Whiskey's 300 Gallon Glass Cages Dream Reef. It only took 22 years!
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’m working hard tonight to try and meet the deadline with this canopy! The weather helped me out a ton today! But my Wagner Air Sprayer didn’t. I got through about a half quart of paint before it started belching smoke and the motor failed. I’m not impressed, I didn’t even use it that much. I was in a spot so I ran to Harbor Freight and got an Airless Sprayer. I must say I’m super impressed! It lays the paint down much better, and wastes much less. It’s a pain to clean, but worth it! Hopefully it lasts.
Whiskey
Whiskey
Huskereef
Active Member
Amazing work on the cabinetry/ canopy. Glad to see your corals are doing well after the move. Will look forward to following along on your build’m working hard tonight to try and meet the deadline with this canopy! The weather helped me out a ton today! But my Wagner Air Sprayer didn’t. I got through about a half quart of paint before it started belching smoke and the motor failed. I’m not impressed, I didn’t even use it that much. I was in a spot so I ran to Harbor Freight and got an Airless Sprayer. I must say I’m super impressed! It lays the paint down much better, and wastes much less. It’s a pain to clean, but worth it! Hopefully it lasts.
Whiskey
Cheers
It's time to shift gears a little bit at this point, up until now the thread has been about getting ready for the move, but I pickup the moving truck tomorrow and drive down to get the tank on Wednesday, and the install will be Thursday, so tonight I will be making sure I have everything I need and going over my plans. I bought half a lowes plumbing section yesterday hoping that I can reduce trips to the store as I convert the sump from under the tank, to in the fish room.
Lighting:
The tank is coming with a light bar made of extruded aluminum, it's built really well, and will hang from the inside of the canopy. I use AI Hydra lights so I typically target having them at about 14 inches up for the ideal spread and reduction of hotspots. I will also have T5 lighting, and I typically try to mount them a little lower at 8-10 inches, but most importantly high enough that it doesn't interfere with the light spread of the Hydras. Currently I plan to have 6 Hydra 32's (they are about 90W each) and 4 54W T5 bulbs, with 4 39W T5 bulbs. The reason the T5's are different lengths is the tank is 7 feet, so that's one 3 foot with one 4 foot bulb, 4 strips of T5's running end to end.
I'm not sure if it will be enough PAR honestly, so I'm going to set it up and test. Light spread is my biggest goal, but I may need to add additional hydras.
As far as the tank goes, Redundancy is key. I've been in this hobby a long time, and I've lost tanks to some pretty dumb stuff, so I try and double up on gear as much as I can.
Return: Planning 2 Jeabo Pumps, return rate of about 4x tank volume per hour. It will be monitored with flow monitors and alarms in the Apex. I use a Jebo and Iwaki now, but the Iwaki won't work on the new tank design.
Flow: Planning for 2 Gyree 4000, 2 Tunze 6105's, returns, and tune from there. I will probably end up with allot more.
Skimmer: Will use a Reef Octopus 170 INT and a Reef Octopus 200 INT, both run the DC Varios pumps, one is 6" the other is 8", between the two of them they are pretty over rated so I will probably start with just one until I get my BioLoad a little higher.
Alk/CA: I use Kalk on a Mixer at 6100 ML per day, about a gallon and a half. I also have the 8" dual chamber RO CA reactor fed by a parasitotic pump.
It's going to be an exciting few days!!! Then after the tank gets put in, things will shift to building out all the underside Cabinetry and cleaning up the fish room with the equipment wall and everything. That should take a less manic, and more calculated pace.
I'm open to any suggestions on gear, moving tanks, or life in general. Especially, what do you think about that light?
Whiskey
Lighting:
The tank is coming with a light bar made of extruded aluminum, it's built really well, and will hang from the inside of the canopy. I use AI Hydra lights so I typically target having them at about 14 inches up for the ideal spread and reduction of hotspots. I will also have T5 lighting, and I typically try to mount them a little lower at 8-10 inches, but most importantly high enough that it doesn't interfere with the light spread of the Hydras. Currently I plan to have 6 Hydra 32's (they are about 90W each) and 4 54W T5 bulbs, with 4 39W T5 bulbs. The reason the T5's are different lengths is the tank is 7 feet, so that's one 3 foot with one 4 foot bulb, 4 strips of T5's running end to end.
I'm not sure if it will be enough PAR honestly, so I'm going to set it up and test. Light spread is my biggest goal, but I may need to add additional hydras.
As far as the tank goes, Redundancy is key. I've been in this hobby a long time, and I've lost tanks to some pretty dumb stuff, so I try and double up on gear as much as I can.
