How to make Swiss Cheese - Krunchy's 275g Closed Loop monster!

[ekrunch]

I'm giving in and starting a build thread. The start of this build marks the 4th time i've done this, but I never actually got around to doing a build thread!

First things first, let me give props to those who helped out with all of this thus far.

gotfish8 - Thanks for all of the help, cheap equipment sales, and locating the tank in the first place. Without your help i'd still be staring at my old 125.
stunreefer - Thanks for cutting me a good deal on an awesome tank and being patient while I figured out how to get over to Michigan and get it! I can't wait to get some water in this baby and get cranking.
kerusso316 and LadyEquinox - Thanks for the ride to Michigan! That van worked out perfectly. My tank got to ride home in comfort and came out without any new scratches!
Sara B - Thanks for showing me your Envision Acrylics tank so I could rest easy about the build quality of it. Also thanks for the long term loan on the Tunze Wavebox. I can't wait to see that thing rockin' my 275!
supersantay, Crued, maxxII - The awesome deals on the used equipment, live rock, and other stuff are much appreciated. This build would have taken a lot longer at retail prices!
Beefy, Drrrrrrrty, Helter Skilter, Stingray702, Ray Whisperer, and the rest of the OT Crew - You guys all suck for keeping me in this hobby when I wanted out! See what you made me do!!!!
Roman Ogee - For the constant reminder that i'm not doing Halides and Surges with this tank.
ReefKeepersCorner - My fallen RC brother. You suck for measuring off a piece of your 600 and going "see man, if you got that 275 it'd look just like this". Getting a visual really pushed me over the edge. In honor of your "6hundo", i'm calling my 275g the "half-hundo".


Alright, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk tank! Here's the equipment list.

Tank
60" x 44" x 24" 275g Acrylic tank made by James at Envision Acrylics
3x 1.5" bulkheads in the overflow box
3x 2" bulkheads in the bottom
3x 1.5" bulkheads in the bottom
4x 1.5" bulkheads in the back
Now everyone knows why the name "Swiss Cheese" seemed appropriate for this build thread.

Sump
48" x 34" x 18" 125g Acrylic, also made by James at Envision Acrylics (Stunreefer, correct me if i'm wrong here)


Flow
Closed Loop 1 : 2" Drain in the bottom of the tank, 4x 1.5" returns in the rear of the tank. OceansMotions 4-way with #3 drum. Reeflo Dart for the pump.
Closed Loop 2 : 2" Drain in the bottom of the tank, 4x 1.5" returns in the bottom of the tank. OceansMotions 4-way with #2 drum. Reeflo Dart for the pump.
System : 3x 1.5" Drains going down through the stock overflow box. 1x 1.5" return coming up the back and splitting to 2x 1" lines. Reeflo Dart for the pump.
Extras : Tunze 6212 Wavebox

Lights
Display
14x 4' 54w T5 bulbs - 5x ATI Blue+, 3x ATI Aquablue Special, 3x UVL Super Actinic, 3x UVL Aquasun. And of course I bought a few extra of each just in case I need to switch them around for more/less of any given bulb.
14x 4' IceCap SLR Reflectors with accompanying stand offs and endcaps
7x Osram Sylvania QTP2x54T5HO/UNV DALI ballasts (QuickTronic Professional series with DALI dimmer)
1x DALI Dimming mechanism. I'm still working on exactly what this will be, but probably a PC based solution because I have access to most of what I need and none of the controllers out there seem to do DALI light setups out of the box.

Fuge
3x TCP 16w PAR38 bulbs with internal reflector

Water Filtration/Supplementation
Schuran JetSkim 150 Skimmer - This will probably get upgraded to a JS200 when I find one in the US.
Schuran JetStream 1 Calcium Reactor - I love this reactor. Such an awesome piece of equipment.
GEO Kalk Reactor - It's the old style one but still working like a charm so I might as well keep going with it.

Electronics
Neptune Systems Aquacontroller III - 2x DC8, 1x DC4, 1xDC4HD, 1x PX1000 Probe expension. Twin Temp probes, Twin pH probes, ORP probe.
PC based DALI controller - Linux based, custom software that i'll probably have to write myself.

