfunctioned. I lost all the sps in my QT . When digging around trying to find a cause I pulled it out and the pump was almost too hot to touch. It precipitated the the alk/calc out of the water. 9dkh to ~3.2 in a day. Everything in that tank that survived is super ****ed.

 

[slief]

Very very nice!! Looks like it's coming along quite nicely! Can't wait to see this tank and fish room once you have it all done!

 

[tkeracer619]

Very very nice!! Looks like it's coming along quite nicely! Can't wait to see this tank and fish room once you have it all done!

Thanks! I appreciate it!!

Hoping to get a lot done this weekend. I suffered a few injuries in the last season (soccer goalie) that held me back but I am starting to heal up and decided to take the winter off to play competitive cornhole instead :lol:

 

[dave.m]

I suffered a few injuries in the last season (soccer goalie)

Yes, I think I've seen the video of that game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9jXYOH2c0

Dave.M

 

[tkeracer619]

Yes, I think I've seen the video of that game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9jXYOH2c0

Dave.M

Dude, no joke. My last game was just like that, watch that vid all the time before a game haha. I crawled away with a concussion, bleeding from the mouth/nose, sprained ankle, and a broken rib... I tried to stay in and stopped a handful of other shots until I stopped one with my face, then rolled an ankle, and I was like ok... go sit on the bench. The game before that I just about broke my wrist. Still in PT from it... The sport is pretty rough on goalies.

Most of the time the backup goalie is terrible so with a broken whatever we usually try to stay in the game. I play at a pretty competitive level and good backup keeps are hard to find. After I left the game they took complete advantage of it.

 

[BigBlueTang]

Thanks! No worries man. Get a new phone :lol:

You totally dodged a bullet. The pump on the media reactor I let you borrow malfunctioned. I lost all the sps in my QT . When digging around trying to find a cause I pulled it out and the pump was almost too hot to touch. It precipitated the the alk/calc out of the water. 9dkh to ~3.2 in a day. Everything in that tank that survived is super ****ed.

Iphone 7 on the way but in three weeks

It probably wouldn't have affected anything awfully in my tank but sorry to hear that Hope everything else is going okay.

 

[tkeracer619]

Primed the room last night. Going to paint tonight and hopefully post some pics!