Return: Planning 2 Jeabo Pumps, return rate of about 4x tank volume per hour. It will be monitored with flow monitors and alarms in the Apex. I use a Jebo and Iwaki now, but the Iwaki won't work on the new tank design.
Flow: Planning for 2 Gyree 4000, 2 Tunze 6105's, returns, and tune from there. I will probably end up with allot more.
Skimmer: Will use a Reef Octopus 170 INT and a Reef Octopus 200 INT, both run the DC Varios pumps, one is 6" the other is 8", between the two of them they are pretty over rated so I will probably start with just one until I get my BioLoad a little higher.
Alk/CA: I use Kalk on a Mixer at 6100 ML per day, about a gallon and a half. I also have the 8" dual chamber RO CA reactor fed by a parasitotic pump.
It's going to be an exciting few days!!! Then after the tank gets put in, things will shift to building out all the underside Cabinetry and cleaning up the fish room with the equipment wall and everything. That should take a less manic, and more calculated pace.
I'm open to any suggestions on gear, moving tanks, or life in general. Especially, what do you think about that light?
Whiskey
So,.. I have really heartbreaking news. While I was unloading the tank it became damaged and is unusable. Joe at Glass Cages has been absolutely fantastic, I recommend doing business with him to anyone. We talked about the damage, and what my options are, and when it comes down to it, this is 300 gallons of water in my house, the damage is significant and in the area of the tank that takes the most pressure.
I took a couple days to stabilize the situation, mull over my options, and decide on a path forward. I considered many different directions, this stand is super nice, it's not size adjustable, and it's expensive, so moving forward with the exact same tank size is the most reasonable and cost effective option. Plus, it's what I want anyway. I'm going to have a chat with Joe on Thursday to kick off the project and finalize plans. The cost is a kick in the gut of course, but at the end of the day I can't see upgrading to something bigger than 300 before retirement, so this will be in my house at least 20 years. That's pretty good return on investment, and it's a compelling reason to get what I want and budget in other areas.
The new tank will take time to build of course, so this build thread is going to shift gears a little bit. Of primary importance is keeping all these nice corals healthy while I'm waiting on the new system. In order to do that most effectively I've moved most of the Acros out of the stock tank, and into my main tank. It has never been so full, and managing growth is going to be a thing for sure. This tank is much better for keeping them long term though because you really can't see how they are doing in the stock tank due to it's opaque sides. I would love to shut down the stock tank entirely, and I'm super close to being able to do that, but we will see.
The next step will be putting the new sump on my current system. This will allow me to run the plumbing through the walls, connect the CA reactor, Kalk, Dosing pumps, returns, switch over to the new RE return, and get all this done and ready to connect to the new tank ahead of time. This will make the day of cutover much less stressful.
Finally to prepare for the new tank's arrival, I can do a little more detail work to the canopy, finish the light bar, mount the light bar inside the canopy, and paint and mount the doors, and basically have everything polished to drop right on the tank come cutover day.
It's a little bit of a left turn on the build here, but progress ahead we will!
Whiskey
I took a couple days to stabilize the situation, mull over my options, and decide on a path forward. I considered many different directions, this stand is super nice, it's not size adjustable, and it's expensive, so moving forward with the exact same tank size is the most reasonable and cost effective option. Plus, it's what I want anyway. I'm going to have a chat with Joe on Thursday to kick off the project and finalize plans. The cost is a kick in the gut of course, but at the end of the day I can't see upgrading to something bigger than 300 before retirement, so this will be in my house at least 20 years. That's pretty good return on investment, and it's a compelling reason to get what I want and budget in other areas.
The new tank will take time to build of course, so this build thread is going to shift gears a little bit. Of primary importance is keeping all these nice corals healthy while I'm waiting on the new system. In order to do that most effectively I've moved most of the Acros out of the stock tank, and into my main tank. It has never been so full, and managing growth is going to be a thing for sure. This tank is much better for keeping them long term though because you really can't see how they are doing in the stock tank due to it's opaque sides. I would love to shut down the stock tank entirely, and I'm super close to being able to do that, but we will see.
The next step will be putting the new sump on my current system. This will allow me to run the plumbing through the walls, connect the CA reactor, Kalk, Dosing pumps, returns, switch over to the new RE return, and get all this done and ready to connect to the new tank ahead of time. This will make the day of cutover much less stressful.
Finally to prepare for the new tank's arrival, I can do a little more detail work to the canopy, finish the light bar, mount the light bar inside the canopy, and paint and mount the doors, and basically have everything polished to drop right on the tank come cutover day.
