Starting ~800 Gallon Custom Reef Tank Build

[crusso1993]

Good morning R2R, Happy Wednesday, Tank is full and I fired up the L1 and I must tell you that pump has no sound at all even if I run at full speed, plenty of water comes down the drains and after testing my 3 drains if they can handle water drain from overflow if I run the L1 at full power and they 2 drain run full and 3 rd drain which is emergency drain which has very little water coming out, which means that i have plenty of room if I have to run the L1 at full power, so I dialed it down to 4 dots on the driver and still have good amount of turn over, I might dial in down even more because I want to give enough time for rock to process water in tank and in sump, I will see and play with the flow as it matures, drain pipes are quiet since I adjusted the gate valves which are right above filter socks and closed them to the point where I see no bubbles in both clear 1.5" pvc that comes out from the tank that assures me that pipe is full of water and it will have no splash till it comes out below the gate valve and i am going to make and add silencer pipes under the gate valves so that splashing water is quietly enters in sump, however I will have to remove those silencer pipes anytime I want to add filter socks to polish the water.. we will see how that goes that is my Saturday project. This week my goal is to bring hardwire internet cable to sunroom to program and install my Apex Classic, and then program my 3 EB8's outlets for each equipment, 2 lab grade ph probes and 1 ORP lab grade probe getting delivered today, I might have to buy extension cables but we will see if PH and ORP has enough length to reach tank as well as calcium reactor, I add salt in the sump last night 2.5 boxes of Fritz Pro Red Box and salinity this morning was 1.022 so I added 1/2 bag again and I will check when I get back home tonight, Water cleared up in the morning and did not feel like that I added salt last night and it dissolves pretty quick as well, after turning the L1 on and after mixing display tank water to sump water temperature starting dropping which was expected and lowest it dropped was 65 deg and I noticed that my hot water circulation pump kicked on and this morning temperature was 77 deg that was good test as well and only sound I heard at night was water splashing in filter socks after gate valves in sump... other that this sound it is dead silent. here are some of the pictures I took this morning....

Exciting times!

 

[najer]

^^^ what he said!

 

[ravi197699]

Hello R2R GM, I have been adding salt to my sump to bring the salinity high and I checked salinity of my tank water last night and it was at 1.022 (checked with Milwaukee Digital Tester), I added little more salt to the sump and checked this morning and salinity is at 1.027, is it considered high or I should be ok?

 

[McPuff]

Hello R2R GM, I have been adding salt to my sump to bring the salinity high and I checked salinity of my tank water last night and it was at 1.022 (checked with Milwaukee Digital Tester), I added little more salt to the sump and checked this morning and salinity is at 1.027, is it considered high or I should be ok?

It's a touch high but some people run their systems at that specific gravity. I try to keep mine at 1.025 or 1.026. Higher salinity (e.g., > 35 ppt) is a bit more "stressful" for fish bioenergetics but it's arguably better for corals. The former does not seem to be a problem unless you suddenly take a fish out of 1.021 and place into 1.026. Anyway, I'd shoot for slightly lower specific gravity (1.025) than you have currently.

 

[ravi197699]

thank you McPuff, I have little more room in my sump, I will add more RO water to bring it down little,

 

[MrD]

Very impressive build to say the least...

 

[ravi197699]

Thank you MrD

 

[Jose Berry]

You sir have a tank we all dream of having, I started out small, with a 10 gallon tank and I’ve moved up to a 225 with in the years. My end goal is to eventually have up to a 1000g tank. Your postings make my dream a reality and I want to thank you. A final posting of my 225g I’ll share here

Note I’m not thread stealing but I want you to know that you have followers that dream big like you sir and will eventually make it there.

 

[ravi197699]

that is awesome looking tank, that is big jump in 1 year period, you will have 1000 gallon tank in no time, good luck with your set up and keep working hard and make your dreams come true..

 

[ravi197699]

