Rocknut's 150 Envision

[rocknut]

So, I have to admit, the idea of starting a build thread is quite the mix of excitement, and fear. Exciting, because I really enjoy the idea of sharing the process, as I certainly enjoy reading these threads posted by others, and fear because there is no hiding anything if the tank ends up being a total disaster. Also, this is probably more of a hybrid build thread, as I have done about 10%of the documentation that other build threads have provided.

Anyway, the other positive that I have seen coming out of other build threads is the steady flow of ideas, suggestions, and guidance from the many experienced hobbyists that frequent this forum. Seems to me that that would go a long way towards the overall chances of long term success.

So, for some brief background, I have been keeping reef tanks in some form or another for about ten years, some successful, some not so much. The tank I had about five years ago was probably my most successful (maybe too much so), because I decided to get all fancy with my last tank (an Elos System 70) trying out Zeovit, and ended up with my first really totally unsuccessful setup. Even with lots of advice on the Zeo forum (great group) I was never able to turn the corner, and took that tank down in April after my family and I finally bought a house and moved. Without going into too much detail, I think that tank failed because I either got, a) some bad live rock, or b) something was leaching metal into the tank, or a combination of both, or C) the whole bacterial driven system just got way out of whack, and I couldn't bring it back in line. I don't think it was the third possibility however, because some really experienced members of the Zeovit forum were pretty much baffled as to why things looked the way they did, even after lots of tweeking. Either way, it certainly confirmed the fact that any setup is really only as strong as its weakest link. You can have great equipment, great tank, and everything can still go south. That being said, I have tried really hard to buy the best equipment that I can, take my time with the planning, and have really tried to eliminate as many "œweak links" as possible with this build.

Building on my failure with my last tank, I really tried to plan my new setup learning from what I feel didn't go right before. Also, to try to draw on what made sense to me, and not only pick up the "œflavor of the month" fad that happened to making the rounds at the moment (which I have done too many times). So, sticking with "œTried and True" equipment and methods was important in the planning. One of the big issues I had (or think I had) was that I didn't feel I was doing a good enough job of moving nutrients from the display tank to the sump, and the skimmer. To address that, I decided that I wanted to go with a coast to coast overflow with the new tank to get as much surface skimming as possible, and also to incorporate a wavebox into the setup, to keep as much junk from settling in the display as possible. This kind of ruled out going with another Elos tank, with the single corner overflow. Ultimately, I decided to go with Envision from Oregon. James had built another tank that I was never able to setup, and ended up selling to Zibba here on Reefcentral (who has done an amazing job with it). James was able to build the tank using a beautiful external, coast to coast overflow, and I am hopeful that this will really help me accomplish my goal of doing a better job of processing nutrients. With all of this in mind, here are my Sketchup drawings for the display tank:

Here is the tank, stand, and sump

This is the final sump design

 

[rocknut]

My final design for the tank ended up being 150 gallons and measures 5' x 2' x 2'. I had this vision in my head of a sort of off-center aquascaping, with the majority of the rock being to the right, with a smaller mound or island just left of center, and being open all the way to the left. Originally, I was going to build a 4 foot tank, and envisioned having an extra foot of open space off to one side. Sort of a rule of thirds approach, with the majority of the visual weight pushing to the right side. Also, I wanted to use a 4 foot light fixture, again being a bit off center to the right, so that the light kind of fades out into the open area on the left side of the display. We will see if this actually happens, but that is the vision I have anyway. 

