Kvosstra 561 in-wall build

[kvosstra]

This tank has been up and running for a few years. When I was in the San Francisco Bay Area some 12 years ago and was moving to Philly, I made some friends and sent over corals to Philly, with the hope of continuing my addiction. 3 kids later, and various house moves and it is now time to really put a big tank into my home.

I have a nice 11 foot wall, that happens to have a room-divider wall (see pic) at one end. This will allow me to have two visible viewing panes, the left side and the front panel. I will partially go into the room-divider wall (but not too far, as its an old stone wall there).

The tank is by Miracles - its 10 feet long, 36 inches wide and 30 inches tall. External overflow is on the right side and drilled with three large holes. The plumbing will go through the floor and into the basement, where I will have some...but not a lot of room to set up the sump, skimmer, calcium addition, at least one, and probably two frag tanks.

Luckily, I have some extra space in my home and I have created a dedicated 2nd story room for quarantine - right now there are 2 x 20L, 2x40b, and 3x10. The 20's are housing three designer "nemo" clowns at the moment, who are through quarantine - and in copper is a royal gramma and a fairy wrasse. The 40 breeder is housing several large fish - with the bottom tank being copper, and the top tank being a clean tank - copper tanks are covered at all times (so are the clean tanks). The clean tanks will get General Cure after the 14 days in copper. If I get some more copper sensitive fish, I can do TTM in the 20L tanks.
The 3x 10g tanks are my berghia tanks - the middle houses aiptasia and the two side tanks have parents and growout.

A separate coral QT tank is up and running - (see pic) its a simple 30g - with the goal that it will allow for quarantine/inspection of new corals and probably house some variety of bubble nems.

There are quite a few larger coral colonies - though, with any big tank move, I am uncertain as to how many will make it fully intact. There are already many smaller frags to be mounted. Hopefully I can get some of these smaller frags to color up again in the coming months and they will make good trade pieces to help diversify the tank as it grows in.

All rock is being quarantined for 35 days. Rock will go from quarantine (currently all rock and corals are in 3x90 gallon tanks - each rock will be inspected and then manual removal/ - aiptasia killer added to clean the rock. Most likely, once I get the tank stable and lights up, controller back up, I will add 50+ berghia to the tank to hopefully attack the issue. I'd like to take pieces, one at a time, and add the berghia - but my basement just does not have the space to allow for this.

Goals for this week...finish wall demo - will add FRP board to the interior sections and create enough space so I can serve pumps on the right side of the tank.

Tank will have a single return pump - I think its a dart gold - and then at a minimum 2x mp40 and 2x mp60. Most likely these will be stacked with 40 over 60 on the back and front of the right side. They will run on an opposing pattern to create a gyre. I will likely add some sort of cross flow pump(s) at the back of the tank. Time will tell how well this works and what else I will need to move enough water.

Lighting is 10x AI52 Hd. I have some T5 lights sitting around and I'm likely to supplement with some blue+ from these as well.

Neptune Apex controller runs the system, with most modules. skimmer is an external reef octopus 8000. I think I need to replace the needlewheel pump or impeller - so that's TBD.
CA Rx is currently a very large Geo setup - I may supplement with dosing and/or Kalk as part of the topoff. This stuff all needs to be carefully arranged in my small basement space so that everything can be maintained easily.
Ok - first shots here are the old tank - quarantine room - and new space. More to come this week!

 

[Peace River]

Wow - thanks for sharing! There is a lot to like here!!!

 

[kvosstra]

well - a small update - All livestock has been moved and is through the first bit of quarantine. Fish and rocks are still separated to get rid of the ICH.

In preparation for a planned move date, the tank was totally drained. I filled lots of cans of water, and transferred all livestock into 3x90 gallon holding tanks. (two shown here)

Unfortunately, some of the giant montipora were not happy and RTN'd and pretty much nuked the rest of the corals in these tanks - so I'm down to just a handful of SPS and a few LPS.

The tank was supposed to be moved about 3 weeks ago, but the crew that showed up was not prepared to move it - then they said they would, just for extra $$$ - I said no. But now I'm stuck trying to find someone to move the tank - I literally cannot find a company that is capable of moving the tank and also has the time and capacity to do it...its crazy.

Regardless, the wall is ready for the tank, and now its just a waiting game. I hope to get the tank moved in the next few weeks so I can start getting stuff put back together - for now, its just total chaos with so many holding tanks and trying to keep everything thriving.

A few additional shots - yes that is a 10 ft tank 30 high and 36 wide. Bottle of bleach inside for reference!

The duncan in the below shot has more than 1000 heads!

