Building a 550, Advice and Critiques Appreciated

[jobiwan]

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I've been lurking about the forums for the past several months absorbing all I can in preparation for the construction of my 550 reef setup. Jason Gregory of Clear Fabrications in Seattle, Washington will begin building this towards the end of June, it will be delivered some time after July 1. With Jason's guidance and what I've learned from many hours on the forums I feel like I've got a good overall design, but there are bound to be a few things that I could tweak to improve it, I hope that those of you with more experience and knowledge than me would share your insights to help me create my dream system. I'll give you an overview of where I'm at now:

The dimensions of the tank will be 54" wide, 72" long, and 32" high. The back 54" will be against the wall in an alcove, it will be black plex with a full length overflow, the tank will project out in the room 72" in a peninsula style. If I did it right there should be a link to a photo here of the outline on my wall for the back of the stand, tank, and hood, the yellow rule is 4 feet long for scale:


http://picasaweb.google.com/ReefTanker/550Tank/photo#5060796677455618658


The right side will have the back 28" tucked against the alcove wall, that is the only part of the sides and the front that will be obscured. The framework of the stand will be 2" square steel pipe (1/4" I believe) and will be 31 1/4" high, there will then be 3/4" plywood on top of that for a total height of 32". The hood sides will be 12" with a 2" overlap on the tank, so total height inside the hood will be 10". Overall height to the top of the hood will be 74".

The tank will be constructed with 1" plex on the sides and 3/4" on the top, 1" is way more than needed, but it is what I wanted to go with. The sump will be 58" x 36" x 18"h. The front 18" of the sump will be a refugium, with a 15" high baffle, so it will be 36" x 18" x 15", for a volume of forty gallons, I'd go bigger if I could, but there are other things to factor in of course. Jason will build a custom prefilter, and I'm considering a Bubble Master 250 Protein Skimmer (If the 300 comes out in the near future I will take a look at it), and I'm leaning towards the Precision Marine CR622D dual chamber Calcium Reactor. There will be a full belly pan under the sump (1/2 inch acrylic, 62" x 50", not sure of the height. Auto top off with a solenoid activated Spectrapure RO unit, 90 gpd.

The skin of the stand and hood will be constructed of 5000 series 1/8" aluminum. The 5000 alloy's are somewhat corrosion resistant, but not enough to be unprotected around salt, so once the skins are constructed they will be tinted and clearcoated. The reason for this is that I want to try something other than wood, stainless steel is not an option due to price, weight, and difficulty of working with, titanium would be my first choice, but those damn lottery tickets just aren't cooperating...

Circulation will be provided by a total of 6 closed loop pumps, 2 sequence hammerheads will run continously, 4 Iwaki 70's will be timed to go off at night, they will be staggered as far as time to come on and off, 2 at 8 am, other two on at 11 am, first two off at 6 pm, last two off at 9 pm, so max current for 7 hours, not really a wave maker sort of thing, but I'm ok with that. Sump return pump will be a fifth Iwaki 70. All pumps will be remoted to the crawl space beneath the tank.

Lighting will be 4 400w mogul halides with luminarc reflectors and Icecap electronic balasts, 2 x Icecap 660 ballasts to power 6 60" actinics, leaning toward VHO's cuz I don't know anything about T5's.. 4 or 6 icecap 4" fans in hood. Some kind of moonlight LED's, yet to be determined.

Octopus controller, to control lighting and temp, Temp, pH, and conductivity probes. System will be chiller ready, as my home is air conditioned and kept at 70 in the summer I'm hoping I can get by without the chiller, but we shall see. I will be using American DJ PC-100A 8-Switch ON/OFF Power Centers throughout my system for pumps and lighting, I'll be using either four or five of these, Jason is fabricating boxes for all of them, I will miss having power strips everywhere, it adds so much excitement to your life when water drips into them...

There will be some reinforcement placed under the floor joists, and my electrician is installing 5 dedicated 20 Amp circuits for this system along with a transfer panel for my generator, I got tired of messing with extension cords last winter.

