Building Big Bertha: 800G
- Thread starter bbrantley
- Start date
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Too bad. I thought that was Ben coming back.... 
Hey, they say it's better to seek quality over quantity, right? Does that apply to tank build updates?
Things have been in a holding pattern with Bertha while I've been waiting on a number of important things to get decided or accomplished. One of them is that I need to finish redesigning the new stands for my aux tanks. I can't really bring in the rest of the water storage vessels, nor plumb the aux tanks, until everything is in its final place. And, as it happens, I got a new table saw (sold my last one before we moved out here) back in February, and it's taken a loooong time to get it set up and working correctly. Some of that is my fault, and some of it is the manufacturer's crappy QC.
The other thing I needed to find out was whether I was going to move back east for three or four months to work with a special therapist for my hands (I have RSI). I decided I would hold off on major coral importing until I got back from that, and so it made sense to adopt a wait-and-see attitude there.
So, anyway, I just got the table saw working, and I've decided for the near term not to go to the special therapist across the country for 1/3 of a year. That means I can finish the stands, which means I can set up the room for its final state. That means I can plumb the rest of the system in, including the very important kalk stirrer and Ca reactor. And that, my friends, means I can really start to bring in corals!
Bertha herself has been doing great. We added a blenny or two plus a few big snails. I don't think it's enough to battle the shallow sand bed's propensity to grow algae and get dirty, though, so I'll have to slowly add more. The tangs seem to have stabilized out after six months of chaos... there 4 purples and 4 yellows and they mostly seem to have a balance of aggression.
A few of the alpha chromis are turning into big monsters relative to the others. They really get priority dining!
The zoas have overgrown their rock and are now starting to break off and try to form colonies elsewhere. I want to keep them in check because I know they have a tendency to just "take over" if nothing prevents them from doing so.
I accidentally let my two Mighty Magnets snap together a few weeks ago (!). They have something like 800lb of pull force, so instead of risking my limbs to detach them, I sent them back to Rick to pull them apart professionally.
I've added in all four Tunzes with my new custom magnetic holders (did I show you those yet? probably not, huh!), and now the old Tunze holders on the inside of the tank are shearing off and demonstrating their crappy-ness. I have a little bit of work to do that. Also, I am not convinced that 4x6200s + one 2000gph return all in one corner are enough to generate enough flow in this tank. I am going to see about adding a 6300 and really juicing it in there. Fortunately, I don't need nearly that level of flow to sustain my four corals! Ha, ha.
Water chemistry is still fine. Yep, still at zero changes over the lifetime of the tank. This is a luxury I cannot get used to, as it won't hold when the bioload is increased enormously!
Anything else you guys want to know about? I KNOW you want pictures. I thought I would get some today but time slipped away. I will scrape tomorrow and try to snap a few... maybe.
Ben
Things have been in a holding pattern with Bertha while I've been waiting on a number of important things to get decided or accomplished. One of them is that I need to finish redesigning the new stands for my aux tanks. I can't really bring in the rest of the water storage vessels, nor plumb the aux tanks, until everything is in its final place. And, as it happens, I got a new table saw (sold my last one before we moved out here) back in February, and it's taken a loooong time to get it set up and working correctly. Some of that is my fault, and some of it is the manufacturer's crappy QC.
The other thing I needed to find out was whether I was going to move back east for three or four months to work with a special therapist for my hands (I have RSI). I decided I would hold off on major coral importing until I got back from that, and so it made sense to adopt a wait-and-see attitude there.
So, anyway, I just got the table saw working, and I've decided for the near term not to go to the special therapist across the country for 1/3 of a year. That means I can finish the stands, which means I can set up the room for its final state. That means I can plumb the rest of the system in, including the very important kalk stirrer and Ca reactor. And that, my friends, means I can really start to bring in corals!
Bertha herself has been doing great. We added a blenny or two plus a few big snails. I don't think it's enough to battle the shallow sand bed's propensity to grow algae and get dirty, though, so I'll have to slowly add more. The tangs seem to have stabilized out after six months of chaos... there 4 purples and 4 yellows and they mostly seem to have a balance of aggression.
A few of the alpha chromis are turning into big monsters relative to the others. They really get priority dining!
The zoas have overgrown their rock and are now starting to break off and try to form colonies elsewhere. I want to keep them in check because I know they have a tendency to just "take over" if nothing prevents them from doing so.
