Building Big Bertha: 800G

[DamienHanna]

I would be skeptical that passive netillation will be enough with this much water in a room that size. With your tank, sump, refuge, mixing setup you will be over 1000 gallons of water in a pretty small space.

I have 600+ gallons of water in my tank room and I consistently run 10%-30% (depending on time of day) above ambient humidity and I have a 600cfm extractor fan going 24/7.

I live in the Los Angeles SF Valley and it's very dry out here. The drier (sp?) the air the more evaporation you will get, which is great for cooling, but a lot of moisture gets dumped into the air and it needs to go somewhere. I lose 20+ gallons of water per day in the summer on my system and you will lose more. Think about how much water that is!!!

At the very least I would hook a powerful ventillation fan up to a humidity sensor to pull the mosit air out when it hits a threshold.

Humidity control with a system this size is very important; just ask Mr. 4000...

 

[bbrantley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7731338#post7731338 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DamienHanna
I would be skeptical that passive netillation will be enough with this much water in a room that size. With your tank, sump, refuge, mixing setup you will be over 1000 gallons of water in a pretty small space.

I have 600+ gallons of water in my tank room and I consistently run 10%-30% (depending on time of day) above ambient humidity and I have a 600cfm extractor fan going 24/7.

I live in the Los Angeles SF Valley and it's very dry out here. The drier (sp?) the air the more evaporation you will get, which is great for cooling, but a lot of moisture gets dumped into the air and it needs to go somewhere. I lose 20+ gallons of water per day in the summer on my system and you will lose more. Think about how much water that is!!!

At the very least I would hook a powerful ventillation fan up to a humidity sensor to pull the mosit air out when it hits a threshold.

Humidity control with a system this size is very important; just ask Mr. 4000...

Good points, Damien. I'll certainly be specing the ventilation pretty large so I can move a lot of air quickly, and I'll be able to position the exhaust pretty near the tank for maximum water suckage.

I lose about 4 gpd on my 225 today on warm days when the fan engages for cooling, so 20 sounds about right given that it is pretty much a function of surface area. Another thing that will happen to help mediate it, I believe, is that the humidity will come up to something "normal" pretty easily -- and then the rate of evap will be reduced, helping to slow things down a bit. At least, I think it will.

I read of Mr. 4000's system demise several years ago when I first started reading RC, and his story has made a lasting impression on me, to say the least.

Ben

 

[bbrantley]

Okay, I have a couple of "big tank" questions, or maybe they should really be called "deep tank" questions:

1. Are there any super-long gloves that actually work? I have the long purple-and-orange ones you can buy from the various internet fish stores, and they sorta work... but they're not quite long enough to really go up and cover the whole shoulder and let you get to those bottom few inches of the tank. I've looked and looked for gloves that might be a few inches longer, perhaps with some kind of strap, instead of elastic, to hold them up high on the body. No dice. Any ideas?

2. I use a magnetic scraper on my 3/4" acrylic today and it's good for 90% of the surface area. The very bottom and very top of the tank don't work well, though, so I use Kent scrapes of various lengths to do those. The problem is that the Kent rods that make the scrapers long are so flimsy... you have to bend 'em to get enough torque to scrape down low, and then the handle is so small that it gets tiring and hard to control. I'm thinking there should be a scraper built onto the end of a much longer, more rigid plastic handle with a serious hand grip on the end... something more like the thickness of those squeegees you use at the gas station to clean your car windows. Has anyone found something like this that works well? If not, perhaps I will have to try concocting a super-scraper out of one. I'm thinking this is going to be even more important when Bertha is built and I have to scrape from 4 or 5 feet away sometimes.

Ben

 

[H20ENG]

Hi again, Ben.
At 5 ft. you need to look at something like a fiberglass pole that you can attach various scrapers or pads to. Square tube will be the most rigid. The stuff is kinda spendy, but you may be able to find one thats pre made for something else like painting, etc, then modify it to your use.

You might try filling some pvc pipe with thickened epoxy, but for the hassle, go with fiberglass.

We always used painted aluminum tools. There were no issues with water quality since the tools were only in the tanks for a very short time. A fresh water rinse keeps them in good shape.

Re: ventilation;
If you can keep any areas of your tank or sump covered, this will really help evaporation. But, if you need that much cooling you will want it opened up.

I personally would want less evap taking place in the room, and build a cooling tower for outside, or a geo loop.

