Floridiot's 157 Nano build

[Floridiot]

I know you're thinking 157 gallons is hardly a Nano, and this Floridiot guy is living up to his screen name. Well, I know full and well that 157 gallons doesn't qualify as a nano, but my tank will draw less electricity than many nano tanks. It will also cost LESS than some nano tanks I've seen. For this reason, I’m calling it a nano.

Here is an example of what I’m talking about: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1247955 - Please note that I'm not knocking this guy in any way. I admire this guy's enthusiasm, and there is no doubt in my mind that he's going to have a killer reef tank in due time.

I personally would rather have a larger system, since they are much easier to maintain. My aquarium will be a mixed soft, LPS, and SPS (easy ones) system.

Now I'm building this system almost entirely from second hand items. The only pieces I plan on buying (or have already bought) from a retail/online store will be the lighting, the sand, and a few pieces of live rock used to seed the dead rock I purchased from 'TheOtherReefer'. I also built the stand myself. The tank, Tunze streams/controller, Ca reactor, skimmer, sump, base rock, cleaning magnet, and test kits have already been purchased from other members here and from ebay. I plan on stocking this tank entirely from buying frags from local reefers, and buying livestock from fellow reefers who are getting out of the hobby.

For starters, this is the tank I purchased from ryder119 (she's a great seller, and a pleasure to deal with):

This tank is built really well and I believe it was built by Karen and Bob from Exotic Aquariums in Miami. The tank is made of 3/4" glass on the sides and bottom. The top euro-bracing is 1/2" glass, and there is also 1/2" glass bracing along the bottom edge of the tank for extra strength. The dimensions are 42" x 36" x 24" tall. These dimensions add up to 157 gallons, but if you recalculate using the inside dimensions, it will really only hold about 120 gallons.

This tank still hasn't been water tested. Apparently ryder119 had a mix up when ordering this tank, and recieved the tank with different dimensions than she thought she was getting. You can read about it here:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1444026

As you can see from the pics, it was built for a closed loop system, but I’ve sealed the holes with bulkheads and black painted PVC plugs. I also painted the back of the glass black. I will be using Tunze streams since they are far more energy efficient than any external pump. I'm awaiting the final two vacuum suction cups I ordered on ebay to show up, so I (and 3 friends) can lift this tank onto the stand.

Here is the stand I built:

I'm pretty much a hack carpenter, but I do believe this stand turned out pretty well. I had a hard time finding concealed thick door hinges, but I finally found them at a place called Specialty Supply in Pompano. The hinges I got are Blum in case anyone here needs to get some.

 

[Floridiot]

Here's the 36" x 17" x 20" tall sump I purchased from reelbadfish:

Now for the lighting:

I'm going to light this entire tank using a single 175W MH. I know many of you think this will not be nearly enough light, but I'm pretty sure it will be. I used to own a 6' 150 gallon tank, and I successfully grew acros under three 175 w halides which were running on magnatek m57 ballasts. Each bulb lit a 2' section of the tank, and the acros were strategically placed directly under the bulbs. I got decent growth and good color, so I know it can be done.

I’ve been reading Sanjay's lighting pages a lot: http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com

I now realize that the bulbs I was using on the magnatek ballasts were only giving me a PPFD value of about 53. I was also using crappy reflectors at the time, yet I still had success. The bulb and ballast combination I'm going with on this tank is going to be the Iwasaki 15000K with an IceCap ballast. This combination should give me a PPFD of about 86, which is approximately 62% more light. This bulb/ballast combination also gets the highest energy efficiency rating by giving 86 PPFD at only 165 watts of actual energy use.

I will be using a Lumenarc III stealth pendant 19.5" x 19.5" which should give me enough spread to completely light my aquarium. Once again, I used Sanjays info to pick this reflector: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/feature.htm

When building my reef, I intend to place the SPS near the center of the tank. I also really like the idea of using only one bulb since this should give me maximum glitter lines.

The pumps I've decided to use for recirculation are a pair of Iwaki 20RLXTs. I had one left over from my last tank, and I just picked another one up from petsolutions on clearance. These pumps are the most efficient magnetic drive pump I can find. They will push over 550 GPH of water at 4' while using only 38watts measured on my Kill-A-Watt meter. I will effectively get over 1100 GPH of water moving for 76 watts. The only way I've found to increase this efficiency would be to buy a Red Dragon pump, but I don't feel like laying out $600 for one. I also plan on setting the tank up to only use one of these at first. I'm thinking that 550GPH may be enough to keep the detritus from settling on the bottom, but I won't know for sure until I try.

