Super Duper 600 Gallon+ Build Thread

[keez]

Hey guys, I'm Matt and this is my attempt at creating the most awesome, most modern, high tech, diamond encrusted(j/k), most fantastic, most TRUMP(without the gold) aquarium and fish room ever created! I'm sure i'll make a bunch of mistakes, but I'm really hoping that by creating this thread and sharing the process and choices I have to make, I can get some awesome advice and keep the blunders down to a minimum.

To give a bit of a background, I've been in the hobby on and off for approx 10 years and I say with confidence that I've never had a great reef tank. There were brief moments where I would buy something new and it would do well for a short period of time but that's about it. Mostly, from the moment the livestock would enter my care, it would be condemned to a life of struggle and misery... Not good! Now that I've been planning and thinking about my new setup, I quickly realized that I never spent enough time learning and understanding what is needed for success.

As we all know, the financial and time investment that's required can be really daunting and I think this has really kept me out of the hobby in the last couple years. It's always been in the back of my mind to get back into it and create my dream tank so to speak but time passed and I never made a move. This brings me to a few months ago when I was hanging out with a buddy of mine that also has a reef and I learned about Triple S Fish ranch"¦ Holy shit"¦ I spent days reading and drooling over his setup. I owe a debt of gratitude to PMRogers cuz I would have just kicked the can further down the road if it wasn't for his build thread that has inspired me to do my own. Hopefully this thread can be as fun and as useful to others as PMRogers and other builds have been to me! I've never written anything on a forum in my life, so please bear with me if my sentences are constructed like a 2 year old. Lets get into this!

My goals for this setup are to maximize the following(not really in any particular order of importance):
Redundancy
Stability
Monitoring, Tracking, Feedback
Maintenance
Experimentation(controlled environment)
Technology & Automation
Aesthetics & Style


It sorta helps me to frame everything in function of how it helps me improve one of the following factors above. I like having lists like this because I tend to get tunnel vision and get so fixated on things that are extremely irrelevant from time to time. Keeping this list of 7 things helps pull me out of **** that isn't important. I feel like I've made progress in some of the 7 areas above, but not so much in others. My ongoing goal is to really have the best possible outcomes in all 7 areas.

I should have started this thread a while back when I really started to scope out and plan things. You guys probably would have saved me from creating an entire fish room that I ultimately decided to not use"¦.I grossly underestimated how much room was needed to create the fish room I really wanted. Anyway, here's where I'm at!

Designs/Construction drawings are complete for DT
DT is in place
Floor reinforcements were done
Construction has been begun on fish room
Drawings for fish room and equipment are mostly finished
Still mulling over some equipment selections, really excited to hear your guys feedback.


We received the DT, the process was relatively smooth with the guys over at Concept Aquarium.

How many developers does it take to move a tank?? lol, this was funny.. took us 4 hours to move 4 feet"¦ We were 12 people! We finally gave up and called piano movers. This was pretty funny actually, 4 guys showed up from the moving company while we were still there. All of us were like.. "œumm you guys will never be able to move this, we were 12 people and we could barely inch it along, how do u plan on getting this up the steps and into place" Well, all of us suffered massive blows to our manliness just a few minutes later as we watched these "œreal" men wrangle this thing into place with 4 people! lol Ah well"¦

Looking good in there! There is something I'm confused about though. The wavebox on the left will let water in from the top of the box, is this the intended design? All waveboxes I've ever seen function by displacing the water in a closed box. Does this make sense?

Here are the renders, I'm having a hell of a time finding a company that can cut those end pieces out of sheets of metal. I need to do more research, but the feedback I've heard so far is that nobody can find a CNC machine big enough to cut patterns into a piece that large. I might have to go back to the drawing board on this.

Another view

They started construction on the fish room yesterday. After much thought and consideration, I finally decided to commandeer half of the garage instead of using the cold room in my basement. I know i'll not regret having a bigger fish room, I just hope I don't regret having only 1 garage bay. I'm really impressed with how much progress they made in 2 days.

Quick little plumbing mod, this is the main waste drain, luckily we were able to pickup the garage drain only a few feet away.

The plumber was fantastic, got everything done in under 2 days, the main runs from the DT to the fish room are pretty long. The tank is sitting about 30 feet away. I have 3 2"inch drains, with 1 2" return. I also ran a 1 inch conduit for any data wires i might need between the fish room and DT.

