New 300 gallon tank project

[mdh0215]

Thanks

[lovenasos]

That stand looks phenomenal! Where did you get the setup??

[ade]

Walmart.lol

[Virginia Reef]

It is the BEST set of tank dimensions that I ever seen in a home. Finally a tank with PLENTY (30") of front-to-back space. Looks even better in person.

Good luck with the planning and install.

[CeaHorseMaShell]

looks great guys, you are going to have soooo much fun with this project.

[NbMaxx13]

Did you guys end up having to throw some supports beneath the floor? Make sure you guys document every step... This could serve as a great learning experience for all of us. Looks like you guys have a lot of work in front of you , but i'm positive you're up to the task...

[ade]

Originally posted by Virginia Reef
It is the BEST set of tank dimensions that I ever seen in a home.

I would have to agree on that one, if I had to replace my 180 I think that I would do a 30" deep tank, there are so many things that you can do when aquascaping. Take your time and enjoy it guy's. please don't forget that there are plenty of hands to help out if you need it.

[AIMFish]

Originally posted by mdh0215
The tank is 72x36x27

36" guys A real nice tank to see in person, as mentioned I'm sure it will be more impressive with water and aquascaping.

[cayenne]

Okay, a little bit of project overview, and a time lapsed update from this past weekend.

This is sitting in a front room of our house, directly over a room in the basement that will become the equipment room. I will be able transfer some of my equipment from the 140g, but I will be upgrading many things as well.

From an aquascaping point of view we are planning on making two or three islands in the middle of the tank and leaving the rest open for swimming room for a couple of larger fish.

This is what I got done this past weekend.

Saturday - I managed to finish priming and sealing an equipment table for the fish room, swept and cleaned the entire basement, and moved a HVAC duct into the basement equipment room.

Sunday - The first order of business was reinforcing the floor joists beneath the tank, by sistering them up, boxing them in, and then installing columns.

The floor joists have been sistered up with an additional 2x8 and are sandwiched together with 5/8" Stainless Hardware.


I also installed a 4x6 spanning the length of the floor joists in the room and installed two floor jacks.


New HVAC Vent


Equipment Table. This will eventually be on the other side of the studded wall and the sump will be where you see the stand.


From the equipment perspective I will be upgrading lighting, skimmer, and my return pumps. My chiller, calcium reactor, and Tunze's are overkill enough that they will still be able to handle the upgrade without breaking a sweat.

My Equipment List at this point is:

Lighting:
3 x 250W MH with Lumenbright Reflectors (Haven't decided on a bulb yet)
Galaxy Electronic Ballasts
Either 2 or 4 6' VHO Actinics

Calcium Reactor: MRC CR6
Skimmer: Completely Undecided

Return Pump: A 2 month old ReeFlo Barracuda has been sourced
Circulation: 2 x Tunze 6101's

Chiller: Teco TR20 1/3HP
Controller: AC3

[vetdog]

kicking some serious a$$. definitely excited about following your progress

[manderx]

if you want to go beckett, i have a large barr aquatic sitting in my basement i'm supposed to be cleaning up for someone who wants to sell it (he moved and downsized, and was afraid it would get broken in transport). it's still caked with coralline (vinegar bath will fix easy) and the bulkhead that the downtube connects to the body through is barely loose with no easy way to tighten, so it barely dribbles- which doesn't matter one bit if you run it in a sump.

it's now made by http://www.austinoceans.com/products-skimmers.html
i'm not sure offhand which one it is, but it's a big one, will easily handle that tank with the right pump driving it.

i will clean it, and drive it to roanoke for you to look at. if you are interested, pm rbattle (Rush).

[Virginia Reef]

Landen,

You've made some progress since Saturday afternoon. Please let me know if you need a hand with anything. You're only a couple minutes out of the way on my way home from work and not far on weekends.

[Virginia Reef]

p.s. I've also finished a couple a basements and learned a LOT from my mistakes.

[ade]

So I am guessing that you are gong through the floor? I think that will be best. Do you have any kind of drain in the basement, that would make water changes so easy just the turn of a ball valve. Doing great.

[mdh0215]

Yes, we are going to go through the floor. Instead of cutting into the floor itself, Landen is going to go through one of the floor vents.
Right now he has it taped off so nothing goes down the vent/whole

This is the basement view that the plumbing is going to come through.

This is the drain that we already have in the basement that is going to help us with water changes and getting rid of extra water we have.

Also, since the tank needs to be moved from time to time for us to finish working on it we put sliders under the tank to make it slide a little better, and so it does not scratch the floor.

[Virginia Reef]

Be sure to check the outflow of the floor drain. Many of them simply lead to the back yard. You will not want to put large quantities of salt water in the yard/woods since the salt can kill various plantlife. If your drain leads outside, the better bet would be to go to the (future) sink on the other side of the basement.