Last but not least I'm going to install some kind of electric winch/hoist to raise the hood completely off the tank when necessary, has anyone ever used or seen anything like this? Costco.com has a winch for lifting bicycles for sale, it is $189.99 and is rated for 250 pounds, my hood should be no more than 150 pounds, so I ordered one of these to check it out, if it won't work Costco does have a great return policy.. I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have about this, since it was my own idea I can't help but think there must be all kinds of flaws.. Thanks again for any tips you can pass on, I wan't to do this right so I don't end up having to replace or redo things if I can avoid that, best regards, Joe

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[dsandfort]

Hi Joe-
Looks like a cool system. I really like the width and length. I have 2 comments. I'm not sure where you will put 6 closed loops. That sounds like a lot of plumbing. Finally, I'm not sure if Iwakis are designed for on-off cycling, even if it is only 2x per day. I like the idea, I'm just afraid it might chew up pumps.

 

[RobbyG]

Sounds like a great setup.
Without being there to see everything, I can only give you a few pieces of very important planning advice.
Whatever size enclosure that you think you need to house all the equipment at the start, Double It! You will be surprised after the first year of operation how much additional stuff you end up buying and upgrading. Also design everything with the worst case scenarios in mind, always think of what will happen if XY or Z fails. Make sure everything is easy to access and that you dont string things up so neat and tight that they are impossible too repair. One of the great nightmares of this hobby is having something break at a place that is difficult too reach. The idea for everyone is of course to be successful and that means your tank will run for years and years out living almost every external piece of equipment, so one must make really good plans on how to change and fix things as time passes.

 

[jobiwan]

I'm wondering about placement of that many loops myself, as we get closer to the construction I will look at that closely, so I am sure to have a neat professional job on my system, Jason (my builder/designer) will do all the plumbing, he does great work, I plumbed the 180 I just tore down, it was functional, but it was a hideous abortion... . I've been told that it should be no problem for the Iwaki's to cycle on and off once daily since they are mag drives, whereas the direct drive hammerheads would take more of a beating, but that is a good point, I will follow that up with a call to Iwaki tech support, assuming there is such a thing.

The point about space is well taken, I'm opting for the largest sump setup that is practical for that reason, I don't like to think about eventually having to replace all the equipment, but you are spot on with that point also. Since I'm going with an in sump skimmer I'm looking closely at the footprint of the skimmers, I will have about 11 inches of clearance between the top of the sump and the top of the stand, so if I get anything that is wider than 11 inches I wouldn't be able to remove it for servicing without draining and unplumbing the sump, not something I would want to do. Thanks for the tips, keep em coming

 

[jobiwan]

Has anyone here cycled Iwaki's on and off daily?

 

[ricks]

Jobiwan. I know someone that cycles his pump on and off. I wouldn't, but that what Tunze are for. I to have my pumps under the house. Those 70's will drop 500-600 per hour in head loss. And the hammerheads much more. They are not pressure rated... You don't state what type of tank, reef? SPS will require more flow... I run (1) Hammerhead on CL. (4) Iwaki 70 on Sea Swirls. (4) Tunze 6200 on mulitcontroller. And (1) Iwaki 100 for my chiller. This is barley enough flow for my 500 gallon.. Don't be fooled by air conditioning. It might cool your house but will not draw down temp in your tank. A chiller is a must, figure at least 1HP. I would also suggest a backup in case of failure. My monthly costs run around 500.00. Large tanks can be very expensive!!! Also figure around 75.00 per gallon for fully stocked SPS tank.. That works out to around 40K.

Happy Reefing...

 

[silverbullet-2]

Ricks,

Ricks,

I have installed countless Iwaki 70's in a closed loup configuration, and will have to dissagree with you on the Iwaki 70 isn't preasure rated. I have measured a 70 with 8-9' of head, and over 30+ feet of spa flex line, and we still got over 1250 GPH at the tank. It might have been a fluke, but I don't think so. I have swiched them on and off on plenty of installs, and as long as you keep the CA from building up on the impeller, all is well. You MAY get shorter life span on that pump, but I have an Iwaki 30 that has 11 years on it. Money well spent, I think. I will have to agree with you on lg reefs are a big dollar hobby.

Just my .02

silverbullet

 

[ricks]

Sorry, I was referring to the Hammerheads not being pressure rated... I think all Iwaki's 55's and above are pressure rated.

 

[Acrylics]

For the Iwaki line, all RLT pumps are pressure rated while the RLXT models are not. There are RLT models below the 55 as well, you just have to be sure of the RLT/RLXT designations.