In keeping with the whole improved nutrient processing goal, I knew that the return pump would be key, so I went with a Speedwave 10000 pump. In my previous setup, I discovered that my 500 gph pump was actually pushing about 60 gph once it made its way thru the chiller, etc. Didn't want to get into this spot again, so the idea of a DC pump that allowed me to dial in the sump turnover rate seemed like a great idea. Also, went with a Tunze 6105, and a Tunze 6101 stream pump for the display tank, along with a Tunze Nano-wavebox to keep the junk for settling. The protein skimmer was a tough decision. I had used an ATB skimmer, and a Deltec skimmer on my two previous tanks, and was very happy with both. After much flip-flopping, and research, I decided that since I had always wanted to try a Bubble King, now might be the time. I know full well that a less expensive skimmer would skim every bit as much (if not better) than the BK, but after selling a ton of my old equipment, since I was in the position to try one, I decided to go with the BK Supermarin 200. After these decisions were made, I was able to basically design the sump around this equipment. I will be using a manifold off of the return pump to feed the refugium, and reactors, etc.
After using metal halide fixtures on every one of my previous tanks, I was leaning towards using LEDs this time, but honestly, I really felt like sticking with my "œTried and True" criteria pushed me towards using T5 lighting. This probably has something to do with all the time I spent on the Zeovit forum, as lots and lots of people had some amazing tanks using T5 fixtures. So, I ended up going with the ATI Sunpower for lighting (8 x 54 watts).

Even though I really wanted to stick with the tried and true basics, and not get too crazy, I did decide to give bio-pellets a try. It seemed to me that after lots of reading, that the chances of success with the pellets seemed to increase if they were used from day one with a system. I picked up 1000 ml of the Warner Marine pellets, and plan to use about 750 ml. I also will dose Prodibio BioDigest in hopes of maintaining a good bacterial balance, and helping to curb the cyano bloom issues that I have read about. Again, time will tell, but thought it was worth a shot.

So, here is a list of equipment I ended up using:

Bubble King Supermarin 200 skimmer

Speedwave 10000 return pump

ATI Dimmable Sunpower (8 x 54 watt)

Tunze 6105 & 6101, plus Tunze nano-wavebox

Profilux 3 controller

Vertex media reactors (1 for GFO and 1 for biopellets)

 

[rocknut]

So, the tank and sump arrived back in May from Envision, and as expected, everything on the tank was absolutely top notch.

I had the stand made from steel by a local welder, who also had it powder-coated in white. After I had the stand sitting at home for about a week, I had my first scare: I started to question not having additional supports built into the stand, like gussets. Anyway, after posting on reefcentral, here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2294791

and speaking with James at Envision, the consensus was that I was alright. James recommended using two ¾ plywood sheets between the tank and stand just to be totally safe, and that is what I did.

Here is the tank finally sitting on the stand

So, with the tank in place, and the plumbing completed, I was ready to start the tap water leak test.

Only one leak on one of the drains. Still a pain to fix, but was able to make the repair, and confirm that everything else was water tight.
After the leak testing was completed, I had all the equipment in place except one major component: the skimmer"¦ I actually ordered the skimmer from Premium Aquatics at the same time as the tank in mid-April, and by the first week of June, it still hadn't arrived at Premium Aquatics from the factory in Germany. Luckily, I still had my old ATB 840 skimmer, and would be able to use that if need be. But, the skimmer did arrive by the middle of the month. I have to share a few pictures of this skimmer. I had read how amazing the build quality was, but I really had no idea:

Skimmer bag

The tank was filled with RO/DI water from my Spectrapure MaxCap on the fourth of July, and salt was added the next day. I have a few boxes of ESV Salt in the garage that I will be using going forward, but had one bucket of Tropic Marin salt (accidentally ordered this instead of TM Pro once, and had never used it). Figured I would just use this salt for the initial cycle, and switch over the ESV with water changes, etc from here on out. I was able to buy about 70 pounds of really nice live rock locally, and honestly, I think it is plenty for the vision I had of the tank. I also used 160 pounds of sand. I know that popular opinion is to use a shallow sand bed, but going back to my "œwhat worked before" mandate, I decided to go with about a three inch layer of sand. After running several bare bottom tanks a few years back (after the bare bottom / starboard craze), and not really having a ton of success, and a shallow bed in my last tank, I decided that a deeper layer, DSB-ish was what had worked best for me in the past.
So, that brings everything up to speed. I fired up the lights this past Sunday, and I'm just fine tuning everything, and waiting for the cycle to move along.