Hello R2R Gm and Happy Monday!, I got my apex all ready, set up, hooked up and mounted on the cabinet, I am able to control through Apex Fusion, It took little bit of time setting it up due to it has been in storage for more than a year, I got my lab grade duble junction Ph Probes (Milwaukee Instruments) and ORP probe also from Milwaukee Instruments, Calibrated the probes they are mounted in the sump probe holder, I am waiting for BNC extension cables I ordered they are arriving today and I will be able to connect Ph Probe for Tank and Ph Probe for Calcium Reactor to Apex and start dosing Co2 to the tank, I worked on my DIY Protein Skimmer that I built 3 years back, I upgraded the design to run this with 1/5" venturi that will be powered by Dolphin Amp master that does 6500 gallon/ hour, in theory it should work but I will fire it up this weekend and see how it goes, I will post the pictures and outcome of how it works, last design worked flawless but we will see how it goes, I installed shelf for Watson Marlow and it is sitting in right above my Vectra L1, Usually other reefers push through the reactor with peristaltic pump, but I am pulling with mine and it seems to work better for me, I can control the drip rate to 1 drop per second or lower, I am very happy with this, I bought WIFI Outlet Strip, It is made by TPlink Kasa, It has 6 outlets and 4 USB ports, I installed this right above the peristaltic pump and I have my calcium reactor pump and peristaltic pump hooked up to the outlet, This outlet has timer, alarm, and shows wattage used by the outlet, It comes handy if you want to do water changes and set up time to turn the pump on or off , it can do plenty of stuff, tank lights are programmed and turned on and they are working fine, I will play with intensity as tank matures and I add corals, I will borrow par meter from BRS and see where these lights stand when it comes to par, I installed 3 EB8's in my cabinet and hardwired the apex so that internet connection is solid, I will be adding UPC power back up and my Verizon router will be connected to the power back up, If we have surge or power outage, internet will stay consistent and won't interrupt the signal to apex and apex is connected to UPC power as well, this week I will connect my Ozone generator that will sit right above the protein skimmer and it will be controlled by PM1 module, here are some of the pictures

 

[CoralWealth]

so awesome!

Maybe you have answered this already and I missed it. I really like the PVC idea you have going on. I was wondering if you ever thought of using marcorock cement or something similar to cover the pvc so it looks more natural or do you just hope the SPS grows down the PVC?

 

[ravi197699]

thank you for your question, as of now pvc takes away the looks of the rock work and pvc stands out, goal is to grow SPS and other corals and once growth is there then pvc will be hard to notice, once coral grows to decent size it will cover few or more pvc... I tried covering pvc with cement but it was coming right off due to smooth surface of pvd and pvc did not have surface area for cement to adhere to.. but it will look fine once growth is there

 

[CoralWealth]

thank you for your question, as of now pvc takes away the looks of the rock work and pvc stands out, goal is to grow SPS and other corals and once growth is there then pvc will be hard to notice, once coral grows to decent size it will cover few or more pvc... I tried covering pvc with cement but it was coming right off due to smooth surface of pvd and pvc did not have surface area for cement to adhere to.. but it will look fine once growth is there

That is what I figured, I just wasnt sure. I used PVC in my build too and didnt like the look that much so I used marcorock cement around it and also some silicone and covered it with sand which actually worked the best but I did that before I put it in the water.

It will look great once the corals fill in!

 

[crusso1993]

Hello R2R Gm and Happy Monday!, I got my apex all ready, set up, hooked up and mounted on the cabinet, I am able to control through Apex Fusion, It took little bit of time setting it up due to it has been in storage for more than a year, I got my lab grade duble junction Ph Probes (Milwaukee Instruments) and ORP probe also from Milwaukee Instruments, Calibrated the probes they are mounted in the sump probe holder, I am waiting for BNC extension cables I ordered they are arriving today and I will be able to connect Ph Probe for Tank and Ph Probe for Calcium Reactor to Apex and start dosing Co2 to the tank, I worked on my DIY Protein Skimmer that I built 3 years back, I upgraded the design to run this with 1/5" venturi that will be powered by Dolphin Amp master that does 6500 gallon/ hour, in theory it should work but I will fire it up this weekend and see how it goes, I will post the pictures and outcome of how it works, last design worked flawless but we will see how it goes, I installed shelf for Watson Marlow and it is sitting in right above my Vectra L1, Usually other reefers push through the reactor with peristaltic pump, but I am pulling with mine and it seems to work better for me, I can control the drip rate to 1 drop per second or lower, I am very happy with this, I bought WIFI Outlet Strip, It is made by TPlink Kasa, It has 6 outlets and 4 USB ports, I installed this right above the peristaltic pump and I have my calcium reactor pump and peristaltic pump hooked up to the outlet, This outlet has timer, alarm, and shows wattage used by the outlet, It comes handy if you want to do water changes and set up time to turn the pump on or off , it can do plenty of stuff, tank lights are programmed and turned on and they are working fine, I will play with intensity as tank matures and I add corals, I will borrow par meter from BRS and see where these lights stand when it comes to par, I installed 3 EB8's in my cabinet and hardwired the apex so that internet connection is solid, I will be adding UPC power back up and my Verizon router will be connected to the power back up, If we have surge or power outage, internet will stay consistent and won't interrupt the signal to apex and apex is connected to UPC power as well, this week I will connect my Ozone generator that will sit right above the protein skimmer and it will be controlled by PM1 module, here are some of the pictures

Sounds like you've really been slacking! Lol

Man, you've been hitting it hard and the system is looking tough!
I am not sure how your skimmer is exactly built but looks incredibly similar to one I built about 20 years ago. The thing rocked!

