Dotcommer's Reef - 300 Gallon 10' x 2' x 2' Mixed Reef Build, Scottsdale AZ

Newbie Aquarist said:
Things are looking great man.
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Thanks, every day its an adventure. Today we hooked up a webcam to the bottom of my ceiling fan on the patio. We retrofitted the the bottom of the fan to house the power cord and added a Cat5 connection as well to the housing. So now I have a web cam of my fish room so I can keep an eye on my 125 Gallon and the sump and any other things I end up putting out there. I will post some photos when I get back into town next week. We are heading up to Cloudcraft New Mexico so the our niece and nephew can visit their grand parents. Its me, my wife, my mother-in-law and 6 kids :headwally:

And I also dealing with a new Potters Angel that is in QT and had a break out of some type of parasite, either brooklynella or something close. I am treating it with PraziPro. Its amazing what a fresh water dip can do. I did a 10 minute fresh water dip and then put Iodine directly on the parasite, once I placed him back into the tank, within minutes all the parasites where gone. I am hoping he makes a full recovery. I have my house sitters watching him and I also set up a webcam on my QT tank so I can check in on him.
 
The latest update:

I had a good friend come over and we talked about my tank and we decided to put in a closed loop system since I already had 7 holes across the bottom of the tank. Since I moved the sump to the out side, I had room under the tank for the plumbing.
 
A while back, a few of you asked if I would post a video of my Rotating Metal Halide set up along with my Automatic Canopy Lift.

I finally finished it.
I filled the tank with hose water to test out the closed loop and thank God, there were no leaks on the first try.

Here is the video of the
Rotating Metal Halide Lights in Action and the Automatic Canopy Lift.



I designed my stand and canopy on my 300 Gallon aquarium to incorporate Metal Halide lights that rotate. I wasn't ready to commit to LED lights yet, however I wanted to create a cloud affect at different times during the day. I used a Linear Actuator to rotate the Metal Halide bar up and down 45 degrees via my APEX controller. The effect is amazing on the water. My goal is to have the lights rotated up in the morning and every 15 minutes one MH light will turn on across the tank, creating a sunrise. Once all the lights are on, the Linear Actuator will rotate the lights down over a 15 minute period. A few times during the day, the lights will rotate back up and down creating a cloud effect. And finally at it will repeat the process the opposite way to simulate the sun setting.

This video shows the effect within a 4 minute period.
 
TANK UPDATE:

We finally have water in the tank. :bounce2:

We spent several weeks working and completing most of the plumbing.

I have a refrigerator on order for the Elliot Automatic Frozen Food Feeder that will be built and stored in the freezer.

I was finally able to get the aquascaping that I like and then decided to put RO/DI water in the tank and check out my closed loop system to see how it will rearrange my sand, check out the flow and see how my phosphates will be reading.

I decided to go with a very fine sand, and I am trying to have as little of it to cover the bottom and for esthetic reasons.

Right now I am in the middle of a severe aquarium dust storm, but hopefully it was settle down in the next day or so.

Here is a pic of the tank being filled and after the closed loop was turned on .
2DD71FD8-11F7-4CBB-846B-56FA62997D79-9384-00000460EFEBFEC2_zps39bfd4cc.jpg


EC2BC670-6109-48BE-B69D-B78E24892AD1-9384-00000462AC336045_zps4a040804.jpg


I will try to work on updating the thread more often.
 
jt48 said:
Looks good. Are the powerheads off?
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I don't have any power heads, just the closed loop is running, I dialed the two pumps down, via the ball valve, and I have two filter socks, helping as of a few hours ago, to cut down the floating sand.
 
