Jacob's 360 Gallon Build

[Jacob D]

Here are some pics from the move, Bryan was the camera man since his knee is out of commission right now.


Thanks to John at Twins for putting me in touch with a friend of his who delivered the tank (from Oregon to my door) for $100! Here it is arriving right on time.

The driver has an aquatic supplies business, here's my tank in the back of his truck amongst lots of fish food and other fishy stuffs.

The stand wasn't too heavy. It's all 2x4 & 2x6 construction, but only has a 1/4" plywood skin. Built well and lightweight, meets my guidelines for a well engineered design Oh, and the previous owner had to remove the doors and some molding to get it out of her house.

Thayer, Scott, and Nathan (Monkei, Plankton, Seaskrap) moving the canopy, also very lightweight, but well built. It also came with a pulley system to raise and lower it from the ceiling.

Lak (Lanxang) gives a hand as the driver and I slide the tank out. This tank is heavy!!

You can almost hear the groan! It took all 6 of us to carry. The driver said Paul (Wuelfman), Thayer, and Lak on the left. Nathan, Scott, and me on the right... if only we could bring it inside and set it in place. For now I decided to put it on the side of my house until I'm ready to bring it in.

Almost there... Scott's son in the fore ground doing what teenagers do best.

Whew! Good thing we didn't have to go up any stairs with this beast. I'm the guy in the background with the look on his face that says "oh lordy... what did I get myself into...".

And finally a picture of it in its temporary resting spot. I have just enough room to work in and around the stand and tank. I wanted to add that I measured the tank to verify the dimensions and it turns out to be closer to a 360g 86x33x29 (length, depth, height).

So what's next?...

- Re-assemble the canopy and stand, molding, doors, etc... and repaint them. I may re-skin it, and get some new doors and stain it similar to my current stand.

- Polish the tank. It's mostly dirty right now but there are a lot of minor scratches that can be polished out, many of which probably won't show with water in the tank, but I want to start with it "like new".

- Finish purchasing equipment. My goal for power consumption is no more than 25% of my current tank, and so far I'm meeting that with the equipment I have planned. No it will not be an intensely lit SPS tank. Instead I'll be focusing on a well lit softy tank with lots of fish.

- Get the controller built... did I mentioned that I have a PLC and touchscreen interface to control all aspects of this setup? It will be custom programmed to suit my needs which among other things will include daily automatic water changes.


That's only part of the project scope. There is a lot to do, I'll keep the updates coming...

 

[Bdimas]

I wanted to get a pic of the tank coming out of the truck, but things got a little hairy there for a minute and i was about to jump in and help.
Thats going to be cool having the touchscreen control.

 

[Jacob D]

No worries, you covered it pretty well with the pics.

By the way, are the pics not showing up for anyone? I just got online from somewhere else and I don't see any of them.

 

[Bdimas]

I can see them.

 

[shilo_1]

I can see the pics. Nice tank - I look forward to seeing it up and running.

 

[wuelfman]

big thanks for the cheering party and picture person (Bdimas) gimpy leg hahah

 

[Bdimas]

I had a camera in one hand and a beer in the other. That was the best i could do. LOL!
BTW my knee is only sprained.

 

[Jacob D]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10009601#post10009601 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Bdimas
I had a camera in one hand and a beer in the other. That was the best i could do.

That's no excuse. I had a beer in one hand and a 500 lb tank in the other



mmm.... beer sounds good... gotta go now!

 

[tacocat]

Monthra,

Are you still thinking about upgrading?

 

[Jacob D]

Yes, already thinking about the next one. 2000g outdoor-in-ground-sun-powered reef pond. Like this one , only ginormous.

But I gotta get this tank setup first...

 

[Jacob D]

Since it's Friday night and I'm at home I thought I might as well post something.


I'm getting laughed at a lot when I tell people "this tank is only going to use 25% more energy than my 75g". I don't think they understand that not everyone plans to put 1000w of halides over there tank, huge recirc and closed loop pumps, skimmers the size of cars, big chillers, etc...


Since the first post on this thread my equipment list and philosophy for the tank has changed quite a bit. Here's the latest game plan.


Skimmer
Tunze 9420. Not only is it rated for a large tank (the rating downgrades depending mainly on the type of corals you keep) but it only uses 23w of electricity! The body is ready to accept a 2nd pump which doubles the energy consumption of course, but also the capacity - it's a skimmer that can grow. This skimmer could easily be compared to other popular skimmers that use between 76-130w.

Flow
(2) Tunze 6100 (45w and over 3000 gph ea) and...
(2) Tunze 6000 (15w and almost 1900 gph ea)

I have a 7095 Multicontroller to handle all (4) powerheads which will also mean that they are not running at 100% all day long (using less energy this way) while making waves I also have 2 deco rocks to hide the 6000's.

Return Pump
Sequence Snapper essentially a Dart with a smaller impeller (thanks to Seaskrap for pointing this out!). At the head I'll be running I'm expecting about 1200-1400 gph and using about 100w... not to shabby!

Lights
(3) Lumenarc III reflectors (or a similar DIY reflector) with 175w SE halides. I'll most likely be running these on Icecap electronic ballasts for best efficiency. I may add some T5's later to use as supplements or for dusk/dawn. I plan to run the halides 8 hours each. Unfortunately this tank is just a little too long (7 ft) for me to go purely T5 or I would have for efficiency reasons.


