ZM's 200g build

[zoomonster]

What a mistake ordering the heater from reefspecialty. Two days and no response from the order and I tried calling only to get no answer with a full voicemail box. I did a little poking around and I would say they are known for selling items they do not have in stock and playing games/making excuses with actually shipping out product. I took a look at Paypal, which I paid with, and they have listed bogus contact info other than the website URL. I sent an email to several addresses they have listed and sometime later got a response from Colin Tran "I'm very sorry, we are in the process of moving our location. We will return your call shortly". At this point not interested as all indications are this place is a sham with terrible customer service so a demand for cancel and refund sent. This place seems to be known for making excuses so I'm not really buying the so sorry we're moving part. If that was the case delays should have been noted on the website or via email and they weren't. Sad part is RC has them back as a sponsor. What's really laughable is the add banner that is showing on RC now... "For the best in product knowledge, product support, customer service, count on ReefSpecialty" :thumbdown

They did issue a refund last night(on threat of PayPal) and I ordered from Aquacave. Never ordered there either so we'll see how that goes.

Looks like my light delivery got moved up a day to today so the lights and the additional Apex power and leak detection will all be here today. Actually FedEx just showed with the mother of all packages (short of a tank) so pics later.

 

[zoomonster]

Let there be light

Let there be light

Well the lighting arrived in one piece and undamaged. I just hooked it all up and gave it a test run. No small task unboxing, removing the 6ft piece of glass and getting the bulbs in. The second power bar and the leak detection also just showed up. Quite happy with the light but a few comments...

1) They changed from gloss black to flat black finish. My 4ft Hamilton is gloss black and just looked a little better.
2) The only real criticism is Hamilton assembly. There are a number of crinkles in the reflector from assembly of the fixture. Looks like someone was in a hurry with a power tool.
3) As far as noise the electronic ballasts are virtually silent with only a slight high pitched hum if you put your ear up to it. The two fans are actually quite good and was surprised to see they actually used Taiwanese made fans vs. Chinese. They sound about like a good quality air cleaner on low speed with no annoying whine.
4) I let the 14k bulbs run a while and being used to 10k was surprised just how blue they are. After a few days of running I'm sure that will level out.
5) Having some space constraints the ballasts are great at ~8x4x3 with mounting brackets. Nothing close to the variety of huge magnetic ballasts I have around.
6) The spacing of the MH bulbs is a bit odd and LED clusters too being they are mounted to the back of the sockets. Two are closer to one end rather than three evenly spaced fixtures. Even though a 72" fixture everything also seems be spaced off the 60" T5 bulbs.
7) As I have seen commented elsewhere the wiring coming out of the light is pretty substantial with a heavy cable for each of the MH's, 1 per 2 T5's, 1 for the fans and 1 tiny wire for the moonlights for 7 cables in all. At least they are all close together and it should not be too big a deal to bundle them up for the sake of appearance.
8) The moonlights look pretty good with 3 units at 6 LED's per. Blue of course and not the white LED's I have had in other older fixtures.

 

[zoomonster]

Needless to say the UV glass was in place and I wore my heavy duty Oakley Ballistic M Frames with dark lenses when I was testing. Quite bright and even with the glasses everything looked very yellow when I took them off.

 

[zoomonster]

One thing I did not snap to, until now, on the light is the place I ordered from must have gotten the order to Hamilton wrong or Hamilton screwed up. I had asked for all 420nm super actinic and got all 460nm Actinic Royal Blue. No matter not worth the hassle and I'll wait and see how they look on tank. I'll probably just buy a couple 420's locally and run a mix and have two spare bulbs. Thought those bulbs looked more blue than purple.

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

Awesome light. Your the second person I've seen using these. Its making me want to use a mh/t5 fixture on my next build. Can't wait to see the aquascape you put together with all that rock.

 

[zoomonster]

Awesome light. Your the second person I've seen using these. Its making me want to use a mh/t5 fixture on my next build. Can't wait to see the aquascape you put together with all that rock.

Thanks... we'll see on the aquascaping part. I do ok but that's never really been my forte. There certainly won't be any McDonald's arches in tank :lmao: This is a standalone DT with just in stand sump so the bulk of the rock needs to be in tank. I never really cared for the minimalist thing anyway whether in a house or in a tank.

 

[zoomonster]

The Coral-Vue 800w heater/controller showed up today... It remains to be seen how long or how well the controller works but it seemed to be one of the better options or at least one with fewer complaints. Compared to some I have seen the heating element is heavy and the wiring is all around heavy duty. Appearance wise it seems to be good quality.

Nice unexpected surprise was a package BRS sent me today with some free sample products. Korallen-zucht Coral-Snow and Pohl's Coral Vitalizer.

I've been getting a little ****y about the tank and overall lack of communication. The dealer had sent a status email last week and never got a response so I called DSA myself. Of course I got a whole spiel about who had not paid what invoice generally blaming the distributor Hagen. So basically what I got is the tank has been sitting there invoiced but not paid. Funny thing is when I later called the dealer they had just gotten a phone call that the tank is shipping today so we'll see. If I had it all to do over again I would take a different path.

