Starting ~800 Gallon Custom Reef Tank Build

ravi197699 · May 11, 2019

thank you mch1984, hopefully other reefers will chime in on this question....

ravi197699 · May 15, 2019

Hey guys, tank is running and going through cycle, Right now it is going through brown algae stage and I am hoping that it will clear up next week or so, I got my 3d printed impeller and here are the pictures, I have ordered another 1 as back up and I asked for thin sharp fins for second impeller, I can tell you that size is a lot bigger with more needle pins which will help churn air and water together, I got my test kits as well and I decided to go with Elos since they are easy to use. More pictures of the updates to come...

crusso1993 · May 16, 2019

ravi197699 said:
Hey guys, tank is running and going through cycle, Right now it is going through brown algae stage and I am hoping that it will clear up next week or so, I got my 3d printed impeller and here are the pictures, I have ordered another 1 as back up and I asked for thin sharp fins for second impeller, I can tell you that size is a lot bigger with more needle pins which will help churn air and water together, I got my test kits as well and I decided to go with Elos since they are easy to use. More pictures of the updates to come...

Thanks for posting the pics. Quite a difference between the impellers! I bet you'll see a big difference.

ravi197699 · May 16, 2019

crusso1993 said:
Thanks for posting the pics. Quite a difference between the impellers! I bet you'll see a big difference.

I have second impeller being printed and that impeller will have little thinner needles and they will be pointy needles other than this everything else will be same, I will post pictures of the second impeller as well...

crusso1993 · May 24, 2019

Hope all is well!

Any recent uodates?

ravi197699 · May 24, 2019

Hello sorry for not able to upload pictures but there are ton of pictures that will be uploaded, I have been busy setting up ATO and routing the pvc pipes to sump and adding float switches and such, working on apex coding to be able to dose kalk with ato and by pass kalk if ph in the tank is higher than normal, ordered parker stainless steel 3 way solenoid valve that will help me achieve that goal, last week I built stand for frag tank and painted the stand with oil based paint with 4 coats for longevity, I will be hiding the RO unit and ATO container under the stand, Stand is 6 food wide by 26" deep x 36" high and after putting the frag tank on the stand I will be left with 27" space which I can use to test water, band saw or anything, I will be cleaning the frag tank today or tomorrow.. Tank is going through cycle and now have green hair algae, added clean up crew. did not add any new live stock apart from clean up crew, once algae is gone then I will start added frags after I test the parameters of the tank water, calcium reactor is going but without co2, it is 1 man show so taking time to set up things....

Siggy in CR · May 27, 2019

I just finished reading through most of this build thread and can hardly wait to see this system get stocked and start growing. It's impressive from any angle you look at it.

ravi197699 · May 27, 2019

Thank you Siggy, I am in process setting up my frag tank, rock has some green hair algae but I am not too concern about that right now, more pictures to come...

ravi197699 · May 31, 2019

Made a lot of progress, finally I got my Ecotech Mp60 pumps connected to WXM module, It is sad that Ecotech designed this product and they did lousy job creating reef link to be able to control the pumps, not many options are there and it is not user friendly, it felt like never ending process while I was setting up reeflink, So I invested in WXM module from Neptune and I can say nothing but good stuff about the product, It is easy and I had some technical questions sent an email and got it all done and now I have all 5 MP60's connected to wxm and If I need to change the settings all I have to do is drag the graph and send the settings and done.. I could not be happier, I wish Ecotech could have spent more time to make this more user friendly and high tech just like their other products, OK enough said about that, I have connected my float switches to breakout boxes, 2 switches are for my Sump, 1 regular and 2nd as safety back up, 3rd safety is float valve in the sump which will shut water down if 1st switch, 2nd switch , pump and apex fail to turn the pump off. 2 float switches are installed in 30 gallon ato drum which will send me alert when it is empty or full, I have 3/4" 110v solenoid valve that will be controlled via apex that will turn on the feed water going to RO unit and my RO unit booster pump have safety switch which requires to have minimum 30 psi for booster pump to turn on , on top of this I have 1/2" 11ov solenoid valve that is connected to apex as well. I will be turning on the RO unit manually via apex fusion in the beginning but eventually they will be controlled via apex code. Stand is complete and frag tank is going to sit on the stand and plumbed this weekend and I will hang light on the system, I have dimmable ATI as well as Vertex Illumia, I have not decided what I will use on frag tank. My vertical refugium is plumbed and running with noting in it, I will install grow light on the refugium this Saturday, I will have 3 fixtures which are 48" long installed vertically on the refugium, size of the refugium is 48" tall x 12" in diameter, water comes in from top and goes down and it comes out of the 2" drain that is mounted on the side , so all the water has to go down and comes out of the drain, I will have my calcium reactor effluent line go through the refugium as well, co2 will be consumed by algae and plants, Skimmer is working better than expected, Very little bio load, it pulled out a lot in the beginning but since there are only 10 small chromis in the tank there is nothing much to pull out, I have my Voss 850ml bottle dosing mounted on the wall and my Jebao doser is mounted under the shelve as well, I am going to mount second doser next to this 1 and will dose elements if required,

here are the pictures of the progress...

