Joe's 190g 60x36x20 SLOW Mixed Reef Build.......

[mcliffy2]

Reefer Brian - not the nicest way to say hello here. People talk about every aspect of their tank here. I have a 125g and just set up a 238g (370g total system volume). The 125g took about 3 weeks to get up and running, my 238g has taken 3 months and counting (subtracting out manf. delay). once you hit the large tank size, there is a big difference in what goes into the process, there are so many more details you have to worry about, such as, "will my floor hold it", etc. try to put a little more thought in before you criticize...

 

[Jflip2002]

Lol. Oh well. I tried to stain the stand lastnight. I had this "ebony" stain that made my other stand nice and deep black. It didnt take so well to this wood though.

Im curious if latex paint will stick to a finished wood. Otherwise, anyone know where to get black oil based paint?

 

[Jflip2002]

Alright, so here are a couple update shots... RODI should be in tomorrow or the day after =)

Tunze mount hiding:

You cant even really see from a normal viewing distance where these swivels are located.

Foam back complete:

Foam back with right side aquascaped. The left side is in my current 60g tank, so that'll stay where it is until the tank is cycled

^^Notice the foam covered sheet of acrylic on the top of the tank. Im going to mount that somewhere along the back of the tank. Maybe in the back left corner. I plan on putting a few holes in it, so I can use it as a frag rack if need be. Though I dont have much room in the tank. So who knows.

Also, that stain didnt take like I was hoping. I was hoping to make the entire stand black. It seems as if all the stain did was embellish the grain of the tank stand. I actually dig it now, it grew on me.

I kinda got inspired by cliffy's tank, and how open it looks. Also I love how Invincibles tank is nice and open. I think the aqua scape on the right side gives me the openness, and when I put the rocks on the left side, I'll have that canyon that Ive wanted, since Ive seen steve Weasts tank.

Now to decide to go sand or not!

 

[Jflip2002]

I got my RODI unit in today! Woohoo! I bought the handheld TDS meter, rather than the inline, incase I needed to take it to a friends house. My tap water came up at 325 TDS! Im imagining thats high.... Pics to come

 

[mcliffy2]

Sweet, now fill this sucker up. I also have an inline TDS, got a Hanna of ebay for $24 and it works great (actually detected the DI had gone bad on my friends unit I borrowed to speed up the tank filling process, when his calibration was off on his inline).

 

[Jflip2002]

Nice. Cant fill it up just yet! I gota plumb it and paint the stand this weekend. Im going to start curing some rock pretty soon though. Im filling up my 55g drum right now. Thats gonna take a good 10 hours though lol.

 

[mcliffy2]

You can fill it while you plumb it. just put some standpipes in your overflow and stop filling before the water starts to overflow. Multitask

 

[Jflip2002]

yeah, but I also have to primer and paint the stand too. I already thought about starting to fill it up I dont want to paint around the tank though lol.

 

[mcliffy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12551421#post12551421 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jflip2002
yeah, but I also have to primer and paint the stand too. I already thought about starting to fill it up I dont want to paint around the tank though lol.

Definitely not....what are you using to paint it? I just used a few coats of spar polyeurathane and it worked really well. Your stand is going to be on display though right, so you need it looking nice?

 

[Jflip2002]

Yeah, its going to be the display. Im really up in the air between leaving the stand how it is, and painted. It looks nice how it is not, but I just like black stands. I think I may just keep it how it is, and when I move, I can paint it then if I want. Its easier to paint it black in the future, than bring it back to wood lol.

Im gonna start filling it up tonight when I get home. Ive got 55g of water primed and ready to go.

 

[Jflip2002]

You can kinda tell between how the wood was, and how it looks now on the top of this page. Under the clear bottom, you can see its a light wood, with light brown grain. Now its a little darker, with blackish grain. I like how that black stain emebelishes the grain a little.

 

[mcliffy2]

IMO I would strip it and refinish with a darker color stain, but thats just me and I'm not a fan of painted wood in general. if you are going to paint it black, it might look really cool to remove the doors and replacing them with something like these:

http://www.8020.net/HT-Series-23.asp

 

[Jflip2002]

Thats itneresting. I was thinking of doing a real light tinted glass centered door. That way you can sorta see in, but not totally. I think this is going to delay the build a bit, since Im absolutely broke lol.