All the electrical roughing is done, I ended up with 7 individual circuits. Total potential load if everything is on at the same time is about 50amp given current equipment selections and any given circuit isn't exceeding 10 amps. I put special attention to isolate mission critical devices on their own circuits as well. This is probably kinda useless, but it made me feel better lol

I'm happy with the progress so far, I'm just working on exporting some pics of the fish room drawings so I can give you guys a little more context as to where I'm at and get more into the details of equipment and so on!

 

[keez]

Here are some of the renders of fish room. It's still a vision I would say in some ways, I'm not convinced yet that everything makes perfect sense. I'm eager to have some discussion! I'm in a bit of a rush so I can't go into all the equipment details, but I'll definitely provide a breakdown tomorrow.

Here's the front view

a bit of a view of all the support tanks, qt, refude, mixing so on.

Here's a view of the other side,

You can sorta see that there's 2 cabinets with glass doors, one is housing all the main neptune electronics. I intend to have 3 apex controllers. 1 for the main system, 1 for all QT tanks, and 1 for redundancy on a different power source(UPS essentially) using an LTE data hub from a local ISP so in the event I lose total power or internet and my generator fails, i will still have internet and this apex will act as my last line of defense to notify me that all hell has broken loose.. The reason for splitting off the support tanks into a different apex controller is to ensure I don't lose performance on my main system. I've ready many reports that apex starts to have slow responsiveness and general slowdown/reboots when you add north of 50-75 outlets and modules. To mitigate this risk, I just opted to keep things isolated.

The other cabinet is housing 12 neptune dos's. After reading and hearing about the success so many people are having with the new DOS pumps, I dediced to just use these for just about everything for each of the closed systems. ATO, Water changes, dosing, feeding will all be done via these pumps.

This is a front view of the main support tank rack.

I'm super anxious to get into the details. Looking forward to discussing!

 

[rygar]

Your insane. I love it.

 

[Kjreiner1]

This is AMAZING! ! Going to be a very regal tank when complete. I love the metal art on the sides of the tank. If I lived closer I could fab those side pieces out of thin plate steel and powder coat them white for you. I love making metal art those would be easy. Not sure how they would up made of sheet metal and getting the paint to stick to it.

 

[rynoe]

"Here are the renders, I’m having a hell of a time finding a company that can cut those end pieces out of sheets of metal. I need to do more research, but the feedback I’ve heard so far is that nobody can find a CNC machine big enough to cut patterns into a piece that large. I might have to go back to the drawing board on this".


I would look into Water Jet Companies. They usually can handle larger pieces.

 

[CHSUB]

I intend to have 3 apex controllers

only 3...do you think that is enough!!! :eek2:

 

[ddanis60]

subscribed!

 

[SPotter]

looks awesome!!! i notice that the drains line run under the floor of the fish then up and over the sump. Any concerns about that causing a noisy drain? I have never seen anyone do that before.

 

[keez]

Your insane. I love it.

Thanks! I think....

This is AMAZING! ! Going to be a very regal tank when complete. I love the metal art on the sides of the tank. If I lived closer I could fab those side pieces out of thin plate steel and powder coat them white for you. I love making metal art those would be easy. Not sure how they would up made of sheet metal and getting the paint to stick to it.

Thanks!, Ya this metal has become a huge problem actually. After 3 months of trying to find the right contractor that can build it within a reasonable cost, I've had to give up. I asked the architect to come up with something a little more simple and made from mdf and funny enough, he came up with what I think is much better! It's simpler and grabs less attention away from the tank itself. What do u guys think?

"
I would look into Water Jet Companies. They usually can handle larger pieces.

Thanks for the heads up, I will definitely check this out if I go back to the metal design.

looks awesome!!! i notice that the drains line run under the floor of the fish then up and over the sump. Any concerns about that causing a noisy drain? I have never seen anyone do that before.

This is a big concern of mine as well. The net change in elevation between the overflows in DT and those drains into the sump is approximately 7 feet. There's a long run between the DT and the sump, from the DT it goes through the floor on it's way to the garage. I kept it flowing downwards as much as possible given certain barriers like passing through ibeams and so on. But in the end, it comes up 3 feet to come up through the floor of the fish room and into the sump. I'm hoping that i'll be able to find a way to silence this on the fish room end, any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[keez]

I intend to have 3 apex controllers

only 3...do you think that is enough!!! :eek2:

Well now that you mention it....

To be honest, I'm still not convinced that having the 3rd one provides me much protection against disasters. I've tried to think of all possible scenarios, such as a power failure, generator failure, or apex controller failure, or internet connection failure, chiller/heater failure and see how I can at least be notified when things go awry. I imagine a case where the apex controller itself breaks or loses power/internet for some reason. How would I be notified of this event?

