180 gallon build

[CoralBeauties]

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]

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]

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

[CoralBeauties]

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]

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]

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]

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

[CoralBeauties]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Thanks for the thread link!  Good info!

[CoralBeauties]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Looks really good keep the pictures and updates coming.

[aquavista99]

Any updates, Jeff? looks great so far!

[CoralBeauties]

There has been some ups and downs.  Right now I am having problems with red slime algae.  I need to pick up some phos media for my reactor and get it up and running. I didnt feel comfortabe with the cheap storage tub I was using as a sump for my skimmer (it was bulging from the water) so I was able to get a 40 gallon tub from tractor supply that works a whole lot better.  I have the skimmer in half of it with a sand bed in the other section.  I used sand from my old tank which had a sifting starfish in it and it is pretty much void of worm and star life. I think that the starfish pretty much kept them wiped out.   All of the corals and fish from the old tank have been moved and seem to be doing pretty well considering the algae bloom going on. 
Jeff 

[CoralBeauties]

I just added the last 2 bulbs tonight since I shut down the old tank.  The lighting now consists of a total of 7 t-5 bulbs which are overdriven by ice cap ballasts.  I would guess it to be about 700 watts.  I reworked the aga hood I purchased so that I was able to fit 5 of the bulbs on the hindged lid with the last 2 fixed to the bottem of the hood behind the front 5.  In my old tank I made the mistake of having the ballasts under the tank and have them repaired several times due to water leaks.  With this setup I mounted them to the wall above the sump and ran the wiring through the wall to the tank.  I am looking forwards to getting the water quality better and getting the ca reactor running and dialed in so I can add some quality sps.  It hard to resist going shopping but I know for the good of the corals and system I need to take it slow.
Jeff

[verper]

It hard to resist going shopping but I know for the good of the corals and system I need to take it slow.

That's the hardest part of this hobby.  Looks good.

[Riderc82]

It looks like I need to read up on the T-5's, 700 watts using seven bulbs that impressive.  How long will the bulbs last being overdriven?

[CoralBeauties]

My bulbs are 5 footers which are normally 80 watts.  Shorter bulbs are not as high in wattage.  I have read where using ice cap ballasts you overdrive the bulbs so I am guessing they are probably putting out between 90 and 100 watts per bulb.  T-5 bulbs will last about 1 1/2 years, so I am figuring on replacing them at 1 year.  I would really like to change out maybe 3 or 4 bulbs at a time on a 6 month schedule so I dont get hit with the big costs of 7 bulbs all at once and the lighting would maybe stay more consistant.  That way I wouldnt have worn lights one day and the next have 7 new extra bright lights all at once.  I have had just 2 t-5's over my 120 for the last month or so and my frogspawn, hammer and torch have never looked better.  They are not as fond of the bright lighting in the 180 since the move.
Jeff