Will get some frags from friends once this is up and running - and get back to growing! Was sad to lose some huge colonies - but once the tank was delayed, it just was not stable enough (not to mention, I was space and time limited) - ugh! Onward!
-Kyle

 

[kvosstra]

I made a dozen calls, and finally, my electrician says to me "I have a crew that can do that move...they move big equipment all the time." I sat there dumbfounded...like I've been telling you for the past 8 weeks that I was having a hard time finding a crew to move the tank!
Anyway, 9 guys showed up - a few dollies, but mostly 4 sets of shoulder straps. We used glass suction cups just a few times when initially moving the tank off the stand.
Tank was removed - we used a hydraulic lift cart (36 inches high) which was extremely helpful to the entire process - tank was loaded in the truck in under 30 minutes. Then the stand and sump were quickly loaded, as they are pretty light weight by comparison.

Once to the new location, there is a very tight entry way - unfortunately, they were too fast, and moved the stand into place in literally under a minute - but it required lifting one end of the stand vertically and then rotating the stand to fit in through the very narrow entry way. That vertical lift gave us the extra 2 feet of distance needed for the 10 foot x3x3 stand.

The stand was placed and levelled - and then the tank moved. While the tank could have realistically been lifted the same as the stand, its just far too heavy to lift that way. So instead, we used a combination of dollies and then slid the tank on a dozen blankets over the hard wood floor. Finally, once infront of the stand, the tank was lifted up the 36 inches and placed! Yay!

Now, I have to finish rinsing all the sand, then start with the dry rock and then to the live rock that is in my holding tanks. I will be removing the front left overflow, as the tank will be visible on two sides. The goal is to make a partial canyon to be seen down the length of the tank, but a lot is TBD!

Plumbing is going to be a pain as I could not fit the 180g sump down the narrow stairs of my basement. So debating of combining two of the 90g tanks down there, or getting a plastic tote, or an acrylic sump made that will fit my purpose. Regardless...I have a tank! Onto the next stuff!

 

[kvosstra]

ok,
sand is still in process of being washed...better safe than sorry to keep a dust storm from the tank. And I have a few large dry rocks that will start the aquascape process.

Biggest question is water movement - my plan, for the moment, is to put 4 total vortehs on the right (overflow side) of the tank, one mp60 and one mp40 stacked on top of one another - they will be set to operate opposite schedules, to gyre one direction and then the other.
I dont know, however, what to put on the back wall (needs to be in tank) - shoudl I just use 2 or 3 of the cross flow pumps? Or something like a nano stream? - I just want to add more variation to the water movement, and also keep it clean. I'd prefer nothing on the left side (visible end). Let me know your thoughts.

I recognize that I may need more flow - so it's possible to add another two mp60 to the right side, making 6 total vortechs there.

 

[ChaosAquaculture]

Wow, what an awesome build! Sorry to hear about your montis and the rest of your coral . When your ready, check out our site and auctions to start stocking that beautiful tank back up!

 

[revhtree]

Looking like a great build!

 

[kvosstra]

SLOW going here...but we have some progress. The tank is basically full of water, but no plumbing is done
Live rock is in the tank and I hope to get the lights hung in the next week.

My main decision is about a return pump. I have 2 dart golds, but they will be pumping from the basement - I dont think they will work from there.

I have an iwaki 100 - but I really dislike that running 24/7 with its 400 watts. Looking for suggestions - maybe even something that is In the sump and not external, as an option. I am not a huge believer is a lot of flow through the sump, and I have a lot of water movement with the powerheads in the display already. But open to suggestions. Also, there is just one overflow now, with 3x 1.5 in drains, though zero reason to even try to max them out.

 

[kvosstra]

The first 4 fish are out of Quarantine and into the display. I also made an order at @reefcleaners.org and now have a few hundred snails and crabs running around the bare display.
I have a few lights that were in storage, and decided to not fire up - these are now with AI for replacement. I hope to have a new panel of 10X AI 64's on the tank in the next few days. Goal is to get the first panel of 5 up today (pending removal of corals from my holding tank this afternoon).

I also had a large delivery of new fish friends into my QT system. Total of 18 wrasses and one large Sohal tang. These will have at least the next 35 days in QT. I also have 2 shrimp and a Florida conch that are in a fishless system at 81degrees during this 35 day period so they can also join the tank.

Biggest issues remain that I do not have the entire system online - I have a remote outdoor spa that is being re-done - let's just say that the project (not of my fault) is now 10 months delayed. I message weekly to get an update on when they will finish the plumbing in the basement...but no updates - unfortunately, they owe me the work, so I cant just go hire someone else at this point. I am resigned that I will just do the aquarium plumbing and they will have to work around at this point. We will finish the sump, CA RX, dosing pumps, fuge, skimmer, etc. in the basemenet and then once done (they better be done by December!!!!), I'll plumb in the 2 extra large frag tanks. Right now, eveything looks like a 10,000 piece puzzle with things everywhere! Want the puzzle done for some organization!

