Haugen's Reef - 190g

[thorsen]

I have been bit by bit working on this tank for over a year now. Because of the slowness of my progress, I never started a tank build thread. I am a surgery resident and am often deficient of both time and funds. Recently, however, things have started to come together so I have decided it is time to document my progress.

Display Tank: The display's dimensions are 72 x 26 x 26 inches. I picked this size because I feel that with too large of tanks you lose the details of the micro life, and with too small of tanks you are simply too limited. I felt the dimensions I picked struck a nice balance between these two aspects.

The tank has four sides in starphire glass because I figure every viewable side increases your total display area. Really it can only be easily viewed from three sides, but I set the tank far enough out from the wall that I can squeeze behind it to view something I can't quite see otherwise.


Philosophy: I wanted as earth-friendly a tank as possible, which to me mostly means low energy consumption. Originally, I planned to attempt a skimmerless tank, but then a group buy on Bubble King Skimmers came up here on RC, and I decided to join. I felt bad about spending so much money on a skimmer, even if I did get a good price, but when the skimmer finally came it was such a lovely piece of equipment that I lost all my regrets. I hope it performs as well as it looks.

Despite having purchased a skimmer, I still intend to use as much biological filtration as possible. The tank has a 60 gallon refugium, which is currently being built, in which I plan to have a remote sandbed.

The tank is placed in front of our living room window in order to receive as much natural sunlight as possible. When I first got into reef keeping I ordered the dual 400w EYE ballast for the Iwaki 6500K bulbs. This ballast was ordered before I ever heard of Kelvin. Rather than purchase a new ballast, I decided to go ahead and use the one I had and run it for just a few hours in the evening. Honestly, I rather like the Iwaki bulbs. The rest of the day the tank will be lit by two 60" T5's and a 175w Ushio 14K bulb + sunlight. I would have preferred all T5's but I think this will work out well until LED's reach the point where I think it will be worth the switch.

There is a lot more to be said, but that is a bit of background, and I think I had better start with some pictures.

Before I get too far in this thread I want to thank my incredibly sweet, beautiful, and supportive wife who puts up with my obsession, and even memorizes the names of different creatures since she knows they interest me so much.

 

[Jflip2002]

Nice intro to what seems to be a nice set up. But like you said.... you had better start with some pictures lol.

 

[tbone28]

Sounds like a nice setup. Which BK did you go with?

 

[thorsen]

The tank was made by Aquarium Obsessed. Overall, I think they did a good job. There was a small chip and some scratches here and there, but I'm a perfectionist, and to most people I think it would look good. My one complaint was the overflows. The overflows were large and hideous. I'm not sure why they don't use normal plastic overflows. The top of the overflow had black eggcrate glued on to stop the fish from going in, but this was sloppy and already falling off when it arrived.

Eggcrate on overflows

As you can see, the overflows take up a good share of the space in the tank.

 

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tbone28 - I debated between the SM250 and the Deluxe 250 and ended up getting the Deluxe. Here is a picture of it fresh out of the box. The package arrived right before we left for church, and I convinced my wife to pose by my new BK

 

[thorsen]

The ugly overflows led to a modification that I am rather pleased with. I ordered this overflow box from Austins Oceans. As you can see, the bottom is made of clear acrylic so light can pass through. It takes up far less space in the tank, and I think it looks sharp. In order to put this in the tank, I had to tear out the ugly overflows. So now I have no overflow boxes, which led to some improvising in my plumbing. It is not all plumbed yet, so you will have to wait until it is, so I can post photos with further details on this. The downside is that my returns come out the bottom of the tank, which requires a check valve. I know a check valve is a bad idea, but I think it will look so much better to have my returns on the bottom of the tank, so I decided to do it anyhow. I also like the idea of less mixing of water from the return and the overflow. Since so much depends on the check valve I decided to get a high quality check valve. After shopping, I ended up with an industrial grade Asahi check valve. When it came in the mail I was shocked by the size. I hope it does the trick. I figure that if the power goes out even if I have a trickle leak, by the time enough of the tank has drained to cause a problem, the creatures would have already perished from temperature and chemistry changes.

1" Asahi Check Valve

 

[thorsen]

I like to see originality whenever I read someone's tank build thread, and I think I have a couple of things in my tank that qualify. One is my stand. I don't know how well it will work, if it even works once it has the weight of the sump and refugium resting on it, but my stand has a steel pan that slides out of either end on stainless steel rollers. I had a difficult time accessing my previous tank, so I thought it would be wonderful if everything underneath could simply slide and out to be worked on.