crusso1993 · May 31, 2019

ravi197699 said:
Made a lot of progress, finally I got my Ecotech Mp60 pumps connected to WXM module, It is sad that Ecotech designed this product and they did lousy job creating reef link to be able to control the pumps, not many options are there and it is not user friendly, it felt like never ending process while I was setting up reeflink, So I invested in WXM module from Neptune and I can say nothing but good stuff about the product, It is easy and I had some technical questions sent an email and got it all done and now I have all 5 MP60's connected to wxm and If I need to change the settings all I have to do is drag the graph and send the settings and done.. I could not be happier, I wish Ecotech could have spent more time to make this more user friendly and high tech just like their other products, OK enough said about that, I have connected my float switches to breakout boxes, 2 switches are for my Sump, 1 regular and 2nd as safety back up, 3rd safety is float valve in the sump which will shut water down if 1st switch, 2nd switch , pump and apex fail to turn the pump off. 2 float switches are installed in 30 gallon ato drum which will send me alert when it is empty or full, I have 3/4" 110v solenoid valve that will be controlled via apex that will turn on the feed water going to RO unit and my RO unit booster pump have safety switch which requires to have minimum 30 psi for booster pump to turn on , on top of this I have 1/2" 11ov solenoid valve that is connected to apex as well. I will be turning on the RO unit manually via apex fusion in the beginning but eventually they will be controlled via apex code. Stand is complete and frag tank is going to sit on the stand and plumbed this weekend and I will hang light on the system, I have dimmable ATI as well as Vertex Illumia, I have not decided what I will use on frag tank. My vertical refugium is plumbed and running with noting in it, I will install grow light on the refugium this Saturday, I will have 3 fixtures which are 48" long installed vertically on the refugium, size of the refugium is 48" tall x 12" in diameter, water comes in from top and goes down and it comes out of the 2" drain that is mounted on the side , so all the water has to go down and comes out of the drain, I will have my calcium reactor effluent line go through the refugium as well, co2 will be consumed by algae and plants, Skimmer is working better than expected, Very little bio load, it pulled out a lot in the beginning but since there are only 10 small chromis in the tank there is nothing much to pull out, I have my Voss 850ml bottle dosing mounted on the wall and my Jebao doser is mounted under the shelve as well, I am going to mount second doser next to this 1 and will dose elements if required,

here are the pictures of the progress...

Everything is looking great and the skimmer performance is solid. I am not surprised. I am not surprised at your attention to detail with the set up and the additional safeties in place either. Seems like you have all your bases covered! Sorry to hear of your woes with ET Reeflink but am not surprised by it as I know many folks hate it. Happy you have a good solution using WXM.
Your vertical refugium sounds a lot more like a algae reactor than refugium and I'm interested in learning the difference in your application. Also, pics of the vertical refugium after it is up and running would be great!

ravi197699 · May 31, 2019

Thank you cursso, I am calling it vertical refugium because I will have all types of algae in this and once algae start to grow in this I will add copepods, amphipods etc that will stay in this fuge, we will see how that goes but for now that is the plan.

ravi197699 · Jun 3, 2019

Hello reefers GM, getting close to finish line here, I was able to put the frag tank on with help of from my friend, he pointed out few items that we took care on the fly, Tank sits pretty good and I was able to get the plumbing done frag tank, I ran 1" drain which I installed sometime back and it was left on the back wall which I connected to the frag tank, return is 1/2" pcv that comes from manifold, I am going to keep low turn over since I will be installing Mp10 in the frag tank, I hope this should provide flow that this tank requires, size of the frag tank is 26" x 45" x 8" high and material is glass, I found this used and it was pretty good deal, I found place for my EB8 that will be controlling automation of ATO container, Kalk reactor and feeding or bypassing kalk reactor, I have tested the ATO pump coding and it is working as it should, I will be testing coding for ATO container since there is very high pressure booster pump involves and it produces a lot of water, as of right now I am controlling the RO system manually via apex fusion, I should have solenoid valves that will control the feed water to RO, this solenoid valve will shout off the feed to RO as well as booster pump at the same time, Vertical fuge is all done, I have installed 48" lights on the fuge, these are grow lights but I am no too crazy about the colors, we will see how this goes based on results on growing cheato, skimmer is working awesome, I am picking up 60 gallon cube that I will use to quarantine livestock and it will run at all the times, I might convert this tank to AIO tank, we will see how that goes, here are some of the pictures of what I was able to accomplish yesterday,

justingraham · Jun 3, 2019

I think. Ur going to need more the. One mp10
Looks good tho

ravi197699 · Jun 3, 2019

thank you justingraham, that is what I thought as well, I will replace this with gyre or something similar so cover more area...

justingraham · Jun 3, 2019

ravi197699 said:
thank you justingraham, that is what I thought as well, I will replace this with gyre or something similar so cover more area...