I think the only way is either write some little code that parses the XML feed from the controller and if it can't reach the controller or updates stop, then I could assume something really bad happened and I need to rush home because maybe the controller is offline or dead. The other way would just have a secondary apex on a different power source and different internet connection and if that one is online but the primary is not, then that could tell me something as well.

I don't know though, I need to put more thought into this and build a matrix of all possible critical failures and how the system will react and notify me.

 

[adamPL]

Looking good. Good Luck

 

[keez]

Well this was an exciting week!

Did a little leak test, luckily everything held up! On a side note, I'm just astonished at the water movement that a single gyre 150 can create in a tank this long.

Starting to look like a room! Made some good progress this last week. Ran some more electrical for the DT. Russian plywood walls are going in next week, and the room should be mostly finished in terms of electrical, lighting, paint and so on.

I redesigned the back wall and the sink/counter area a little bit. I figured the focal point of the room should be something unique and fun. I decided to embed a 48 inch touchscreen flush into the wall! and put some storage beneath it. This is certainly not necessary or really beneficial in any way, but it definitely increases the fun factor! I figure i can have apex controls on half of the screen and some graphs/vitals reporting on the other half. I also picked the materials for all of the cabinets and panels and so on. I'm going to go with acrylic for it's obvious corrosive resistance. It's also very nice with the right color and finish. Luckily, acrylic has been a growing trend in kitchen cabinets so it's been quite easy to find people that can build this.

And the big thing I did this week was put in the order for all the equipment and tanks. For the equipment junkies out there, I'm gonna put the list together and post everything I ordered!

 

[keez]

This is about it! I gotta give credit and props to Steph from reefsolution.com. If anyone is in the Montreal area, I couldn't recommend his store enough. He's been extremely helpful throughout the process thus far and he worked really hard to source some of the more difficult things to find. More than anything, he's a nice and honest guy that we would definitely miss if we all start shopping exclusively online.

I managed to get the orders in for just about everything in the list, I think the only thing left is the dreambox order as we are finalizing some of the finer details. It's unbelievable the level of customization that these guys offer! There's definitely an upside to that, but it takes some back and forth to get it right.

I went with Concept Aquariums for the 7 tanks and stand. They did the DT for me and It's been great dealing with them. Matt that works there was a great help with this setup. Literally within 2 days, he had the drawings and specs all laid out for everything and the order went through. It's worth mentioning as well that his prices were about 1/2 that of everyone else I checked out!

So this is the list of equipment for each system, the number trailing the "---" is the quantity. I tried to do enough research to establish a certain comfort level with each product, but I would love to hear your guys feedback.

Main Tank
Short Rail Kits XR616--- 1
One Short Rail Kits XR616-1--- 7
Premium Hanging Kit XR655--- 8
Radion XR30W Pro--- 9
Maxspect Gyre 150--- 4
Neptune Wireless Module for Lighting--- 1
Gyre icecap interface kit--- 4
PAR Monitoring Kit--- 1
Neptune WAV Starter kit--- 1
Neptune DOS--- 1
aqua uv Classic 114 Watt--- 1
Neptune VDM--- 1

Sump
Dreambox - sample - set 8d--- 1
Supermarin 300---1
Neptune Systems Gold--- 2
HTI-2-220 2KW inline heater titanium--- 1
a400 abyzz return pump 110v--- 1
a200 abyzz pump 110v--- 1
Neptune DOS--- 12
dreambox dosing reservoirs 16L--- 2
Neptune PM3 dissolved O2 sensor--- 1
Neptune Dissolved O2 Probe--- 1
Royal Exclusiv Pellet filter 3.5L--- 1
Royal Exlusiv Media filter 3.5l--- 2
Neptune VDM--- 2

Fish QT1+2
Cobalt Aquatics 200W Heater--- 2
radion xr15pro--- 2
maxspect gyre 130--- 2
xr15w radion tank mount--- 2
Need hang on back filters--- 2

Coral QT
Cobalt Aquatics 200W Heater--- 2
Frag tool kit--- 1
Radion XR30W pro--- 4
xr30w radion tank mount--- 4
Eshopps e-300 sump---1
a200 abyzz pump--- 1
Neptune Wireless Module for Lighting--- 1
Neptune VDM--- 2
Gyre icecap interface kit--- 2
maxspect gyre 130--- 2
need to decide on skimmer & media reactor