I accidentally let my two Mighty Magnets snap together a few weeks ago (!). They have something like 800lb of pull force, so instead of risking my limbs to detach them, I sent them back to Rick to pull them apart professionally.
I've added in all four Tunzes with my new custom magnetic holders (did I show you those yet? probably not, huh!), and now the old Tunze holders on the inside of the tank are shearing off and demonstrating their crappy-ness. I have a little bit of work to do that. Also, I am not convinced that 4x6200s + one 2000gph return all in one corner are enough to generate enough flow in this tank. I am going to see about adding a 6300 and really juicing it in there. Fortunately, I don't need nearly that level of flow to sustain my four corals! Ha, ha.
Water chemistry is still fine. Yep, still at zero changes over the lifetime of the tank. This is a luxury I cannot get used to, as it won't hold when the bioload is increased enormously!
Anything else you guys want to know about? I KNOW you want pictures. I thought I would get some today but time slipped away. I will scrape tomorrow and try to snap a few... maybe.
Ben
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12767082#post12767082 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by davefan13
Awesome update! I've been anxiously awaiting either an update or news of his death, haha. I am still waiting for pictures though.
Well, the reality is that I MUST clean Bertha up pretty before tomorrow, because we have visitors coming to stay with us for a week. The only question, then, is whether I will muster up the courage to take pictures?!?
Yesterday was a good day.
I should start with two days ago, plus a smattering of the last three weeks, because that's really part of the story. You see, people have been coming all way up to my house in the middle of no where to buy my crap. I've been selling off old aquarium stuff like it's going out of style, and that's good not just for the pocketbook but also for the clearing out of space! I've gotten rid of all my extra unused base rock, some large water vessels (tanks, rubbermaid, etc.), excess pumps, and other goodies.
Along the way, Christina and her husband came up this weekend and snapped up one large Rubbermaid. See, they're starting their own 400-some gallon monster tank these days, and they wanted a cheap sump. Since Christina visited my tank back when I hosted the Rocky Mountain Reef Club monthly gathering in the winter, it was a little embarrassing to have essentially nothing to show them different about Bertha, except I guess that my three coral frags are now full-on colonies.
But, I knew that this weekend, and the next couple of weeks in particular, were and are going to be prime opportunities to work furiously on Bertha and her Room. This is partly because things are a little slower than I anticipated at work, and partly because I have to burn off an extra week of vacation days before the end of July. (I basically get too many vacation days - 43 a year. I know, it's a good problem, right? The flipside is that you could entirely legitimately ask, "So why in the world haven't you polished Bertha to a crystalline shine at this point?")
Anyway, as you might know, I have been waiting a long time on finishing out Bertha's supporting tanks and reservoirs because I knew that my original layout was suboptimal. I have two extra acrylic tanks, about 200 and 70 gallons respectively, that I placed on plastic stands. Those plastic stands don't look sturdy enough to my eye when the tanks are filled with water (I tested it, of course), and I don't want to take chances. Moreover, I have two new 180-gallon reservoirs that are going to put a nice concentrated load on the floor of fish room. Until today, the aforementioned tanks were placed along the walls of the room. That would mean the reservoirs need to go in the center of the room, where the load on the joists would be worst applied.
Basically I wanted to (a) move the tanks onto steel stands and (b) put the tanks in the middle of the room and the reservoirs on the edge where the load-bearing beam lies.
So, the problem has been that I have these great steel stands I got super-cheap at Costco. The issue with them is that they need custom wood panels to allow the tanks (that'll go on top of them) to clear the steel vertical members. And I've been waiting to get my table saw ordered and installed for months and months, so I just rationalized that I would wait to finish off the stands until my saw and shop were partly in place. And I can't really add corals seriously until all the support tansk and reservoirs are in place.
So that means I really couldn't do anything on Bertha until I got my table saw.
I know, sounds dumb, right? But that was my chain of reasoning. (That, and I had a billion other things I needed to work on.)
Read on to the next post for the Rest Of The Story.
I should start with two days ago, plus a smattering of the last three weeks, because that's really part of the story. You see, people have been coming all way up to my house in the middle of no where to buy my crap. I've been selling off old aquarium stuff like it's going out of style, and that's good not just for the pocketbook but also for the clearing out of space! I've gotten rid of all my extra unused base rock, some large water vessels (tanks, rubbermaid, etc.), excess pumps, and other goodies.
