DaveS July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 (edited) Ok, it's been a long time coming but I'm finally putting up my build thread. Between work and the actual build, getting this thread together seemed like a daunting task. However I feel very committed to creating this thread because I consider it to be one small way of paying back the WAMAS community for all the wonderful help I have gotten along the way from members and their build threads. I hope that newer members benefit from mine as I have from others. Background I bought a house and moved into it August 2007. It had a beautiful 210 reef that was built into the wall above the bar. I used to be REALLY big into aquariums back in the early 80s, keeping salt systems back in the dark ages of undergravel filters and always wanted to get into reef systems. Naturally the house was a perfect fit for me and I was looking forward to taking over the tank. Here are some pictures of the tank that came with the house. General Specs for old tank: 210G 72"x24"x30" acrylic with central overflow box Aquamedic Oceanlight combo 3 x 250W MH + 4 x T5 a few powerheads in the tank to help with circulation but more dead spots than I would like The Decision The tank was nice but it was obviously intended to be a simple Nemo tank with some softies and pretty fish. As I got more into SPS, I started running into limitations in the system design- flow was limited and keeping the acrylic clean became too burdensome. Scraping coralline sucks. After flip flopping for over a year between keeping it, getting a glass tank or just getting out of the hobby, I made the decision to switch out my acrylic tank for glass. In talking things over with various people at WAMAS, I decided to really go all the way. Instead of just swapping out the tank and leaving things at that, I decided to make more upgrades while I was at it. In all, the upgrades include: replacing acrylic tank with custom built hybrid glass/PVC tank from AGE replacing the lighting system rebuilding the stand to allow more space (larger sump) underneath lowering the tank by a few inches so it's not such a death defying feat working in the tank (the stand was 50" high which meant the top of the tank that I had to climb over is almost 8' above the ground). redoing the wall after lowering the tank since it's an in-wall tank. moving some plumbing for the house around in the room to get it out of the way for the more important fish stuff. smile.gif building more shelves in the fish room to accommodate other things like water storage, more tanks, etc. waterproofing the room from the rest of the house I seriously considered hiring a general contractor to do much of the renovation. I even got a very fair quote from Chubakah for the work. But after talking it over with some people, I decided to take on this project myself. I'm relatively handy and with the help of a few others who had expertise in areas I didn't, it seemed like we had all our bases covered. Here's a pic of the tank as it looked just prior to being torn down. The New System The new system is designed for SPS. High flow, easier access for maintenance and space for support equipment were high on the priority list. Specifics include: 210G 72"x24"x30" hybrid glass/PVC bottom tank by AGE (ordered with Sean at Fin & Feathers) Starphire glass on 3 sides (just in case) and Calfo style external overflow No central bracing to get in the way of things 3 x 400W MH Lumenbrights with 20K Radiums, T5 supplementation if needed NO powerheads! 2 closed loops with Darts and Ocean Motions 4-ways. Outputs from the bottom of the tank since it's easy to drill PVC. I thought about Vortechs but prefered having 8 adjustable direction outputs. I may still get one just to have a battery backup for circulation during power outages. Stand- rebuilt, lowered and eliminated the center brace to make it more open Project Plan The general project plan was to first break down the tank and relocate all the inhabitants. Once that was done, I could empty the fish room completely and move some of the mechanical stuff for the house around. Once that was done, I could build the stand and a few things. The idea was to get far enough into it that I would know about any issues before I ordered the tank. The last thing I wanted was a tank with dimensions that didn't match up with the rest of the room. The second to last thing I wanted was a lonely tank sitting in my garage waiting to be put up while I finished the room. Tank Break Down So tank break down was done shortly after hosting the WAMAS Children's Cancer Center benefit. It turned out to be a good way for everyone to get a look at the old tank before it was gone. I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow two 100G Rubbermaid stock tanks from jtro. The plan was to just move the water, corals and other inhabitants from the 210 tank into the stock tanks. Once that was done we moved the plumbing and lights from the tank and connected it to the stock tanks. Basically all my stuff got moved over to the 2x100 tubs. So Saturday January 24th, we started at the crack of Noon: Tank tear down, move corals, rock, sand, inhabitants and water to holding bins. Move sump and lighting and replumb things so fish and corals are happy again. Vacate everything, including current acrylic tank out of fish room. Start stand tear down if we have time. Helpers: SteveD, L82rise, Jngyuen4007 and BrianWard came to help. L8rise, Jngyuen4007 and SteveD were in charge of setting up the lighting for