Also, when its really cold out (read DRY), your tank will still evaporate like mad causing you to continue to make up water, and run the heaters to counteract the cooling that takes place.

I know many people dont want to cover their tanks, but for me the cost and headache savings is worth it.

Food for thought
Chris

 

[bbrantley]

Hey Chris,

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7752706#post7752706 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by H20ENG
Hi again, Ben.
At 5 ft. you need to look at something like a fiberglass pole that you can attach various scrapers or pads to. Square tube will be the most rigid. The stuff is kinda spendy, but you may be able to find one thats pre made for something else like painting, etc, then modify it to your use.

...

We always used painted aluminum tools. There were no issues with water quality since the tools were only in the tanks for a very short time. A fresh water rinse keeps them in good shape.

Ah, good idea. Yeah, the 5 foot span front-to-back will mean that I will be scraping either from the back with a long pole or scraping from atop the tank. Unfortunately, when I'm on top of the tank I won't be able to stand (I'll have to sit or be on my knees) and so I won't have the leverage or the stamina that I would otherwise. I'm thinking I'll definitely need a couple different lengths of scrapers just like I have now, except Industrial Strength. I'll do some probing around when I'm in the hardware store next time and see what I can rig up.

If you can keep any areas of your tank or sump covered, this will really help evaporation. But, if you need that much cooling you will want it opened up.

I personally would want less evap taking place in the room, and build a cooling tower for outside, or a geo loop.

Also, when its really cold out (read DRY), your tank will still evaporate like mad causing you to continue to make up water, and run the heaters to counteract the cooling that takes place.

Well, I think the light hood I end up building will provide a lot of enclosure -- but it won't be seal, no. I can control the evaporative surface area on the rest with lids as well, so I guess it remains to be seen how much I'll need to do it. I do like the idea of avoiding venting the evaporative loss by just putting that component outside to begin with... but I think I can do it quickly with some 6" fans if I have to.

One interesting note about living here: our relative humidity actually stays fairly constant from winter to summer. For instance, today is about as hot as it ever gets here, 84F, and our rel humidity is 17%. We also hover in the 15's to 20's in the winter when it is 20F on average. (Yes, we use a lot of Chapstick!) The one good thing about this low humidity is that the 17% in the summer means there is a LOT more evaporative capacity than the winter, so I actually observe an inverse effect with evaporative loss.

Now, it also happens that when it's 84F here, like today, the fans on my tank run at about half-duty all day long... so I end up with an EXTRA LOT evaporation since I have no air-conditioning in this house.

Ben

 

[djian]

Ben, After seeing your house today. My opinon would be to have a false wall in the front that you can remove. It will make life so much easier to have the ability to get to the tank from the front. Just a simple thing as auqascaping will be dramaticly easier from the front. Coral placement will also be easier and less frustrating.

Flow: Make life easier on yourself and decide what corals you are keeping first. We never discuss this so I am unsure. But if you go stonie, you will want massive flow. 30-50x would be sufficiant. Powerheads are great, but you will get sick of looking at them. I recomend ocean motion on a closed loop. That will give you great random flow.

 

[bbrantley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7755626#post7755626 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by djian
Ben, After seeing your house today. My opinon would be to have a false wall in the front that you can remove. It will make life so much easier to have the ability to get to the tank from the front. Just a simple thing as auqascaping will be dramaticly easier from the front. Coral placement will also be easier and less frustrating.

Hey Ian,

Thanks for coming by and for your thoughts. I'm mostly interested in not having the false front because I can't figure out a way to make it look seamless, like a plain, white, drywall. I imagine if I had a lot of decorative stuff on my walls it would be easier to make it "fit in." I also have to deal with sound-proofing it and waterproofing it, though those could certainly be done.

One thing to keep in mind is that the greater depth a tank like this provides means that, naturally, I'll be putting the "decor" farther back from the front. I actually think more of the aquascaping will have to be done from the back than the front simply because I won't be able to stand at the front panel and reach very far back! I don't have a good plan (or even a vision of a plan) for how best to lay it out yet, but I suspect this will often be the case.

Have you checked out oregonreef.com? This is one example of a very similarly-sized tank where there is no front access, and he thinks it works out fine. I think his motive was also aesthetic -- no holes in the front wall, in other words.

