~ TJ's Reef, the new and much improved making of the 187gReeftank~

[TJ's Reef]

It's been a long break from the forum's and now that I'm back thought I'd share the build process to what has become my best attempt in creating a moderate sized "dream tank". Like a lot of seasoned Reefkeeper's each new build gives us hope and a thrill to do it even better than the last. And like many on this journey try to take it slow and methodical, not hurrying decisions on purchases and or construction... the best we can or at least to the extent of their/our personal patience level. On this build everything was going to plan..... all the way until it was NOT anyhow.
So, moving on I had already expended a fair amount of time and money on improvements to the last build, a used acrylic 125g (60"x 24"x20") that I built furniture quality stand and canopy for plus a unique LED lighting array that fully covered this footprint. So wanting to go bigger yet reuse the furniture and lighting I opted for increased height and a HUGE upgrade in going with the latest generation of the Ghost Overflow from Reef Savvy in place of the over sized corner overflow boxes. The typical self debate in to go with low iron glass or acrylic ultimately going with quality 3/4" acrylic as that is what I'm comfortable with, both in maintenance of and ease in fabricating. I started gathering the materials in the Spring of 2015 and began construction in December around Christmas time. Made all my MDF patterns and prepped the acrylic for assembly by routing to size creating a HUGE acrylic blizzard like mess in the garage. then with the help of some very good friends solvent welded the aquarium together with everything going perfectly. At the beginning of construction time frame there was the front seam on the old 125g that was starting to fail, but not particularly alarming to begin with, by the beginning of January it had become a "real" concern so even with the many months of planning and preparations "things" progressed much faster than I anticipated at the 11th hour. The only real casualty of this expedited schedule is that I was unable to take the appropriate time in planning and fabricating my own sump design, instead modifying a existing new one with an added plumbing dump/filter sock chamber.

I'll start the 2nd post of this with an updated or current specs list like I've seen and liked on other's build threads and keep current as they've done as well. And for this first post show the first decent FTS and the most current one to as a comparison.

January 19, 2016 and first day with fish introduced.

Cheers, Todd

 

[TJ's Reef]

Now for the specs:

Tank: DIY 187g custom acrylic 60"x 24"x 30", 3/4" material

Sump: modified custom 37g acrylic 36"x 16"x 15" 3-chamber to a 4-chamber 42x16

Overflow: Reef Savvy Ghost Overflow 2nd generation

Return Pump: Reef Octopus VarioS 6 DC 36V

Flow: Maxspect Gyre XF280, Neptune WAV, 1" rotating eductor on main return

Skimmer: Vertex 180i

Lighting: (3) Maxspect Ethereal fixtures, (2) Kessil A150's (Sky Blue), Kessil A150 (Ocean Blue) over refugium / grow out

Heat/Cool: Finnex 500w titanium, no chiller

Controller: Apex 2016 wifi with two additional EB8's

Doser: Neptune DOS, Alk and Calcium. Manually dose Magnesium, Strontium, Potassium, Iodine (Lugol's solution), Iron & Manganese

ATO: Tunze 3155 in a XL Vittles Vault 27g through a ReefTek Kalkwasser Reactor

Ozone: Ozotech Poseiden injected directly into skimmer venturi 8 hours daily

Media Reactor: (2) TLF Phosban 150, 1 cup of GFO changed out every 2 months on each offset a month

Refugium: relatively small 16x16 with Chaeto

Auto-feeder: Neptune AFS, double rotation at noon daily with Hikari Seaweed Extreme pellets

Water Change Schedule: 30-40 gallons/15-20% annually, modified DSR/Triton Method

Feeding Schedule: 2-3 frozen cubes morning and evening (random mix of Hikari Mysis, Plankton, Krill, Blood Worm, Spirulina Brine Shrimp, LRS and Rod's) plus the pellets above

Target Water Perameters: Alk= 9.5-10 dkh, Calcium= 425, Mg.=1250-1300

Fish List: 21 total
Tangs (4) Powder Blue, Naso, Yellow and Kole
Wrasses (9) Melanurus, Yellow Coris, Cleaner, Solar, Exquisite, Tonozakai, Splendid Pintail, Ornate Leopard and Radiant.
Anthias (3) Hawaiian Bicolor
Damsel (2) Azure Damselle pair
Goby (1) Blue Spotted Shrimp Goby
Blenny (1) Tailspot
Hawkfish (1) Pixie




Cheers, Todd

 

[TJ's Reef]

Fabrication of the aquarium, mostly pics and little rambling....
Making MDF paterns, routing top and bottoms of front and back pane to exact dimension, routing all 4 sides of end panels, multiple tape layers removed one at a time for very clean edges.

 

[TJ's Reef]

More: Hole pattern for the top, routing the top after rough-cut with jigsaw, after the sides were done and getting ready to weld the top on, cleanup and placing brace before welding the bottom, in place and setting pins and shims before the critical timing period of solvent welding, me flush routing end panels, out of sequence close-up of the pins and shims used.

 

[TJ's Reef]

And yet even more: clean bubble free welds, close-up of access radius with round over top and bottom, holes drilled for Ghost Overflow and returns and all soaped up for attaching vinyl backing, first time in the house and on the stand (holes seen in the bottom are not in the tank but the stand for the corner overflows in the 125g), tightening the bulkheads on the Ghost Overflow, installation complete, starting the plumbing drains Bean Animal style, me for perspective and why I'll always need a step stool or platform for maintenance now.

