Tour of my 600gal reef system(aka the puddle)

[tmz]

I have been developing the system for about 6 years. I have never done a build thread nor extensive photo posting because of weak phography and computer skills and frankly most of my time wa spent trying to make the system work and learning.

This thread will describe the system and each of it's components. There will be plenty of pictures not necessarily of great quality and descriptions of the techniques I have chosen to use.

I hope your participation in the thread proves worthwhile and enjoyable. I hope much beneficial discussion is generated since I for one still have a lot to learn.


There are 8 tanks and four bins to hold the water .They are located in my dining room and my basement. All are integrated via sump and 60 feet of 2 inch drain and another 60 feet of two inch return.

The display tanks include: a 120 sps and lps, a 90 lps and anemone tank, an 89 g sps and lps mixed. These 3 tanks are the main display, They are arrayed along my dining room wall and form an 11 foot display.

There are 4 tanks in the basement including: a 20g chaetomorpha and gracilara refugium, a 40 gal sps frag tank, a 30g breeder for lps frags, and a a 29 gallon leather tank . The bins include : a 44 galllon primary sump ,a 44 gallon unlit areas with live rock. a 50 gallon cryptic zone with rock sponges an other filter feeders which is kept in darkness and a 30 gallon refugium with additional chaetomorpha and live rock.

Well it's getting close to kick off for the Bill's game so I'll close for today with some random photos from the display tanks.

 

[tmz]

A few more:

A few more above. Time to watch the game .GO BILLS

 

[dreaminmel]

Looks awesome Tom!

Does the Longnose Butterfly ever mess with any of your corals?

 

[Kent E]

This is like dining at the Georgia Aquarium:

 

[Conesus_Kid]

Beautiful, Tom!

I'm really looking forward to this thread.

 

[Henry Colf]

Very nice Tom, thanks for sharing will be following along on this one.

 

[Hannawa]

Looks nice.

 

[xpxdx]

bills won.. more pics??!


nice acans too!!

 

[redrider911]

Tom, it looks like you are figuring out that new camera pretty fast!
Those pics just can't fully capture what an awesome system you have.

If anyone has not seen Tom's tank yet, try to make it to the next reef crawl.

 

[block head]

nice tom , i remember more tanks in the den and office.

 

[suppressivefire]

top notch as always tom. truly amazing tanks.

 

[redbj]

Very cool.

Why do you have 200 ft of pipe that you have to pump through? Seems like a lot of head loss

 

[Johnny C]

wow... that looks awesome.

id probably pi$$ off a date eating dinner at that table!

 

[tmz]

Thanks for the comments.

Mel . I almost killed that big longnose butterfly(Forcipiger longirostris) last year. It had a bit of ich (sespite quarantine- I think the ich was still lurking in my tank)and when I went to catch it it jumped out of the tank and was wedged behind a row of tanks in my basement. I had to push it out with a piece of pipe. It took at least 2 to 3 minutes to get it back in the water.It was a motionless dustball and its fins on one side were shredde3d. After 2 months of qt a treatment it's a favorite.

No it does not bother corals,in my experience.. There are two species. The Forcipiger flavissimus(longnose butterfly) does feed on stony and soft corals in the wild.The big long nose butterfly (forcipiger longirostris) has a tiny mouth and is listed as excellent in reef compatability. It is usually difficult to feed but mine does well on mysis,bloodworms, cyclopeeze and brine shrimp.

 

[tmz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13352583#post13352583 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by block head
nice tom , i remember more tanks in the den and office.

I no longer have the 55 fish only in the office room. It was one tank too many. I did upgrade the 30 gallon in the family room to a 65 and keeep some soft corals and mushrooms in it along with some fish I wouldn't necessarily trust in a reef.
Bursa Trigger, Flame angel and otheres. THis tank runs on a canister filter and is not part of the puddle.

 

[tmz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13353329#post13353329 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by redbj
Very cool.

Why do you have 200 ft of pipe that you have to pump through? Seems like a lot of head loss

It's 60 feet of return with 8 feet of vertical head. I use a high pressure Iwaki 100 which has a max head of 39 feet. It delivers about 90% of its 2000gal per hour to the tanks. This gives me about 6 ti mes turnover per hour in the display tanks. I used 2 inch pipe which at 2000 gal per hour flow cuts the horizontal head loss to almost zero.The length of the run is necessary due to the way my house is laid out and the locations in the basement and dining room , I wanted to use.

 

[jjj1100]

awesome pics tom...that scolly is amaaaaazzzingg!!!

 

[KPearce]

Awesome system you have going there... maybe some behind the scene pictures for the future?

 

[tmz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13358009#post13358009 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jjj1100
awesome pics tom...that scolly is amaaaaazzzingg!!!

If you mean the orange one,it's probably my favorite piece. It was a dullish purple with hints of color when I first got it.

 

[spinoleo]

awesome system Tom