These are the big ticket items when it comes to energy consumption. I did a LOT of searching around, comparing efficiency, costing them out over 1, 3, and 5 years, and all kinds of brain racking stuff. In the end I made a simple Excel spreadsheet, if anyone is interested you can find it here and you can play with the numbers on my setup or you can plug in the numbers for your own tank if you want to see how much it costs to run per day, month, and year. I averaged the cost per kilowatt hour between baseline and over-baseline tier 1.



Well that's it for now, hopefully everyone is having an eventful Friday night and will not see this until after the weekend!

 

[tfp]

jacob, this is gonna be a sweet setup! looking forward to your journey.

 

[kdblove_99]

Very cool. set up should be awesome.

I would still get the H&S over The Tunze. the rest looks great

 

[Jacob D]

Thanks guys. Will keep this thread updated as things move along.


KDB: That was my original thought on the skimmer too, but after thinking about it:

- this is a soft coral tank (my wife's softy tank has been skimmerless for 3 years)
- I'll be doing daily water changes (automated)
- The H&S is nice, but almost twice the price of the Tunze, and uses 6x the electricity. Even if it skimmed 6x better I couldn't justify using the extra energy (this makes a HUGE difference in operating cost since the skimmer runs 24/7).
- By adding a 2nd pump to the Tunze I would have almost the same air draw as the H&S and only be using 1/3 the energy, so this is always an option for the future.

 

[plankton]

Jake - Great deal on the tank (and even delivered!)

We are not laughing at you but with you regarding your planned energy budget for the BIG 340G tank.

We all know you'll start with a single polyp in the middle of the tank but by the end of the year have a garden full of rare LPS, SPS and other goodies. Hence, the snicker at putting three 175W halides over a 340G tall tank.

But, knowing you you'll find a way to pull it off!!

Scott

PS I'd go H&S as well, but with the A250

 

[Jacob D]

We are not laughing at you but with you regarding your planned energy budget for the BIG 340G tank.

Same difference
About 4 years ago I was also told by a lot of people that T5 lighting would NEVER work with SPS definitely not clams. Herd mentality tends to rule message boards.

I was also told I would upgrade to haildes eventually, and never did (referring to my 75g tank). I guess a lot of people change their setup around all the time. I prefer to make a plan and stick to it.


Regarding the lighting, skimmer, etc... I'll just say this - I think if anyone is going to recommend one piece of equipment to someone over another then that person should be able to back it up with why.

 

[plankton]

Jake - I looked at Euroreef, H&S, Deltec and Tunze. Did not look at bubbleking because their external skimmers were $2000+

The H&S and Deltec appeared the best made (heavy duty cell cast, seams, reinforced risers, etc).

I didn't go with Deltec because they cost more than H&S and I couldn't figure out why.

There are many people who like Euroreef, but I'm just not one of them. I found the craftmanship to be less than the other 2 mentioned and their impellers are way below par (had to replace 2 and measured air flow was lower).

At the time I researched, Tunze was still coming out with venturi-based skimmers and hadn't pushed their needlewheel skimmers.

23W with 800 l/h air capacity sounds great. But, the construction doesn't _look_ well built. Haven't see one in person yet though.
[800 l/h, 23 W = 34 l/h per W]

H&S A200 2x1260 is roughly 1100 L/h x 2 , but each 1260 uses 64W. [2200 l/h, 128W = 17 l/h per W)

So, the Tunze needle wheel appears more energy efficient.

After you get the Tunze let us know how it performs in practice.

So, why did I recommend the A250? Because if you run both 1260 on the A200 full out with the narrower chamber the skimate is too wet. They fixed that problem with the A250 by making a wider chamber (8" to 10"). You could also save some power by going with a single 1260.

Scott

 

[Jacob D]

I like my Euroreef a lot - but it is not the recirculating model. I agree to steer clear of those after hearing about lots of problems with quality (that was early on though to be fair, not sure how they are now).

The cast body on the H&S is very nice, good quality build. The Tunze is also cell cast (Deltec is not however). The Tunze appears well made from what I have seen of it's debut at Interzoo (Europe). It is cast, the body is just a different style than most venturi skimmers. One other company is already making clones (AquaEuro USA). Tunze has an outstanding rep when it comes to customer service, so I feel good about trying something new.

If I was setting up an SPS tank I would look for more air flow, but again I think I'd just add the 2nd pump to the Tunze (the body is built to accept 1 or 2 pumps, so you can upgrade any time) - and it's still less juice than a single Eheim.

I'm headed to Kalypso today to order the skimmer, will let you guys what I think when I get it in my hands (won't be right away).

 

[plankton]

Jake - thanks for the update. 800 l/h air intake at 23W is very impressive.

Scott

 

[Jacob D]

Hey everyone. The project is still moving along. I've got a blog going for it that you can see here.


I probably won't update this thread too much other than to let you know when new blog posts are up, and to chat. The newest posts are at the top, scroll all the way down to see it from the beginning (there are some posts not covered here, in the thread).

Happy Reefing!