The skimmer I purchased is an H&S A200-1260 off of ebay. I’m a bit nervous waiting for it to show up, because I know how careless UPS can be, and acrylic doesn’t ship well unless packed extremely well. I will be feeding it from the overflow drains, so I will not need a feed pump. This skimmer uses an eheim 1260 rated at 65watts, but according to the H&S website, it only draws 28 watts when fitted with the needle wheel impeller: http://www.finsreef.com/product.php?productid=16549&cat=254&page=1

For tank circulation I will be using a pair of streams. One will be a 6101 I purchased from supersantay, and the other will be a 6000 I purchased from UrFace. I will be controlling these from a 7094 I purchased from aharrow. I will try setting up the 6101 on high flow mode (as a 6100), but I’m not sure if my tank will be able to handle that much flow. If it can, I may eventually upgrade the 6000 that will be on the other side.

Ideally this tank will draw very little in electricity. My figures are something like:

Skimmer 28 watts
Streams 50 watts (average for the pair)
Iwakis 76 watts (may be able to cut it to 38 watts by only running one)
Sump fuge light 16 watts (12 hours a day)
Ca Reactor 20 watts
IceCap 165 watts (10 hours a day)

If you add this up, it equals roughly 6 KWh per day (less if I can remove one of the Iwakis) or about $23 a month in electricity.

I know that adding 6KWh of electricity will add extra heat to the house that will need to be removed by the AC, so I will estimate an increase of about an additional $10 in the summer months. I also know that in the winter, that the heater will also draw some electricity, so I’ll add another $10 a month for that for the two coldest months of the year.

Overall, this tank will be very efficient, and will compare in energy costs very close to many nano tanks. Comments welcome!

 

[Lacy]

pm sent

 

[illal]

that stand came out great! seems like u put alot of thought into this setup n should turn out quite good.... personally if i were guna try n only use 1 bulb to light the whole tank id have gone with a 400w or atleast a 250w or really 2X175

 

[illal]

lol i bet i kno what lacy sent a pm on

 

[TheOtherReefer]

Yo floridiot

can't wait to see those rocks you picked up all set up!!

Looking good so far!!

keep us posted


cheers

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13284211#post13284211 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by illal
that stand came out great! seems like u put alot of thought into this setup n should turn out quite good.... personally if i were guna try n only use 1 bulb to light the whole tank id have gone with a 400w or atleast a 250w or really 2X175

I can always upgrade the 175 to a 250SE or 400 by replacing the bulb and ballast. Also note that Sanjay tested some 400 watt bulbs that gave out less than 86PPFD when run on Magnatek Ballasts (most popular ballast by far).

I know everyone swears by more light, but I'm not trying to farm corals. I just want to have a pretty tank that provides a healthy environment for my fish and corals. As I said above, I successfully grew acros using inferior 175s years ago, and they even colored up with bright blue and purple tips. Most corals will adapt to the lighting you give them, and as long as mine don't turn brown, I'll be happy. If they do darken up and turn brown, I'll upgrade the lighting at that time, although I seriously doubt I'll need to.

I plan on setting up the rock work so that I can grow the SPS in the center of the tank, followed by the LPS, softies, and shrooms towards the edges.

 

[MR PALM BEACH]

That stand Is looking pretty sweet.

 

[Floridiot]

I've had a few comments/PMs about the stand. Here is a little more info on it. I'm sorry, but I did not take any pics during the construction.

The stand frame is built of 2x4 dry yellow pine. The vertical corners have the pine doubled up, with one length shorter which fits between the top frame and bottom frame. The entire frame is screwed and glued.

The sides are 1/2" sandyply which are also srewed and glued on. The top and bottom of the stand are 3/4" poplar ply, also screwed and glued. I glued a piece of 1/2" blue styrafoam to the top of the top piece of plywood to give the glass a little cushion.

The front is 3/4" poplar ply (also screwed and glued). The doors are 1/2" oak finished ply, with the fished side facing in. As you can see the doors are flush mounted to the front of the tank.

The entire stand is then finished in fake coral I purchased from Safari Stone in Oakland Park. I used the 1136 Random Ashler Block for the panels and the 4202 Chair Rail for the top and bottom trim.

The panels and chair rail are made from a very high density foam, and are glued in place using sub floor adhesive. They also sell a color matched grout which you use to fill in any seams.

The foam panels are about 5/8" thick, and when combined with the 1/2" plywood, it makes for a 1-1/8" thick door. This is why I needed the thick door hinges from Specialty Supply.