Some quick shots of some of the above

 

[kvosstra]

Another brief update - I'm working too many hours, so I've not had a lot of time to work on the tank. However, a nice set of fish have now finished quarantine and went into the display this weekend.
New additions are
sohal tang
Neon goby
3x variations of picasso clowns
Kuiter's leopard wrasse X2
red head solon fairy wrasse (cirrhilabrus soloresnsis) X1
yellow flanked fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lyukyuensis) X2
yellow fin fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus flabidorsalis) X3
Marble/hortulanuse wrasse (Halichoeres hortulanus ) X1
longfin fairy wrasse (cirrhilabrus rubeus) X1
orange back fairy wrasse x2

probably missing one or two.

Corals from my sloooooow process all but died - but I still have 1 pavona (maybe) variety left, 3 rock anenome's and some assorted zoas.

Screens on the top of the tank - not pretty, but they do the trick and will be hidden once the tank is built in.

Still some work to do in the basement to clean up the sump area, but its alive!

 

[kvosstra]

Guys, Its been a while, and that's due to just being busy. Thankfully, the tank has just sat and matured.
I've made a recent decision to replace 1/2 the lights. I was running a mixture of AI hydra 52's and 64's -
The 52's are being removed now to my frag tank, and are replacing some black boxes on my kid's and wife's tank -
The new lights are here, I am just now working on adding them to a motorized rack to allow for some better access.

In the meantime, back in January or so, I added 20 berghia to the tank to work on the aiptasia. I am happy to report that I now am the proud owner of 1000 or so berghia! Lol. Honestly, just 2 weeks ago, there were still hundreds of aiptasia, and as others have said, all the sudden, they are gone. I took a few pictures one night, and I can see 100+ berghia in the tank, and in two nights, a rock with 50+ aiptasia was clean. I am hopeful that with such high numbers, they were able to get even the smallest baby aiptasia.

I am now culturing both aiptasia and berghia in several 10g tanks.

I will start mounting frags next week - over the last 2 months, I've acquired about 40 frags, mostly by trading berghia that I collected from the tank glass. Many of these are nice pieces, but I like the fire! I'm putting together a list of stuff i used to have, and new stuff that has been released since I last had a tank (2010).
I'm not super interested in paying $250 a frag for 60 plus corals - so please let me know, or PM me if you have suggestions on the best way to get cherry pieces in a big lot (or 2 or 3 big lots). My old reef club in the bay area may have a few of my old pieces still floating around, so that's exciting!

onto a few current pics - and I will try to now do specific updates on a more regular basis- least anyone want to actually follow along and interact

A few shots of the tank, as well as the frag tank, water change, and sump(s) in the basement.
-Kyle

 

[kvosstra]

Hi Everyone, I'm reviving this thread, and hope to continue to post in here - the tank has been running now for the last 2.5 years, and I have added in about 100 SPS frags (give or take, a few looses here and there). And now I'm at the point where I clearly need to make some aesthetic decisions on building in the tank.

I am thinking of creating a soffit/attachment mechanism on the ceiling, and which has a crossbeam at the top of the tank (not resting on the tank) - to create removable panels on the top of the tank.
For the bottom, there would likely be a corner post - and then panels along the one side and the front, that would likely attach with magnets -

Each of the panels will then either be painted to match an adjacent wall with color, or I can paint white and add matching wainscoating - that's a bit TBD and can be done after I get the main structural stuff together.

I know that was a very simple overview (and I'll mock up some photos later) - but any guidance or thoughts would be welcomed.

 

[kvosstra]

Hi folks,
Tank has been up and running for quite some time and, I finally have some time to work on the build in plans.
The tank is visible on the left panel and front panel.
I'd like to put some framing/skin on the top and bottom (obviously), and looking for some guidance.

For the bottom - I want to just make some removable panels, and add wainscoating to them to match the design on an adjacent wall.

for the top - I know there are some hinged pieces that open UP, allowing access - OR - I again do removable panels. Does anyone have suggestions, a link to parts/build as I consider these options!

Also, there are 5 fish in quarantine right now and I'm sourcing some anthias and other schooling fish to get into the tank soon!

 

[kvosstra]

So im considering my options for above the tank. I'd like the panel(s) to open up, if at all possible, as I think that will also give the cleanest look. Since I have a 10 ft tank, it seems like the best bet is to use two panels, and place a support in the middle of the tank. This way, I can attach a vertical swing style lift, and use a strut to help hold them open. Anyone with any experience with struts within the hood area and their lifetime? Just trying to be rational here about how well they will work in the humidity.