Finally, there is a structural concern that will prevent me from making much open space above the tank anyway, and this is because that wall is load-bearing. It has to have something like a 12-inch header placed above the tank to handle the load from the loft above, and that would reduce my working space to about 96 - 32 - 30 - 12 = ... 22 inches. Not impossible to work in, but not spacious, either.

I'm keeping an open mind, but I'm actually more confident about this than I am about the second point you raised, which was...

Flow: Make life easier on yourself and decide what corals you are keeping first. We never discuss this so I am unsure. But if you go stonie, you will want massive flow. 30-50x would be sufficiant. Powerheads are great, but you will get sick of looking at them. I recomend ocean motion on a closed loop. That will give you great random flow.

I'll definitely keep stonies and softies, so flow will be important. I'm concerned that the closed loops offer several disadvantages:

1. Higher power consumption per unit flow
2. More points of failure (holes in tank, plumbing)
3. One mechanical single point-of-failure (one pump vs many powerheads)
4. Lower flexibility once installed

I think my biggest fear is probably just psychological: I don't have a good instinct for where flow should come from, so I can't design for it in terms of holes in the tank. It seems "risky" to me to try to guess up front. I like the idea of being able to experiment and move things around.

The Vortech pumps really cut down on the visual distractions in the tank. I actually think a really good tank draws the eye away from the pumps anyway, so I'm not that worried about perfection here. But I really like the idea of high-efficiency, modular, movable flow. (I don't like that they don't have a solution for 1-inch acrylic yet, and they also don't have a way to put the things at any angle but 90.)

My mind's not made up, though, so feel free to keep the thoughts coming.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ben

 

[djian]

Ben, you should try to make it to next months meeting at Steve's(vikebron) house. He has a massive tank that may give you ideas on what you'll want to do with yours.

 

[bbrantley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7768392#post7768392 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by djian
Ben, you should try to make it to next months meeting at Steve's(vikebron) house. He has a massive tank that may give you ideas on what you'll want to do with yours.

Whoa, cool! I definitely would like to make it up there. Steve sold me a bunch of southdown for my current tank, though I doubt he knew who I was or even remembers me. I searched back and couldn't find any threads with pics or anything about his latest tank... is there such a beast?

 

[bbrantley]

For today's update, I've had several contractors come out and assess the structural parts of the project. A number of them have been surprisingly naive and unknowledgable, but a few have really stood out. It is down to waiting for estimates and learning how much of the devil really is in the details.

One point that came up that I hadn't thought about is my two windows in the fish room. I want to keep those windows, and they are low-E double-paned glass, but it was mentioned that it's likely we'll see condensation on them. If the water content in the room air is high enough and the temperature differential between the room and the outside is also high enough (easily possible in the wintertime) then those things may get super wet! I'm not sure how to deal with this besides adopting a "wait-and-see" approach... maybe the ventilation will keep the humidity low enough, and maybe the room will avoid freezing. If not, an HRV retrofit may be required.

Ben

 

[djian]

He had pics up a few months ago, but theyre long gone.

I would think a properly sized dehumidifier would benifit this concern of condensation.

I was thinking that the radiant heat would warm the tank and espeacially the sump. Heat may become a real issue in the winter. I guess you could just open the window in that case.

 

[bbrantley]

Hey Ian,

I would think a properly sized dehumidifier would benifit this concern of condensation.

Yeah, I think that would work, too, but have you seen the power requirements for those things? They're super energy hogs.

I was thinking that the radiant heat would warm the tank and espeacially the sump. Heat may become a real issue in the winter. I guess you could just open the window in that case.

The saving grace with the radiant floor heat is that there is a separate "zone" for that room, so I can control it independent of the rest of the main floor of the house. I actually kind of want it to be too warm so I can have more opportunities to vent/exchange the air with the outside more frequently, thus reducing the inside humidity, thus reducing the opportunity for condensation.

It may all just work out perfect, or it may be a real bear. I have little intuition for it, so I think it will truly be a "wait and see" deal. <sigh>

 

[Ridgeline]

Looks like its going to be a clean install

 

[ajl10spro]

Just a thought, for reaching further a pool extension poll would work well.

 

[prostaff]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7750800#post7750800 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bbrantley
Okay, I have a couple of "big tank" questions, or maybe they should really be called "deep tank" questions:

1. Are there any super-long gloves that actually work? I have the long purple-and-orange ones you can buy from the various internet fish stores, and they sorta work... but they're not quite long enough to really go up and cover the whole shoulder and let you get to those bottom few inches of the tank. I've looked and looked for gloves that might be a few inches longer, perhaps with some kind of strap, instead of elastic, to hold them up high on the body. No dice. Any ideas?

