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Unread 01/17/2016, 06:31 PM   #51
danrobberg
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Are you going to be able to fit a skimmer in that sump with all that trim in the way?


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Unread 01/17/2016, 10:48 PM   #52
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The skimmer will be external & located in the closet.


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 07/08/2016, 10:24 PM   #53
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6 month update

Hey everyone-

The Tank is running great & doing well!

To bring everyone up to date, I never wound up filling the tank with natural seawater. I decided to go old school & mixed synthetic salt into 44 gallon cans to make the salt water. It was a painful process. I was pumping 150 gallons a day for 4 days thru my RO unit. But, 12 batches later, she was all filled up at 1.025.

Cycle went smooth; everything spiked and stabilized in about a week. However, my phosphates went thru the roof. I believe the pO4 spike was due to not 'cooking the dry rock in advance of introducing to the display. I got some heavy 'die off' from the dry rock before it began to develop the beneficial bacteria. So, I did two 50% water changes over a 2 week period (in two shots) to knock the phosphates down to almost zero. That was another fun process. The good news is that everything has stayed perfect since.

Tank is running 2 filter socks in sump (which I change weekly) for mechanical filtration. Live rock (in DT) & MRC biomedia (in sump) for biological filtration. Three Jäger 300 watt heaters (in sump); An aquamedic Kalk stirrer fed thru a tunze osmolator ATO. I am also running a small amount of Carbon and GFO through a BRS dual media reactor on a very slow flow. A reeflo snapper for my return pump (full throttle) a vectra closed loop pump (full throttle) and a digital aquatics RKL with probes for PH, Salinity and Temp which are programmed to the NET module to send me updates. My lights are fluorescent 6500k and 50/50 actinics that I had from an older tank set-up (these need to be upgraded) and I also need to get an appropriate sized Protein Skimmer connected. One of my favorite features in the design is the Semi-Automatic water change system; it can change water in about 15 minutes with the turn of two valves and a press of a button- took some planning, but this was a good decision.


I have added the following fish:
-3 yellow tangs (2.5")
-1 purple tang (2.5")
-1 Midas Blenny (3")
-1 Mated pair of mocha clown fish (2" female : 1" male)
-1 hippo Tang (2.5")


I have also added about 10 small random soft coral and LPS frags to see how they respond:

- random zoos
- hammer coral (2 heads)
- blasto (3-4 heads)
- green mushroom
- red mushroom
- green frilly mushroom
- galaxia

All the live stock is doing well and the tank inhabitants have a nice vibe going.

Once I get the skimmer going and lights upgraded, I am going to look to start a dosing program for Ca, Alk and Mg. Right now, everything is good for my bio load with just mixing some calcium carbonate into the H20 change water and changing 10% a month on the automatic water change set-up. I am a believer that running the kalk keeps the parameters stable.

Going slow and being patient is a good model - that's what I keep telling myself

Will keep making posts on my progress.


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 07/08/2016, 10:42 PM   #54
Zacktosterone
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Pretty awesome looking


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Unread 07/09/2016, 09:27 AM   #55
CrazyDiamond
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Thumbs up

Thanks - much appreciated. Sittin back and enjoying it. It was a great build and it is only gonna get better over time !


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 07/09/2016, 12:36 PM   #56
saf1
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Looks good. One of the options I'm looking at is a 30 to 36" tall tank. One can get pretty creative and LED's can hit the bottom easy enough. Nice work.


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Unread 07/10/2016, 03:03 PM   #57
CrazyDiamond
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Lights for a Deep tank

Quote:
Originally Posted by saf1 View Post
Looks good. One of the options I'm looking at is a 30 to 36" tall tank. One can get pretty creative and LED's can hit the bottom easy enough. Nice work.

saf1- thx - yes I think their are company's that make leds these days that can deliver decent par readings in very Tall Aquariums, all the way down to the sand bed. I think 30-36" is a very nice height for a tank - go as tall as u can I like seeing the fish swim in all of the open space in a tall tank, but placing corals on the lower rock structures will challenge you. So, you'll need to get some long grabbers and/or tongs for that.

Have you researched the led's ?

Which brand(s) / model(s) have you found that would be suitable for a tall tank?


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 07/10/2016, 03:21 PM   #58
saf1
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CrazyDiamond View Post
saf1- thx - yes I think their are company's that make leds these days that can deliver decent par readings in very Tall Aquariums, all the way down to the sand bed. I think 30-36" is a very nice height for a tank - go as tall as u can I like seeing the fish swim in all of the open space in a tall tank, but placing corals on the lower rock structures will challenge you. So, you'll need to get some long grabbers and/or tongs for that.

Have you researched the led's ?