the stock tanks. They made some nice stands out of PVC pipe. L82rise was put in charge of using the egg crate to fabricating frag trays for the corals and other things coming out. All the live rock without corals on them were placed on the bottom and the trays were placed on top. BrianWard did a great job as plumber. Once we got all the stock tanks ready, he was in charge of moving the sump over with all the pumps, Kalk stirrer, Calcium reactor and everything else. By around 8pm everything was up and running in the new area. Room Demolition On the next day, the plan was to get the tank and stand out of the room so we could start cleaning it out and painting the room. We had some problems with scheduling and it ended up being mid afternoon before I was able to get enough bodies at the house to get the old tank out. In reality it wasn't all that heavy but since it had to come out through the front and OVER the counter, faucet and other stuff, it was good to have extra people to share the load. Once the tank came out, the stand and rest of the room got broken down very quickly. SteveD, Coral Hind, BrianWard were there helping. Once the tank and other things were out of the room, we could start moving the mechanical stuff around and building things. BTW, the room was actually pretty darn big once all the fish stuff was out. If things get tight, I may get rid of all the fish stuff and rent it out as a room... Building the Stand With the tank and stand out, Coral Hind, ctenophore, paeneain and SteveD joined me on Saturday January 31st to kick things off on the room build. Step one was to remove the old framing and reroute a bunch of plumbing and electrical stuff. Since the tank shares a wall with bar that's got a sink, refrigerator, icemaker and other amenities there was a lot of non-fish stuff under the stand that got in the way with the sump. Below are some shots of us removing the old framing. Notice all the stuff along that wall. Lots of things that don't like being exposed to salt water. In addition, there are lots of holes and places where salt water can go. A goal was to rip out all that stuff out and reroute things so that there would be minimal stuff there and the wall would have a clean and solid surface. Also notice in the picture above the 2.5" and 0.5" pipes that ctenphore is pointing to. Those guys come out 1.5 feet away from the wall and one is 1.5 feet off the ground. They totally got in my way whenever I wanted to do anything. Getting them moved was critical to reclaiming a bunch of space. Snip snip and out comes the copper pipes for hot and cold water and off comes the old framing that was around the tank. Pull up the carpet and pull out the fridge and ice maker to get access to the electrical boxes and pull those out. Saw-z-all says goodbye to sink and icemaker drains as well as plywood from drywall patches. You can also see new 4x4's and the engineered beam being leveled and test fitted. Clean up shot dedicated to my wife who usually performs the supporting janitorial role when I'm leading the tasks. Big sheet of plywood being configured as the backing for the stand. This is designed to go against the drywall and serve as a splashboard. Splash board in place. A couple of holes made for electrical and pipes that can easily be sealed. One channel cut out for the sink drain, it will get closed up later. Stand in place and just rerouting the drain pipes left. All plumbing rerouted and working again. Splashboard above the tank (Pulley is for my light rack) Dremmeled off the screws that hold the drywall up on the other side. From the front side Drywall in place Painting the room One of my goals is to "waterproof" the room. With the old tank, I kept the lids off to reduce heat but then sometimes a snail would crawl over a return outlet causing water to spray up onto the drywall, resulting in some light damage. We all know how spills and leaks routinely happen. The idea is that with a little planning, the room can be made to contain 1.5" of standing water. There is a sump in that room and while the floor isn't sloped towards it, if the water level gets to around 1" it will drain into the sump where the pump can get rid of the water preventing damage to the rest of the house. BrianWard had a couple gallons of Sherwin Williams tile clad epoxy paint. Once the stand was built, I painted the walls, floor and splash board with it. This would not only seal the floor for the standing water, preventing seepage under the footers of the walls and into another room, but it would also prevent drywall damage from any sprays or splashing. Since I will also run a bead of silicone caulk around the tank and the framing, it's almost like I can just hose down the walls when I clean the room . I didn't take too many picture of the painting process as my hands were messy and everyone knows what painting is like. Here's a couple of pics with the epoxy done. You can see other sections of the room in latter pictures. Here's the bottom of the stand. Wires need to secured but you can see how it's now fairly resistant to any type of splashing that may occur. You can see in the corner how the pipe now goes around the 4x4. After painting the epoxy, work and other things got busy so I put things on hold or a month or so. I also took that time to focus on finalizing the tank specs since the stand was done. I figured every day the tank order got delayed was another day the build wouldn't be done. Little did I know that compounded on my delays would be the those by AGE. Not