The stand was painted first with Por 15 and then with Herculiner. I wasn't so impressed with the Por 15, but I really liked the Herculiner.

 

[thorsen]

You can see in the last picture that the stand is resting on carpet. I wish I had a tile or hardwood floor, but alas. I placed some of that plastic/wood pulp decking material stand beneath the stand to protect the floor as much as possible and to distribute the weight.

 

[Jflip2002]

You may as well of cut that carpet out. After that heavy tank is off of it, you will need to replace it eventually anyhow. Itd help with the leveling, taking out the carpet that is.

 

[thorsen]

I may take the carpet out but it's tough to do mentally because it is brand new. I still have time, so we'll see.

 

[Jflip2002]

Lol, I get ya there. My carpet wasnt brand new, and I couldnt get myself to do it. Its a lot easier to try to hide a flat spot in the carpet when you move, than it is to hide a hole in the carpet lol. That was my rationale at least. Great improvement on the overflow, to say the least. I would have aquarium obsessed pick up the bill on that, especially with the chipped glass.

 

[tbone28]

You will love your BK

I love your roll-out pan idea - I'm curious to see how easy it will be to roll out with all the weight on it.

The new overflow looks nice! I've also never been a fan of AO's "eggrate overflow".

My previous tank was on carpet for 7 years. When I broke down the tank to sell the house, there was a rectangular ring of dead carpet - unrepairable, but luckily our buyers didn't mind

 

[thorsen]

The tank is on the main floor of our house, but the house has a basement. The floor joists are set at 16". I hated to place suppport beams beneath the tank because the basement is finished, but my Dad came for a visit and came up with an attractive alternative. He built this book shelf / entertainment center. It's not finished yet, but I have support beneath the tank now.

 

[thorsen]

The canopy is what I am most proud of so far. As I described in the intro, I have two 400w Iwasaki 6500K bulbs, two VHO Ice Cap 60" T5's, one Ushio 175w 14000K with an Ice Cap ballast, and LED moonlights. I bought the Iwasaki EYE ballast before I knew better, but honestly I rather like the natural sunlight look. Maybe later on I will switch to something with higher K.

I wanted a full canopy but I also wanted easy access to the tank. I hit on the idea of having a suspended canopy on pulleys with a winch mounted in the center that would raise and lower it. I found a cheap ATV winch on the internet and set to work. It turned out much better than I had expected. All the ballasts, cords, and pulleys are hidden within the canopy. With the push of a button, the canopy raises and lowers itself for easy access to the tank, and remarkably it does this smoothly while staying level, which was my main concern originally.

You can see the winch mounted in the center in this photo with the eyelets in the corners where the pulleys mount. I tried to get an inverter for the winch, but I couldn't find one with high enough amps. I ended up getting an ATV battery with a trickle charger to power the winch.

 

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This photo shows all the hidden ballasts and wires as well as the pulleys and the winch. It also does a better job of showing how it all works. I intend to neaten things up later on.

 

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This photo shows the lighting configuration. I intend to add more fans.

 

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Here is a video showing the canopy in action. There is actually a funny story behind this video. My wife kindly volunteered to raise and lower the canopy while I recorded. One downside to the winch, that I didn't anticipate, is that it is deafeningly loud - probably because I bought the cheapest winch I could find. The winch is rated for 2000 lbs, and one thing that was in the back of my mind during the designing of the system is what would happen if the the canopy was raised too far. The winch, of course, is more than powerful enough to tear everything apart and send the canopy crashing onto the tank below. I actually have an automatic off switch that will shut the winch off after the canopy reaches a certain point, but of course, I haven't installed it yet. This video was a fair bit longer, but my wife had me crop the end off to protect the innocent. The last bit consists of me screaming "STOP! STOP! while I drop the camera and run to grab the control. Thankfully, she heard me over the roar of the winch and the damage was only minimal (a couple eyelets bent and needing replacement), but I nearly had a video to post of me destroying my new tank.

Future plans for the canopy are to wire it into a Digital Aquatics controller from which it can be raised and lowered.

 

[CORALFISHG]

very nice job on the canopy, it looks like it goes up really smooth and level the hole way up.. the hole build is looking very impressive and it's looking like it's gunna be one more of the very imressive tanks here on reef central. thanks for allowing us to take part in your build..

 

[tbone28]

Canopy looks great. It goes up quickly and smoothly. You're making quick progress! You must not have to take call this weekend

 

[thorsen]

The canopy is only half-way stained, but I thought I'd post some pictures that do a better job showing how it looks. I still intend to put sleeves over the steel cables.