Which brand(s) / model(s) have you found that would be suitable for a tall tank?
It will be more of a DIY route which I've been using for some time on my 29 gallon bio-cubes and now the 40 breeder. I've been using LED's for a while now over my daughters planted tank and then later retro fitting the bio-cubes.

The 40 breeder probably has too much light but I have it dialed down substantially. I'm using two Rapid Led Borealis Luxeon Z Array's over it. I've supplemented some additional blue and whites, about 6 total, that come on during the small peak/tip of the lighting period. The lights are currently about 12 - 16" above the waterline. More than likely I'll carry over the two Borealis chips and add a pair of 48" wide heat sinks and build out LED's horizontally. This way I'll have two wide LED distributions at the front and back of the tank with the two Luxeon's in the middle. At least that is my thought anyway.

I keep mostly soft corals anyway. Xenia, Kenya trees, green button polyps, with a Hammer has grown out of proportion. Then there are about 5 to 6 rose bubble tips mixed in. I started with one but over the past 5 years it has cloned time and time again. Go figure.

Edit: Forgot to say I like how it all came together. I was re-reading and see that I missed one of your full tank shots showing everything finished, trim, etc. Very well done, talent.


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Unread 07/24/2016, 07:20 PM   #59
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Well, I went with the ReefOctopus Regal 300 External skimmer 12" and hooked it up in the closet on the left of the tank- right next to my aquamedic ks5000 kalk stirrer. It has been running for 48 hours and is just starting to produce some skim. I hard plummed the inlet to a Sicce pump which sits in the sump and T'd the outlet of the skimmer into my 1.5" pvc salt water feed to the sump from my water change station. So, all said and done ; it is a pretty nice set-up. I never had an external skimmer before and really like the way the skimmer allows you to 'dial it in' with the gate valve. Still gonna need to run a waste line from the collection cup and monitor it a bit to get it optimized as it 'breaks in'. The skimmer water output to the sump is producing alot of micro bunbles which are making their way back to my DT. I am hoping this is part of the 'break in' ; worst case, I may have to insert a piece of foam in the sump (between the baffles) to get rid of the micro bubbles. Interested in anyones thoughts on how to deal with this.

Also, picked up two dosing pumps and mounted them on the wall. I had to get another power bar for the reefkeeper lite to support the additional equipment and plan to hook the dosers up to the controller on timers. This is also a 'first' for me as I have always had smaller tanks & dosed manually. I have 5 gallon jugs for the calcium and alkalanity resivoirs & I am looking forward to mixing up the 2 part supplements and figuring it all out. Hopefully this tank doesn't blow through the mixture too quickly. Probably will be a while before I start hoising corals that demand lots of calcium,
so, should this should be a good method for a while.

Hope you guys like the set-up. Certainly appreciate everyones thoughts - please share your wisdom as I continue to take this build to the next level & beyond !

Thx-


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 07/24/2016, 07:26 PM   #60
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Some pics of the skimmer, kalk stirrer & H20 set up...

Here are some pics...


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Unread 07/24/2016, 07:28 PM   #61
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Skimmer and Kalk stirrer


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 07/24/2016, 07:30 PM   #62
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RO Unit and H20 closet


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Unread 07/24/2016, 07:33 PM   #63
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48 hours of skim - DC pump controller on level 3


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Unread 08/24/2016, 08:30 PM   #64
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Couple of shots

8 months running... Fish are sleeping ....lights are getting ready to turn off for the evening...here are a couple of shots of the aqua scape & coralline growth in the aquarium- time to get some more corals !


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 08/24/2016, 08:32 PM   #65
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More shots

Elegance ...


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 08/24/2016, 08:33 PM   #66
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Rock structure

Right side


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 08/24/2016, 08:35 PM   #67
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Rock Structure

Left side


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 03/19/2017, 10:29 AM   #68
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some updates:


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 03/19/2017, 10:32 AM   #69
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coral pics

nice torch coral


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Current Tank Info: 485 gallon in wall - 96"x24"x42" - December 2015 New Build
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Unread 03/19/2017, 10:34 AM   #70
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Devils Hand

love this piece XL


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Unread 03/19/2017, 10:36 AM   #71
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More Corals

massive mushroom


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Unread 03/19/2017, 11:03 AM   #72
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shot of the room

wife decorated....


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Unread 03/19/2017, 11:04 AM   #73
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shot of the tank

head on shot


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Unread 03/19/2017, 11:20 AM   #74
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But none of the chairs is facing the tank. Doesn't that get hard on the neck after a while?

Dave.M


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Unread 03/19/2017, 03:39 PM   #75
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Lol

Yes, that could be tough on the neck.......

Which is why I had the furniture store build those chairs on a swivel !

Whooooooo !


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