2. I use a magnetic scraper on my 3/4" acrylic today and it's good for 90% of the surface area. The very bottom and very top of the tank don't work well, though, so I use Kent scrapes of various lengths to do those. The problem is that the Kent rods that make the scrapers long are so flimsy... you have to bend 'em to get enough torque to scrape down low, and then the handle is so small that it gets tiring and hard to control. I'm thinking there should be a scraper built onto the end of a much longer, more rigid plastic handle with a serious hand grip on the end... something more like the thickness of those squeegees you use at the gas station to clean your car windows. Has anyone found something like this that works well? If not, perhaps I will have to try concocting a super-scraper out of one. I'm thinking this is going to be even more important when Bertha is built and I have to scrape from 4 or 5 feet away sometimes.

Ben

I have 2 large tanks 1000g and 700gals connected together and I use the extra long tongs ($25) to get to almost anything. Tanks are 30in and 40in deep. I mean once you set up the rock work which I did with almost no water in it, you only ever have to pick up fallen frags or a dead animal.
As for question #2, I had a friend build me a credit card holder which attaches to my magnetic cleaner and this works quite well so I don't have to scape too often. It is essentially an adaptation of the mag float scraper. Hope that helps

 

[bbrantley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7793308#post7793308 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ajl10spro
Just a thought, for reaching further a pool extension poll would work well.

Yeah, I think I need about 6 feet of pole to give me enough length to apply the necessary torque. Any longer and it's going to be unwieldy given the limited distance between top of tank and ceiling.

Ben

 

[bbrantley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7794970#post7794970 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by prostaff
I have 2 large tanks 1000g and 700gals connected together and I use the extra long tongs ($25) to get to almost anything. Tanks are 30in and 40in deep. I mean once you set up the rock work which I did with almost no water in it, you only ever have to pick up fallen frags or a dead animal.
As for question #2, I had a friend build me a credit card holder which attaches to my magnetic cleaner and this works quite well so I don't have to scape too often. It is essentially an adaptation of the mag float scraper. Hope that helps

I agree with you on #1; I hope to minimize the need to get in there after a while. However, I'm still finding the need to get to the sand on my 225 today, so I'm sure Murphy's Law will keep me "diving" for a long time to come.

As for the credit card attached to the mag cleaner, that's a fantastic idea -- do you have a pic or can you describe how that works? Is it off at an angle from the edge of the scraping part? My scraper is made of what looks like the hook part of Velcro... not strong enough to scrape the really tough stuff.

Ben

 

[bbrantley]

Update:

Project is a go, and even the wife approves. (Wowzers!)

Contractor estimates 14 working days to get all the structural and finish work done... I think he's smoking it, but it's a fixed bid so we'll see what happens. He's also a good guy, and I work from home, so there will be plenty of oversight.

First life support gadget--er, component, ordered: Bubble King 500 external.

The next steps are going to be tricky as I will be traveling for 15 of the next 15 business days:

1. Obtain a big stock tank and transfer the 225G's live rock, handful of frags, and one lonely lawnmower blenny. The coral frags may not make it; I'll have to rig up some lighting for them and see how they do.

2. Tear down the rest of the 225G and get it out of the way.

3. Building permit application.

4. Move out of our master bed/bathroom so the ceiling can be torn out down there for the bearing beam reinforcement.

The construction is scheduled to start August 14 or so. Should be a true Adventure.

Ben

 

[Steven M]

Sounds like you have a good plain for the project. You did not mention the painting of the walls, you mentioned vapor barrier. It was recommended to me when I set up my tank to paint the wall with exterior paint to keep the moister out of the drywall.

 

[jnarowe]

I used yacht bilge paint on the walls and ceiling of my in-wall 1000g display and I am very happy with it. I also use 3 fans to keep my tank cool. 2 draw from under the tank and blow across the top between the water and the halides. 1 draws from ceiling height at the other end of the tank and exhausts outside. Makeup air is an open attic style vent in the tank room wall that is under my deck. We are having a heat wave right now and my tank maxed at 81.9F yesterday with ambient temp. at 96F. The fans are 6".

You can see pictures of my install in my pics garage at http://home.wavecable.com/~jrowe/index.htm. PM with any questions!