 

[Rogger Castells]

Congratulations!, nice set up, I think that planning ahead is great, I have a few comments for you, I think that by the looks of the sump that you will have problems with micro bubbles, it also appears to small for the skimmer you are getting, (I use to own one).
Although 175w will be sufficient to keep some acros alive, with time you would have want to have installed 250's w or even 400's, one of this bulbs would be sufficient and the overall cost is not that much different.

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13287830#post13287830 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rogger Castells
Congratulations!, nice set up, I think that planning ahead is great, I have a few comments for you, I think that by the looks of the sump that you will have problems with micro bubbles, it also appears to small for the skimmer you are getting, (I use to own one).
Although 175w will be sufficient to keep some acros alive, with time you would have want to have installed 250's w or even 400's, one of this bulbs would be sufficient and the overall cost is not that much different.

Thanks for the heads up on the skimmer. If it is too big to fit inside the sump (I'm hoping it will fit), I'll just set it outside since it is an external model. I agree that microbubbles might be an issue if I run 1100GPH through the sump. If I can get away with just 550GPH, then I'm thinking (hoping) I'll be fine. I really don't like the fact that the sump is only 36" long, but it is all I can fit under my stand.

You may be correct in your assumption about me wanting to upgrade the lighting in the future, but I'm very intrigued by these new Iwasakis. Most people would say that a 400 watt Radium would be a much better choice, but according to Sanjay's research, the radium would give 90 PPFD when run on a Magnatek M59 which is only 4.6% more light. I know from personal past experiences that I can grow beautiful acros under inferior 175s. I'm not too worried about the lighting.

I also received my final two vacuum cups today, so hopefully later on I can post a pic of the tank on the stand.

 

[Floridiot]

The tank is now on the stand. The Lumenarc III Stealth came in along with the IceCap 175 ballast and Iwasaki bulb. I hung the Lumenarc pendant over the tank and fired up the bulb to see how it's going to look. At this point, I'm very happy with it.

My next step is to start the plumbing, but I really need to wait until the skimmer comes before I get started on that so I can see where everything is going to go. If you notice on the lower right side of of the stand, I already have six 1" PVC pipes going through the wall and into a closet. I have the ability to mount any of my equipment in this closet that will not fit under the tank. The only thing for sure that will be in this closet is my CO2 bottle, my water changing tank, and my R/O top-off reservoir.

 

[gasman059]

very very nice tank!

 

[drpo21]

wow, beautiful tank, this is gonna be a good one. i really like the stand

 

[jjvanb]

Looks very nice!

I'm sure you can't wait to get some water in there. I love the coral look of the stand.

What do you plan to use for substrate if any?

 

[TheOtherReefer]

so far so good

 

[illal]

really nice! im lovin the look of no canopy/open top/rimless...looks very promising so far!

 

[newmoon]

Love the simple set up! That's my kind of tank

 

[Floridiot]

Thanks to all for the compliments!

As far as substrate, I'll be using about 3/4" of the Caribsea Special grade aragonite (1mm to 2mm). I prefer the look of the finer oolitic sand, but it is very hard to keep on the bottom with high flow.

I've started some of the plumbing this weekend, but am really stuck until my skimmer arrives. I figure that I should at least have freshwater in it sometime this week. Getting close!

 

[ReefWreak]

I'm liking it. I read the thread mentioned above, of what you're not trying to do, and I totally get what you mean. At least he didn't buy 6 skimmers, 3 chillers, 6 lighting combos, 4 different powerheads, etc to find the right one. He did his research, saved up his lunch money, and at least put the right equipment on, perhaps a bit excessive on equipment, but to each their own.

I'm a huge fan of KISS simplicity setups.

One suggestion I would have is no sand. I dunno how you feel about it (obviously you like sand or you wouldn't have just mentioned it) but after all my experience I'm a firm believer that filtration capacity and efficiency is increased through higher flow and bare bottom. You're going for maximum practical efficiency, which I totally dig, so it might be a thought.

I'm a big fan of the single 175w high output bulb in a good reflector with a wider deeper tank versus the standard long and high tank. Finally a tank that can stick it to those T5 efficiency nuts (I can't talk about that from experience as I've got effectively 1kw of lights just over my tank )

If I could start from scratch and have the money to do what you're doing, that's exactly the setup type that I would have going. I believe jar*head's old setup was similar, the deep cube look with centered lighting (though I'm almost certain he put much more lighting over the tank). It was great with a rock pillar in the center. A few people have done the center pillar which I like.

Some other ideas may be 4 corners of rockpiles (the two front ones you could watch the cryptic dark zones and see what goes on) and maybe a small pile in the center to put some lower light SPS on, to form a center piece of sorts.

Dunno, these are just some ideas and props, but I'm sure you've got your setup planned almost to the T, and it shows, and it's looking great.