Our official 180G build thread

IronMan72

New member
In this first installment I'll be mainly introducing the hardware planned for our little slice of the ocean. Most of the major equipment has been purchased second hand from local reefers and is in very good condition.

The entire system will be located in a 10' x 4' area of the basement. The display arrangement will most resemble a peninsula though the whole system will actually be an island.
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The display tank is a standard glass 180G display 6' x 2' x 2' on a custom built stand. The tank is drilled on one end for a closed loop circulation system and an in tank overflow box. The system will also have an additional 80G of water including a 40G sump, 40G Refugium, and 30G Frag tank. These will be located at the plumbing end of the display tank on a custom three shelf stand. The Closed Loop Circulation is fed by a 2" drain through a Sequence (Super?) Dart pump feeding an OM 4-way valve. Two 1.5" returns on located on the plumbing wall of the DT and the remaining two lines will be plumbed through overhead 1.5" returns to the other short end of the DT. This closed loop will have effectively no head pressure (neglecting line losses) and should supply around 3500 - 4000 GPH of water circulation.
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The overflow is built-in on the plumbing end of the DT and has two independent 1.5" drain lines. I plan to run 1500-2000 GPH through it. This should give me some protection against a partial blockage. I have considered adding a third (emergency) drain but with five holes already drilled in that panel it may be difficult to fit another. The ~40G acrylic sump is at the bottom of a three shelf custom stand. It currently has three chambers but may be converted to two as I plan to run a separate 40G refugium on the top shelf of this stand. A 30G Frag tank will be on the middle shelf and will also be drilled and plumbed to this sump. A Sequence Dart will be used as the return pump. The majority of it's flow will be directed back to the DT via a 1.5" return line. Flow rate will be limited by a 1.5" ball valve. A smaller portion of the return flow will be directed to the Refugium and Frag tanks via 1" line with independent 1" ball valves to control the flow rate.
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A My Reef Creations skimmer will be used to help maintain high quality water. I am not sure of the model but it is ~36" tall with dual Beckett injectors. An external skimate waste collection container will be used with this skimmer. The skimmer will be driven by a Reeflo Wahoo pump.
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Initially, lighting will be supplied by a 8X54W T5 4' TEK light centered over the DT. I am exploring my options and will likely DIY an LED system in the future. I will be re-using the ACII controller currently on my 75G DT on this build for now. I will likely upgrade to an Apex (or DIY) controller in the future.

Special thanks to chrisguy. He did a great job on the stand and drilling the tank. The rest of the equipment I got from him was well maintained and he was very fair to work with.
 
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Thanks for the positive feedback. I hope to have everything setup and running in 4 to 6 weeks. Once established, I'll be moving everything from my current 75G DT into this system. It consist of mostly softies with a couple SPS. Initially I'm going to stick with mostly softies as I'm not sure the 8x54W lighting will be adequate for SPS in a tank this size.
 
That's a good amount of light. If your parameters are stable and your tank matures for a few weeks/months, I think you could keep pretty much anything you'd like.
 
Alot of progress

Alot of progress

It was a chore to fit so much into this space but I finally have the plumbing done. Did a freshwater test on the skimmer plumbing and all is well. The seal of the return pump has a leak so I'm waiting for a new seal to arrive before I can fill the tank with freshwater and test everything together. I also ordered spare seals for a Dart and Wahoo to have when I need to replace them.

Next will be running two dedicated 20A electrical circuits. Plan to use both ground fault and arc fault protection for both lines.

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very nice progress, looks like you did a fine job on the plumbing :)
have never used an arc fault protection before, interested in seeing how that works
 
Finally - water is going in.

Finally - water is going in.

Replaced the seal and bearings in the return pump and all fresh water tests went well so it's time to bring this thing to life. Been running the RO/DI for about 56 hours and the main tank is finally almost full, should be done by morning with a little in the sump by then as well. Fired up the closed loop pump (reeflo Dart) and started mixing in salt tonight. Plan to get all of the systems going in the next day or two and start moving rock in by the weekend to get the cycle started. All of the rock for this system is currently in existing systems so I expect it to be a pretty quick cycle. Hopefully I can start moving everything else in next weekend.

Also plumbed my skimmer off of the return pump (Reeflo Dart) instead of running it off a separate pump in an attempt to keep the electric bill down. If it works out as I hope it will save 6KWH/day. If not I'll hook it back up to it's own pump and look into upgrading the return pump to handle additional demand.

Still need to get a couple brutes for RO/DI and SW storage for the water change station but I have enough totes that I can use in the mean time.
 
Finally setup and running

Finally setup and running

Our new reef has been setup and running for about a week. Here are a few pictures. My Hippo Tang (Paracanthurus hepatus) seems to love the larger tank as it is always playing in the circulation. It was always hiding in the 75G.

FTS
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Bicolor Blenny (Ecsenius bicolor) playing peek-a-boo from one of his holes.
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Electrical service
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Looks really great. That's quite the skimmer!

The skimmer is a My Reef Creations MR-2 skimmer. It was modified by adding an additional tube to increase the height of the reaction chamber. The unmodified MR-2 skimmer is rated for a 300G system. With the modification this skimmer is significantly larger than it needs to be. My bio-load is very low right now so it should give me plenty of room to grow.
 
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