With everything now up and running, and cycling, I can plan ahead for the next phase. I will do primarily SPS, but think that a nice Tridacna clam in the open sand area to the left would be really cool.
Also, please excuse the quality of the photos. Shot everything with my cell phone, but will get some better photos down the road.
Thanks for the taking the time to read this!

 

[greech]

Wow! Everything looks fantastic, congrats! Love the "tried and true" thought process and the tank is just beautiful! Heck you skimmer is prettier than most of my corals .

Tagging along. Look forward to seeing this one grow up.

 

[rocknut]

Wow! Everything looks fantastic, congrats! Love the "tried and true" thought process and the tank is just beautiful! Heck you skimmer is prettier than most of my corals .

Tagging along. Look forward to seeing this one grow up.

Thanks for the kind words, Greech. I'm glad to have you following along!

 

[rocknut]

Soaked the Warner Marine biopellets in RODI overnight as directed, and plan to put these online tonight.

Here is a closer shot of the return pump, and manifold plumbing. I think I will position the reactor as shown in this shot, and use some flexible tubing to sort of "U" around to feed the reactor. That way, I can use hard plumbing to exit the reactor, and drain this in the skimmer compartment, right next to the skimmer feed pump. I think I will end up redoing the manifold plumbing eventually, as I think I can probably get by with half of the fittings I ended up using. It is just taking up too much space now.

Speaking of the skimmer, it seems to be breaking in quite well. Doing a nice job skimming with just the live rock in the tank.

 

[gordonheimer]

Looks Great!!

I am in the process of pricing out a 6'x2'x2' now as well. Trying to take my time and do it right. (This will be my first tank in almost 10 years)

Hope you dont mind if I ask a few questions.

1. How big are your two openings on the top of the tank?

2. What sand and how much did you use?

3. Dry or Live Rock? I am leaning towards using just dry rock for my setup.

 

[rocknut]

Looks Great!!

I am in the process of pricing out a 6'x2'x2' now as well. Trying to take my time and do it right. (This will be my first tank in almost 10 years)

Hope you dont mind if I ask a few questions.

1. How big are your two openings on the top of the tank?

2. What sand and how much did you use?

3. Dry or Live Rock? I am leaning towards using just dry rock for my setup.

Regarding the openings on the top, do you mean the actual cutouts around the bracing, or the two small holes that were supposed to be for cords (which aren't big enough for the Tunze equipment I used)? the openings on the top of the tank around the bracing are 24" x 18". Here is a better diagram:

James with Envision recommended these cutouts, and the size of the bracing around the top. It was an option, and my initial preference, to have the entire top open, and just eurobrace the entire thing, but that increased the thickness of the side acrylic, and the price went way up. Using this design, I was able to get away with 1/2" acrylic on the sides, which made it possible to use the less expensive Tunze magnets. In the end, just having the center brace saved a ton of money, and I can certainly live with it.

I ended up using 160 pounds of Caribsea Seafloor Special sand.

I also ended up using locally bought live rock. I used Marco Rock dry rock on my last tank, and even though I soaked it RODI for several months, then gave it a bath in Muriatic Acid, I still had all sorts of strange algae growing off of it for months. I know that for every one person that has issue there are probably ten that have nothing but great things to say about it, so take that for what it is worth. I just decided that for me personally, the good outweighed the bad with the live rock.

 

[gordonheimer]

Regarding the openings on the top, do you mean the actual cutouts around the bracing, or the two small holes that were supposed to be for cords (which aren't big enough for the Tunze equipment I used)? the openings on the top of the tank around the bracing are 24" x 18". Here is a better diagram:

Yeah! I meant to say i was planning a 5' tank, same dimensions as yours. I am trying to decided between glass and acrylic and they are about the same price. The builder said there would be two 23x16'' holes for access so I was trying to get an idea of the size. How much live rock is that? Looks like a few big pieces.