 

[zoomonster]

Good god who would have thought finding and buying sand could be such a pain in the ***. Whether live or dry bagged or fresh collected prices are all over the place even for same item. So many places play games with shipping on top of that like free shipping that turns to 100+ when you get to checkout. Sad part is being able to get it shipped cheaper per bag than I have seen anywhere locally. Might not have been the absolute best deal but I ended up going with foster and smith where shipping is included in price. I may end up adding some more later between tank and refugium but started with 240 pounds at about $1 per pound. 4 bags of Caribsea special grade reef sand and 2 of CaribSea Caribbean live sand original grade for at least a small layer of fine sand under the special grade. Plus I wanted at least some so called "live sand" to start. Terrible shame Southdown went out of business and you can't get anything like it at HD or Lowes anymore.

 

[zoomonster]

There's a pretty good sale going on at Salty 20% off and an extra 10% for Memorial day. I could not pass that up (even with 6% sales tax) and bought a bunch of misc. stuff I've been putting off. Free shipping and overnight delivery to boot (for my address anyway).

Despite having a refractometer and salinity probe a good old fashioned hydrometer is indispensable for quick checks on the fly like mixing. My old style rectangular one lasted for years and was always pretty damn close. Sadly it seems to have disappeared along with my Tunze algae magnet so I bought a cheaper magnet for now. My tank has 3 overflows and sump has two socks so I got an extra holder and some additional socks for swapping out during cleaning. The 3rd durso drain will get converted to an emergency drain into the sock holder sitting in return section. The rest mostly the sort of stuff I would have around for day to day use.

Bubble Magus Tube Holder
Coral RX PRO Coral Dip 1oz
Brightwell Aquatics Lugol's Solution 30ml/1oz
Red Sea Aiptasia-X 60mL
Red Sea Phosphate Pro PO4 SW Test Kit
Seachem Reef Advantage Magnesium 1.2kg
Instant Ocean Hydrometer
Aqueon - Algae Cleaning Magnet Large
Seaside Aquatics 4 Inch Sock Holder
Filter Sock 200 micron poly with Plastic Oring 4x14 Inch
Fauna Marin Marine Base Granule for saltwaterfish 250ml
Continuum Aquatics BacterGen-M, Marine Microbe Culture 500ml
Seachem Nutri Diet Marine Flakes 30gm/1oz
Continuum Aquatics AquaBlade-M Scraper Short w/Stainless Steel Blade

 

[Reefsi]

How long until arrival?

 

[zoomonster]

Yeah just called the shop today and best answer is this week. That may work out well since wife is going out of town on Thursday for 1.5 weeks. Lots of uninterrupted time to get this build going :bounce1:

I've been trying to wrap some last minute stuff like trying to find CO2 anywhere close. Turns out it was right under my nose in the last place expected... Ace Hardware. Being right next to Lowes I guess they have had to diversify to stay in business. Not the cheapest at $32.95 for 10# but right around the corner.

 

[zoomonster]

LOL UPS was hating me today... Aside from 255 pounds Foster and Smith sent the 40 pound bags of sand in 6 separate boxes and they threw each bag in a box probably big enough for 3 bags. Needless to say a crumpled mess of cardboard delivered. The bags must all be over because each box weighed 42.5.

 

[Reefsi]

Nice ya Co2 was a pain in the *** for me to find. I had a Co2 tank but no place would fill it unless I had purchased it from them. Turns out after 1 day of driving and calling places, it was 2 minutes from my house I found a place that sold nothing but stuff to brew beer, which had Co2 lol

 

[MontyRay]

Following along! I am starting my own DSA200 build. It is a great tank! Since I live in the Houston area....just down the street from DSA (Dallas)...I did not suffer with the delivery issues you faced. My LFS called his distributor and had the tank in his shop the very next day....delivery next Wednesday .

I am building my own stand and canopy....copying a lot of ideas taken right off this forum....so my build will take a bit longer.

I have been using a Reef Octopus skimmer on the current tank (extremely pleased) and plan to use exactly the same skimmer you bought.

However, I will be going a bit different direction on the lighting. I have been using Chinese LED's for the last 5 months on my current tank. They have performed extremely well, the corals ALL love them, and you sure cannot beat the price. I will be purchasing two more for a total of 4 over the DSA and solid-mounting them in the canopy...no hangers for me!

Still making choices on some of the other equipment you mentioned. Will be following your experiences with interest. I just wanted to thank you for sharing. As soon as I get some pix worth viewing, I will post my build.