complaining about this too much as I've been able to use the extra time while I waited. Tank Racks Once the epoxy was done, the next step was to build some tank racks. The idea is that I can have a QT, frag and water tanks to support everything in the display. The racks were limited by a few things- room size, dimensions, house mechanicals, and a few others. One particular limitation was the size of my chiller and location of the vent for the room. This required that there be no center brace in the tank racks so that I could move my chiller in/out from underneath everything. Here are some pictures of the racks as they were built The plumbing for the central vac got in the way so I cut them. I'd feel bad but it's been a month and my wife hasn't mentioned anything to me about it yet... Getting the tank With most of the build out in the room done, it was time to receive the tank. On July 6, I was able to convince a few WAMAS members to stop by to help out. Final prep- foam padding in place to level out the stand Tank on the back of the truck- this is gonna be heavy... Getting ready to take the tank out of the truck Almost there... Somehow Coral Hind ended up being the only one in the room and carrying most of the load! Making sure everything is flush It's in and nothing got broken! Quick Mermaid shot Here's how it looks now External overflow Adjustable weir Impressive overflow cover Now that the tank is in, all the plumbing fun begins. First step is to drill holes in this new tank for the closed loop. I'll post more as I make progress on these next phases. Hope this has been educational to those who are considering a similar project! Before I forget, I want to give my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all the WAMAS members who have helped out and are continuing to help. I have hopefully mentioned everyone in this thread but please forgive me if I left someone out- there have been so many! Edited July 8, 2009 by DaveS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mammoth July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 Looking good! Pretty soon you'll have pics with a finished product before me!! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 Nice thread Dave. I seem to recall a significant spill when we modified those copper pipes Did you decide the plumbing plan for the CLs? I can't remember if it was 1", 1.25", or 1.5" CL return plumbing. 1.25 might be a good compromise for the Dart if 1.5 gets too bulky under the stand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikryd July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 Dave - Nice work! I remember seeing the basement when it was all torn up when I picked up the light - It has come along nicely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoozilla July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 Dave and the WAMAS crew, Very nice work How long did it take AGE to fabricate/deliver the tank to you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS July 8, 2009 Author Share July 8, 2009 Looking good! Pretty soon you'll have pics with a finished product before me!! LOL Hard to say- while getting the tank up is a huge milestone, I'm now overwhelmed by all the plumbing and other things that need to happen to get this finished. Nice thread Dave. I seem to recall a significant spill when we modified those copper pipes Did you decide the plumbing plan for the CLs? I can't remember if it was 1", 1.25", or 1.5" CL return plumbing. 1.25 might be a good compromise for the Dart if 1.5 gets too bulky under the stand. Hehe yea the water was fun but dried up. The purple primer got hidden by the epoxy. Interesting enough, it took two full coats of the epoxy to hide the purple. The plan for the CL is to have 4 holes in the bottom across the front and another 4 across the back. Eight 1" bulkheads in the bottom total. I'm looking to run 2 OM 4-ways, one on the left 4 holes (2 front, 2 back) and another on the right 4 holes. I was going to put a dart on each (2 Darts for the CL) but I may try running it off of 1 Dart for now and see what kind of flow I'm getting. I like the idea of the two OM4 running independently because like you said, they will increase the randomized flow in the tank. I'm still deciding between running 1.5" or 1.25" plumbing to the bulkheads. Part of me wants to do 1.25" because I think it will be less crowded underneath. I'm leaning towards flexible PVC to help with the routing. Any suggestions on this are welcome. Dave - Nice work! I remember seeing the basement when it was all torn up when I picked up the light - It has come along nicely! Yea I forgot that you guys came over that day when we were building the stand. It was a pretty crazy day cause I think 2 other WAMASers came over to pickup/drop off various things. My driveway was full! Dave and the WAMAS crew, Very nice work How long did it take AGE to fabricate/deliver the tank to you? The tank took a little less than 2 months from final authorization to arrival. Sean did a good job of staying on top of them. I caused a few small delays in getting final delivery because I went on vacation for a week and then had trouble lining up the crew due to the 4th holiday weekend. In all, I think it's one of those things where if you have a strict timeline, you'll get frustrated but if you know going in that there will be delays, it's manageable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 Very nice! I will definitely be following this thread. What does AGE stand for? Can't seem to find them. Just curious how much that tank cost to have made..I am really diggin the external overflow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boret July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 AGE Acrylic and Glass Exhibits website Awesome build Dave. It was great to be able to be part of it. Can't wait to see it all filled up!