Just got through your thread, with comments you have made in other threads I knew this would be awesome! I am not disappointed! Congrats on the family, great house (I hope I can talk the wife into relocating to AZ someday) and awesome tank coming together! I really like the light rig. Also another thanks for the link to Elliot's thread, I hadn't checked that one for quite some time, I have some reading to do. Looking forward to the upcoming livestock move.
Matt
 
great work!

if you are interested in power and a whole lot of space, you can wait for the avast frozen food feeder coming out shortly. no need for that fridge and really small footprint.

you can read a bit about it hear and read justin's (avast owner) in the comments section (take the space out, for some reason it was blocking the link) - http://reef builders.com/2014/01/23/frozen-auto-feeder-avast-marine-confirmed-demo-video/

did you go with a fine grade sand for any particular reason? plan for lots of sand dwelling wrasses? keep us updated, following along!
 
muttley000 said:
Just got through your thread, with comments you have made in other threads I knew this would be awesome! I am not disappointed! Congrats on the family, great house (I hope I can talk the wife into relocating to AZ someday) and awesome tank coming together! I really like the light rig. Also another thanks for the link to Elliot's thread, I hadn't checked that one for quite some time, I have some reading to do. Looking forward to the upcoming livestock move.
Matt
Click to expand...

Thanks for following along. When you spend over a year with the tank in your possession and it finally gets water, its a nice feeling.


AngelButterfly said:
Nice:), is the lighting fixture connected to the base stand?
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Yes, the canopy is connected to the back of the stand, and the lights are connected to a flat piece of aluminum and the aluminum is connected to a rod that extends across the tank. The rod is rotated by a linear actuator. I will be posting more detailed pics, since there have been several reefers asking about it.


dca22anderson said:
Now that's some good progress! Well done sir!:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Thanks, hopefully it could look 1/2 as good as your amazing tank.
 
monkiboy said:
great work!

if you are interested in power and a whole lot of space, you can wait for the avast frozen food feeder coming out shortly. no need for that fridge and really small footprint.

you can read a bit about it hear and read justin's (avast owner) in the comments section (take the space out, for some reason it was blocking the link) - http://reef builders.com/2014/01/23/frozen-auto-feeder-avast-marine-confirmed-demo-video/

did you go with a fine grade sand for any particular reason? plan for lots of sand dwelling wrasses? keep us updated, following along!
Click to expand...


This is great to hear. I have searched everywhere to see if someone had come up with a design, but I couldn't find anything. I think something like this will be a great addition to our community.

I have been so fortunate to have Elliot live 5 Minutes away. He has been so gracious and is going to help me build one like his. He has also been coming over and helping with my build. He has an incredible wealth of information and is so kind about sharing it. And, yes, his tank is amazing. Pictures don't do it justice, (even though the pics are amazing) when you stand in front of the tank, you can get lost for hours just looking at everything. Elliot is very creative and his creative coral QT system is so simple yet so effective.

Yes, I am looking to have several wrasse in this display, plus I just love the look of white beach sand.

My closed loop system, has so much flow, that I am going to have a difficult time getting it dialed in so it doesn't create mounds of sand like in the pic.
 
The dust is starting to settle. I doubled up the filter socks to hopefully remove the cloudiness from the sand quicker, and it seems to be working great.

Now that I can see into the tank, I have some huge adjustments to make in my closed loop. The nice thing, is the back of the tank is bare bottom and the closed loop is doing a great job of keeping that area clean.

Here is the updated pic took an hour ago.

5A1DE036-4FBB-4BC2-A077-3212F26E7276-9384-0000049EEEA6B307_zps2af80884.jpg
 
dotcommer said:
The dust is starting to settle. I doubled up the filter socks to hopefully remove the cloudiness from the sand quicker, and it seems to be working great.

Now that I can see into the tank, I have some huge adjustments to make in my closed loop. The nice thing, is the back of the tank is bare bottom and the closed loop is doing a great job of keeping that area clean.

Here is the updated pic took an hour ago.

5A1DE036-4FBB-4BC2-A077-3212F26E7276-9384-0000049EEEA6B307_zps2af80884.jpg
Click to expand...

Looks like the middle of tank is a shaded area. Plans for lower light corals there or is that a mirage?
 
The lighting system is bananas. I am also glad for you that you finally have water. I can see big things happening. Congrats again.
 
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