And since my Lumenarcs are going to stay exposed, I really should paint the stand black to match. I mean IVe waited this long, whats another couple more weeks gonna hurt?

 

[Jflip2002]

Ok, so the side veneres should be replaced on the stand eventually. Im just leaving it how it is, and when we move to the next house, I'll make sure to have a new stand waiting!

I am curious though, if my water container is safe. When I had it in the laundry room, it happened to get detergent in it. I rinsed the heck out of it, I let tap water sit in it for a couple weeks, then I rinsed the heck out of it again. I even drank water out of the thing, and I couldnt taste anything. I guess we will see how things end up going!

I also added that acrylic and foam platform to the tank. I think it looks pretty cool. Its not in a very useful spot, as far as lighting goes, since its under the brace. But it will be over the back part of where my little canyon is going to be. So I think it'll give a nice cave type look towards the back of the tank.

 

[Jflip2002]

So here we go:

RODI Unit

Shelf

Shelf from straight on... you cant even see its there from straight on.

I think it'll add a cool aspect when this tank is full of coral and what not, and I have some softies or LPS up there. Since its so high up, but covered by the clear acrylic brace, it'll probably be enough light for at least some shrooms.

Oh yes, and its 1/4 of the way full! Unfortunately once this guy is full, its going to be pretty empty for a while =( I have to pay for a wedding this year, and after that a possible move. I should be able to collect a small item per check though, so a couple years from now, I should be done lol.

 

[Jflip2002]

So I got some work dont today/this weekend! Yesterday I went and picked up a used 60g as a sump. Instead of building baffles in the sump, I went ahead and put my skimmer inside my little 10g tank. This will keep the water level constant, so hopefully it works the same.

What you are seeing above is me branching off the Mag18 return. I felt that it might be too much flow. So I have it going as a return pump, a pipe recirculating to the skimmer tank, and then another pipe going to where my fuge section will be. All of which have ball valves on them, so I can adjust where the flow is going. All that pipe is 3/4".

My main drain/overflow is 1.5" ID. I also have a ball valve on that, so I can shut the overflow off when need be. I just have some black piping, with a 45 degree angle dropping in below where the water level will be, to hopefully reduce noise.

The return to the back of the tank was just 3/4 MPT, which I adapted to slip fittings (On Cliffys advice).

The rock and crabs from my 60g tank are now on the left side. Its still cloudy, but we will see how it turns out. I may reaquascape when I add sand. Right now Im just waiting for another 55g of RODI water.

 

[Jflip2002]

Ive never had such a large tank.. how long should it take for this thing to cycle usually? If at all.... The 40-60 lbs of rock on the left are from my 60g aquarium, and are all live. The 20-30 lbs on the right are all dry/base rock..

And I really should have made more clearance for my Tunzes. I had to knock a bunch off the foam off, so I could swivel my 6080s. It made a mess, along with the PVC all over the floor again. It seems like I cant get ahead with this mess lol.

 

[mcliffy2]

The mess created by a big tank build is nuts huh?

I would give it a little as that dry rock cooks, there will be some ammonia spikes probably, but hey ya never know....I'd wait a week, then measure levels, and if you are ok, then start adding. Its starting to come together nicely. I like the aquascape, nice and open....if I had one piece of advice it would be to make a point on one rock pile a little taller than on the other. Right now it is all kinda at the same level, so some height variance would make it more interesting IMO.

 

[Jflip2002]

Yeah, youre right on moving the rock around. I didnt want to get too involved right now though, since I'll be adding some sand in there soon enough. Probably the beginning of June, Id imagine.

I was thinking of putting most of the rock on the right side. But leaving that one huge boulder on the left side. But who knows I'll probably change my mind a bunch from here til then lol.

I am looking for a nice aquascape idea though, this just looks BLAH. Yours looks nice and interested. I may make some rock lifts too, to lift the rear rock off the floor of the tank. Maybe THAT will be lifted higher off the back to give me some different levels.

 

[Reefer Brian]

No check valves? They are a neccesity with that size tank and sump. Looks like your water level will be high due to having your skimmer in that 10g. Safety first. One way to check to see if you need one is to get your complete system runnning, pull the plug on your return pump and see if your sump overflows. It might, depending on how low your return heads are. Just a precautionary measure (it will keep your landlord happy also). Good luck.