Double or Nothing... AJ's 405-Gallon Reef Savvy Upgrade

[Stylo328]

The next day, after the move and a few hours of sleep, I started working on the plumbing. This afforded some new challenges as I have always had the entire back to do as I wished with plumbing. Having an in-wall, all of the access is from behind and I needed to be thoughtful in plumbing placement to ensure I would have appropriate access to the sump, skinner, etc...

To that end, I tucked the plumbing from the drains up under the tank and it worked out nicely.

And here is the final product: (for the drains that is).

The returns on the other hand saw a few iterations with the final not coming until just after Christmas. To be continued...

Here is the wall facing the dinning room. It was covered in white quartz split-face stone.

The rim of the front tank was done in white quartz to create a shadow-box effect.

And a better look at the inhabitants.

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[locito277]

Man your mimic tang is the truth! Love that fish


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[Stylo328]

Double or Nothing... AJ's 405-Gallon Reef Savvy Upgrade

Man your mimic tang is the truth! Love that fish


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Thanks brother.


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[Stylo328]

Double or Nothing... AJ's 405-Gallon Reef Savvy Upgrade

The next thing to go up were the sliding doors to separate the tank from the data he air and in turn create a pseudo fish room. We went with 8' dual pane insulated vinyl doors. These should hold up well given the harsh environment the salt water creates.

In these images you can see one of the first iterations of the return plumbing which came over the back of the tank. While it worked, the plumbing was very much in the way. It has since been redone.

I will continue to "œcatch the thread up" over the coming days. There have been many perils since the move, including the loss of my crosshatch male trigger, popeye for the female crosshatch trigger, hurricane Irma, alkalinity spike, etc... To say it's been a rough time is an understatement. Just in the past two weeks have things finally started to settle down with the tank.


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[ReefKeeper64]

That’s an impressive setup. How are you liking your extruded aluminum stand? It gives you lots of room and looks strong. Was the pricing comparable with other stand options?

 

[Stylo328]

Double or Nothing... AJ's 405-Gallon Reef Savvy Upgrade

That's an impressive setup. How are you liking your extruded aluminum stand? It gives you lots of room and looks strong. Was the pricing comparable with other stand options?

Thanks!

I am really liking it actually. At first I was skeptical, but Felix assured me that all of the hardware would be upgraded and that it would more than hold the weight.

The extra space is awesome and the height worked out perfectly.

Cost was comparable to welded...


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[JamesHolt]

We use that extruded aluminum at work alot, they make just about everything out of it from safety cages for the machines to carts and tables...
There is a ton of little accessories and add-ons for it also...

 

[Stylo328]

I'm going to post a few photos to bring the thread up to date. This will include what The tank looked like at initial set up and some of the death that resulted from hurricane Irma. I've also made a few changes to the plumbing and the configuration of the fish room.

This is the rear view of the fish room. The sliding doors allow for good access to the rear of the tank and a step stool makes maintenance possible.

I plumbed a manifold into one of the Vectra returns to feed the calcium reactor and two BRS jumbo reactors, one for carbon and the other for GFO. I use carbon and GFO occasionally, but am not as consistent with either as I should be. Each feed can be regulated independently.

As you can see in this photo, I mounted the apex and controllers up and out of the way in the wall. Also, as if this photo, I had the RO running directly into the tank using a tunze controller and tunze solenoid. The solenoid eventually failed (thank god it wasn't a catastrophic failure) and I have since moved to a reservoir model. Still have a ton of wire management to do.

This is what the livestock looked like before Irma.

And our rarely seen Marine Beta.

Sadly, as of this post, the female crosshatch trigger has also died...


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[Stylo328]

Hurricane Irma happened not long after our move. The tank really hadn't had an opportunity to settle and ultimately took a hard hit. While the storm itself did minimal damage to our home, the resulting multi-day power outage was difficult to manage through. We do not have a generator and had to rely on battery powered air stones. While the fish all survived, I think the lack of water circulation led to significant SPS losses. Some of the colonies had tissue remaining and have bounced back while others were lost altogether.

Here are just a few photos of the losses.

Christmas Mirabilis

Shawn Bennet Tort

Blue Tenuis

Purple Polyp Nasuta (what a hard loss; it's all gone)

RMF Last Dragon (completely lost)

Miyagi Tort Acro (immediately filled with bryopsis in the center? The tips survived and is slowly coming back. Bryopsis is gone.

Battle Corals Spain Bow (completely lost)

After the losses were cut out of the tank, I took the opportunity to do some rearranging of the aquascape and added some dry rock that I had kept on hand. This is a FTS with the updated scape. I made some significant changes in each end of the tank.

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[Stylo328]

Fast forward to today. This is what the tank looks like from left to right, broken up into four pictures.

And a few cool closeups. This is one of the black onyx Picasso clowns hosting the green toadstool along with the lawnmower blenny.

A recently acquired torch. Digging the purple green and the orange hue.

One of the zoa gardens.

And finally a bounce courtesy of my friend the Reefchick.

 

[Stylo328]

Double or Nothing... AJ's 405-Gallon Reef Savvy Upgrade

One final post for today, a quick video of the tank. Please disregard any background noise.

https://youtu.be/nZ5I0dcVnsI

That's all for today. Thanks for viewing my thread.


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[Stylo328]

Tank is doing well. Things have been pretty stable. Here are a few quick pictures.

Thanks for looking.


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[JamesHolt]

Nice setup..

 

[Stylo328]

Nice setup..

Thanks!


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[locito277]

Looking great


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[FireReeferSteve]

Awesome build definitely following!



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[JamesHolt]

Two tool carts we built out of the 80/20 stuff, they take a beating and dont flex at all.
Dont think you will have to worry about your stand.

 

[JamesHolt]

Dont know what happened to the pics, will check when i get home in the am

 

[locito277]

Tank looks amazing! Love the marine betta

 

[Stylo328]

I was feeling quite adventurous recently and added this guy.

This beauty absolutely loves Zoanthids. He's already taken out over 200 SunnyD's and probably another couple hundred Chucky's bride's. Thank God I have a lot of Zoas.

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