Can't wait to see it going!

 

[rocknut]

Yeah! I meant to say i was planning a 5' tank, same dimensions as yours. I am trying to decided between glass and acrylic and they are about the same price. The builder said there would be two 23x16'' holes for access so I was trying to get an idea of the size. How much live rock is that? Looks like a few big pieces.

Can't wait to see it going!

That was 68 pounds of live rock. Honestly, if I would have gone with the standard 1 pound per gallon, it would have been WAY too much for the aquascape I had in mind.

 

[rocknut]

So was able to hard plumb in the bio-pellet reactor a few days ago. Decided to use hard pipe, but didn't glue anything together.

Used some velcro to attach the plumbing the back of the manifold plumbing next to it.

 

[rocknut]

Here is a shot of the feed plumbing going from the manifold into the reactor. Not 100% that I don't want to redo this, but it seems to be working fine, so maybe just leave it?

Also, is anyone else using the Elos Osmocontroller digital for top off? Here is a shot of sensor in the tank. Once the water drops below the bottom, it refills up past the sensor as shown. This seems to be really high and affects the water level in the sump enough that it messes with the skimmer a bit. Is this normal? I used this on my previous tank and thought that it only brought the water level up a little at a time, just to the bottom?

Finally, just thought this was a cool shot of the bubble plate on the skimmer:

 

[rocknut]

So, here is a question about the initial cycle: as I wrote in a previous post, I was able to get some really, really nice live rock locally, that had been in the dealers tank for quite some time before I bought it. The rock has been in my tank for ten days at this point, and I was getting readings of 0.25 ppm for Ammonia for the first 9 days, and had some obvious decay on the rock, although in small amounts, along with with 0.25 ppm of Nitrite. I have been getting some nice, consistent skimmate, and the water has been looking very clean the whole time. As of today, I am at 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitirite, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 for Nitrate (Elos test kit). Could this really be the extent of the cycle? I'm not considering adding anything to the tank of course, for at least another 2-3 weeks, but this would be the shortest cycle I have seen. Any ideas?

 

[rocknut]

Just clarify my last post: i'm just looking for some opinions as far as, should I just leave things be, or should I add some dead shrimp or something and force an ammonia spike?

 

[rocknut]

Beautiful looking tank! Can't wait to see it stocked.

Thanks so much! I can't wait either!

 

[rocknut]

Well, I posted over on the Chemistry Forum yesterday about my cycle (or lack there of), and was able to get a few really helpful responses. Sounds like the tank is probably ready to go as my ammonia and nitrites are at 0.00. I think because the rock I purchased was really good quality, and was basically fully cured (found out it was in the store's tanks for over two months), I shouldn't necessarily expect a real ammonia spike. Either way, nothing is going into the tank for a while anyway, but it's good to know that things are moving along.
This brings me to my next phase: stocking. I'm pretty excited about this, because in the past I have basically ended up with exactly the same fish in every tank I have set up. "Tangs are too big for my tank, Wrasses will jump out, Butterflys are too delicate, Angels will nip the corals, etc." I basically talked myself out of all the fish I really wanted to try, and ended up a clown, royal gramma, and some chromis. Not knocking those fish, but I'm excited to have the room to try some different things. With that being said, I'm trying to carefully plan around a few key fish that are at the top of my list. I have wanted one of the Acanthurus Tangs forever. I had a Powder Blue Tang in a tank a few years back, and loved it, so one of the Acanthurus Tangs will be one of key fish for this tank. Here is my list of possibilities: I would love to hear any comments, feedback, and experiences for everyone.

Whitecheek Tang (Acanthurus Nigricans) - this seems like an ideal fish for my tank. Doesn't get huge and is beautiful. I've heard they can be a bit aggressive, but I'm not looking to add a whole bunch of tangs, so think I should be alright.

