Author Topic: 180 gallon build (Read 3887 times)

CoralBeauties · « **on:** March 01, 2008, 11:36:14 »

Hello all
Well ater about a year of planning and gathering equipment, moving into our new home, I have begun setting up my new tank. The tank is an oceanic 180 gallon tank I got from aquavista and the stand is a cherry stand and hood that I purchased from a guy on reef central up in Mansfield. I have reworked the hood to accept t-5 lighting. I will post pics on the lighting later. I framed out a room in our basement with this tank in mind. It has a smaller room behind the tank and will have all of my filter equipment set up there.

verper · « **Reply #1 on:** March 01, 2008, 11:49:28 »

Nice start Jeff. Are you using only T5 lighting? Are you going to be keeping SPS? If so, I'll be interested to see how well it works for you. RC has some SPS tanks that look great with just T5's.

aquavista99 · « **Reply #2 on:** March 01, 2008, 11:55:58 »

Looking forward to this build, Jeff. Like the ceramic tile look as well.

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #3 on:** March 01, 2008, 12:09:11 »

I reworked the hood to accept a total of 7 HO 60 inch t-5 bulbs. I have 2 icecap 430 ballast and one 660 ballast to fire them. With the icecap ballasts the bulbs will be overdriven so the output should be even higher then the rated 80 watts. Right now I have both sps and lps in my current tank that I have lit by 4 t-5 bulbs. The sps do well but I dont have the growth and coloration that I think that they should have. I dont have the water as good as it should be and dont have the calcium levels needed. I have kindof put things off waiting for this new tank.
I plan on carpeting the floor and wanted to leave tile around the tank for water spills and such.
Thanks
Jeff

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #4 on:** March 01, 2008, 12:19:50 »

Tank Drilling
I was alittle afraid to try drilling my sump but it was no problem at all. I purchased a drill bit off ebay for under $10. After marking the position I got some putty and made a water damm around where I was going to drill. I filled the area with water and next started the drilling. The hardest part was getting it started without the bit walking all over the place. If the bit is angled a bit to start it stayed in place pretty good. I didnt apply any pressure other then the weight of the drill and with alittle time the hole was through. Real simple, dont be afraid to try it.
Jeff

aquavista99 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 01, 2008, 12:20:11 »

Quote from: jjoos99 on March 01, 2008, 12:09:11

Right now I have both sps and lps in my current tank that I have lit by 4 t-5 bulbs. The sps do well but I dont have the growth and coloration that I think that they should have. I dont have the water as good as it should be and dont have the calcium levels needed. I have kindof put things off waiting for this new tank.

Daniel Gan's (danano) Reef Aquarium from Singapore runs all T5 lights as well. Danano won the RC TOTM in March of 2005 and his amazing tank is one of my favorites of all time.

Jeff, here is a link from danano's TOTM thread that may give you some good ideas as well.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/totm/index.php

buckeyereefer · « **Reply #6 on:** March 03, 2008, 09:15:34 »

is all the eggcrate for just frags? or are you using for rockwork? just wondering.

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #7 on:** March 03, 2008, 20:12:54 »

The eggcrate is actually for the bottem of my sump filter. I will have the live rock rubble ontop of it and the water will be flowing right to left in the tank. The theory is that natural water filtering critters will grow and populate the eggcrate. Go to www.reefvideos.com and watch the second video. It explains the idea behind it. Pretty interesting but the designer actually wants aptasia to grow in the filter

I think that I will skip that part.
Jeff

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #8 on:** March 03, 2008, 20:24:55 »

Here is a pic of my ellcheapo style ocean motion. I am sure you have seen the squids mentioned before, well I found a mod thead on RC for one of these and decided to try it. I cut the top off of it and glued pvc piping to add an input in both the top and bottem to allow an increase in the water flow through it. I installed ball valves to control the water input into either the switching portion or the flow side which should allow me to control the speed of the switching portion of the squid. I have it plumbed up to switch between the right side of the tank and the left side. Each side has 2 outlet pipes using lockline. I havent gotten to try it out yet but hope to have a trial run this weekend after I receive a couple of uniseals that I have on order for my skimmer tub. I'll let everyone know how it works out.
Jeff

MechanicalEngineer · « **Reply #9 on:** March 03, 2008, 22:04:35 »

Do you have the link to the modified SCWD thread on RC?

Looks nice! Definitely post up your reviews of the "squid." I have one, but it's not hooked up.

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #10 on:** March 04, 2008, 18:21:36 »

Thanks for the compliment. I am anxious as to how well it works out. I bought a cheap used one off reef central for next to nothing and started hacking away. I did a search and found this link for the mod.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=843091&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
I will post as soon as I get it up and running (hopefully leak free) probably by this weekend.
Jeff

MechanicalEngineer · « **Reply #11 on:** March 04, 2008, 18:48:59 »

Thanks for the thread link! Good info!