Plumbing
Savko Black PVC all around (This thing is going in my living room so a nice clean look is important)
Hayward Bulkheads

[ekrunch]

And now for the best part ... pictures!

This tank was originally owned by nbd13, here are a few of the initial drawings





And here are some shots from when he had the tank running.

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The tank was later purchased by Stunreefer. Here are some of his pictures of the tank and sump

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Which brings us to the move... Thanks again to kerusso316 for shuttling me to Michigan! Here is the tank in Stunreefer's garage waiting for me to come get it.






And finally, it's at my house.

[ekrunch]

And now for the equipment!

Aquacontroller III, power strips, and probe expansion


Schuran JetStream 1


Schuran JetSkim 150


Tunze Wavebox


GEO Kalk Reactor

[ekrunch]

OceansMotions 4-way with the old plumbing from the previous owner


T5 endcaps, standoffs, and reflector clips


Reflectors


Some of the T5 bulbs for the display


Fuge Bulbs

[ekrunch]

The original Durso standpipes. Not sure if i'm going to re-use these or go stockman to save room in the overflow box. Seeing as i'm going to plumb all 3 as drains and run the return up the back, I might have to go stockman to fit everything in there!


Some dryed out rock, curtosy of supersantay. The display will be all Tonga Kaelini and some custom caves and such, but i'll be using a lot of this in the sump/fuge for extra filtration.


What acrylic tank would be complete without an Everclear scratch removal kit!


And of course, my 3 darts


That about does it for the equipment I have. More to come. I've got more bulbs, the ballasts, and another OM 4-way on the way to me. No hurry though as i've got to do some serious reconstruction in my living room to make room for this thing!

[erics3000]

Wow you are off to great start with equipment. look forward to your updates..

[michika]

Same here, looking forwards to the build moving forwards!

Nice photos to start!

[stunreefer]

...It has begun!

Looks awesome man, and your off to a fantastic start! Sooo glad it went to someone whos going to tun it into an awesome system again!

I believe the sump was also made by James at Envision.

If your going to use all three holes in the overflow as drains, you will more than likely have to change those dursos...they work great for tuning, but they are big. I'm not familiar with stockman standpipes, but I was recently talking to Jar*Head about "space-saving" dursos. He added some pics of the DIY at the bottom of this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1396999

I cant wait till this is running, its going to be killer!

[Phillybean]

Looks awesome!

[ekrunch]

Originally posted by stunreefer
...It has begun!

Looks awesome man, and your off to a fantastic start! Sooo glad it went to someone whos going to tun it into an awesome system again!

I believe the sump was also made by James at Envision.

If your going to use all three holes in the overflow as drains, you will more than likely have to change those dursos...they work great for tuning, but they are big. I'm not familiar with stockman standpipes, but I was recently talking to Jar*Head about "space-saving" dursos. He added some pics of the DIY at the bottom of this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1396999

I cant wait till this is running, its going to be killer!

That standpipe is perfect! It looks like a variant of the HGB, which is basically an upside down stockman with an air line. This is what I was considering as well. I'm actually considering going one step further and adding a valve to the end of the air line for further tuning. I'm going to have to set up a dart on a smaller tank and build a stand pipe or two to play around with. Here's the link to the HGB.
http://home.everestkc.net/jrobertson57268/HGB/

[ekrunch]

Nothing like a good PC crash to slow down a tank build thread! My XP machine bombed on me yesterday and so did the Sketchup drawings I had on it! Fortunately it was just another random XP bomb out and a re-install fixed it right up.

These are my initial thoughts around what the stand, canopy, sidecar, and total system might look like. I spoke with Matt, the owner of Sho Tank Aquariums, yesterday about this and he hit me with some even better ideas so i'll probably be re-doing all of these soon. Matt will also be doing all of the work for me. I'm an IT guy, not a carpenter.

Stand - Pretty much a "rocket engineer" special with a shelf to hold some extra equipment and pumps. I used the drawings in his RC thread as my model for this.




Sidecar - This will probably change drastically. Right now it's just a big ugly brown lump. Matt has some better ideas on what to do with this thing.