James

 

[petedoc]

Great looking design and obviously you have thought this out carefully. From my recent experience I would suggest a few things to keep in mind. I hope you have a long arm because reaching the bottom with your hand is important. The height of the tank is important both for viewing and access. What is the the volume in gallons/hr through your sump? Also for flow consider Vortechs, because of the simplicity, future controllability, and lack of concern about leaks in the plumbing. I currently have about 7,000 gal/hr in flow, but will add more by adding Vortechs or Tunzes as I need more for coral growth. Pete

 

[jobiwan]

Thanks for all the input guys, I do appreciate it. It is a reef system, kinda overkill for a FOWLR ;-)) The vertical lift will be about 6 to 8 feet, so I'm not too concerned about the head loss. I think with a closed loop the situation may be different it seems like the water feeding the pumps is pressurized by the vertical drop and might cancel out the effect of pumping up hill, as opposed to a pump operating from a remoted sump with a passive drain feeding it, if there are any physics/fluid dynamics gurus out there, I'd love to hear what you think of this. 70 and 100 Iwakis are only available in the pressure rated versions, so i'll be OK there. I'm trying to avoid tunzes (I have three, they are great as far as function goes), to have enough tunzes or vortechs to give me the flow I want would be esthetically impractical, whereas the outlets for the closed loops will be well concealed, they will be positioned at various points on the bottom of the tank, or on the back of the tank on the overflow. The aluminum shell will extend 4 inches up the sides of the tank, should give me a nice effect. As far as the chiller, I'll get one if necessary, the plumbing will be in place, as will a 230v service, but I've got 6 tanks going now in the 40 to 80 gallon ranges, 2 have pc's, 3 have 250 MH, one has a 400 mh, I keep the house at 70, the tanks vary between 79 to 81, if I let the house get up to 72-74 the tanks will exceed 82, seems to be a 10 degree gradient there, but the big guy may be a whole different deal... The volume through the sump will be in the neighborhood of 1200 gph, IMHO a high sump turnover isn't necessary, I prefer a massive closed loop setup for at least 30x tank volume movement per hour. I'm looking at the Ocean Motions 8 way and 4 way motorized valves to give me current variation, check them out at their site, , they give you a neat effect I think. The long arm thing will be interesting, I couldn't reach the bottom of my 24" tall 180, this will be 8 inches deeper, I'll get lots of practice with my long tongs I think, at least I can crawl into it for the initial aquascaping.......

 

[Fiziksgeek]

I thought a closed loop has negligible head loss if plumbed properly??? This is because the water is pushing on the pump for approximately the same distance it has to push the water upward??

This would make all those 70's just a wasts of electricity. You would be much better off with a back on hammerheads. Much more flow for similar wattage.

And if you want wave action, OM 8-ways would be perfect.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

I do beleive Fiziksgeek is correct. Or at least that's what I have been told as well about C/L.

I don't know if you've read my build thread on my 400 but you may be able to get some ideas from it: Link here.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=630143

Towards the last pages, you'll find the most recent setup. I have a Barracuda on a OM 4 way for one of my C/L systems. With the way it's set up, I get a nice wave action across the top of the tank and then the flow reverses, like the wave going out. I have 2 returns at the top on one end of the tank and two returns at the bottom on the other end of the tank. It is not very intrusive into the tank but gives a lot of flow. For your tank, you coul dbut two returns coming up from the bottom at the viewing end of the tank with the other two retuns at the top of the other end of the tank. This would give you the same effect that I have of a wave flowing in and out against the reef and still not have all of the equipment inside the tank.

AS for the other C/L, you may look at putting the returns as manifolds under your rock work to give an upward flow. I have my second C/L on a Hammerhead that also has a swimming pool canister filter in line with it to help remove large debri from the water. The returns are plumbed up thru the bottom of the tank with a "rock Island" above them to help dispers the flow and not have a stream shooting out the top of the tank.

IT will take some thought but I'm sure you can come up with a good design to give you the flow you want and still not have all of the equipment inside the tank.

As for sump flow, you can use that too for system flow. I have a Dart as my sump return and it too adds into the system flow. I have a 30G sump that is fed directly from my overflow and houses my skimmer, that feeds a 90G sump that is equiped with a LR area and a deep sand bed fuge. With the right sized baffels, even though I have a lot of water flow thru my sump, the sand is not stirred up. It's all in the design.

Good luck.