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #12 on:** March 07, 2008, 22:24:42 »

I started up the pump and the scwd. It is working good so far. It is handling the 1200 gph just fine and is cycling back and forth with about 5-6 seconds per side. It was perfectly quite at first. After about an hour there is a small noise of the gears inside the scwd but hasnt gotten any worst. I have fresh water running through it now and will probably run overnight just to be sure of any leaks. Seems to be a pretty neat little devise as long as it works for an extended time frame. I will be using this pump along with 2 modified maxi-jet pumps for my water flow. Should be close to 3600 gph. Now to start making a ton of RO/DI water and putting the dry rock, that I picked up from Scott Wilson into the tank and try to aquascape it.
Jeff

Riderc82 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 07, 2008, 23:04:14 »

Looks great so far. I started my 55 gallon off with dry base rock it is so much easier to aquascape with, I just upgraded last Sunday to a 90 gallon and it was so much more work and a lot more mess than before. You should be able to come up with some great aquascaping.

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #14 on:** March 08, 2008, 09:23:02 »

Riderc
Did you attach your rock to each other? I believe that aquavista used epoxy sticks when he did his. I would like to connect mine together to stop any rock slides. In my current tank my rock is just stacked and when I clean I always seem to have a rock slide if I have to scrub a certain rock too hard. Since I am using dry rock to start with I wonder if I wouldnt be able to use silicone to build with? Seems like it would be alot cheaper then using epoxy sticks. The only draw back that I can think of would be that I wonder if coraline and any other critters would stick to it as the tank aged?
Jeff

aquavista99 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 08, 2008, 20:20:52 »

Quote from: jjoos99 on March 08, 2008, 09:23:02

Riderc
Did you attach your rock to each other? I believe that aquavista used epoxy sticks when he did his.

I used home depot epoxy (Aquamend) and super glue gel to attach all my live rock.

Riderc82 · « **Reply #16 on:** March 08, 2008, 20:44:13 »

Jeff on my old 55 I just stacked the rocks but I never had any rock slides. This time around I used CPVC (1/2 In. drinking water line and a 1/2 in. masonary drill bit.) If I was in your shoes and I had dry base rock I would just get an old table and drill your aquascape outside of the aquarium and then put it back together piece by piece. If you want to try this I have plenty of CPVC and the 1/2 Inch bit I used, your more than welcome to it escpecially since you were nice enough a while back to give me the Xenia and Monticap. if you take a look at the 90 Gallon in the general discussion page you can see my aquascape now. It didn't turn out as well as I expected but it's kind of hard drilling wet rock with corals attached

. Shoot me a PM if you want the CPVC and bit.

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #17 on:** March 11, 2008, 21:16:44 »

I have started the rock work in the tank now. I made up a pvc stand in which I attached rock to with wire zip ties to create a column of rock. I tried to use both epoxy and silicone to secure the rocks together with limited success. Neither one would attach well to the rock. I think the silicone seemed to work alittle better. It is not rock solid but strong enough things wont come tumbling down. I dont believe I would have been able to drill the rock with out it shattering apart so I dont think the cpvc piping would have worked to attach things all together.
Jeff

aquavista99 · « **Reply #18 on:** March 11, 2008, 23:59:43 »

The rock work looks great, Jeff! BTW, epoxy mixed with super glue gel will give you a strong bond. Not so sure about epoxy mixed with silicone though. Using plastic zip ties is a good idea as well.

Riderc82 · « **Reply #19 on:** March 12, 2008, 19:05:57 »

Looks good Jeff, I've been using the superglue/epoxy mix to attach my corals to the live rock it works really well. I had one rock break by drilling it but the masonary bit went through the live rock like butter. You took it a step further I like the layout I wish my rock was dry when I did mine but I'm satisfied with the results.

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #20 on:** March 12, 2008, 22:33:01 »

Thanks for the compliments. I will have to try the gel and epoxy when I go to attach the corals. So far the ro/di unit I have has my filter system filled and about 1/3 of the tank. Another 2 days and it might be all filled. Right now I have the filter system running through the overflows of the tank and all the plumbing without any leaks. The scwd has worked well so far.
Thanks
Jeff

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #21 on:** March 23, 2008, 13:55:23 »

I have had the tank filled and running on the filter system now for about a week. The skimmer has been working overtime cleaning up the water. I have attached a couple of pics of it. I have to call it a skimmer on steroids. It has cleaned up the water from not being able to see the back of the tank to really being pretty clear.
Jeff

CoralBeauties · « **Reply #22 on:** March 23, 2008, 14:02:04 »

I have also been working on the lighting some. I will be running 7 HO t-5 bulbs inside a modified aga canopy. The pics are of my diy moonlighting project. I bought a led kit off of ebay. It has 20 led diodes. I cut a 3/4 inch pvc pipe in half, drilled holes for the led's to fit into, installed the led's and wiring and glued it all back together. It was a bit of a pain and it isnt real pretty but it looks pretty cool with all the lights out.
Jeff

Baggerhog · « **Reply #23 on:** March 26, 2008, 11:16:23 »

Looks really good keep the pictures and updates coming.

aquavista99 · « **Reply #24 on:** May 07, 2008, 23:31:49 »

Any updates, Jeff? looks great so far!

2024 Ohio Reef Frag Swap

Author Topic: 180 gallon build (Read 3887 times)

MechanicalEngineer

MechanicalEngineer