600gal (96x48x30)

[jnarowe]

wow Shawn, what a list!

[uztaryn]

Glad to see you are recovering from the losses. I am going to have to come over and see it one of these days.

I saw a black tang at phisybusiness.com last time I was there. Was real healthy and a great sized one.

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by uztaryn
I saw a black tang at phisybusiness.com last time I was there. Was real healthy and a great sized one.

LOL, I am going to hold off on the more exp fish for right now... Maybe in like 6 months or so I will start my search... Same for some of the corals and carpet anemones I want...

I need to get over and see your setup as well...

[TandN]

WOW 55 pages great thread had taken a large chunk out of my day to read lol
Best of luck

[cbui2]

great looking setup, have the same exact size and will be setting up soon, just waiting on the key equipment my tank... do you have any recent pics on your setup, thanks

[cward]

Any word yet on why the Tunze pumps malfunctioned?

[Mahlhavoc]

I am glad you have recovered from you loss, your system is very nice and I have been following along with this for quite some time.


I do have a question regarding your system though, could you post pictures or send them to me on how you went about your sump plumbing from the tank and back. I ask because I am doing a tank build and will be shortly setting up a simular sump configuration only with a bit less water valume (150 and 50 only). Did you drill hole in the rubbermaids and if so, did you come accross any problems?

I can't wait to see this tank in a year, I would imagine tank of the month easily. Good work.

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by cbui2
great looking setup, have the same exact size and will be setting up soon, just waiting on the key equipment my tank... do you have any recent pics on your setup, thanks

I have seen your thread, you got a nice equ list going... I am watching your thread so keep us updated...

As for pics, I need to get some some updated ones...

Originally posted by cward
Any word yet on why the Tunze pumps malfunctioned?

Nothing yet, I have a 6200 and 6100 in the tank running, I still need to send back 3x 6200s and 1x 6100 as I am not able to get them working... I am hoping to get them sent out this wk...

Originally posted by Mahlhavoc
I am glad you have recovered from you loss, your system is very nice and I have been following along with this for quite some time.

I do have a question regarding your system though, could you post pictures or send them to me on how you went about your sump plumbing from the tank and back. I ask because I am doing a tank build and will be shortly setting up a simular sump configuration only with a bit less water valume (150 and 50 only). Did you drill hole in the rubbermaids and if so, did you come accross any problems?

I can't wait to see this tank in a year, I would imagine tank of the month easily. Good work.

It still hurts to think about it, but everyone has losses in this hobby, just hurts when you think your doing everything right and you lose a couple of fish... Its not the price as much as the losses, The $$ hurts some, but I just feel bad that I caused something to die...

Thank you (and everyone else) who has been following this thread... When I first started it I was planning on keeping it updated more often then I have, and not planned on it taking so long... But that is life and you have to go with the flow... Over the next few wks I am going to try to keep it updated more often...

I do need to get updated pics of the entire setup and I will be sure to get some detailed shots of the plumbing and making a diagram to show how its setup... I have a few things I want to change already with my plumbing, nothing much, just want to split the return pump off to a few more things...

I can only hope my tank is one tenth as good as some of the ones I have seen here on RC... I don't think it will even be close if I gave it 5yrs... So I don't expect TOTM anytime this decade...

[jnarowe]

My Tunze Nano ate it right away. It was apparently a "known" issue in that they made the shafts out of inferior metal and a bunch of them broke. It also never started in the right direction and sometimes wouldn't start at all... Probably a different set of problems, but not fun! After all the problems I have had with the Vortechs, I figured I would try Tunze...and it back-fired miserably!

I wrote to Roger and he said he would send me a new one as soon as they came in.

[jnarowe]

Just think, you may have had all the bad luck in one shot, and it will be smooth sailing from here on! I would love that, rather than worrying about when the next shoe drops.

Can you say "Manifold"?

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by jnarowe
Just think, you may have had all the bad luck in one shot, and it will be smooth sailing from here on! I would love that, rather than worrying about when the next shoe drops.

Can you say "Manifold"?

LOL, I can only hope that all my bad luck is behind me, but I don't think so... If it was not for bad luck, I would not have any luck at all... So I will be waiting for the next shoe to drop and just taking it as a learning exp and going on... I just seem to learn everything the hard way

yea, yea... a manifold was on my list, but I kinda skimped... So I am looking at adding a manifold when I start in on my plumbing again...

I can say I have learned alot with this project and still learning something new everyday... When you think you have everything figured out, your not even close (at least I'm not), and then when you skimp on something that you think you can get by without or what not, you learn really fast you should have just taken the extra time and did it right the first time your life would have been much easier... I could have done a good bit more planning on this setup and if/when I do this again I will be spending alot more time on my "planning stage"...

[cbui2]

I am with you on that 100%, I am taking my precious time to do everything that I can do making sure not skimping any step at all, and the littlest detail can screw up everything..so I learn that this hobby doesn't happen overnight or even weeks with these large system.

[SERVO]

Hey Shawn,

Hang in there buddy! If I would have known of all the head aches of setting up my 400 gallon, I wouldn't have.

