Minh's 320 reef

OrionN

Moved on
I just sign a check to buy a 320 gal system of a fellow reefer here in Corpus Christi. We recently moved to this house, and are remodeling. We have decided to added a fish room. It is going to be a 15X6 foot room with a sink in it. 3 dedicated circuits. No window but I think I will put sky light or tube light.
The tank is going to be a 72X36X30. I was going to ordered it from Planet Aquarium in Dallas Opti-white front with external overflow. Luck was with me, there is a fellow reefer here in Corpus with the exact tank also from Planet Aquarium same dimension. He is looking to sell his whole system after 8 months. It has Starfire front and external overflow also. I took a look at his system. He does not have the same type of animal I like to keep but that is very fixable. The tank is in great shape, so I bought the whole thing.

Now I have to get my contractor to start on the fish room. I will document the progress here on this thread. Luck was also with me, the original owner agree to keep the tank running until I am ready. I will have to cook the rock and recycle. There are flat worms and Aptasia in the system. I like for him to sell the corals and fish and keep the proceed from that. I also agree to give him one on my 30X30X30 cube so he can keep his prized coral and fish.

Perhaps it is too early to start this thread, but I am happy to plan a big system again. I originally had a 450 g tank that feature as TOTM on the Advanced Aquarist initial issue back in Jan, 2002. That was a long time ago. I learned a lot more since then, especially what it take to keep a large system stable and going well. Also what we can plan to keep from working to death or break our back from taken care of big tanks.

So far, I will use a Aqua Sea 4700 as a return pump. This is a direct drive pump that move a lot of water and do not add much heat into the water. I used this pump in my last tank, very happy with it. I carefully pack it away after send it back to the manufacture to service the seal. It should work great other than a little rust on the housing.
I will use a automated three way valve on the return line that alternate the return line though on set then another return. I likely use an inductor to increase laminal flow from the return pump. Likely change every 2-3 minutes or so. In addition to this I will use 4 VorTech MP40WES synchronized for circulation. Hope this will be adequate circulation. I have hear that VorTech MP40 may not work really well with glass thickness of .75 inch which is the thickness of this tank. The current owner use Tunzel PH for circulation. I may have to use Tunzel or get MP60. The sump will be a drilled 40 g breeder. Currently, he used two large Rubbermaid, one as a refugium and one as a sump. I likely will keep one as a refugium and use my current sump.
No Ca reactor yet, but I have a DIY Kalk mixer that works well with my large tank before and a small Ca reactor that is likely to be undersize for this tank.

For light, I will have two Gen 2 Radion and two Gen 1 Radion with TIR lens. If this is not enough, I will have to add more. I think it is relatively easy to add more Radion. The hard thing is come up with the money for it.

I have an auto top off and will use dosing pump to dose Kalk at night.

The room will be cool by it's own air conditioner system and I will use an Apex Neptune to automated light, pumps, dosing kalk, heater....

Live stock wise, The center piece of the tank will be my three S. Gigantea and my two H. Malu. I am raising a bunch of Baby Onyx Percula and OnyxXSnowflakes cross. The babies will be F1. I hope to come up with a few nice f1 SnowOnyx for my tank. I hope to keep the three Gigantea in on end and the two Malu on the other end. That way, I my end up with more than one pair of clown fish in this tank.

Other than this, I have a few nice Maxima, Crocea, Squamosa and one Derasa clams and a few nice SPS. Right now there are 500+ pounds of rock in the tank. I will likely use much less rock, maybe less than 200. Once it get going, the coral will grow fast and will fill the tank quickly. Anybody know of a T. gigas for sale, please let me know.

I am excited to get start, but will likely not have a lot of time. Will see how this goes. Wish me luck and feel free to provide any comments as you see fit.
 
OK I am following along with this build.. I want to see lots of pictures and want to be on the christmas card list too.

Good job!!
 
It will be a while. The fish room is just drowing now. The economy here in Texas seem to pick up due to all these oil drilling and fragging. Really hard to find good worker. All of you who have problem with jobs should really consider coming to Texas.
 
There are only two things that come from texas............

"Office and a Gentleman"
 
Looking forward to this build Minh. The tank is pretty much same dimension as what I have in mind for my build. Just a little taller than mine. Your giganteas are awesome and will look great as a center piece in this tank.

Are you sure you want to deal with flatworm problem in that tank though? Sounds like a lot of work and too much risk for such a big tank.
 
I am not going to put any aptasia or flat worm into the tank. Everything new is going to be quarantine for at least 1 month in a 29 g reef tank befor going in.
I will just have to nuke all the rock and sand with fresh water soak for a few days. Nothing will live though that. Too bad that all the brissle worm will be kill also. I essentially will have to start woth dead rock and go from there. I have about 100 lbs of good LR to jump start the tank.
When we soak rock with fresh water, the worms will craw out of the rock and died. Vermatid snails also will died. If I see any large Vermatid snails I will pry the shell loose so they will not continue to leach organic into the tank. I hope any ammonia-Nitrate cycle will be short. It will be a while before the tank stable enough for my Gigantea.

In trying to order a tank new, talking to the people at Planet Aquarium, for 72X36 tanks, increase the height of the tank from 28 to 30 inches will add 1/3 of the price. They have to use stainless steel from for 30 inches tank and none for the 28 inches (no cross brace or Eurobrace)
 
We have three wings in our house. We just board up one wing and remodel them one at a time. Of course we close the airconditioning zone to that area to keep dust from enter the system and the main house.
The house is old but really well build. We finish with the central area and doing the second of three wings.
 
Very nice...

OK... so... what do the blue prints look like for this new room?
What is the plumbing like?
Did you heavy up or add any extra circuits?

What about a fresh air feed or exhaust fan?

How long have you been doing marine tanks?
Have you checked with your local club to see if they have any pointers?
You are going to put a QT tank up right?
Have you read any of the stickies?
Do you know how to use a test kit that is not a strip?

(OOPS... got into the questions that we all ask the new people)
 
Finally we broke ground (wall come down anyway) on my fish room project. Breaking wall at least. New walls come up 2 feet inside and 4 feet outside the old wall, and the old wall come down. This will result in a 15X6 foot fish room with sink and drain and what ever I want to put in it.
Here are some poor picture of the framed wall where the fish tank and stand will be.

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looking forward to the build i am currently in the process of building my 72x36x30 acrylic tank built by ATM 1" thick
 
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