600 Gallon Gem Tang broodstock system

[FLReefer101]

A bit of both? I come from an engineering, and controls background, and have always had that maker drive. Reefing has always been the side hobby. I hope to someday to combine both into something special.



Thanks! That is an interesting question, I think for most large builds steel is just a cheaper route. A few hundred bucks to a local welder, and you could have a basic square tube stand.
I personally love aluminum 80/20 stands. The display tank in my main build thread is on a 80/20 stand I designed. I was even pricing this one out in 80/20... The reason I personally went steel on this one is the material was free scrap from work that I had laying around the garage, and it allowed me to hone my TIG welding skills. (It's also why the stand has such a silly color scheme. )

An even nicer stand would be polished stainless tubing with beautiful tig beads at every seam.

 

[Twitchy]

An even nicer stand would be polished stainless tubing with beautiful tig beads at every seam.

At that point, just drop in a 350, some racing slicks, and have some fun at the track

 

[Linkfalcon]

dang I'm super envious of that shop and a forklift that might be cheating lol

 

[revhtree]

WOW quite the build!

 

[CMMorgan]

This is a big, beautiful beast. I'm in awe of your intellect and creativity. This is inspiring. Can't wait to start seeing those babies.

 

[cmaxwell39]

Very cool and ambitious build. Hope you are successful with this endeavor. Following.

 

[Twitchy]

A bit of an update. After a couple of setbacks, water is now flowing through the system!! Turns out silicone does not bond to polyethylene very well... So after a horrible water test, pulling the entire sump apart, cleaning everything up, and flame treating the areas to bond, the sump is back together, and dividers are holding well. overall I am very pleased with how the sump turned out.

The soft PVC spa hose will go to the egg separator once built. The skimmer is already going to town, although at 350 watts, I'm not sold yet.

Cleaning up some of the junk in the tank, second floor access makes for easy tank work... I might invest in a pair of waders...

 

[FLReefer101]

I see your ac in your garage. I ordered a mini split today for my detached garage!!

 

[h2so4hurts]

If you're bonding plastics it's probably best to go with something like WO-16. Silicone and urethane are going to have short life spans joining plastic, even if they work in the beginning.

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Super Awesome...liking the build. Following.

 

[Twitchy]

Update time! I Installed the lights, I moved my cannons from the frag system, swapping them for the black boxes that came with the 600. I love how my hanging setup came out. It is on a set of pullies, so I can clip it up in a raised position when I need to work on the tank. I might set up a second set of pullies, to half the weight, or just add a simple hand winch to the center to crank it up and down, as it is a good work out raising it currently.

I also built my simulated moon to work with my LSM, as fish love to get freaky under the full moon.
I have also started getting all my equipment in the garage and tank to follow a modified soon/ moon cycle of +5 hours, so that the garage will always be completely dark after "sundown" which comes out to around 11PM-1AM depending on the time of year, so that it doesn't interfere with hours we would be in the garage.

I think it's about time to get the QT tanks up and running!!

 

[Twitchy]

Update time:
Tank has been running for a bit... I think I finally got the sun moon cycle worked out.
I built a cool rolling stand for the QT tanks, and got them set up and cycling. For some reason one of them is having more of a bacterial bloom then the other, but it will eventually pass. I am using microbacter7, and ammonia chloride, to get them cycled. Normally I float some "media" in the display for a few weeks, before setting up a QT tank, but it slipped my mind, and I have the time to let them do their thing. I also set up a cool touch screen at my workstation ($140 off of ebay). It now allows me to control the apex, and display my microscope camera all in one place.
I have also started work on the egg separator.

Touch screen added

Just to the left you can see a shot of me leak testing my reseal of a Reefer 625 XXL that was given to me, due to it having a busted seam.

egg separator!! The 10 gallon looks so tiny next to the beast.

Going to work more on this this weekend

A cool shot of the whole garage

 

[CMMorgan]

Update time:
Tank has been running for a bit... I think I finally got the sun moon cycle worked out.
I built a cool rolling stand for the QT tanks, and got them set up and cycling. For some reason one of them is having more of a bacterial bloom then the other, but it will eventually pass. I am using microbacter7, and ammonia chloride, to get them cycled. Normally I float some "media" in the display for a few weeks, before setting up a QT tank, but it slipped my mind, and I have the time to let them do their thing. I also set up a cool touch screen at my workstation ($140 off of ebay). It now allows me to control the apex, and display my microscope camera all in one place.
I have also started work on the egg separator.

Touch screen added

Just to the left you can see a shot of me leak testing my reseal of a Reefer 625 XXL that was given to me, due to it having a busted seam.

egg separator!! The 10 gallon looks so tiny next to the beast.

Going to work more on this this weekend

A cool shot of the whole garage

This is so cool... How far is Palm Bay from Punta Gorda? Man... I think we need a road to trip to come see this beast in person! Dang Covid....

 

[Twitchy]

This is so cool... How far is Palm Bay from Punta Gorda? Man... I think we need a road to trip to come see this beast in person! Dang Covid....

Lol, Punta Gorda is a place that sounds like it would be further away then it is, you are about 3 hours south west. Maybe we can set up a visit after Covid is behind us... I always love an opportunity to nerd out about fish stuff.

 

[Twitchy]

Update time!
2 big things. I got the egg separator finished. I cut small bits of plastic RODI tube to test with, as it seems to float. I hope to find small floating beads for future testing. I had to make some adjustments to the tanks overflow, as I was getting too many "eggs" in the filter socks. Adjustments worked very well, and now I am getting over 99% of anything that floats into the separator instead of the sump. more testing is needed with real eggs, or egg like analogs.

Now to the super cool one, my IR system. so I have been playing with IR for watching the fish spawn after dark.
Much to my dismay, it turns out water is opaque to most IR light... so standard 850nm camera IR wasn't working well, and my 940nm LEDs were completely useless. (see photo) so I ordered some 760nm low IR LEDs, and some 730nm far red LEDs to test out. The 760nm LEDs are perfect. you just barely get any red glow, and the camera is super sensitive to it. If the fish start showing spawning behavior I will know about it, as well as catch it on camera for you all to see! I now have it set up on the display tank temporally to see if the fish take much notice to the 760nm IR light at night.
Next up I think is fish!!! I am traveling for work over the next 2 weeks so I plan to wait until I am back before getting some gem tangs through QT

Dumped them into the main tank, and watch the overflow, and collector do its thing.

building my 760nm setup

a little bit of a glow, looks a bit more spooky in real life.

850nm IR light is almost useless. (me trying to light the tank from the left)

behold the wonder of 760nm IR!!! the water still has a tint, but this is more then usable.

running it on the display tank to see what goes on at night.

 

[Krully]

What an inspiring thread. Following. Also what a beast of a garage lol.

 

[Oberst Hajj]

Cool project and cool setup, following to see how this turns out.

 

[McPuff]

This is excellent. I may have missed it but what kind of cannons are you using to light the 600?

 

[Twitchy]

This is excellent. I may have missed it but what kind of cannons are you using to light the 600?

they are these Maxspect 500 Watt monsters. Maxspect

I picked them up originally second hand to see how well they would grow coral, and quickly realized they are way too much light for anything other then something like the 600. When turned all the way down they draw about 30 watt each, which is more then enough for growing fish .

 

[JumboShrimp]

This is one of the most incredible things I have seen on R2R!

I might have to just do what you’re doing, since I just happen to have a forklift laying around my garage. NOT!!! Lol. Best wishes!