!!!7000+ POUNDS OF GLASS!! YOU GUYS UP FOR A BUILD OR WHAT??

[SchnitzelReef]

Mannnn. Read through the whole thread and never saw the tanks lit up with corals in them. Come onnnnnnnn

 

[bruleyii]

Mannnn. Read through the whole thread and never saw the tanks lit up with corals in them. Come onnnnnnnn

At least you point a breakpoint for everyone else going through the thread now. If they are smart enough to jump to the end.

 

[Abhishek]

Very soon , am gonna order my third BattleBox and this time , its gonna go deep with smoothskins!!!

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Black Pearl]

What's for Easter? Lots of nice colorful eggs?

 

[enbee]

Great thread. Wish the battle boxes could make it to the UK!

 

[tj w]

More more more build Adam! [emoji41][emoji3]

 

[Battlecorals]

OK here we are. The main and backup systems have been fully operational now for about a month! 90% of my entire collection fit into just about 1-1/2 of six available tanks! The other 10% went in the back up system. For now I'm going to keep raceway 2 dry.

Something I'm really happy about is my electric bill actually went down significantly since the transfer was finished and the basement cleared out completely

The new system is exceptionally more efficient, between lighting, rethinking my return pumps and some general mechanics, I was able to cut over 3000 watts from the basement setup.

Couple shots from today!

 

[Maverick777]

that looks beautiful! How were you able to shave so much wattage? Just new leds and larger MH reflectors?

 

[bif24701]

Oh yea!!!

 

[mwilk19]

Alright,alright,alright. It's time to start planning a Battlebox.

 

[usernam invalid]

Awesome and still plenty of room to expand.
How are you achieving flow inside the tanks?

 

[Bronc]

It looks amazing!! Have you considered adding solar panels on the roof?

 

[olaggie01]

Wow, 3000k watts saved and a much larger set of tanks. Room probably feels a lot nicer than the basement as well. Looks great Adam.

 

[Battlecorals]

that looks beautiful! How were you able to shave so much wattage? Just new leds and larger MH reflectors?

Great question! A huge part of it was the wider tanks. I was running 7 halides total and 3, 8 bulb t5s down there, and in 30" wide tanks there is ton of wasted light. The coverage in the 48 wide allows me to hit way more coral with one halide bulb. I am only running 2 halides now, one t5 and 3, 32" leds on the main, compared to 7 halides, and 3 b bulb t5's and i knocked down the returns from iwaki 100's to 55's. also my industrial dehumidifier ran non stop but now. I've got a way better system in place for air movement and ventilation not to mention some windows. lol

 

[Battlecorals]

Awesome and still plenty of room to expand.
How are you achieving flow inside the tanks?

Tanks each have 4 gyre 280's on alternate sides that run for about 20 minutes back and forth. flow is absolutely perfect

 

[Abhishek]

This is sheer amazing !! How are you arranging the acros ? Like do you have different tanks for different stages of growth of the acros or its based on species ?

Interested how you are doing water change ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Battlecorals]

It looks amazing!! Have you considered adding solar panels on the roof?

Thanks a ton


Really appreciate the post

I very seriously looked into it. And the consensus was that electric in wi is too cheap to justify the initial costs. We talked about early on in this thread in fact but covering my entire roof I could only generate about half of what I needed.

Was looking at over 20 years to break even.

I also looked into industrial solar tubes. And it was a bust as well. Just not enough sun here in WI. Especially in the winter.

 

[shakinghorizons]

We fly in to Milwaukee soon - wonder if my wife would notice the deviation off of 94, lol.

 

[Battlecorals]

Here's another shot from the other side. Had to send the new ro/di in for a couple tweaks tweak so unfortunately it's not in the shot, but the tubes hanging down by the window to to the FW reservoir in the attic that feed everything, including the QT and back up systems and serves as the membrane flush water for the UHE RO/DI unit itself. I honestly love the thing. Hats off to spectrapure for innovating an amazing filter.

As for water changes. I wired switched outlets near the reservoir in the corner you can see in the pic. The switch is back on the other side of the room by the sump.

I could never feel safe having any kind of pump or open line directly out of the system to a drain, or any kind of automated water change system. Mostly because Murphy's has made me this way. To drain up to 300 gallons, I shut off the returns so the sump fills up, manually open a drain valve at bottom of the sump that goes to a to a floor drain. Then it's just the flip of a switch to fill 300 gallons back in. quite simple really. A matter of a couple switches but I have to be engaged during the actual draining part. By design.

 

[justingraham]

Beautiful just beautiful