My obsession - 450g reef

[tbittner]

Oh boy, where to start. First off, here is my existing reef. It's a 120g and I have a 300g fuge/sump set up in the basement. I'll be moving the contents of this tank to the 450 when it's up and running. My 120 has been up for a year now.

 

I bought this tank used and abused. The center brace, which was 3/4" glass, had been broken so I ordered a replacement. Here is what I started with. It's 120 x 24 x 36.

 

 

Here is the room where the 450 is going to be set up in. It will go against the wall to the right.

 

Since the tank will block the doorway into the theater room, we expanded the doorway.

 

Interesting story. About 3 weeks after I bought the tank, the guy I bought it off of called and asked if I would also like to buy the stand that the previous owner had built for it. I went to see it and I paid him cash right on the spot. It's an awesome piece of furniture and VERY well built.

 

I ripped off the broken pieces of glass that used to be the center brace and I siliconed on the replacements. Fully cured silicon REALLY holds! It was a serious PITA to get the old one off. This is a ledge brace that the big 24" x 24" sits on. That piece has also been siliconed on and has set for a week now.

 

 

Here is a pic of the holes that are drilled into it. The red dots are 3/4" bulkheads and the blues are 1". There are also two 1" bulkheads in the bottom plus a 1 1/4" one. The numbers are the measurements, in inches, from the right hand side and from the bottom. I'll be running a Sequence Hammerhead in a closed loop and a Sequence Barracuda as the return pump. That should get me up to around 9,000 gph in flow. Not really enough for SPS but I'm more interested in LPS, zoas, shrooms, rics, those kind of corals. I think that should be enough for those guys. The main thing I like about this tank is the 10 feet of swim room for tangs.

 

Anyway, tomorrow I have a bunch of guys coming over to help me lift it up onto the stand. Then the plumbing begins. We pretty much finished remodeling the entire area, including putting slate down around the wood burner which is around the corner from the tank. I'm TIRED!

 

I'll get more pics of it up on the stand tomorrow. The tank really cleaned up nicely. I also received 900 lbs of a mixture of sand from Dr. Foster and Smith. Their shipping policy is unbelievable. The sand plus 5 buckets of IO/RC cost me $18 to ship to my house.

[jamesbuf]

Tagging along. Can't wait to see more.

[SteveM]

Tagging along. Can't wait to see more.

 

Same here. Looks like its going to be very nice.

[Carl]

Keep the pictures coming!!

[zoozilla]

Tagging along...

[flowerseller]

Is the tank going to sit on the stand and then go in the large opening as build in?

[phisigs79]

No Chip its going on the wall to the right like he said in the fourth picture. Not everyone can have a setup as cool as yours. Now that your 50 i think we need to take you to get your eyes checked

[Ziggy953]

Wow that is on heck of a tank!! It's going to be awesome!!

[tbittner]

Thanks!

 

We got it up on the stand and it and everyone involved is injury free.

 

Tomorrow the plumbing will commence.

 

[Connor]

how much does that bad boy weigh? Great looking stand and tank.

[Highland Reefer]

That is one beautiful cabinet you have your tank on. What kind of wood is it?

 

[tbittner]

I calculated it out that the tank weighs 980 lbs, empty. When it's full it will probably be close to 5,000. It's in my basement, on a concrete floor, and the weight is spread out on 8 leg points.

 

I believe the wood is mahogany but I'm not positive. The guy who had the tank built, had this custom stand built so I'm not sure what he had used. I know that when we sat the tank onto the stand, the stand didn't grown or creak or sag or anything.

[tbittner]

We gave the tank a final, thorough cleaning and my wife humored me and laid down in it to give you a perspective of the size. She is 5' 10".

 

[jamesbuf]

You sure that tank is big enough for you? If you ever think its not big enough for you, please keep me in mind for this one. That is my dream tank size.

 

 

In all seriousness, I can't wait to see this thing setup.

[tbittner]

If I ever decide to upgrade to a BIG tank, I'll make sure to contact you first, James.

 

I love the length of this tank. I will feel very comfortable in adding some of the big tangs to this tank.

 

I'll most likely get the closed loop all plumbed up tomorrow and then just fill it up with tap water (we have a well so no clorine to worry about) and run the closed loop for a few days just to leak test everything.

 

Then I'll drain it and wipe it out really good and then it'll be time to start filling it with saltwater.

[Connor]

Awesome tank I'll deffinatly be tagging along for this one.

 

Connor

[tbittner]

My 72" Solaris came in today. I opened it up and plugged it in just to make sure everything works. It's back in the box now and moved to a safe area away from all of the plumbing works that I still have to do.

 

Probably in a couple of days I'll be able to test the CL plumbing.

[jason the filter freak]

That tank looks freaking sick! Whats the significance of the numbered colored circles in the one picture?

[jamesbuf]

What length is the Solaris? I've yet to see one up and running. Can't wait.

[tbittner]

Jason, the colored dots are showing where all the holes are that are drilled into the tank. The numbers are the measurements, in inches, from the right and bottom edges.

 

The Solaris that I got is a 72". We sat it upside down on the box so it lit the ceiling. It's really concentrated light. And it's so cool that instead of buying different bulbs to change the color spectrum, you just dial it in on the controller.

 

Once I get everything completely set up, I'll have a party and invite everyone out.

[HowardofNOVA]

Awesome setup sir!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

post 5300

[tbittner]

Thanks Howard. I have really high hopes for this tank.

 

I finished attaching gate valves to each of the returns for the closed loop. What a PITA that was! There are a lot of small pieces of PVC in each of these.

 

[jamesbuf]

You should make sure to put some unions at key places so that it'll be easy to take apart if need be.

[tbittner]

My wife and I talked about that. The 2" pipe that will be feeding all of these will be laying on the floor and I'll put a T in the 2" with an adapter to the 3/4" or 1", depending on which gate valve it will run into. So there will be a pretty good length of pipe between the T and the gate valve. The only thing that could go wrong is a bulkhead would leak. That would be really bad because the ONLY way to replace it would be to drain the tank down to that level. I would just cut the pipe in order to unscrew the gate valve from the bulkhead, take out the bulkhead and replace it, then screw the gate valve back in. Then I'd just use an extension adapter to reconnect the pipe.

 

Maybe I'm a bit blind about it, but I don't see how a union would help me in this case. The bulkheads will NEVER leak anyway, right?

 

(I'm kidding of course)

 

I'm also putting unionized ball valves on the pipes connecting to the pump, as close to the pump as I can get them. That will make it easy to shut the water off, disconnect the pump, and pull it out from under the stand.

Edited April 2, 2008 by tbittner

[tbittner]

Man, that was a LOT of pieces and parts of PVC to measure, cut, glue, and squeeze together but the return for the CL is done!

 

Now for the input to the CL. That shouldn't take more than an hour though. Probably tomorrow I'll pump in 40g of saltwater and test the CL for leaks and flow. I thought about using the water from the well, but then I didn't know how I'd get it back out of the system and I didn't want that much non-ro/di water in the tank. So I'm going to gamble and use the made up saltwater and hope that nothing leaks.