CalmSeasQuest's Blue Wall (96X30X22)

Oldude said:
NICE!! Love the skimmers, water station, etc. This will be an awesome set up.
Click to expand...

Thanks Greg - Coming from you that means a lot!

Trying to get the living room prepped for the tank including,

  • Relocating all the TV , stereo and gaming equipment to the media room
  • Minor wall repair from the AI and Maxpect LEDS which were ceiling mounted
  • Removal of unused heating duct so vent space can be used for routing of plumbing (saves another hole in the floor.)
  • Repainting of room with the tank being wall a deep-Azure blue.
Still contemplating the tank flooring, I'm leaning toward removing a 4' deep strip of carpet the entire length of the wall and installing ceramic tile (black granite-type appearance) atop cement board.
 
The tank is about 2 weeks out - I managed to get the drywall work and painting completed - Now I've got a "Big Blue Wall" :)













I decided to go with black Alterna tile (Vinyl/limestone composite tile - looks like stone, but much more forgiving), which I hope will be installed in about 10 days. New carpet probably won't arrive until after the tank is delivered.
 
I just heard from the tile installers, they will be onsite in a couple days. I caught a bit of a break as every retailer I spoke with said they were backlogged with builder jobs and that it would be at least a month before they could get to my small job.

I continue to spend time cleaning all of the Pukani I've got on hand. There is no doubt it is the lightest/most porous, but it is also the dirtiest and the least imaginative in shape. I'm considering going a different direction. I've got about 150 lbs of BRS Reef Saver on hand which although heaver, is very clean and better shaped. I'm going to place another order with Marco and forgo most of the Pukani for this build.

To aid in establishing biological filtration with minimal rock in the DT, I also ordered more plate and sphere shaped Marine Pure ceramic media which will be housed in the sump...



I've used this before with success in other builds where I had very little rock in the display. I'll seed it in my temporary holding tanks to hasten the cycle.
 
Finalizing the Sump Design

Finalizing the Sump Design

I got the Marine Pure rinsed and placed in the stock tank. I really like this stuff - I added 4 of the 8" X 8" x 1" plates and 1 gallon of the spheres (about 75 individual spheres.) Using their area calculations, that provides ~41,000 Sq Ft of surface area for biological filtration. Not only will it help hasten the cycle, but as I'm planning a rather open aquascape with lots of negative space, it minimizes the amount of rock needed in the DT while occupying very little space in the sump.

Next decision is finalizing the sump. This design is from uncle06, and I believe was derived from Melev's designs, so I'm pretty comfortable with the overall layout. My questions regard the dimensions and depth - The glass sump is 72" X 24" X 18", Here's what I have currently...



The drains are set up Bean Animal style with 3 X 1.5" drains. The 1" return feeds 2 X 3/4" loc-lines. I'll add a 4 port manifold off the return pump to drive reactors and may configure it using a second pump for redundancy (I'm a little concerned about getting/keeping the siphon tuned with the variations caused by the manifold.) The baffles are set at 1 1/2" yielding the following...

Skimmer section - 20" X 24" X 10" = ~20.8 gallons
Return Section - 18" X 24" X 10" = ~18.7 gallons
Fuge/Frag section - 30" X 24" X 12" = ~37.4 gallons

After estimating the equipment volume, the above should provide ~35 gallons for pump-failure overflow from the DT (I'll have a check valve, but never trust them.) The loc-line will be drilled with anti-siphon holes, so i don't think it will drain more than 2", which would be no more than 25 gallons - which the sump should easily hold in the event the check valve failed.

With the skimmer and return section depth set to 10", I'll have to raise the skimmer a couple inches, but thankfully I've got enough head room to do so. I'm going with 10" water depth to maximize the amount of evaporation before the return pump would run dry in the event of an ATO failure.

As this is my first large tank build, please point out anything I've failed to take into consideration. Thank you for tagging along - I really appreciate any comments or suggestions :)
 
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Got a surprise today, had an electrician out to add a couple 20 amp circuits for the tank. I learned I can't add any more circuits as my connection box uses an aluminum bus and is more than 20 years old (apparently code.) Their solution was upgrading the box and service to the tune of $3800. I've got plenty of circuits and amperage available near the tank, I just wanted dedicated circuits for simplicity and redundancy.

A high quality GFI power strip will resolve my issue for quite a bit less.
 
