North Dakota Mini-Ocean

[Reefaquariumnut]

I do have an air exchanger in my house already...I would just need to get it hooked into the fish room. I will call my HVAC sub tomorrow and see what they say.

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

I got the air exchanger questions taken care of with my HVAC guy...He will install a unit in that room ducted to the outside (only about a 12 foot run), Whew!! That will be perfect since i will have an entertainment center/bar being built there in the next month.

Any other electrical or HVAC i should be thinking about before i get too far?

 

[matt & pam]

Are the outlets in your ceiling one dedicated circuit, or does that circuit go to other areas in the room. Is one circuit above the tank enough for all your lighting needs?

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

The ceiling is one 20A circuit for the 3 outlets. I have 120A in that room alone spread over 15 outlets.

 

[matt & pam]

Do you plan to run all your ballasts through the ceiling outlets? I would guess you MH ballasts alone would run about 14-15 amps and then if you tack on T5s or VHO you very well could overload the circuit. I guess you could also divide the ballasts up where plugged in but just seems ideal if you have everything on a track that you would plug everything in the ceiling.

matt

 

[jnarowe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11371522#post11371522 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefaquariumnut
The ceiling is one 20A circuit for the 3 outlets. I have 120A in that room alone spread over 15 outlets.

That's what I have in my tank room and I am running out.

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

I should have plenty of power in the room. I can plug most of the MH ballasts above and if i run out of power I can always run a longer cord to the floor where more power is. I plan on keeping the ballasts and lighting on a rack/track and if i need i can get longer cords (i've seen 30ft) to find power.

Maybe I wasn't clear before...I have 15 outlet boxes with 46 plug-ins. I have 6 dedicated 20A circuits in that room alone. When my electrical contractor and I were planning the room we added up what I thought I might need and added a couple more. I saw Steve Weast was running 5800W on 4 dedicated 20A circuits. I will be running about half of those Watts on a tank half of his size. I re-checked again and I think I have 40A on the ceiling with 4 outlet boxes and 8 plug-ins.

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

I think i can run somewhere around 2000-2400W/20A circuit. So I would be very close for one circuit handling the lighting requirements...The rest of the pumps, skimmers, controllers, etc would probably fit on two more 20A circuits.

 

[jnarowe]

Actually, Steve's final config on that tank was 5600W just for lights. He ran his 400W UV opposite the the light cycle, but I am not sure if that was because of electrical draw or heat.

It sounds like you are going to be fine. For me, I have 130A in my tank room, but because I am using 1000W MH lamps, I had to split them up onto their own circuits. This was more of an issue with the Neptune DC4HD's which carry a max of 15A. And I wanted to make damn sure the house lights didn't dim when my tank lights turned on!

 

[jnarowe]

jinx! :lol: well, the issue I see is that you need to consider margins. Any time a device starts up, it draws more than the rated amps IIRC. obviously staggering the lights is one way to manage this, but just say you have a power outage and everything comes back on at the same time...then you might trip a breaker and not know it.

I realize this kind of stuff is built into most controllers, like I have a time delay on my lamp re-starts in the event of a power outage, but I still planned for the possible failure.

Don't get me wrong, I think based on what you have written, you will be fine, but keep in mind that rated amp draws are for continuous duty.

 

[matt & pam]

Sounds like your fine from above and will be able to keep all those plugs out of the way. What's your plan for water storage (ro/di) and salt water mixing? It might be more cost effective if you went to straight DI for preparation of water. I saw a guy somewhere on RC who used a system like what's used in dialysis centers to prepare water, basically 2 or 3 scuba tank sized containers of DI resins that ultimately maintained 0 PPM and no water waste. The company comes in and changes out the resins based on his usage. I would think up in ND your water temps will be pretty low so the wastage from a RO membrane will be pretty high unless you heat the water somehow.

 

[Elliott]

matt & pam: yeah, I believe that was on Steve Weast's thread when his tank crashed recently, someone posted their high capacity DI system, will try to find it.

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

Yes, you are absolutely correct!! I will have the lights turning on in pairs, rather than one big "BANG"!! One way to limit failures is to maybe run the MH lights off 220V (something I have installed in that room).

When I was talking about Steve's 5800W, I just meant lights as well. I think I will probably will be running 4-5 400's or 6-8 250's like you suggested...I just worry that 250's won't reach the bottom. I guess I could use a combination of both. Thanks for the help!!

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

I have an in house DI system that i have 2-12 gallon holding tanks...I can get up to 2- 100 gallons. I have that DI line run into the fish room. I will also have a seperate compartment in the sump for mixing saltwater and slowly added to the system.

 

[matt & pam]

That's interesting. I didn't think water from a DI system was recommended for residential consumption - most of the systems I've seen have the sediment filters/carbon/RO membrane. Do you use any DI filtered water for consumption?

 

[jnarowe]

Di water is fine for consumption but it is dead water. no minerals etc. and very unstable. Because there are no buffers in it, the flavor turns bad rather quickly. The is a re-mineralization process for drinking water, coffee making etc.

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

Opps, my mistake...My water system is RO/DI with 2-12 gallon tanks.

 

[maxalmon]

What an incredible design on the room and tank.

The asthetics are rather remarkable, details of the room are perfect. The molding around the tank, along with the rest of the room are very gentle and pleasing on the eye, but don't overpower the shear impact of the tank.

We are in the process of doing something such as this but on a less remarkable scale, otherhalf said that I could have a fish viewing room. We have a formal living room thats pretty much useless so we ripped out the carpet, installed harwood flooring, installed crown moulding and included 2 huge, leather wing backed chairs that are centered on the tank (215g starphire)
The room is totaly dedicted to viewing the tank, thats why I appreciate the detail you have included in your design.

My tank will also be a mixed softy and LPS tank as I love a tank that has lots of movement, things swaying in the flow.

I look forward to following this project, once again, simply incredible design!

 

[Reefaquariumnut]

Thanks for the nice comments!! I have taken this process slow so I can adapt to suggestions and comments that I feel might make the system better and more effecient. There is a long way to go, and I can only hope the rest goes as smoothly.

 

[jnarowe]

Funny thing, I did my reef first and still haven't done the viewing room.