[cayenne]

Thanks to everyone for all of the offers to help. Trust me, I will be calling when the time comes

Matt,
Thanks for the offer, but if I were to go with a Beckett I would definitely want it out of sump.

Adrian,
Basement install all the way, but I can see Melanie already addressed that... It looks like there is going to be tons of open space under the stand up stairs.

Paul,
The floor drain pictured goes out back to a drainage ditch. It will only be used as an emergency water spillage plan. The water changes will be handled with the plumbing rough ins. I am hoping to have the 3 bay stainless sink over here this weekend and start plumbing then.

[cayenne]

Does anyone know of a plumber that would like to make some extra money on the side doing weekend or evening work? I want to get my sink installed in the basement and would prefer to dedicate my free time to other parts of this project...

Basement is fully roughed in, and will only need plumbing to and from sink, and will need to have an ejector pump installed in existing drainage sump tank.

[cayenne]

I would like to get all of my plumbing parts ordered this week. All four holes drilled in the tank are drilled at 1.75" for 1" bulkheads. Each drain durso pipe is 1.5" adapted down to 1" at bulkhead, and each return is 1" all the way.

My plan is to combine both drains and both returns so I only have one single pipe going to the basement for each function. Assuming each overflow will be ~600-650 gph. I am thinking about plumbing 2", but I am not sure if that is overkill, would 1.5" be more appropriate?

Return pump will be a ReeFlo Barracuda which is 1.5" in/out if I remember correctly.

[Virginia Reef]

So who thinks High School Geometry would never come into use??? Below is the calculation (pi*radius*radius) for the area of a circle. The crossection (area) of a 1" line is about 3/4". The area (flow capacity?) of a 1.5" line is 2.25 times greater while the area of a 2" line is 4 times greater.

line size 1" 1.5" 2"

pi 3.1416 3.1416 3.1416
radius 0.5 0.75 1

area 0.7854 1.76715 3.1416

Seem like a 1.5" line would be plenty.

[cayenne]

Thanks Paul.. I was thinking 2" seemed like overkill, just never sat down and did the math.

Had some time off today and got this plumbing diagram done. Hopefully it shows up okay. Keep in mind this is only a flow diagram, not an elevation diagram, so placement of items aren't necessarily how it will be done elevation wise only approximations.

I labeled all of the unions, ball valves, etc. so you can tell what they are. Taking a screen capture just doesn't allow enough detail to come through on the valves.




The only thing this does not illustrate is auxiliary devices such as calcium reactor, Kalk stirrer, and ATO, didn't see the need for that level of detail at this point. Take a look and see if anybody has other suggestions, or sees something they would change.

[Virginia Reef]

Nice work Landen. One question and one suggestion...Is there a chance that the chiller output temperature is low enough to negatively impact the UV efficiency or lower the fuge temp to an unacceptable level? Fuge will probably be relatively low flow so the temp difference may be magnified.

The suggestion...I used several union ball valves. I bought single union rather than double to save money. Bad choice. The "ball" part of the valve would come apart letting loose a flood when the union was disconnected, rendering it useless as a union. I have switched out a couple of these to double union when I needed to do some maintenance.

[ade]

I think that the only thing I would look was on the same line as Paul, chiller and UV. Flow rate on the UV and chiller? Also additional flow gowing through the fuge I guess all depend what type of macro you are going to use IMO depends on flow rate. I think that I would place the chiller in line direct to the tank and UV to the fuge. Or if I had an open canvas I would do a large enough funge so that all my water drained through the fuge before it got to the sump. I would like to know the ratio of fuge to tank size to make it benefiticial.

[cayenne]

Paul,
I don't think the chiller temp would negatively impact the UV efficiency, however I didn't think about the fuge flow rate, and you are probably spot on there. In regards to the double union, you can't tell from the drawing but all ball valves that have unions will be double.

Ade,
I think I will change the flow to UV then Fuge... The only way I could run the chiller return back to the display would be to split the return and run two return's back up to the first floor. The chiller wouldn't be capable of handling the entire flow from one single return.

If I re-use my existing sump for the fuge it is approximately 45G

[mdh0215]

Here's a bit of an update. Last weekend my dad came down so we didn't accomplish too much on the tank, but we made up for it today.
The rock came in a day early (yesterday), but luckily we already had water made to cover the rock and then this morning Landen did a water change on the 150 to get some tank water for the rock. He also spent a good part of the morning scrubbing the rock.

Because we put the sliders under the tank the two of us were able to pull it out easily so we could paint the back of the tank. (There was another option that I am not aloud to talk about that we tried, but when it comes right down to it painting is the easiest and nicer way to cover the back of the tank).