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 Dave, On the CL, I definitely recommend running the largest "drain" you can - it reduces the suction effect so your fish won't be bothered. I used 2 2" drains to feed my OM 4-way on a Barracuda. The returns are all 1" - if I remember right, that's what comes out of the OM 4-way. If I were you, I'd do something similar. Either 1 or 2 2" drains to feed each Dart and the returns from the OM as 1". Another thing to consider is spreading the returns from the 4-way across the whole tank as opposed to positioning them on each side. So 2 on the left, 2 right of center from 1 OM, and 2 on the right and 2 left of center from the other OM. This will spread your flow across the whole tank and your randomness should be increased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Camaron July 8, 2009 Share July 8, 2009 that is an awesome and very deatil build, congrats and good luck with it. Cant wait to see it full of corals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore July 9, 2009 Share July 9, 2009 Dave,On the CL, I definitely recommend running the largest "drain" you can - it reduces the suction effect so your fish won't be bothered. I used 2 2" drains to feed my OM 4-way on a Barracuda. The returns are all 1" - if I remember right, that's what comes out of the OM 4-way. If I were you, I'd do something similar. Either 1 or 2 2" drains to feed each Dart and the returns from the OM as 1". Another thing to consider is spreading the returns from the 4-way across the whole tank as opposed to positioning them on each side. So 2 on the left, 2 right of center from 1 OM, and 2 on the right and 2 left of center from the other OM. This will spread your flow across the whole tank and your randomness should be increased. My last Dart-driven OM 4 way used a single 2" intake with one of these strainers, didn't have any fish problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore July 9, 2009 Share July 9, 2009 The plan for the CL is to have 4 holes in the bottom across the front and another 4 across the back. Eight 1" bulkheads in the bottom total. I'm looking to run 2 OM 4-ways, one on the left 4 holes (2 front, 2 back) and another on the right 4 holes. I was going to put a dart on each (2 Darts for the CL) but I may try running it off of 1 Dart for now and see what kind of flow I'm getting. I like the idea of the two OM4 running independently because like you said, they will increase the randomized flow in the tank. I'm still deciding between running 1.5" or 1.25" plumbing to the bulkheads. Part of me wants to do 1.25" because I think it will be less crowded underneath. I'm leaning towards flexible PVC to help with the routing. Any suggestions on this are welcome. 1.25" is fine. I think the OM4 is 2" in, 1.5" out, at least my old one was. 1.5" is bulky, and you only have 20" front to back to work with. 1.5" fittings will eat that up really quick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS August 12, 2009 Author Share August 12, 2009 Sorry it's been so long since the last update. Work has gotten pretty busy lately and with other demands on my time, I decided to take a break from the tank build for a little bit. As much as I'd love to have everything finished right now, I also realized that pushing myself to finish took some of the fun away from things. The last couple of weeks I have been able to sneak in some progress. Here are some shots. Started drilling the holes for the closed loop. PVC bottom is nice but also very thick. Definitely a job for a corded drill! Wood, foam and PVC can make a big mess of things. Bulkheads in place. Leak test! One more use for RO waste water. BTW, it turns out I can completely fill the 210 using the waste water from the 30 gallons of RO/DI I make for a water change... One weekend's worth of plumbing supplies (3 trips between two different Lowes). This was just the initial stuff, I got a bunch more big stuff afterwards. So far I think I'm up to about $400 in PVC fittings. Some of the drain plumbing getting test fitted I also got my sump, water mixing tanks and a frag tank. I'll get some pictures of that and do another update soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vader August 18, 2009 Share August 18, 2009 Those pipes going from your tank to the sump. Are they 1" going into 1 1/4" elbows & Tees? If I was plumbing it, I would change those to 1"x 1-1/2" It just seems with that much water moving, better safe than sorry. just my .02 but the build is coming along nicely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amay121 October 14, 2009 Share October 14, 2009 It's been 2 months buddy. UPDATES!!!!!! Include FTS please.