Gabe's Tank Project

[gabrielt]

Personal Background: I started with fresh water fish tanks when I was only 5, when my mom's best friend gave me a fish tank (with some guppies and a blue trichogaster, if I may recall). She was in biology college and she thought (correctly) that this would be a cool way for me and my brother to learn more about biology. I kept fresh water tanks until I move out m parent's house. Then I've never found the time to have aquariums again.

Saltwater Experience:: Last year I finally decided to start a salt water tank. I bought some books, read a lot and bought the largest tank it would fit my apartment (30"x24"x17.5", 54 gal). I still consider myself, to this date, a beginner on the saltwater world.

The New House: Then this year I moved to a house that has a perfect spot for a largest fish tank. Better than that, part of my garage was transformed into a workshop by one of the previous owners and one of the walls of the workshop is on the left side of the spot I wanted to place my tank. So I have the perfect setup to transform this workshop into a fish room.

The Inspiration: I wanted to have a beautiful tank like those shown on the "Tank of the Month" section, but I didn't even known where to start. After researching a lot what other people have done, I came down to two major sources of inspiration:

• GlassReef
• OregonReef

I am obsessed with aesthetics and organization, and these two guys were able to build fantastic tanks with an impressive organized fishrooms. So one of my main goals is to make my fishroom to look neat and clean.

The Project: This tank is an ongoing project and I hired a friend, Justin Culver (jculver09), to help me out as like I said I didn't even know where to start. The idea is to use this thread to fine-tune our ideas. Justin will be here with me discussing your input.

The "Before" Pictures: I am posting below the "before" pictures. This is exactly how things are as I write this.

The niche where the new fish tank will be installed. As explained the workshop/fishroom shares the left wall of the niche.

The workshop and future fishroom. This is the wall that is shared with the niche. I want to install a sink on the left of the workbench.

I want to install a sink where this Rubber Maid trash can is currently located.

This is the most likely future location for the sumps, pumps, water storage vessels, etc. These shelves will be removed.

I will still have plenty of storage space on the shelves located on the opposite wall.

What is Already Decided and Bought:

• Fish Tank: We had several choices. I opted to have a tank that would fill the whole niche side to side. The distance between the walls is of 56 inches, so I am going with a 55 inches long tank. As for the height, we chose 30 inches. I ended up picking a depth of 24 inches, even though we could have a tank with up to 48 inches deep. The reason why is that I decided that I didn't want the right side of the tank to be visible from the stair case.
• Sumps: I decided to go with two 48" sumps, one for a regular sump and one for a growout/refugium setup. Justin will later post more information on the configuration he wants to use. The display tank and the two sumps were already ordered for a total cost of $4,000, including shipping.
• Water Vessels: We decided to buy three 55-gallon food safe plastic barrels to store R.O. water and to mix salt water. Picture below. Each one costed $36 + tax on a local surplus store called Twin City, for a total of $116.34. Now I am working on cleaning them...

Next Steps: Justin will be sharing his ideas for my setup very soon, all input you guys can give will be highly appreciated! I thank all people that will participate on this thread in advance!

 

[jculver09]

Where to start?

Where to start?

I guess since I'm so new to the forums a I should go over my background a bit to start things off.

It all started about 7 or 8 years ago. I won a little beta at the state fair, he was white with a bright red tail and fins. I wish I had taken some pictures of him because he was the coolest beta I had ever seen. The bowl he came in was about a quart. As the years went on he was slowly moved up to larger and larger tanks along with other fish being added. After a few years, most of the fish in the tank had kicked the bucket and all I was left with were a trio of Green Spotted Puffers. This led me to convert the tank to brackish, and eventually to salt.

I am a Chemical Engineer by education but have experience in everything from general construction to electronics and programming.

My current tank is a 90 gallon mixed reef in a very standard configuration. 2x250 MH supplemented by 2x54w T5 actinic, sump, refugium, Bubble Magus skimmer, Nextreef reactor, and a mag 12 return pump.


Enough about me, onto gabriels tank!


To start things off I wanted to pose a question?

Ozone introduction through a skimmer. Is an air pump truly required here, or would the skimmers own suction draw sufficient air through the ozonizer? This would be using an MRC Ocean Force 300 skimmer and an Aquazone 100 mg/hr ozonizer.


Return Pump:Dolphin ES3500 TEFC

While I wasn't able to find many reviews on this specific pump, I found some for others in its series and am comfortable with the selection.

RODI ATO and Salt mixing:

The idea here was to have as much of the system automated as possible. The three barrels gabriel posted will be arranged in a triangle, the top one containing RO only and having a gravity feed to the two bottom tanks. The two bottom tanks will be linked and feature a pump for mixing up salt water and doing water changes.

The RO only tank will fill using a solenoid and switch system with a DPDT relay, I first saw this on Glassreef's 375 build, but have now found places that even sell kits complete with instructions.