It's a little bit of a left turn on the build here, but progress ahead we will!
Whiskey
I have some new photos! First the woodwork,.. I'm continuing on today with the build out. There is still tons of finish work to do, but at least now I know that I made the two different door sizes the proper size.
And!!! I have updated pictures of the tank with all the new Acros added. Not all of them moved in here, some are in the Frag Tank, but this is one packed tank now!!! I do have a couple colonies that have been with me a long time that are irritated. The blue tip slimer was stung and just keeps dying from the bottom up. I've tried fragging to stop it without success before, so this time I'm going to let it fight it out. I'm not sure what the Tort's problem is, but the exact colony right next to it is perfect. This one seems to be recovering and growing back though. I chalk this all up to the changes I've made lately adding tanks onto the system and stuff.
Whiskey
And!!! I have updated pictures of the tank with all the new Acros added. Not all of them moved in here, some are in the Frag Tank, but this is one packed tank now!!! I do have a couple colonies that have been with me a long time that are irritated. The blue tip slimer was stung and just keeps dying from the bottom up. I've tried fragging to stop it without success before, so this time I'm going to let it fight it out. I'm not sure what the Tort's problem is, but the exact colony right next to it is perfect. This one seems to be recovering and growing back though. I chalk this all up to the changes I've made lately adding tanks onto the system and stuff.
Whiskey
Man,.. I had the weirdest experience over the last couple days, Thursday all day I was perfectly fine, about 9PM I completely hit a wall, and felt miserably sick, sicker than I've ever been. Like shivers, my whole body hurt, zero energy, I felt like Zombies in horror movies look! Friday I was a miserable excuse for a human, totally incapable of doing anything and I slept probably 18-20 hours, but today (Saturday) I'm feeling allot better. Not 100% for sure, but back to 70% or so. I have no idea what that was, but I'm happy it seems to be behind me. I almost never get sick, it's possible I'm just not very good at it.
Anyway; earlier in the week I was working on setting up this MasterTronic I got from Hydrored. For those that don't know it's an automatic testing solution that uses standard test kit reagents and automates the testing process. My understanding it that this thing is pretty easy to get connected right out of the box, but if you change your WiFi without changing the unit first it is extremally difficult to get it to connect to the new SSID. The biggest problem is the extremally poor documentation, and extremally difficult to find documentation. For those of you stuck in the same situation I am, here's how to change the WiFi on your MasterTronic.
If you can get it to broadcast it's SSID your life is easy, follow this simple document and move on with life:
(That's not my google drive BTW - For some reason FocusTronic publishes their documents that way).
The problem is that once it has connected to a wifi, it stops broadcasting that SSID and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it except to completely wipe the operating system and start over. This thing uses a Raspberry Pi as it's brain, and so it's hard drive is on a little SD card inside a hatch on the front of the unit. You can load a new operating system onto a new SD card, then you have basically a factory reset unit. The process is almost documented in this document. Follow the steps exactly, and don't forget to load that update file onto the root of the SD card before starting up. There is one thing they don't tell you, that is the sn.txt file, and it's critically important. I'll get to that in a sec:
(Once again they choose to publish documents VIA Google Drive).
Now,.. that mentions putting the sn.txt file in the root, but says nothing else about it, and the download location doesn't have it. This had me stumped for a really long time. When I would boot my unit it would come up with serial of all 9's. Although it seemed to work, and I could get it on the WiFi, it refused to connect with my App. It probably uses the serial to link up or something. Finally I decided to take a shot in the dark, and I created a text file named sn.txt with the serial number including the "M" on the first line of the doc and nothing else, then I made a new SD Card and used that file for the sn.txt and it worked!!!!
Calibration of this thing was a challenge as well, mainly because it doesn't tell you when it's done pumping. A few times, especially with the stepper pump calibration I went to measure only to have the unit start pumping. For this reason I recommend you run an accuracy test just to see where things are at once you think you have it right.
But!! Now that it's setup it's working great! Once the new sump goes in and everything I will get it in a better spot, but this will be super nice to validate my Trident once a week, and also monitor Phosphate and Nitrate. I look forward to getting more information about how various foods affect nutrient levels. I also got like a billion test kit reloads with it which is super nice!
Whiskey
Anyway; earlier in the week I was working on setting up this MasterTronic I got from Hydrored. For those that don't know it's an automatic testing solution that uses standard test kit reagents and automates the testing process. My understanding it that this thing is pretty easy to get connected right out of the box, but if you change your WiFi without changing the unit first it is extremally difficult to get it to connect to the new SSID. The biggest problem is the extremally poor documentation, and extremally difficult to find documentation. For those of you stuck in the same situation I am, here's how to change the WiFi on your MasterTronic.