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoozilla October 17, 2009 Share October 17, 2009 It's been 2 months buddy. UPDATES!!!!!! Include FTS please.. ++1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS October 29, 2009 Author Share October 29, 2009 Ok time for another update. Sorry it's been so long. A couple of months ago, I made a conscious effort to reduce my fish time so I could focus on work and other things. The WAMAS withdrawal has been difficult. Anyways here's the good stuff. I decided that since I was rebuilding so much, I might as well get a new, bigger sump. While I was at it, why not get a bigger frag tank too! So I found a guy who gave me a great deal on some acrylic tanks. None of this is display so I was able to go with some less expensive material. I got 4 tanks in all- Sump (40G), frag (36G), RO/DI (30G) and saltwater mixing (50G). Here they are: I put the RO/DI, salt mixing tank up on the racks and the frag on a lower shelf. The RO/DI and salt tanks are connected with a ball valve. The idea is that RO/DI tank on the left has a float valve and is full of RO/DI. It feeds my ATO and when needed I turn the valve to fill up the salt side. When the salt side is full, I can shut off the valve, dump salt in and let it mix while the left side stays fresh. Basically it's a way to avoid having to pump water from one tank into another. The clear poly tube looped in the middle is so I can get RO/DI for house hold purposes. The black hose on the right is what I use to fill up after a water change. BTW, anyone here able to replumb a household vacuum? I had to cut the pipe to make the tanks fit.... Here's another shot with the hospital/QT tank embedded next to the frag tank. Once I got my water station going it was nearingn time to make the transition. I finished the drain plumbing. Plumbed in the sump Once I got everything running, it was time to move all the livestock over. I thought about waiting, planning, preparing but one day I got tired of staring at my stuff in tubs. So on August 31, I just went and did it. No aquascaping, very little planning. I just took all the rocks and piled them into the tank. I plopped the corals down were ever I could and put the fish in too. I almost didn't have enough water but was able to make it work. Sorry guys, hate to be a teast but no FTS yet cause it's embarrassing. Imagine just a pile of rocks in the tank. What I can offer is a picture of my frag tank plumbed in, which I finished last weekend. This new frag tank has about 3x more space. I think my light is too small for it so I'll probably be upgrading shortly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate October 29, 2009 Share October 29, 2009 WOW Dave! WOW! This has got to be one of the most well planned out systems I have ever seen. It really appears that you have covered all your bases on this one. I guess I know what to model my future system after. Only thing I would have done differently is to add one more 20-30 gal tank for a fuge. Truly nice work though. One day I'd love to stop by and check er' out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoozilla October 29, 2009 Share October 29, 2009 Looking great Dave!!! Is it just me/monitor or does your new acrylic tanks have a grayish tint to it? Me Likes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS October 29, 2009 Author Share October 29, 2009 Thanks for the compliments guys. It has been quite the effort to make this happen. WOW Dave! WOW! This has got to be one of the most well planned out systems I have ever seen. It really appears that you have covered all your bases on this one. I guess I know what to model my future system after. Only thing I would have done differently is to add one more 20-30 gal tank for a fuge. Truly nice work though. One day I'd love to stop by and check er' out! Did someone say expansion? IF I decide to expand, I have room for a 30G fuge on the top shelf in front of the RO/DI tank. It can drain directly into the DT for the pods. See the pic below. It's the spot where the bag of fish pellets and Ethernet wire are. All I need to do is T off the line that feeds the frag and QT tanks. Yes, my fish tank has it's own Ethernet drop... Also, IF I decide to raise some fry from my breeding clowns, the entire lower shelf of my rack can accommodate that. As you can see in the picture below, underneath the frag tank, the lower shelf can fit 3 10G tanks going width-wise for raising various batches of fry. To the left, under the QT tank, I can put a 30G breeder for grow out. Looking great Dave!!! Is it just me/monitor or does your new acrylic tanks have a grayish tint to it? Me Likes The acrylic tanks do have a slight tint to them. They were made using Lexan, not cast acrylic. I wouldn't use this material for a display or large tank but for the back closet stuff and fraction of the cost, it's perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amay121 October 30, 2009 Share October 30, 2009 (edited) Dave, I want to see pics of the new aquascape. You must have that in by now. Edited October 30, 2009 by amay121 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stankyd October 31, 2009 Share October 31, 2009 Very impressive. I dont think I've seen a more complete or well thought out system! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amay121 January 4, 2010 Share January 4, 2010 Pictures Please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore January 4, 2010 Share January 4, 2010 Yeah how did the aquascaping turn out? Did the drill work for you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS January 4, 2010 Author Share January 4, 2010 The tank was cloudy last night so didn't bother to take a pic. Will hopefully compose and post an update tonight. Got a few things to update. Drill worked nicely, thanks Justin. Hands are all torn up- hope I don't end up with BRK Thumb... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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