Lieutenant Tang (Acanthurus Tennenti) - I really love how these fish look. Only problem is that they might get a bit too large for my tank?

Orangeshoulder Tang (Acanthurus Olivaceous) - Again, great looking fish, but possibly too large?

Lavender Tang (Acanthurus Nigrofuscus) - This might be the ideal candidate, size wise. Not quite a flashy as the others, but I think they are still great looking fish. Only real problem might be finding one to buy.

Again, just to be clear, I am only looking to add ONE of these, not one of each. :mixed:

I am making plans to set up two QT tanks and do the "Tank Transfer" method for the first two weeks, then do an additional 2 weeks with Prazipro before adding to the tank.

I am also looking to add seven Lyretail Anthias after the Tang is in, and established. After that, I would really like to try a Hoeven's Wrasse? My experience with Wrasses is pretty limited. I have had Sixlines, etc in the past, but that is about it.

I would sure appreciate any feedback, comments, and experiences with these choices. Definitely am trying to do it right this time, and take my time. I figure that the tank will be up and running for at least two months before the first fish (Tang) would go in after QT.

 

[greech]

Cycle: I would agree that if your liverock was fully cured and you kept it submerged or it was a very short trip home, that you probably had minimal die off and saw only a mini cycle. Keep in mind that if you are not going to stock for a while, you have to feed the tank now and then to maintain your bacteria population.

Stocking: I am not a tang expert so definitely get more opinions but I would be worried about adding a White Cheek or Lavender tang with a Powder Blue. The body type is too similar and I think there is agoing to be a good chance that the PBT will stress/kill the others. The others will outgrow your tank eventually. Just my opinion.

The Melanurus/Hoeven's will be fine. They are not aggressive, have great colors and swim a lot! The only drawback to these is that they tend to be mercilous towards snails, crabs and shrimp. In a bigger tank like yours, this may not be a problem but if you go with the wrasse and all the sudden realize your tank is dirtier than usual, you may need to restock your CUC .

 

[rocknut]

Cycle: I would agree that if your liverock was fully cured and you kept it submerged or it was a very short trip home, that you probably had minimal die off and saw only a mini cycle. Keep in mind that if you are not going to stock for a while, you have to feed the tank now and then to maintain your bacteria population.

Stocking: I am not a tang expert so definitely get more opinions but I would be worried about adding a White Cheek or Lavender tang with a Powder Blue. The body type is too similar and I think there is agoing to be a good chance that the PBT will stress/kill the others. The others will outgrow your tank eventually. Just my opinion.

The Melanurus/Hoeven's will be fine. They are not aggressive, have great colors and swim a lot! The only drawback to these is that they tend to be mercilous towards snails, crabs and shrimp. In a bigger tank like yours, this may not be a problem but if you go with the wrasse and all the sudden realize your tank is dirtier than usual, you may need to restock your CUC .

Agreed, picked up some Seachem Phytoplankton today, and plan to start tonight. Regarding the Tang, totally agree and will only add one, total, not a PBT plus something else. Hoevens Wrasse sounds really cool. I was on the fence about adding hermits anyway, so that might have made the decision for me. Thanks again.

 

[greech]

Will also need a decent sand bed for the wrasse as that is where they sleep.

Sorry, I misread about the PBT. Thought that was a "must have" . Any reason you don't want to try another?

 

[rocknut]

Will also need a decent sand bed for the wrasse as that is where they sleep.

Sorry, I misread about the PBT. Thought that was a "must have" . Any reason you don't want to try another?

First off, don't know what the deal is with that HUGE picture, I'll get that fixed when I get home.
You know, it's funny, I had originally ruled out the PBT because I decided they were too delicate, and now here I am considering other tangs that are easily as fragile. In allot of ways, the PBT makes the most sense because I could actually find one locally, and maybe get a healthy looking fish to begin with. I would imagine that with proper QT, they would be Hardy enough? I think they are back on the list.
Thanks for bringing that up!