Totally new EVERYTHING (including building) tank build

[Darrin]

I didnt even know what to title this, as i'm looking for everyone to tell me what to do... I hope this is even in the right forum, but it is technically a 300 gallon system..

Long story short.. i'm a photographer who is suffering from digital overload. Business is gone kaput and i'm moving my business home. I have run a studio for 15 years... my first tank was a 50 gallon coral tank. I got lucky and had enough business to be able to upgrade to a 200, and i always paid the lfs to install stuff along with any help from knowledgeable friends..

My tank is an evolution of 'ehh... good enough'... but it is basically a fire hazzard, as you will see from the photos...

Since i still do a tiny bit of photography, i am taking my garage and turning it into a home theatre room so that i can meet with customers and project photography for them to look at their portraits.. actually i'm using it as a tax rightoff so that i can build a room in my pier and beam home that can house my tanks..

So.. this is my system now..



This is a b&w image to show flow lines in color... the blue is from the chiller under the stand.. that stand holds a 60 gallon cube that is my main fuge.... 8 inch sand, chato, etc...

the 50 on the left is another smaller semi fuge, holds peppermint shrimps, a cuke, long and short spine urchins... etc.. sometimes has a lot of caulerpa, sometimes not... used to raise baby hippo redis...

the red is the drain lines, and the yellow shows the main pumps adding water to the system.



ok so far...

This is my fire hazzard... it 'evolved'...


ok... the 'GOAL'',.. tear this down to start over... and move it to my garage, which will follow with photos..

 

[Darrin]

now... this is where it's going to...

this is the wall of my garage... as soon as i finish this post im going out to finish cleaning and going to pick up lumber...

I'm going to enclose the front with hardyboard and a door on the left...

going to put insulation in, sheet rock, and the electrical..

The reason I want to put it in the garage is...

Tank will overflow onto concrete... good thing..

house is on stilts... too expensive to shore up floor..

need projection room anyway...

my old tank put too much humidity into the air.. my ac vents have rust on them..didnt want this to happen at home..

I can cut holes in the wall for heat to leave if i need to..

so... I can give you guys total say in this.. remember as i always had other people do it for me i'm sorta new at building tanks..

i can do the electrical, ac, walls, etc.. anyway you advise me to..

I can go to the office tonight to tell you what brands of chiller, calk rx, pumps and such i have..

the main is 3 icecaps with 3 400 wt xms..

the 50 has a 250 and vhos...

the main fuge has a lowes light strip and 2 floresents..

so... what do i need to do?

 

[Darrin]

oh... i'm totally open to redoing it completly if i need to...

as 'chunk all fuges, go barebottom, switch to t5s, (not really on the t5s) change flow, etc..)

i did all this myself and probably did it wrong, but i do not have filters, corals grow pretty fast, and i am happy with it... i would like to make the fire hazzard less hazzardess, put all pumps, reactors, etc outside the stand as it is a pain to work on.., be able to hook up to my outside faucet for an rodi system, be able to vent hot moist air outside... but as they said in shrek 'let's get started'...

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[Darrin]

One of my first issues is electrical... can one circuit handle an entire reef system,...

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[RParker]

One of my first issues is electrical... can one circuit handle an entire reef system,...

d

I would probably say no, one circuit won't be enough. I run a 265 and I have 3ea 20amp circuits dedicated to it. Whats needed for electrical requirements will depend on what equipment you plan to run, lighting, pumps, heaters etc. Add the sum total of all your equipments power needs and start from there, plus build in a buffer, you never know what you may add in the future.

 

[Montdj]

One of my first issues is electrical... can one circuit handle an entire reef system,...

d

Atleast 2 but 3 20amp circuits would be best.

 

[sfsuphysics]

One of my first issues is electrical... can one circuit handle an entire reef system,...

d

Depends how much power draw you have

Lets just look at the lights 3-400 watt MH will draw 10 amps between the lot of them, that's not including any start up surges either, the 250 will pull a couple amps by itself as well.

Pumps, for a tank that size also will probably draw an amp or 2 each (making a wild guess based upon the volume and how much water is flowing through).

Your chiller depends how many horses it is... but looking online I see them drawing anywhere from 5 to 7 amps for a 1/4hp chiller.

That doesn't take into account anything else, heaters, etc...

So I'd say no, definitely could not run it off one circuit.

I would put all the lights on a single 20 amp circuit by themselves, then depending upon other stuff another another 20 amp... or the chiller on a dedicated 15amp and the rest on 15 amps as well, however the cost between a 15 amp and 20amp is really neglegable so I'd go for the beefer one (just make sure the wire is up to snuff!)

That being said, I have no idea what sort of heat/cold you get, but I have heard from Texas friends that their garages get mucho hot... so insulate the hell out of it (don't get stingy) and put some fans to vent it. At a minimum I'd put one in the roof and in the side of the garage... don't forget about the power requirement of those too Also I'm not sure how effective fans will be if the temperature is 110 or so .... the other side of things is how cold it'll get either.

If you keep the house climate controlled I would advise putting the tank inside not the garage, and simply make sure the hood/stand is sealed off from the rest of the house and vented outside to deal with the humidity issues. Maybe even build a dedicated room (something simple sheet rock + mini space behind the tank to work on it) for everything. But that will come at the expense of interior space... but if you keep the house comfortable anyways you will most definitely save a ton on electricity.


