Grayheads 240 build

Well, long overdue for an update.
A couple of things have changed with my original plans.
Basically, the tank is up and running. I have part one of my TBS order. Waiting on the storm water to clear for part two.
I have been working on this tank for over two months now. It's been a long journey for me, but very rewarding. I am eager to see how well my new system will be. I have been very blessed to be able to do this at this stage in my life. When I started this hobby, the economy was in shambles. I pieced my system together with very little money. But the past few years, my business has flourished since I started taking contracts in a nuclear plant. But enough of that. I'll be adding pictures and updating during my free time over the next few days
 
Let's talk sump.
I had Jeff at lifereef build my Berlin style sump with fuge. His reputation for assisting people and educating is unparalleled. I warn you, he is set in his ways. I am running a bean animal setup on the tank. He done all he could to talk me out of that. We ended up splitting the main siphon line between two chambers. This has given me a small amount of grief with one side being a little bit slow to activate. It works, just takes a few minutes to purge the line. But so far, super stable.

You can see the top line splitting with a tee.

My only issue I have had with dealing with lifereef is the return pump he recommended. I have never had an external pump before. He recommended the blue line 70 HD. I told him it needed to be quiet operating. He said it would have some noise, but since I would have it running in a fish room it shouldn't be an issue. Well let me say, it's loud. It also added a lot of heat to the system. My plans do not include a chiller, so it had to go. I have it in storage as a backup pump now. I purchased the m1 by ecotec. More on that soon

 
I ordered the sump with 2 media chambers and a bio pellet reactor just in case. I run carbon in one chamber and have not added any biomedia yet. No need at this point. The reactors are not fluidized. I added my brs reactor for gfo when needed.
For the fuge, I have a ball of chaeto tumbling with Mars hydro led lighting it. That would be the pink looking light you see in the pics. That light is a beast. My chaeto ball was about the same size as a soccer ball. 4 days later, it quit spinning in the fuge
 

Here is a small review on the M1 return pump.
The blue line pump rated at 1750 gph. It would almost overpower my return drains. The m1, will not come close. The m1 is rated at 2000 gph. Not to concerned about head loss, since both pumps aware connected in the same spot in the system. Also, it not communicating with my apex sucks since the pump is controllable. Not a big issue since all I do is shut down that plug during feeding and maintenance.

The skimmer is feed by a mag 12 and the canisters by a mag 9. I will eventually replace this return pump with a L1 and move the m1 over to replace those 2 pumps reducing the heat and energy consumption even more. I just cannot justify that with my wife at this point.
 
If you are planning to add a lifereef sump and are talking to Jeff, he will do everything to convince you to not use DC pumps. I purchased the M1 for close to the same price as the blue line. Jeff is an awesome guy, and very valuable to his craft. But he does not like change very much. His skimmer design is top notch. There is no reason for him to change, and imo one of the best in the field. The way he has his sumps laid out is effective too.

I just need to research the m1 being used on a venturi skimmer and also feeding reactors and how efficient that will be.

As you can see, I have very little in the way of wires and equipment in the sump. Basically a sump, fuge , and light. I have every thing packed in the fish room
 
My stand is very basic. I was originally intending on it to be accessable from front to back. Once I set the sump in place, I found I had plenty of room to manuver inside the stand.
The stand is a modified rocket engineer design. I floored the stand with 1/2 BC plywood and painted with high gloss paint and caulked to seal the base. It is totally waterproof now and will contain spills.
The outside of the tank was originally suppose to be skinned with a cabinet facade to match my entertainment center terms and desk. Well let's just say I would pay less for a whole set of kitchen cabinets for the quotes that came back. So I changed the exterior design for the stand.


 
We are looking into redoing the floors in bamboo. Since I did the stack stone, I have started thru my den doing a wainscotting and repainting everything.

As you can see the tank is somewhat a peninsula style tank with the overflow being on the left side of the tank. More on that later.
The canopy is built I. As well. The wood door on the front swings up for access to the front of the tank. All the rear is open. I made the door from finish grade pine and stained it to match the desk and entertainment center. I opted to work the stone on the top as well. The stone comes as mosaic sheets available at Lowe's. I trimmed everything in finish grade 1x4.
I left the rear of the tank open in the stand as well as the canopy to allow plenty of air flow for the system.
I'll try to take a better picture of the rear side later
 
The overflow is external. It recesses into the wall to the left of the tank. This allows me freedom to work the backside of my tank and not have a 6" overflow to contend with. My last tank was a pain to work in because of no front access and the offset overflow design. I had the tank manufactuer to make me a black piece of acrylic to cover the rear of the tank. I can easily remove it while working on the tank.

The overflow side came with an insert routed with teeth going into the overflow box. I cut the teeth off due to the waterfall sound going on in the overflow. Way to turbulent. It also backed up the water trying to get to the overflow creating more water to deal with during a shutdown period. It's dead silent now.
I put my dosing tube holders in the overflow. This cuts down on running so much tubing and it give me a cleaner look.
 
I have a storage tank for riding that is 14 gallon. The salt mix tank is 35 gallon. In the picture you see a 1/2 pvc pipe between the tanks. The runs to a 3/4 pipe flowing from the sale mix tank to the emergency drain of the bean animal. I top off thru that as well as utilizing it if I need to to a water change. I have a DOS setup for auto water changes as well. I have the discharge side of the fresh salt water plumbed into the emergency drain. Again, I'm striving to minimize a bunch of tubes going everywhere.
 
I have my BOB tied to float sensors as well as manual float switches for both the RODI and the salt mix tank. My apex know to shut down the RODI if either tank get full. The manual ones are the backup redundancy which shuts the RODI off as well. Every thing has a solenoid tied to the BOB also.

You see my DOS setup. One unit for water changes, one for calcium and alkalinity, one for carbon and magnesium dosing.

Everything is controlled thru the apex
 
Now on to live rock. I had massive issue with live rock in the past. Had a horrible outbreak of bubble algae just after I converted my LEDs to kessils 360w. I also had out breaks of green mushrooms which has been handled. I cleaned the rocks using tank water in which I super concentrated with kalk. It seems to have handled my issues quiet well. I did have a bit of issue with paly toxin after scrubbing the rock.
I keep the rock and have observed it while storing my remaining rock with no issues. All I did for the 3 months since cleaning was water changes. 2 months of that has been in a stock tank with no skimming or water changes. I was looking to see any adverse effects from the rock. It looks perfect.
So I decided on ordering a package from TBS. I have a 240 so I decided on a 110 gallon package since I had plenty of rock from my 75gallon. I must say Richard delivers.

Here is my rock just before the TBS order came in.
Here is today's photo

I am still waiting on part 2
 
TBS has been delayed due to the storm recently. Richard hopes to do e on Tuesday. I am wondering how much rock I need for part 2. I basically have the rock positioned in the center of the tank with minimal scaping. This is an area of weakness in designing something nice visually. I would say the rock sits halfway up the tank. I have about 1 foot from surface to highest rock. I can spread the rock more. I am thinking of opening it a bit in the middle as well to have an area for a few LPs coral .
 
The rocks have lots of critters on it. I have counted 3 urchins and tons of porcelain crabs and very few gorilla. I have yet to trap any. Waiting on the second shipment.
 
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