I have a 48 inch frag tank and I feel two gyre xf230’s are not enough
Just ordered the new xf350 and 330 to make sure I get that sps flow

ravi197699 · Jun 3, 2019

nice size frag tank, I have mp40 laying around as well, I can always drop that in as well, I will start with LPS and see how they respond to flow..

justingraham · Jun 3, 2019

ravi197699 said:
nice size frag tank, I have mp40 laying around as well, I can always drop that in as well, I will start with LPS and see how they respond to flow..

O if it’s for lps I think the MP40s and mp10 will just be fine

ravi197699 · Jun 8, 2019

hello reefers, early this week I noticed something that was pointed out by my wife and she mentioned that your tank is very quiet and something is making beeping sound and I was ready to throw up when I heard that and this news is right before I had cup of tea and right after I was done taking shower and ready to go to work. After checking out I noticed that my battery back up monitor is 0% and all the pumps are off and tank is dead silent, spent some time analyzing and learned that my GFI was tripped and turned everything off, I thought something might have caused this and re-set the GFI and all came back to normal. Well 2 days later I am at work and I got apex alert that it is off, I took an hour off from work and went back home and GFI tripped again, I reset and everything came back to normal, well this was bothering me that why it is happening so I called my friend (certified electrician) and he came and I showed him the items that are on the circuit and after spending sometime checking all the wirings he said GFI is defective and it is tripping and good thing it happened while he was there, only thing that is plugged in the outlets is my Battery back up and everything else is plugged on the back of the battery back (bad choice) so he removed the GFI since that circuit is protected by 15 amp breaker, since this happened and it was very good scenario I wanted to change few things, all EB8's from removed from the back of the battery back up and they are plugged into the outlets, my sump closed loop pump can be on outlet and it stays on 27/7 and it runs my reactors, feed my skimmer as well as performs as closed loop pump for my sump via sea swirls, sea swirls can be on outlet and my jebao pumps in sump on outlets, heater on outlet as well as my 5 mp60's and twin Gyre can be on outlets, when I say outlets that mean connected to apex on EB8 but EB8 will be plugged on outlet, now my Vectra L1 is the only thing that I will plug into my battery back up and L1 runs only at 40%. I have very good reason for going this route, I have my generator to support my tank in case of power outage and time between my generator kicks on and gets everything going, my battery back up will keep everything live, but I did not think of this scenario that what if GFI trips and it happened and battery back up did its job but since everything was connected to battery back up it keep everything going for 15 min and it died, you might be thinking what happened to tank, well tank was off yesterday for more than 5 hours and since I have only 15 small chromis in the tank they all survived and noting bad happened, now that I have only L1 connected to battery back up it is capable of keep that pump going for hours since wattage is very low and apex brain is connected to battery back as well which will trigger alert if any of the eb8's loose power. I have learned in this hobby that we keep making things better as we face difference challenges and issues so that it does not happen again, I thought I had everything covered but I was wrong and I wanted to share this with you all. I am connecting my RO feed water solenoid tomorrow and test the automated ATO container that is controlled with apex with float switches with simple code. more pictures to come,

jsvand5 · Jun 8, 2019

Really impressive build. Looking forward to see how it looks full of life. I’m not sure how the PVC pipes on the rocks are ever going to be hidden even when the corals grow in though.

ravi197699 · Jun 10, 2019

Hello reefers, this weekend was not bad at all since list of to do list is getting shorter by the week, I was able to connect my RO unit via apex and how I can turn my ro on or off manually and RO shuts off if ATO container is full, I added additional supports to the stand so that I can put my 60 Gallon cube that I bought used as quarantine tank, I will be converting this tank to AIO tank, I already bought the glass and bafflers are already cut out, I want to be able to quarantine 5 - 6 small medium size fishes each time, I had white granite piece laying in the backyard which was left over from the kitchen slab and it is perfect size, I laid down 1/2" insulation on the stand and put granite piece on the foam and tank will sit on granite, hopefully it will work out as planned and will be safe, I added enough supports but it is never enough. here are some of the pictures..