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the marine pure. I've thought about adding some to my sump as my display is rather light on LR as well.
 
bpcardona said:
I like your approach to this build. Looking forward to the progression..
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Thanks Brian - For me, I can imagine no worse fate than having a completed, perfect build needing no updates, improvements or changes. Thankfully, I'm quite sure I'll never reach that state :)

Chrisrush said:
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the marine pure. I've thought about adding some to my sump as my display is rather light on LR as well.
Click to expand...
I've used Marine Pure ceramics with success on a few different builds including a couple of odd-ball desktop builds, one which had no rock whatsoever...

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AEMGWyyBjqo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's difficult to see, but the MP Spheres are in a DIY acrylic tower just right of the skimmer.
 
Electrical Plan

Electrical Plan

Working through the electrical plan. I've got 3 circuits - 2 @ 15 amps and 1 @ 20 amps (although the 20 amp circuit is shared with a rarely used sump pump.) I'm using individual Shock Buster GFIs on each circuit to minimize the impact of any false-trips. The current plan is,

Circuit #1 (entire run is on a GFI) ~800W
Tripp Light commercial 20 outlet metal power strip
1-7 7X - Kessil 360WE LED lights (7X90W=630W)
8 - CaRx feed pump - 50W
9 - Apex power plug (for power fail sensing) - 10W
10 - CaRx mixing pump - 50W
11 - MP60 - 60W (Vortech battery backup)
12 - MP60 - 60W (Vortech battery backup)
13- 20 - Future Use

Circuit #2 (Saltwater station - ~780W)
EB8 on Tower Shock Buster auto resetting GFI
1 - Waveline DC12000 Mixing/Transfer pump - 170W
2 - Aquatec 8800 RO Boost Pump - 110W
3 - ASW Heater/300W
4 - AWC Masterflex Pump - 100W
5 - ATO Pump (YTBD)
6-8 Future Use

Circuit 3A (1400VA APC SmartUPS) ~ 495W
EB8 on Tower Shock Buster auto resetting GFI -
1 - Fluval SP6 return pump - 135W
2 - Heater/300W (set at 76f/78f)
3 - WP-60 - 60W
4 - 8 Future Use

Circuit 3B ~590W
EB8 on Tower Shock Buster auto resetting GFI
1 - Heater/300W (set at 77f/79f)
2 - Vertex Vectra Skimmer neck cleaner - 20W
3 - BK Skimmer - 50W
4 - Cabinet lights - 50W
5 - WP-60 - 60W
6 - Fuge/Frag light - 90W
7 - Moon lights - 10W
8 - AP Digital CO2 regulator - 10W

Normally I would keep the cable modem and router on the UPS as well so the Apex could alert me to the power outage, but whenever we lose power, our cable service also goes down (even with the modem and router still online.)

This ends up about 2170 Watts maximum utilization or just short of 20 amps divided between 3 circuits. The actual load should be much less (i.e. the second heater will probably only be needed overnight when the house temp is allowed to drop and the main LEDs are off.) This also leaves overhead for future additions such as fans, BP reactor, Kalk stirrer... I'm hoping this provides redundancy should a single GFI trip. In the event of a power outage, the UPS should keep the return pump, WP-60, and controller running for at least 30 minutes (long enough to bring a 7000W gas generator online.)

Please feel free to point out anything I've overlooked - Thanks!
 
The only thing you forgot was to finance my build. My fish room and tank are gonna look tiny compared to yours. Can't wait to see it. You thought of just about everything I believe.
 
Good news on the electrical front,

I was thinking through the comments from the first electrician that had said circuits could not be added to my box (despite available room on the bus.) His push to install a new panel and bus (at significant cost) made me question his motives. On a hunch I called a second electrical firm to review my situation. They found the box and bus in good shape and have no problem adding 2, 20 amp circuits.

So although I'll have to slightly rework my plan, as of tomorrow, I'll have 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits to work with. :)
 
I did something tonight haven't done in many years - I mixed up a couple gallons of 2-part for the stock tank.

I feel vindicated for saving my dosing pumps after going CaRx. Now I just have to remember my dosing schedule and the apex dosing commands.
 
The rest of the electrical components were delivered. In addition to the Apex EB8s which will manage all the devices that need to be controlled,


1400VA UPS for critical systems (controller, water movement and emergency heat.) I like the APC Smart-UPS line as you can adjust the input sensitivity to compensate for the "dirty"power output of my generator.


All circuits will be protected by a individual auto-resetting GFCIs


Trip Lite all metal commercial, 20 outlet power strip will power all the non-Apex items


Cabling will be run in 2.25" cable chase
 
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