Either way its quite an ambitious project ahead of you and I wish you all the luck in the world. And just remember you're not rebuilding a tank, you're remodling a part of your house... so that means start with some plans on paper and talk with trusted people and those in charge (aka the wife if applicable ).

 

[Darrin]

It would cost about $10,000 to put my tank in the house as i cannot put it on my existing flooring... remember, i have a pier and beam house... it would fall through the floor..

I can do most of the work myself... I can do the new doors, sheet rock and studs for around $500-600... but i can't put major fans in as this is going to be another room in my house... I want it to be part of the house, ac and everything, so i want it sealed off from the outside..

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[RParker]

Depends how much power draw you have

Lets just look at the lights 3-400 watt MH will draw 10 amps between the lot of them, that's not including any start up surges either, the 250 will pull a couple amps by itself as well.

This also depends on what ballasts your running.. I have 3ea 400w HQI and they pull close to 16/17 amps

 

[sfsuphysics]

True enough, especially with those HQI ballasts, however he mentioned icecap ballasts and they run fairly close to spec I believe

Oh if you're going to turn this into a part of the living space of the house then that'll work too, make sure you insulate the bageebus out of everything walls, roof, crawlspace between ceiling and roof, etc. I would highly recommend some ventilation for that A-frame part of the roof though (above the ceiling) if it's not already, that can help keep temperatures down in the living space.

Good luck with your build, just don't be surprised when it costs 3x as much as you anticipate, big projects tend to have lots of unanticipated costs that pop into play.

 

[lost in it all]

There are so many ways to finish off a brand new set up, as I was reading questions I had right away were; do you want it to look professional when your done (its in your place of buisness so only the display visible) that is how I would want mine. If that is the case I would consider a semi built in display, with attached fish area-closet. This would control the humidity in the room, basically a built in stand/storage. tank and then cabnet doors ontop with one end open into a closet with sump/fuge cal rx and chiller return pump. here is a simple drawing,

2.Electrical, somebody suggested using two or three circuits def a good choice I would recomend stagering them so you can hook up different essential equipment to opposite breakers. example pumps and powerheads on seperate ones, split your lights up so that one can come on in case you are gone for a few days tank is not in total darkness with no water movement. You might be better off running a subpanel to the garage and going from there.

3.you might consider dumping the two smaller tanks for a 125 (thats what I would do so i put that in the picture) I did forget to put the tank with the urchins in it on the drawing.

4.install an exhaust fan in the closet portion, actually room wise in the light section, have it hooked up to humidistat and temp controller it would pull out humidity and hot air and pull in cooled air from the room. the closet section should have some sort of doors that allow it total accesse like bi-fold

If you get measurments for the tank and wall you might get more detailed responses. ps I don't get offended so anyone sees flaws feel free to point them out!

 

[Darrin]

i'm just going to move the main tank into the room. not sure if im taking the other two with it... so it's not meant to be a showpiece... just a fish tank..

here is a mostly clean room...



there is a hot water closet that could be used as a hideyhole to hide things in, but i'm not sure how i would do that..

the red shows where i was thinking of putting power outlets...

four outlets in each square, but i can put more squares... maybe six boxe total, 2 boxes on a circuit..

I need to figure out the electrical before i do anything..

the door of the closet will be replaced, the siding will be removed and replaced with sheetrock..

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[Darrin]

need some advice guys... i have an electritian waiting..

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[coral hound]

That is quite the project. Good luck.

 

[lost in it all]

No one can give you advice until you come up with a detailed outline of what you are doing. (drawing) and list of all equipment.

 

[Darrin]

thought that was what i've already posted..


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[lost in it all]

Darrin, sorry I didn't mean any offend you at all.

 

[Darrin]

takes a lot more than that to annoy me... I'm a wedding photographer... need i say more?

just thought that i could say... I have this, i want this, tell me what to do..

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[lost in it all]

okay, well re-list exactly what you want most of your post are well maybe this and maybe that. example I don't want to worry about humidity so it was suggested to put in an exhaust fan, You could do this just by mounting the exhaust fan into the back of the canopy and duct it to a dryer vent in your wall. If you are going to do that you will want a humidistat wired into the wall. Sorry if I am explaining this bad but it seems to work best when you start with the list of finished product and people can chime in on what you will need to get there.

 

[chasekwe]

takes a lot more than that to annoy me... I'm a wedding photographer... need i say more?

just thought that i could say... I have this, i want this, tell me what to do..

d

Honestly man, and I'm sure you know it, this is a big project. With a new building... there is so much potential you could do almost anything with it.

What I would do if I were in your shoes, go down to the Reef Club forums section of this site and find the one that covers the area you live in. Bring up your project there and ask for assistance. Best case scenario, you find someone truly enthusiastic about helping you... but even if you don't I'm sure you can find plenty who are willing to let you come see their setups and let you pick their brains about what was done right or wrong. Either way, you'll get the benefit of face-to-face opinions and experience for this build.

If you're dead set on receiving all your info here on ReefCentral it is doable though. I think you just need to try and approach it a bit differently. Going with, "Here's an unfinished room, when it's finished I'd like there to be a tank in there. Tell me what to do, Go!" isn't to apt to work well for you. If you have a question about electrical go to the DIY forum, same for building a stand. Want stock lists, ask the fish forum people. Need info on a particular product? Well theres tons of forums for that. What I'm trying to say is... you can make this happen here, every single subject imaginable is covered someplace, just need to work at it.