 

[Feet4Fish]

Sounds like you've really been slacking! Lol

Man, you've been hitting it hard and the system is looking tough!
I am not sure how your skimmer is exactly built but looks incredibly similar to one I built about 20 years ago. The thing rocked!

Would love to know more about your skimmer!

 

[ravi197699]

thank you guys, I built this 3 years back and it worked but this is little different design but we will see when I fire it up..

 

[Jose Berry]

that is awesome looking tank, that is big jump in 1 year period, you will have 1000 gallon tank in no time, good luck with your set up and keep working hard and make your dreams come true..

Thank you sir, you have an amazing tank as well.

 

[ravi197699]

Hello R2R Gm and Happy Monday, I see some algae bloom on rocks and base of the rock, I am assuming it is part of the cycle?? Lights are coming on and off on set schedule and few fishes are in the tank, I added gallon of nitrifying bacteria, pumps are on and water is moving well.
it was very busy Saturday and Sunday. I had to paint my garage from corner to corner due to my gas boiler went bad and it was producing black smoke, finally got it done and wife is happy, I was able to work on hooking up 1/4" guest fitting on nitrate reactor for carbon dosing to keep bacteria live and added 1/4" guest fitting to chaeto reactor to seed my calcium reactor effluent which will help grow cheato (in theory) due to effluent being rich with co2. I drilled hole in drain pipe which is master drain, my skimmer, nitrate reactor, cheato reactor are sharing this drain pipe, I drilled hole and used my 1/2" tap kit to make threads and I used 3/8" guest fitting to connect the output of my diy large kalkwasser reactor. I stole the idea from o2manyfish using red hat asco 3 way solenoid valve. he is controlling the valve via apex. programming will be fallback off, set off , if phtank < 8.50 then on, if phtank > 8.50 then off. so 3
way solenoid will be open or close based on programming by bypassing the kalk or going through the kalk . I have turned on my skimmer this Saturday, I wanted to check to see if there are any leaks and it ran all Saturday night and Sunday all day and after minor tweakes it started to settle down, after it builds slime coat it should run smooth, I will be dosing ozone through ozone input and controlling the redox via apex and probe. still waiting to decide if I am going to use only 1 container to use as ATO, ran wire for my float switches that will connect to my breakout box, I will be running RO tubes and install my RO system on 1 place and it will be controlled with red hat asco solenoids, I will be able to turn on the feed water and turn on my ro water remotely and from home and it will be connected to apex outlet as well in case if water bucket fills up and I forget to turn it off. I will document with pictures when I start that project.

 

[crusso1993]

Hello R2R Gm and Happy Monday, I see some algae bloom on rocks and base of the rock, I am assuming it is part of the cycle?? Lights are coming on and off on set schedule and few fishes are in the tank, I added gallon of nitrifying bacteria, pumps are on and water is moving well.
it was very busy Saturday and Sunday. I had to paint my garage from corner to corner due to my gas boiler went bad and it was producing black smoke, finally got it done and wife is happy, I was able to work on hooking up 1/4" guest fitting on nitrate reactor for carbon dosing to keep bacteria live and added 1/4" guest fitting to chaeto reactor to seed my calcium reactor effluent which will help grow cheato (in theory) due to effluent being rich with co2. I drilled hole in drain pipe which is master drain, my skimmer, nitrate reactor, cheato reactor are sharing this drain pipe, I drilled hole and used my 1/2" tap kit to make threads and I used 3/8" guest fitting to connect the output of my diy large kalkwasser reactor. I stole the idea from o2manyfish using red hat asco 3 way solenoid valve. he is controlling the valve via apex. programming will be fallback off, set off , if phtank < 8.50 then on, if phtank > 8.50 then off. so 3
way solenoid will be open or close based on programming by bypassing the kalk or going through the kalk . I have turned on my skimmer this Saturday, I wanted to check to see if there are any leaks and it ran all Saturday night and Sunday all day and after minor tweakes it started to settle down, after it builds slime coat it should run smooth, I will be dosing ozone through ozone input and controlling the redox via apex and probe. still waiting to decide if I am going to use only 1 container to use as ATO, ran wire for my float switches that will connect to my breakout box, I will be running RO tubes and install my RO system on 1 place and it will be controlled with red hat asco solenoids, I will be able to turn on the feed water and turn on my ro water remotely and from home and it will be connected to apex outlet as well in case if water bucket fills up and I forget to turn it off. I will document with pictures when I start that project.

Man, sounds like you got no rest this past weekend! Thanks for the update. I'm really enjoying following your build.

 

[BeejReef]

I have been busy at work and making slow progress, I was able to get the tile work done and yesterday we were able to put together the stand for this tank, More cross braces will be installed later this week but this stand is pretty tight and tied into the house framing. Please critique this design and provide your input on what else can be done to make it more better and stronger,

I might drive pilings 80-100' deep into the earth until I hit base rock. Short of that, I think you're covered ;Smug