If you can get it to broadcast it's SSID your life is easy, follow this simple document and move on with life:
(That's not my google drive BTW - For some reason FocusTronic publishes their documents that way).
The problem is that once it has connected to a wifi, it stops broadcasting that SSID and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it except to completely wipe the operating system and start over. This thing uses a Raspberry Pi as it's brain, and so it's hard drive is on a little SD card inside a hatch on the front of the unit. You can load a new operating system onto a new SD card, then you have basically a factory reset unit. The process is almost documented in this document. Follow the steps exactly, and don't forget to load that update file onto the root of the SD card before starting up. There is one thing they don't tell you, that is the sn.txt file, and it's critically important. I'll get to that in a sec:
(Once again they choose to publish documents VIA Google Drive).
Now,.. that mentions putting the sn.txt file in the root, but says nothing else about it, and the download location doesn't have it. This had me stumped for a really long time. When I would boot my unit it would come up with serial of all 9's. Although it seemed to work, and I could get it on the WiFi, it refused to connect with my App. It probably uses the serial to link up or something. Finally I decided to take a shot in the dark, and I created a text file named sn.txt with the serial number including the "M" on the first line of the doc and nothing else, then I made a new SD Card and used that file for the sn.txt and it worked!!!!
Calibration of this thing was a challenge as well, mainly because it doesn't tell you when it's done pumping. A few times, especially with the stepper pump calibration I went to measure only to have the unit start pumping. For this reason I recommend you run an accuracy test just to see where things are at once you think you have it right.
But!! Now that it's setup it's working great! Once the new sump goes in and everything I will get it in a better spot, but this will be super nice to validate my Trident once a week, and also monitor Phosphate and Nitrate. I look forward to getting more information about how various foods affect nutrient levels. I also got like a billion test kit reloads with it which is super nice!
Whiskey
The other exciting news is that I have officially ordered the tank!! Joe was great, we went through the various options on the phone, but I ended up basically getting the same tank. I had considered going with regular glass on the ends but the end view is what you see coming in the door, and the other end is where I will have one of the timelapse cameras that I use to publish coral growth videos. At the end of the day the day it was only a couple hundred dollar difference so I decided to go low iron all the way around. I was also able to completely offset that cost difference by using the overflow I already have! It's a shadow box overflow so it just connects through holes in the tank and can be removed.
I can't wait to get it!!! For now I continue to work on cabinetry and make sure I'm ready.
Whiskey
I can't wait to get it!!! For now I continue to work on cabinetry and make sure I'm ready.
Whiskey
I'm continuing to work on the cabinet doors. I got the hardware mounted up:
Then I got them all broken down, sanded, and I'm about half way done with priming, but then the weather took a turn and I spray outside, so it was time to focus on something else.
So! I'm putting some thought into the lighting bar. I got a lighting bar with the tank, it's made out of 80/20 extruded aluminum which is fantastic because even though the exact design that was used before doesn't suit my lights, it's like a big erector set and you can rearrange all the pieces to suit whatever. It's the perfect platform to build on.
I'm planning to use 6 Hydra 32's (According to BRS the perfect height is 14 inches)
And I'll have 4 36W T5's and 4 54W T5 (3 foot and 4 foot to make 7 feet). There will be two rows on the front, and 2 on the back. The perfect mounting height for these is 10 inches.
For this reason I've arranged the bar to mount the Hydras above the T5's, and I will use wood pieces screwed into the T-Track to extend the T5 6 inches past the end of the bar because it's 6 feet, this will also drop them lower. This will make sense when you see it.
Then, the entire lighting bar will mount by block pullies to the horizontal supports on the canopy. I will have 6 inch liner actuators that will allow me to raise the lights to 20 inches so that I can work on the tank without hitting my head (I hate that) and then drop them down to 14 inches for the perfect light efficiency and spread. I was shocked to see how cheap these things are, $41 each for ones that can lift 330lbs. I'm using 2 for safety. They are IP54 certified for water spray as well!
Here's he partly assembled light bar. 4 of the Hydras will come from the current tank:
Plus I'm 3D printing some of these little deals which are designed to hold the the Hydra 32 transformers to keep them organized, but out of the way and safe. I'm mounting them to the back of the Canopy, but close enough to the side so that I can easily grab them.
That's pretty much the update! I hope to mount some T5's after work tomorrow.