The sumps ATO will be redundant in that it will be fed by gravity, with a mechanical float valve above the water line, and a float switch solenoid system slightly lower in the tank. That way flow is primarily controlled by the solenoid, but if the level gets too high the float valve will close. We don't plan on treating the RO water with any additives, so there shouldn't be any buildup to prevent the float valve from working.

Only real concern here is getting the remains of the flavoring syrup out of those drums.

Justin

 

[jculver09]

Bit of an update: aparently the folks down at Dolphin didnt see fit to continue this product, so we ended up going with a reeflo super dart gold instead.

 

[jculver09]

Sump ideas

Sump ideas

So I've started using sketchup recently (not even 2 weeks) and I made some quick designs for the sump/ fuge&growout/RO stand.

In each picture the idea is that the upper tank is a combination fuge/ frag tank, the lower tank is the main sump, the top barrel is RO to feed both the ATO and the salt mixing barrels below.

This design provides a lot of space under the growout/fuge tank, but puts the rim of this tank at more than 6' off the ground.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=StandA.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/StandA.jpg" border="0" alt="Stand A"></a>

This design lowers the edge of the fuge tank by more than a foot putting it just over 5' high, which is much more manageable but cuts into storage area beneath it.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=standb.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/standb.jpg" border="0" alt="Stand B"></a>

This design simply swaps the two tanks positions while maintaining the fuge tank height.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=standc.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/standc.jpg" border="0" alt="Stand C"></a>

The final design rotates the fuge tank and could have an interesting look.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=StandD.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/StandD.jpg" border="0" alt="Stand D"></a>


Looking for some input / ideas. More pics to come in a second.

 

[jculver09]

Its hard to come up with solutions without seeing a bit of how these stands will fit.

Here is an very rough sketchup of the area the tank will be and how it will sit. (never mind that stand fragment on the right, its nothing).
<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=TR1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/TR1.jpg" border="0" alt="TR1"></a>


Here is an overhead shot of the tankroom/tank and their respective positions. This stand is the second one from the post above.
<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=TR2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/TR2.jpg" border="0" alt="TR2"></a>


This is another view of the same stand in the room.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=TR3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/TR3.jpg" border="0" alt="TR3"></a>


once we decide more on the sump stand design, I will create some more detailed drawings (maybe even with piping if Im feeling ambitious).

Any ideas? (im about out, I work nights and its time for bed)

 

[jculver09]

We have chosen a sump stand design, and here are some initial piping diagrams with positions for major equipment.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=esf1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/esf1.jpg" border="0" alt="esf1"></a>

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=sf2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/sf2.jpg" border="0" alt="sf2"></a>

A lot of the piping will be spaflex, and some of the connections will be 45's instead of 90's and some of the 90's will be radiused. Unfortunately I am unable to show this as piping in sketchup is annoying and time consuming.

Working on a P&ID that I will post later, but here is a basic equipment list.

Reeflo Super Dart Gold - Return Pump
Blueline 20HD - Salt mixing pump
Precision Marine Bullet 3 - Protein Skimmer
Danner MAG18 - skimmer pump
Ozotech 100 mg/hr ozonizer
Milawaukee pH/ORP controller
Phosban reactor 550
Finnex Deluxe temp controller and 500 w heaters
Peristaltic dosing pumps for dosing 2 part cal/alk

last but certainly no least

Ecotech Marine MP40's (2)
These will be mounted on the back wall of the tank because the ends do not have the clearance for the driver. Ecotech claims that they will still be just as effective, but I was hoping someone out there may have tried this and have some input.

 

[bennkrys01]

Wow, you can do all that in Sketchup? I've been using it for warehouse layouts and keeping it very simple. This is awesome. The detail in your pumps, and plumbing shows that sketchup is very powerful

 

[jculver09]

Wow, you can do all that in Sketchup? I've been using it for warehouse layouts and keeping it very simple. This is awesome. The detail in your pumps, and plumbing shows that sketchup is very powerful

I may not have given credit where it is due. A lot of the plumbing is borrowed from the generous users who have contributed the designs to the warehouse. Drawing each one of these items would take hours, and the pump itself would probably take me the better part of a week.

The pipes, fittings, pumps, and barrels were all found in the warehouse, and adapted (rotated and resized as necessary) to fit and portray what I have in mind.

Sketchup is indeed an extremely power program, perhaps with a little more development, the pro-version may be able to give autocad a run for its money (in terms of the bang for the buck it already does in my opinion).

Thank you for the kind comments none the less.

Also, drew up a quick piping and instrumentation diagram. Red lines are electrical, blue lines are liquid.

<a href="http://s992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/?action=view&current=PID2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/af46/bitteracid/PID2.jpg" border="0" alt="PID2"></a>

This is going to be part of the "documentation" for the tank. This documentation will also include a rudimentary "how to operate" section that will outline the steps for performing certain regular maintenance such as water changes, equipment cleanings, and even a spreadsheet type layout of service intervals.