 

[TJ's Reef]

One more post for the day and the urgency for the rush in new build shown on the first 2 pics and of course the giant mess associated with the transfer process, fabricating my addition to the sump (I made the actual sock holder platform removable and a platform piece for both double 4" socks and the Eshopps XL rectangular sock), all welded up (also fabricated and welded in a 4-hole probe holder and heater cradle after this pic was taken. For the two holes leading into skimmer/probe section the one without the screen allows my skimmer intake to pick up directly from the first chamber ), the initial "real" leak test in the house, part of my fish and coral temporary holding system.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Leak check passed and finally fully committed in adding the salt.

Always the fun and frustrating part of recreating your aquascape when many of the primary LR pieces have corals attached already. Removed several old pieces which I placed in the sumps return and refugium sections to allow me to place the new Tonga Branch sculptures I put together with epoxy and super glue.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Finished the initial aquascaping with several tweaks and reintroduced the Fish and Inverts. Then the GIANT task of cleaning up the associated mess, both in the house and my garage shop. Everything went fairly well except that I lost my Radiant Wrasse just before the reintroduction and my Naoko Wrasse just after, he decided to check out the eductor and was sucked in...

 

[TJ's Reef]

Mid February and attended our last annual Bob Moore Frag Swap, the biggest regional event in the Pacific northwest where I picked up a few gems like this Rainbow Trachyphyllia for $75... so sad to see this go, but was a great show nonetheless... even brought home a,"Celebrity" for the evening... lol

 

[revhtree]

Looks awesome man! Wish I had those DIY skills!

 

[Tahoe61]

Turned out beautifully!

 

[TJ's Reef]

A group of random pics 2 months in, or mid March of 2016, including one I took with using my violet LED flashlight. These two corals were and still are one of my favorites as they are very well established as aquaculture. You'll see plenty of them throughout this thread, even after some near crashes...

 

[TJ's Reef]

A few distractions in April and my first "near disaster" in that I mixed up fresh 2-part batches of Alk and Calcium and yet somehow forgot to fill the reservoirs... running dry for several days.
We spent a day at Seattle Glass Blowing Studio (possibly inspired by Richard Ross) then off to our beach house for a week with gorgeous weather for beach walks, tide pooling and found six abandoned commercial crab pots mostly full of Dungeness Crabs which we released. The season had closed months ago and this was the first big minus tides exposing the traps. Also collected some fresh sea veggies for the Tangs.

 

[TJ's Reef]

May of 2016 was crazy busy with a deck rebuild and gardening at home, starting a fencing project at the beach house and barely having time for the Reeftank. Dosing was getting difficult with the demands so installed a large Kalkwasser Reactor inline with the Tunze ATO to help. Finished the month with a fantastic show though...

 

[TJ's Reef]

On the Kalkwasser Reactor I T'd off the green outlet line and ran a line up to a fitting on the lid of the outside overflow box eliminating the siphoning potential from ATO reservoir

 

[TJ's Reef]

In May of 2016 I was selected to be a Beta Tester for the new Maxspect Ethereal fixtures and was honored to do so and received 3 fixtures plus theICV6 Controller first week of June. As a self described LED snob I was immediately impressed with the build quality, emitter choices and programming options for these lights. Not to many difficulties for me even though I'm not particularly tech savvy. Mechanically inclined yes, but not strong with virtual technology. I had to remove my own DIY array that I designed and built earlier and hodge poged a temporary bracket for the Ethereal fixtures to attach to. Modified my trap door in back of my stand to hold the three power supplies. Originally designed for the eight drivers that ran my DIY's.

 

[mmw64]

And yet even more: clean bubble free welds, close-up of access radius with round over top and bottom, holes drilled for Ghost Overflow and returns and all soaped up for attaching vinyl backing, first time in the house and on the stand (holes seen in the bottom are not in the tank but the stand for the corner overflows in the 125g), tightening the bulkheads on the Ghost Overflow, installation complete, starting the plumbing drains Bean Animal style, me for perspective and why I'll always need a step stool or platform for maintenance now.

Another "handy" person that does amazing work! I hate you.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Spent a few days getting them programmed and running through several tests including PAR readings and power usage. Similar to my DIY array I programmed a East-to-West schedule in ramping up the different channels of each fixture with a 30 minute offset. First or East fixture starting at 7:45, center fixture at 8:15, West fixture at 8:45 am. Each fixture running for a total of 11 hours and 45 minutes full cycle with the East fixture ramping down to 0% at 8:00 pm.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Another "handy" person that does amazing work! I hate you.

Thanks... lol
It's what partially has kept me so interested and involved in the Hobby for the past 35 years. The creating of the system is almost equal to the outcome for me, so getting ready to add on a 60 Cube which will sit next to the 187g on the right. I need to build a matching stand for it that will also hold the ATO reservoir beneath. All plumbed together giving a 280 gallon total volume then. Probably a Softy tank with a Butterfly and a few others less friendly to SPS.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Mid June through July was even more hectic and busy so a bit of negligence in Reefkeeping chores... mostly working well on autopilot. Working hard on our families Idaho property helping my parents with a large shop building, but did have a bit of time to start my own RV campsite and get a line wet in the creek. We spend most of our July at the beach house as it's the start of Salmon and Crabbing seasons and our "Happy Place"