 

[zoomonster]

Well... I kind of backed off a little bit, posting here, to let the dust settle but as of now my tank has not even shipped from DSA. Needless to say I'm beyond ****ed and going to keep this short. Its a long convoluted story but DSA lied when they said the tank shipped over two weeks ago (of course I find out today its not even crated yet). Its been sitting in their warehouse because they say the distributor Hagen has not paid. That's finally after the dealer going back and forth with DSA and Hagen for several days trying to get an answer to "where is the tank that shipped two weeks ago?". Of course that's what they told me when I called them weeks ago only to turn around when the dealer called to deny it and then calling within the hour to say the "tank has shipped" (which they now deny). So for weeks they have sat on the tank for non-payment but neither DSA or Hagen ever brought that to the dealer or my attention. Most of what has occurred may have been miscommunication and incompetence but in the end Hagen seems to be the bad guy. My dealer has gone out of his way to get this resolved and DSA seems to be playing the good guy now promising to make getting my tank out today a priority and expediting the shipping if possible. Its not even clear that Hagen has paid yet and it would seem that DSA is shipping anyway. I've heard two different stories but supposedly there are 12-20 other tanks sitting there in the same situation.

So after both the dealer and I talked to DSA today the word is "the tank is shipping today and you will have a tracking number today". We'll see how that goes :angryfire:

 

[zoomonster]

Following along! I am starting my own DSA200 build. It is a great tank! Since I live in the Houston area....just down the street from DSA (Dallas)...I did not suffer with the delivery issues you faced. My LFS called his distributor and had the tank in his shop the very next day....delivery next Wednesday .

I am building my own stand and canopy....copying a lot of ideas taken right off this forum....so my build will take a bit longer.

I have been using a Reef Octopus skimmer on the current tank (extremely pleased) and plan to use exactly the same skimmer you bought.

However, I will be going a bit different direction on the lighting. I have been using Chinese LED's for the last 5 months on my current tank. They have performed extremely well, the corals ALL love them, and you sure cannot beat the price. I will be purchasing two more for a total of 4 over the DSA and solid-mounting them in the canopy...no hangers for me!

Still making choices on some of the other equipment you mentioned. Will be following your experiences with interest. I just wanted to thank you for sharing. As soon as I get some pix worth viewing, I will post my build.

LOL the sign on 45 near where I lived for years in Houston says "Dallas 300m". You probably lucked out because of your dealer using a different distributor, the tank not being custom and it probably came from a local distributor warehouse vs. DSA in Dallas. Kind of a joke that the black back and pvc stand liner tank options made mine a custom order but that's another story. Good luck on the build and start a build thread. Hopefully my build will get rolling again here shortly.

 

[zoomonster]

Finally

Finally

Two days after it was promised I finally got a tracking number for the tank. Supposedly the trucking company failed to show and pickup yesterday. 724 pounds on its way today with projected delivery to my dealer on Monday who hopefully won't take more than a day or two to deliver :bounce1:

 

[canlax]

Just caught up on your thread - I can't imagine how excited you must be to get your hands on that tank so you can start! Looking forward to seeing the beauty in place...

 

[zoomonster]

Simple Manifold

Simple Manifold

I had thought about using all schedule 80 but being local HD does not carry it any more and Lowes has a very limited selection of 3/4 and 1" only I went with schedule 40. I bought a bunch of stuff and think I have pretty much everything on hand now to plumb the tank. I also debated using a manifold or using separate pumps to drive Ca reactor and GFO/GAC reactor. I decided to go ahead and give a manifold a try. Clean solution and its at least two less powerheads in my sump. I also considered gate valves i.e. Spears but at least for now no real need and went with far less expensive ball valves. Spears from BRS would have cost me $121 for 3x.5 and 1x1 with shipping plus I want 3 x 1" valves for drain lines. None of these lines really needs fine adjustment so they should be fine. Each one of the valves was handpicked for smooth operation as some are pretty bad. The GFO/GAC already has another valve down line for fine adjustment and the CA reactor uses a step down assembly. The third line is a spare for future expansion. That empty middle valve is getting a 1/2 Mur-Lok for the GFO/GAC reactor. I ordered an extra and may eventually convert the CA reactor over. I didn't figure the exact cost but this whole assembly cost about $25 not counting glue/cleaner and new PVC cutters I needed anyway. The most expensive part was the Mur-Lok fitting at $6.98. I did buy clear PVC cleaner to avoid the unsightly purple mess and it works great for cleaning off the ink printed markings they use on PVC parts these days. If I decide to change valves or fittings they just unscrew. Especially if your putting out for Spears gate valves your much better off using threaded vs. slip. The plan is to have this located over the sump so if it ever were to leak it does so back into the sump.

3 x 1"-1/2" slip tees
2 x 2" pieces of 1" PVC
3 x 1 1/4 pieces of 1/2" PVC
3 x 1/2 adapters slip/NPT
3 x 1/2 NPT threaded ball valves
1 x 1/2 90 NPT/barb fitting
1 x 1/2 NPT plug
1 x 1/2" Male NPT x 1/2" Mur-Lok

 

[zoomonster]

The trucking company attempted delivery of the tank today to the store but the plywood box was too large to get in the store and they didn't want to uncrate outside because of probable rain today. So the crate is getting rerouted for direct delivery to my house tomorrow afternoon. The dealer will be here to uncrate, inspect and bring it in house. In the end it all works out and I still should get the tank tomorrow afternoon.