[ekrunch]

Canopy - This one is also still up in the air. Matt has some more ideas around this. We might be able to make it solid and flip the whole thing up at once for total tank access... but we'll see. Depends on space constraints of the room and such.




And here's an initial thought on what it might look like all put together. Keep in mind that this thing has to go in the corner of my living room, so you're not going to see the right side of it.

[ekrunch]

Oh, and if anybody wants the SketchUp drawings to use as a base model, just ask. I drew everything but the Dart pumps, those I found via a Google search. I'm also working on a 4" fan but the blades have proven to be more complicated than I though to draw in SketchUp.

[SaraB]

Looks like an awsome build Ed.

I'm actually waiting on payment for that wavebox before I can get my tank done ... gotta pay the plumber you know ;-)


I'll get moving on my build thread as well so you can post that fine photo of my tank!

[badazztealcobra]

I knew there was a reason you sold the Evo.... It was to buy all this stuff wasnt it ?!?!?

Things are looking good..... Let me know if you need a hand with anything and Ill help out as much as possible....

[Helter Skilter]

Free chaeto in Lake in the Hills.

[gotfish8]

Krunchy, wrong forum buddy. This is the large tank forum

Looks like a good start

[badazztealcobra]

Originally posted by gotfish8
Krunchy, wrong forum buddy. This is the large tank forum

Looks like a good start

Thats probably the craziest part, whenever anyone outside of this community hears I have a 180 they are AMAZED.... Then you go to peoples house's like RKC's with a 600 and feel like your tank sucks.

[ekrunch]

Originally posted by badazztealcobra
I knew there was a reason you sold the Evo.... It was to buy all this stuff wasnt it ?!?!?

Not really but the cheaper insurance and less visits to the gas station sure have been helping with funding this beast!

Things are looking good..... Let me know if you need a hand with anything and Ill help out as much as possible....

Actually, if you know someone reliable who does painting and floor work, I think i'm going to go ahead and repaint the living room as well as change out the floors. I have carpet now and it's definitely seen better days. 2 years of salt water spills haven't been nice to it. So anyway, if you know someone reliable who does this kind of work, i'll probably start getting quotes in a few weeks and hopefully will be able to do start that in late Nov / early Dec. Oh, and I had some water spill thanks to a crappy washing machine repairman so now I have stains in my ceiling that will have to be covered or cut out and replaced... so i'll have to get a quote for that too.

[ekrunch]

Originally posted by Sara B
Looks like an awsome build Ed.

I'm actually waiting on payment for that wavebox before I can get my tank done ... gotta pay the plumber you know ;-)

* Krunchy bows his head in shame. I'll be over soon... I swear! I just have to buy one or two more things first. (Just kidding, see you this weekend!)

I'll get moving on my build thread as well so you can post that fine photo of my tank!

You better hurry or i'm going to make those pictures the start of your build thread!

[ekrunch]

Originally posted by Helter Skilter
Free chaeto in Lake in the Hills.

Can you hold some for me? I'll be over in 3-4 months to get it.

Oh, you wouldn't happen to have a skimmer, would you?

[ekrunch]

Originally posted by gotfish8
Krunchy, wrong forum buddy. This is the large tank forum

Oh ouch. Now I know the reason why you showed me the 275g and convinced me to get it. (Not that it took all that much convincing) Had I bought that 400g i'd have outdone your tank...

That's okay though, I think i've got you beat in flow and definitely in style.

Looks like a good start

Thanks for finding this beast. Can't wait to start ... buffing out the scratches.

* Krunchy curses at his big acrylic tank!

[ekrunch]

Originally posted by badazztealcobra
Thats probably the craziest part, whenever anyone outside of this community hears I have a 180 they are AMAZED.... Then you go to peoples house's like RKC's with a 600 and feel like your tank sucks.

HAHAHAHAHAHA I know. Funny how perspective changes everything. I suppose that's the same look that people who aren't into cars get when you tell them you want to get up over 500hp!

Speaking of that 180, take some pictures sometime man, that thing ought to be growing out nicely by now! I'm going to need a cup or two of my sand back at some point. I'm starting this tank with dry rock and dry sand.