Refugium
Kessil H150 Purple--- 2

Water Prep/Mixing
Custom RO/DI from Reefsolution.com--- 1
aqua uv classic 8 watt ---2
maxspect gyre 130--- 2
Cobalt Aquatics 200W Neo-Therm Submersible Heater--- 4
Flowmeter, GPM/LPM 0.5 - 4.0 / 2-15--- 2
a200 abyzz pump--- 2
Neptune VDM--- 1
Gyre icecap interface kit--- 1


Misc
Leak Detection--- 1
Leak Detection Probe--- 2
neptune energy bar 8--- 2
neptune energy bar 4 ---1
DOS Tubing 16 meter--- 8
IO Breakout Box--- 3
Milwakee Digital Refractometer--- 1
DO Membrane kit--- 1
Aqualogic 1HP Chiller ---1
Ozotech--- 1
Air Dryer for Ozone--- 1
Reef Octopus Ozone Reactor---1

Backup
Neptune Systems Gold--- 1
Radion XR30W Pro--- 1
Maxspect Gyre 150--- 1
a400 abyzz pump--- 1
a200 abyzz pump--- 1
Neptune DOS--- 1
Cobalt Aquatics 200W Heater--- 1


Just one last thing for this update! To ease my anxiety and impatience, I picked up a little 25 gallon so at least I have something to play with in the meantime! She's coming along

 

[keez]

Just one last thing actually

I'm having a hard time deciding on the floor material. The best I've come up with is white sheet vinyl. For some reason, I'm just not happy with this. I would really appreciate any ideas.

thanks in advance!

Matt

 

[CHSUB]

you are dosing??? have you thought about a calcium reactor? i can see this is a first rate setup, have you thought about adding t5 lighting to the Radions, most find that a great improvement.

 

[scubadan206]

Use a fiberglass grate for the floor. It's waterproof and if you put a floor pan with a drain under it spills are a non issue.
What are you doing for things like a skimmer, or your dosing? Calcium reactor or two part?
I've said it before on other threads, but the dos is not very good for auto waterchanges. I'm sure When Slief chimes in he can just about copy and paste his recommendations for an auto waterchange system.
Daniel.:wavehand:

 

[keez]

you are dosing??? have you thought about a calcium reactor? i can see this is a first rate setup, have you thought about adding t5 lighting to the Radions, most find that a great improvement.

I've opted to go for dosing wherever possible. I'm not 100% convinced that this is going to be as good as a great reactor setup though. My gut feeling is that the increased simplicity and control of dosing will trump the trace element benefits of a reactor.

I'm not an expert by any means so maybe i'm overlooking the pros and cons of dosing vs reactor. From what I understand the major trade off is that dosing gives u control and simplicity whereas reactor gives you trace elements that are directly in line with building blocks necessary for hard coral growth.

Some people argue that you can simply dose trace elements, though it's hard to find any conclusive evidence to the success of this. What do u think?

It's funny you mention the lighting... I've been struggling with the idea of LED's throughout this entire process. It's obvious that a lot of people are having success with them but there is something very concerning about the lack of diffused light and hot spots. I'm guessing this is what you are pointing to with the suggestion of adding t5's. I shamefully admit that a large reason I'm not adding t5's is because I don't think it'll look good over the tank... What I'm going to try first is using the 9 radion xr30w pro's which gives me a lot of fixtures for a 10 foot tank. This should help dramatically with reducing hotspots. From another perspective, do you think t5's would be able to penetrate a 36" deep tank?

 

[keez]

Use a fiberglass grate for the floor. It's waterproof and if you put a floor pan with a drain under it spills are a non issue.
What are you doing for things like a skimmer, or your dosing? Calcium reactor or two part?
I've said it before on other threads, but the dos is not very good for auto waterchanges. I'm sure When Slief chimes in he can just about copy and paste his recommendations for an auto waterchange system.
Daniel.:wavehand:

I'm dosing 2 part, amino, magnesium, maybe some other stuff as well. Do you think a reactor setup would be much better?

The dos isn't good for auto water changes? What about it is bad? My whole setup is predicated on the DOS being great pumps lol I have 12 of them after all.

I would love to hear any recommendations!

thanks
Matt

 

[keez]

have you thought about adding t5 lighting to the Radions, most find that a great improvement.

I just remembered this video from BRS. I thought it was a great video that explained lighting very well. Worth a watch imo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR0FaKu35q0

 

[Socaltoaz]

I don't have experience on the DOS for water changes but on the recommendation of Silef, I use the Reef Genesis system. Absolutely love it.