Now things are rocking. IMO, I think that big systems *although theoretically more stable* have the capacity to drift and stay out of our target of appropriate water chemistry. Usually, water changes do wonders, but in such large systems, it is almost impossible *or impracticle* to change so much water.

Anyway, what can I do to try to discourage you from buying a Morish Idol? Lovely fish, but sadly, I doubt that you will be able to keep it long. They just seem to slowly wither away and die in any system that I've ever seen them in.

BTW; I should be making a trip to Columbus in the next 2 months or so. I'll PM you, I'd love to hook up!

Ryan

[jnarowe]

Yeah, a manifold is easy enough to do but many don't because they don't see the necessity. And let me tell you, however many branches you think you need, plumb in an extra 3 or 4. It doesn't cost much and it's easy to do. I still have 2 that I can use, and one of them is on the far end straight off so I could plumb in quite a few more valves if needed.

Things to consider for a manifold:

1. Types of valves, of course! I used mostly gate valves and although they are not as easy to get, they sure help in fine tuning return flow. I would not build a manifold without them.

2. Items to be plumbed for:

--return lines
--refugium feed
--reactors (Ca, kalk, carbon, floss, PO4)
--chiller/heat exchanger
--RDSB
--skimmer?
--by-pass to sump (I put mine before the manifold)

3. Open ended line to keep the manifold from back siphoning display water during a power outage. Mine is the refugium feed which is not in contact with the water.

4. Mounting manifold above the level of the display water; again to stop back siphoning!!

Some food for thought.

[juststartingout]

Hey Shawn,

How are things coming along? Any chance of shaming you into an update?

[asnatlas]

Yea, I been slacking I have not done much with the tank in like 2 months... I have been busy with work and things around the house... I do have a vacation sched in about 3 wks and will be out of state and kinda don't want to change anything or add anything else to the tank until I return... I will try to get it cleaned up and get some updated pics...

I am sorry that there has been no updates in a while...

[BigEasy]

Shawn,
No need for apologies. Life stuff sometimes gets in the way of reefing.

I would like to as how you like the dimensions of your tank. I am planning a 96x48x30 as well. How are cleaning, coral placement, aesthetics etc?
Thanks
Steve

[clekchau]

shawn, how was that algae problem you were having? i have a bad cyano problem at the moment

[Sparkss]

Originally posted by asnatlas
yea, yea... a manifold was on my list, but I kinda skimped... So I am looking at adding a manifold when I start in on my plumbing again...

Here is our manifold build thread from our old tank (I went much more simplfied with our new tank, mainly because I combined several components).

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...87#post7278387


It incorporates alot of what Jonathan was talking about as far as gate valves, etc.

HTH

[Sparkss]

Originally posted by clekchau
shawn, how was that algae problem you were having? i have a bad cyano problem at the moment

Even with that monster Volcano skimmer and fluidized reactor ? How do you have them plumbed in ?

[clekchau]

Originally posted by Sparkss
Even with that monster Volcano skimmer and fluidized reactor ? How do you have them plumbed in ?

no reactor and the skimmer works great, it pulls about 3-5 gallons of thick green nog a day no exxageration. it's plumbed coming off of my external overflow. my parameters are perfect, my flow is great, i don't know what else to do

[jnarowe]

it happens to the best of us. I have cyano in my fuge right now, and I believe it is due to combo of detritus built up in my sump, and a small amount of excess nutrients.

[erics3000]

Whooo..I finally read through this post. When I first started I didn't qt anything and lost all my fish through ick and almost quit. I am glad I stuck with it. It hurt a lot to loose the fish. I learned a lot and took it as a lesson. The only losses I have had lately were due to little jumping buggers. Now that I have found out about RC I am taking my time.

Glad you stuck with it. Your system looks great. I hope to see some updated pics.

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by BigEasy
Shawn,
No need for apologies. Life stuff sometimes gets in the way of reefing.

I would like to as how you like the dimensions of your tank. I am planning a 96x48x30 as well. How are cleaning, coral placement, aesthetics etc?
Thanks
Steve

I love the dimensions of the tank... It is a bit hard to clean the bottom 8-10" with the euro-bracing, as well as the limited room I have between the tank and the lighting so that does not help... If I stayed on top of keeping the glass cleaned it not that bad, but with work and everything else it can go a few wks with out me really touching it... Coral placement is not bad at all...

Work should be slowing down in the next wk or two so I should have a little more time on my hands and I am really looking forward to working on the system and getting the few changes I have planned in place as well as getting some updated pics...

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by clekchau
shawn, how was that algae problem you were having? i have a bad cyano problem at the moment

clekchau, I have not had anything like the bloom I posted back in the thread... I am assuming it was an algae bloom, but again I have no idea why it happened... The only thing I really have right now if a few large chunks of HA here and there, I plan on removing them when I do some maint in the display in the next wk or two... I did have a few decent sized stops of cyano a few wks ago but that seemed to have gone away with no intervention on my part...