Along the way, Christina and her husband came up this weekend and snapped up one large Rubbermaid. See, they're starting their own 400-some gallon monster tank these days, and they wanted a cheap sump. Since Christina visited my tank back when I hosted the Rocky Mountain Reef Club monthly gathering in the winter, it was a little embarrassing to have essentially nothing to show them different about Bertha, except I guess that my three coral frags are now full-on colonies.
But, I knew that this weekend, and the next couple of weeks in particular, were and are going to be prime opportunities to work furiously on Bertha and her Room. This is partly because things are a little slower than I anticipated at work, and partly because I have to burn off an extra week of vacation days before the end of July. (I basically get too many vacation days - 43 a year. I know, it's a good problem, right? The flipside is that you could entirely legitimately ask, "So why in the world haven't you polished Bertha to a crystalline shine at this point?")
Anyway, as you might know, I have been waiting a long time on finishing out Bertha's supporting tanks and reservoirs because I knew that my original layout was suboptimal. I have two extra acrylic tanks, about 200 and 70 gallons respectively, that I placed on plastic stands. Those plastic stands don't look sturdy enough to my eye when the tanks are filled with water (I tested it, of course), and I don't want to take chances. Moreover, I have two new 180-gallon reservoirs that are going to put a nice concentrated load on the floor of fish room. Until today, the aforementioned tanks were placed along the walls of the room. That would mean the reservoirs need to go in the center of the room, where the load on the joists would be worst applied.
Basically I wanted to (a) move the tanks onto steel stands and (b) put the tanks in the middle of the room and the reservoirs on the edge where the load-bearing beam lies.
So, the problem has been that I have these great steel stands I got super-cheap at Costco. The issue with them is that they need custom wood panels to allow the tanks (that'll go on top of them) to clear the steel vertical members. And I've been waiting to get my table saw ordered and installed for months and months, so I just rationalized that I would wait to finish off the stands until my saw and shop were partly in place. And I can't really add corals seriously until all the support tansk and reservoirs are in place.
So that means I really couldn't do anything on Bertha until I got my table saw.
I know, sounds dumb, right? But that was my chain of reasoning. (That, and I had a billion other things I needed to work on.)
Read on to the next post for the Rest Of The Story.
After an immense battle with my table saw (it came delivered with about 5 different problems), I finally have something that can slice and dice sheet stock. Last week I promptly cut out the inserts for my steel stands, sanded them, and painted them up with a nice goopy outdoor sealant paint.
Yesterday I took EVERYTHING out of Bertha's room (except Bertha and all the running life-support equipment -- sump, skimmer, etc.). It was about 100 trips worth of stuff, most of which I kindly piled in the living room and hallway so that my wife and dog can be annoyed by it. I manhandled the acrylic tanks out, dragged the huge CO2 bottle away, and took everything off the floor. I'd been meaning to make some small stands for a few items that otherwise would sit directly on the rubberized floor, like my fish food freezer, so I did that quickly out of some the now-defunct plastic shelves that I got to disassemble when I removed the tanks.
I wanted to get everything up off the floor because the floor was DIRTY. Flakes of fish food, decomposing bits of coral, little chunks of sand, a few stray pieces of glass from when I dropped a QT tank on accident, salt left from spills that evaporated... you name it, it was on the floor. I have a rubberized floor with a drain in the center, but the floor is highly textured -- a mistake I have described in the past. I took a mop, some vinegar water, and a scrub brush to the floor and polished up most of the gook first.
I then brought in my steel stands and assembled them in place. Turns out I need a few extra rubber furniture "feet" for my stands -- they have raw steel edges that I think will puncture the rubber floor when the tanks get loaded with water. So I'm not ready to pour in fresh water yet.
I rolled in the big water storage tanks and set them in place. I measured off my water distribution plumbing and made a list of all (okay, MOST -- I never get it right the first time) the plumbing bits and fittings I need to complete that section.
I also repaired a leaking Bertha return line that Christina happened to notice, cleaned up the skimmer, and did a bunch of other basic maintenance that was probably overdue.
So, yeah, I got a lot done for about 10 hours of work. Sometimes I find myself wishing I had one other skilled (and strong) person helping me, if only to pass the time, but the truth is that it's just fun work and I had plenty of ways to entertain myself the whole way through.