 

[bennkrys01]

Where is this sacred "warehouse"

 

[jculver09]

Where is this sacred "warehouse"

In sketchup, go file>3D Warehouse>Get Models. all you have to do is search for whatever you are looking for then select one from the search results and then click download model. It will ask you if you want to download it straight into sketchup, I usually click yes, but if you want to save it seperately as a different file click no.

 

[gabrielt]

Quick update

Quick update

Just a quick update on our log, we have removed the shelves and the old workbench from inside the workshop and applied a coat of Killz on the walls. Most of the equipment has already arrived and the fishtanks are schedule to be delivered today. We will also add a quarantine tank to our setup. We should have a busy weekend.







Cheers,
Gabriel.

 

[gabrielt]

Last sunday we painted the walls and the shelves that are going to stay and we removed the carpet. As you can see below the concrete was not so beautiful due to the glue used for holding the carpet padding. This way we will need to paint the floor using one of these garage floor paints.

Justin has also finished the stands and we started preparing them by applying a coat of Killz (primer).

Today my tanks arrived. The two tanks that will be used as frag growout/refugium/sump are huge!

We will need to "fix" the stand and canopy as the niche where the tank will be installed is 56" and they are 58" long. This can be solved by removing the side trims and "shrinking" the front trim.

We will have busy times from now on.

 

[gabrielt]

In the past two weeks I've been working on removing the glue from the garage floor. It took me a while but I finally completed this task. It took be 2 gallons of a liquid adhesive remover bought on Home Depot and lots of hours scrapping the floor. Then I sanded all the parts that were not smooth. Next step is applying an epoxy paint called Quikrete. On the picture below you can see the floor after been prepared to be painted (i.e. brushed with the acid that comes with Quikrete and dried). Hopefuly I will finish painting it today.

On the last weekend we also finish painting the stands and started applying primer (Killz2) to the display tank stand and canopy. We should finish painting the stand and canopy tomorrow, and this time I will remember to take pictures.

 

[chasekwe]

What's the volume on the additional tanks? Main display is about 170g by my calculations, that's correct? Just trying to work out total system volume.

 

[Alphabet]

Off to a running start! Like the painted floor idea. I would have used a floor grinder,
(little dusty) you would be done within a couple of hours, vaccume and start painting! Good luck with the paint!

 

[gabrielt]

Looking good...

Looking good...

Hi folks,

Today I painted the floor, it is looking terrific. I will have to wait a couple of days until I can move the stands into the room. Tomorrow, as posted earlier today, we will be painting the stand/canopy and I will post more pictures.

As for the total water volume, Justin will post more details about this later. Another addition to the original project is that we are going to keep my old tank (55 gal, shown on the first pictures) as a quarantine tank.

Cheers,
Gabriel.

 

[jculver09]

sorry for missing all the responses, somehow I must have become unsubscribed (maybe during the site upgrade).

Wow, the floor looks great gabriel.

As far as total system volume, it will be in the neighbor hood of 450 gallons broken down as follows: 170 display, 120 frag, 60 for the sump/fuge (only about half full during operation).

 

[gabrielt]

Just adding that we will have one 55 gals drum for R.O. water and two 55 gals drums for mixing salt water...

We made some progress today. Here are some pictures.

We painted the back of the display tank black, the picture below was taken between coats.

We applied a second coat of primer (Killz2) on the stand and canopy, plus put the trims back in place, since we had to remove them to make them fit the length available on the niche from my living room:

We applied a second coat of white paint on the stands that will go inside the equipment room.

Here you can see the stand for the main pump and sump/refugium tank (we decided to change our original plan and build the refugium on the same tank as the sump):

Here you can see the stand for the frag tank and the quarantine tank:

And here you can see the stand for the R.O. water drum:

We also removed the baseboards from the niche so the stand from the display tank will fit it.

We should be moving everything inside the equipment room next weekend.

 

[gabrielt]

We made some progress this weekend.

First, we painted the stand and canopy with its final paint (2 coats).

Then we moved all the stands for the quarantine, frag and sump inside the equipment room to their final location.

Then we put the frag and sump/refugium tanks on their final places, and also moved my current tank that will be the quarantine tank. The water is still cloudy, it should clear by tomorrow.

And finally we put the stand from the display tank on the living room niche just to see how it will look like after installed. Of course we will need to remove it to drill holes, etc (and also see why the left door is not closing).

Next weekend I will be travelling but Justin will be working on the display tank canopy, installing the light fixtures.

 

[gabrielt]

Today we drilled the hole on the stand and wall where the pipes from the display tank will reach the pipes on the equipment room. We also started doing some of the plumbing. And Justin brought my canopy back after installing the light fixtures. We should be doing more plumbing next weekend.