Whiskey
Then I got them all broken down, sanded, and I'm about half way done with priming, but then the weather took a turn and I spray outside, so it was time to focus on something else.
So! I'm putting some thought into the lighting bar. I got a lighting bar with the tank, it's made out of 80/20 extruded aluminum which is fantastic because even though the exact design that was used before doesn't suit my lights, it's like a big erector set and you can rearrange all the pieces to suit whatever. It's the perfect platform to build on.
I'm planning to use 6 Hydra 32's (According to BRS the perfect height is 14 inches)
And I'll have 4 36W T5's and 4 54W T5 (3 foot and 4 foot to make 7 feet). There will be two rows on the front, and 2 on the back. The perfect mounting height for these is 10 inches.
For this reason I've arranged the bar to mount the Hydras above the T5's, and I will use wood pieces screwed into the T-Track to extend the T5 6 inches past the end of the bar because it's 6 feet, this will also drop them lower. This will make sense when you see it.
Then, the entire lighting bar will mount by block pullies to the horizontal supports on the canopy. I will have 6 inch liner actuators that will allow me to raise the lights to 20 inches so that I can work on the tank without hitting my head (I hate that) and then drop them down to 14 inches for the perfect light efficiency and spread. I was shocked to see how cheap these things are, $41 each for ones that can lift 330lbs. I'm using 2 for safety. They are IP54 certified for water spray as well!
Here's he partly assembled light bar. 4 of the Hydras will come from the current tank:
Plus I'm 3D printing some of these little deals which are designed to hold the the Hydra 32 transformers to keep them organized, but out of the way and safe. I'm mounting them to the back of the Canopy, but close enough to the side so that I can easily grab them.
That's pretty much the update! I hope to mount some T5's after work tomorrow.
Whiskey
Love the macro coral shots 
Hello all! It's been a bit since I updated, I got covid and it's been kicking my butt. I have made progress, but not a ton with all that going on. Here's where we are at now:
I added mounting blocks for the T5 lights onto the lighting gantry, I also mounted the 4 foot T5's and ballasts. The 3 foot ones will come off the existing tank at the time of the tank swap, you can see I have the mounting blocks and space for the ballast ready for it. I plan to connect all the T5's into one cord for easy cable management, and I bought the 12/3 wire to do it, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
I'm not exactly sure why, but those 4 wires at one end of the bulb need to be kept as short as possible. In my case I will not have a top on this canopy so I opted to mount them right there, but if you do trap humidity in your hood the back is a better choice.
Now that that's done, I took the entire gantry and mounted it inside the canopy shell. This is hung by 1/8 inch cables, the cables support over 300 lbs each, and the actuators support over 330 each. This should be way more than I will ever need. In the event that one of the actuators ever did have a catastrophic failure the lights can only fall about 7 inches from the highest position before the cable bars contact the pully blocks and stop it. I don't expect to ever need this safety feature, but it's good to know I have it.
All the way up:
Down:
Whiskey
I added mounting blocks for the T5 lights onto the lighting gantry, I also mounted the 4 foot T5's and ballasts. The 3 foot ones will come off the existing tank at the time of the tank swap, you can see I have the mounting blocks and space for the ballast ready for it. I plan to connect all the T5's into one cord for easy cable management, and I bought the 12/3 wire to do it, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
I'm not exactly sure why, but those 4 wires at one end of the bulb need to be kept as short as possible. In my case I will not have a top on this canopy so I opted to mount them right there, but if you do trap humidity in your hood the back is a better choice.
Now that that's done, I took the entire gantry and mounted it inside the canopy shell. This is hung by 1/8 inch cables, the cables support over 300 lbs each, and the actuators support over 330 each. This should be way more than I will ever need. In the event that one of the actuators ever did have a catastrophic failure the lights can only fall about 7 inches from the highest position before the cable bars contact the pully blocks and stop it. I don't expect to ever need this safety feature, but it's good to know I have it.
All the way up:
Down:
Whiskey
Thank you Nuxx! I joke sometimes that every hobby I have spawned from the hobby of keeping fish somehow. I got really into photography to try and capture the Beauty of these corals we keep, which spawned out into landscape photography and cooperate photography for my last company.Love the macro coral shots
Whiskey
I sell coral as well! It's a great way to meet local people who are into the hobby. It's super nice having a little frag tank because I can put whatever breaks off, or gets too close to another coral in there and sell it for a few bucks when it encrusts. I haven't tried to bread fish yet though, that seems like it's on another level.That's awesome
Started selling fish and coral off of the hobby as well
Whiskey
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