I took a few snapshots of the steel stands' skeletons, but I'll wait until I get the tanks fully mounted and in place before I post the pictures because posting pictures is the most tedious part of writing in this thread.
It was a good day, yesterday.
Yesterday I took EVERYTHING out of Bertha's room (except Bertha and all the running life-support equipment -- sump, skimmer, etc.). It was about 100 trips worth of stuff, most of which I kindly piled in the living room and hallway so that my wife and dog can be annoyed by it. I manhandled the acrylic tanks out, dragged the huge CO2 bottle away, and took everything off the floor. I'd been meaning to make some small stands for a few items that otherwise would sit directly on the rubberized floor, like my fish food freezer, so I did that quickly out of some the now-defunct plastic shelves that I got to disassemble when I removed the tanks.
I wanted to get everything up off the floor because the floor was DIRTY. Flakes of fish food, decomposing bits of coral, little chunks of sand, a few stray pieces of glass from when I dropped a QT tank on accident, salt left from spills that evaporated... you name it, it was on the floor. I have a rubberized floor with a drain in the center, but the floor is highly textured -- a mistake I have described in the past. I took a mop, some vinegar water, and a scrub brush to the floor and polished up most of the gook first.
I then brought in my steel stands and assembled them in place. Turns out I need a few extra rubber furniture "feet" for my stands -- they have raw steel edges that I think will puncture the rubber floor when the tanks get loaded with water. So I'm not ready to pour in fresh water yet.
I rolled in the big water storage tanks and set them in place. I measured off my water distribution plumbing and made a list of all (okay, MOST -- I never get it right the first time) the plumbing bits and fittings I need to complete that section.
I also repaired a leaking Bertha return line that Christina happened to notice, cleaned up the skimmer, and did a bunch of other basic maintenance that was probably overdue.
So, yeah, I got a lot done for about 10 hours of work. Sometimes I find myself wishing I had one other skilled (and strong) person helping me, if only to pass the time, but the truth is that it's just fun work and I had plenty of ways to entertain myself the whole way through.
I took a few snapshots of the steel stands' skeletons, but I'll wait until I get the tanks fully mounted and in place before I post the pictures because posting pictures is the most tedious part of writing in this thread.
It was a good day, yesterday.
This weekend I returned to the Bertha Room to find a half-inch of water accumulated on the floor. Yikes!
The accumulation is, unfortunately, because I did not have the floor properly sloped to the drain. In fact, quite some large amount of water also went the drain, no doubt, but the lower parts of the floor (crevices and crannies, really) are still capable of holding 15 or 20 gallons of yummy saltwater.
I found the culprit slow leak: a failing bulkhead. Those of you who followed this build closely may remember some consternation on my part installing these bulkheads I obtained from savko. Turns out that I could only ever get one of the three 2-inch bulkheads in my sump to hold water using them, and the advice of others on this site pointed me to the Hayward company for a higher-quality replacement.
What ended up happening, quite some time ago, was that I replaced the two leaky bulkheads with the good Hayward ones. However, in a fit of laziness, I left the one <i>good</i> Savko bulkhead on the sump. This weekend its gasket failed, irreparably. After some vacuuming, absorbing, and pumping about of saltwater, I finally drained the sump and replaced the bulkhead with my last remaining, good Hayward one. It worked perfectly on the first install.
Bertha's house is dry again.
The accumulation is, unfortunately, because I did not have the floor properly sloped to the drain. In fact, quite some large amount of water also went the drain, no doubt, but the lower parts of the floor (crevices and crannies, really) are still capable of holding 15 or 20 gallons of yummy saltwater.
I found the culprit slow leak: a failing bulkhead. Those of you who followed this build closely may remember some consternation on my part installing these bulkheads I obtained from savko. Turns out that I could only ever get one of the three 2-inch bulkheads in my sump to hold water using them, and the advice of others on this site pointed me to the Hayward company for a higher-quality replacement.
What ended up happening, quite some time ago, was that I replaced the two leaky bulkheads with the good Hayward ones. However, in a fit of laziness, I left the one <i>good</i> Savko bulkhead on the sump. This weekend its gasket failed, irreparably. After some vacuuming, absorbing, and pumping about of saltwater, I finally drained the sump and replaced the bulkhead with my last remaining, good Hayward one. It worked perfectly on the first install.
Bertha's house is dry again.