 

[jobiwan]

Neat tank chevy, I'll go through your thread more thoroughly, just glanced at the start and end, cool that you got a majestic, I had a Navarchus 25 years ago, I'd love to have one in my new tank, let me know how he does with your corals etc. Do you have any clams in there? My tank builder just told me about the om's, those may change my pump setup dramatically, the Iwakis are great pumps, but I may shy away from them now, possibly using 1 70 for my sump return, I might like 3 hammerhead and 3 om 8's if we can figure that out, nice to save a little on the electricity...I really want to be moving at least 15,000 gallons an hour in the tank, I wonder what the life expectancy of the om 8's is???.

 

[jobiwan]

I met with my tank designer/builder today, I am going with three Hammerheads for the closed loops, each will be run through an Ocean Motions 8-Way, one pump will be routed to the surface, three outlets distributed on each side, two in the front. The other sixteen outlets will be spread out around the bottom of the tank. I can't wait to see what kind of current patterns this will lead to, I'm really psyched about it. Jason is going to do all the plumbing, he's a genius at this, I can only imagine what kind of cobbled up mess there would be if I tried to do the plumbing for this, with the sump return we're talking 4 pipes to the pumps and 25 return pipes, that's a lot of flex PVC... I'm trying to figure out the best in sump skimmer for this system, any suggestions? I need something less than 28 to 30 inches (depending) that will handle 700+ gallons, let's say med to heavy stocking..... I'm looking at the Bubble King 400, it's gonna take at least a half a bottle of scotch before I can break out the credit card and spend that much though, hard to believe a pump and a bunch of plastic (no matter how well made) can be worth that much, but I guess the dollar has plummeted against the Euro....Is there anything US made that can give that sort of performance????

 

[jobiwan]

I got some good advice and have downsized to a Bubble King 300, just ordered it, didn't even have to break out the scotch....

 

[Bricky]

You made a good choice with that skimmer. It will easily handle your tank, even it's packed with fish. I'll be running a BK 400 on my setup, but I like overkill.

 

[poacher]

Have you considered using penductors on the 8way to increase the flow capacity 2x-3x with one hammerhead, and eliminating the need for the other 2 hammerheads? it may work for you...

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

jobiwan,
Thanks for the complements. The thread gets a bit off track here and there but it does show some of teh design changes I've gone thru from first setting it up in the garage and then moving it to it's permanant spot in the house.

As for the C/L, do you thinhk you really need that many pumps and returns? Maybe go with Om 4 ways instead of the 8 ways. Or go with the 8 way and less pumps. My one Barracuda on a 4 way with only 1 port open at a time has a ton of flow. So much so that you can actually see a wave across the top of the water when the upper returns are flowing. Even when the lower returns are flowing, you can still see water movement on teh surface, and those returns are almost 3 feet below the waters surface.

As Poacher stated, penductors or any eductor will increase the flow of your output. I have them on my sump return on my 72G tank and they work nicely. Only problem is, you have them INSIDE the tank which I was trying to stya away from on the 400G, no equipment visiable inside the tank.

I do not have any clams in teh tank. Most of my corals are Monti Caps or plating types of corals. Right now they are mainly frags. The large bubble's, pagoda and toadstool leather outgrew my other tank and so have taken up residence in the 400.

So far, the Majestic is doing fine and has not bothered any of the corals. Both him and my Idol have eaten some of the sponge I have growing in the tank but that's Ok as the sponge was a hitchicker and it was starting to get a bit out of control. He's a beautiful fish and one of my favorites. I try to keep my fish well fed in the hopes that that keeps them from eating my corals. So far, it's been working for several years.

 

[jobiwan]

Great info guys, I'll look into penducters for my own education even if I don't go with them, I have no idea what they are. The 4-way suggestion is a great idea, I'm gonna go that way, I didn't know they could be set up to alternate 1,3 & 2,4 , I thought they would only power one outlet at a time, (1-2-3-4) and I didn't want the whole 5000gph going to just one outlet at a time, I just got off the OM website..., that will give me 12 outlets instead of 24, not to mention half as many pvc flex hoses to plumb in, thanks so much, I love avoiding screwing up.... One thing i will stubbornly cling to is the 3 hammerhead thing, I just loves massive chaotic current, after snorkeling in Hawaii I have this ingrained belief that most reef tanks are really lacking in the kind of circulation to give sps optimal conditions, but I could be wrong...