320 gallon display with equipment shed

[cilyjr]

Hi all,
I moved to California about 5 years ago from Rhode Island. There I had a 180 gallon display that I had built into the wall.

Photos from 2018

I sold most of this when I moved but kept the vortechs, Apex, and a few other of the more expensive items.

 

[cilyjr]

Once I got settled in to our home here, I got to setting up again. I realized that I didn't have a place for an equipment room where I wanted the tank, I decided to build a shed to house everything.
It is heavily insulated though winter nights rarely get below 45 degrees and summer days are rarely above 80.
We had the house painted shortly after install.
I suppose I will mention that the house had been a rental for about 15 years before we bought it so it needed a good deal of TLC.
It seems like there had been multiple projects going from 2020 until now.

 

[afrokobe]

Need some pictures of the pond! looks gorgeous

 

[cilyjr]

The tank I went with was a 120 gallon low iron from SCA.
I kept about 1.5 years.

 

[cilyjr]

I don't like leaving things to chance.
Somewhere in all of that I did a panel upgrade for the house. We had a hundred amp push-o-matic breaker. For those of you who know electricity, you know why this old kennel was a problem.

So I upgraded the service panel to a Cutler Hammer 200 amp. I have one dedicated circuit running to that shed. In addition to that I put in a connect for a generator. I never used the interlock switch like this but it was simple enough

 

[cilyjr]

In February, I decided to get a really big tank. I looked to have it custom made, but wasn't loving what I got back.
I also reached out to our local aquarium store asking about anything used. He had this 320 which was very close to what I was looking for so I brought it home the first week of March.
It's 68x36x30 center overflow with 3 holes 1x 1 inch 2x 1.5 inch.

 

[bakbay]

Love that ginormous giga clam!

 

[cilyjr]

The tank came with the tank, stand, and a traditional sit on top canopy with 8 hydra 32hds.
I've never been a huge fan of the canopy sitting right on top of the tank and much prefer the floating look.

The other challenge is the stand is bigger then the widest entryway. 36x36x72 the largest door is 33 with door removed. The base was glued, nailed and pocket screwed from the base. They did not want it moving.

I had to disassemble the bottom to get it in but we got it.
It got sanded as white better matched the beach cottage look to our home.

 

[cilyjr]

Also getting the canopy to "float" was important. It was designed to sit on top of the aquarium and it has some weight.
I added two two bulb t5 fixtures, even though there are eight hydra 32s I will never run LED without some supplementation.

It is hanging from the ceiling with 4 hooks and turnbuckles to allow it to be leveled. If anyone is interested I can show what I did with better pictures.

For better airflow I had to take the canopy back down and cut out most of the top. I left a 3 inch strip of wood in the center and on the sides to attach the rails that hold the lights.

 

[cilyjr]

Need some pictures of the pond! looks gorgeous

Yup, that was another project. I told my wife that I want everything in California that I had set up over the past 15 years in Rhode Island. The pond is another thing that more than doubled in size!
2000 gallon. 10 koi 7 comets. A bunch of hardy lilies and a sacred red lotus!

 

[cilyjr]

Love that ginormous giga clam!

When I sold it, it weighed about 20 lbs. It went to someone in the Boston reef society.
I hope it's ok.

 

[afrokobe]

super clean work on the tank and the pond!

 

[bakbay]

Yup, that was another project. I told my wife that I want everything in California that I had set up over the past 15 years in Rhode Island. The pond is another thing that more than doubled in size!
2000 gallon. 10 koi 7 comets. A bunch of hardy lilies and a sacred red lotus!

Amazing - I'm jealous! It's very natural and looks very welcoming & relaxing. You did a fantastic job with the waterfall and surrounding rock work. I suspect that it took several weeks to finish! I think I can sit out there with a beverage and a good book for 4+ hours!

I had a 2k gallon koi pond with 8 humungous Japanese koi at our old house. The biggest was 26", a green Chagoi - she was so friendly! Second at 22" was a Showa, my other favorite. Anyway, we donated all the fish to my sister when we moved. At our current place, I would like to turn our 20k+ gallon swimming pool into a koi pond one of these days. For now, it's only a dream...

 

[cilyjr]

Amazing - I'm jealous! It's very natural and looks very welcoming & relaxing. You did a fantastic job with the waterfall and surrounding rock work. I suspect that it took several weeks to finish! I think I can sit out there with a beverage and a good book for 4+ hours!

I had a 2k gallon koi pond with 8 humungous Japanese koi at our old house. The biggest was 26", a green Chagoi - she was so friendly! Second at 22" was a Showa, my other favorite. Anyway, we donated all the fish to my sister when we moved. At our current place, I would like to turn our 20k+ gallon swimming pool into a koi pond one of these days. For now, it's only a dream...

Our koi still smallish with the biggest being about 13 in. The pond is only been in for about a year.
I didn't buy any fancy koi just a starter pack from live aquaria.
One of them turned out to be a Kin Matsuba butterfly so he's our flashy one.

 

[cilyjr]

I hired movers to get the tank from the back of my truck to the stand.
I figured they are insured so it was worth the 250 bucks.
Just in case!

 

[cilyjr]

Next was making a new sump.
The sump for the 120 was a 40b and I changed to a 75. The guy I bought the tank from tossed it in the package when I bought the tank but it was new so it needed baffles. I've always built My own sumps so it wasn't an issue. So acrylic is getting more and more expensive I went with PVC board this time.

There is an existing 48x24x8 frag tank over where the sump is and it was housing my fish and coral while I was sans my display.
I had to remove the leg of the stand to fit the sump while the frag tank was full. Not fun. But my wife and I got it done.

 

[cilyjr]

Made a really half hearted equipment board and popped that back in as well. It's not super pretty but this is why I built an entire shed to store me equipment.
I've never been good at hiding all the guts of a system but I also don't want to see any cables on the display. Which I'll get to later.

I put my Apex in a cable opb box. I've never understood why they didn't make the Apex a little more water resistant. I get that waterproof would be pretty impossible but jeez. The older style was really bad.

 

[cilyjr]

Plumbing is pretty simple with 2x 1.5 inch drains (1 being a syphon) dropping from the bottom of the tank and running along the wall and pops out the exterior wall and runs about 2.5 feet until entering the shed. The exterior 2ish feet are heavily insulated and I get no significant heat loss in the run.
The gate valve is a little trombone style slide. They are mostly just made for shutting off Jacuzzis so you can service the pump etc. I like it cuz I can slide it in and out very minimally. I could have used the more traditional screw type 1 but I had this one in a bucket so it cost me $0.

When these lines enter the house near the display I built a pony wall to hide them.
They are behind the wall where the little Apex display is.

The return is 1 inch that splits up to the frag tank and into a manifold that runs a reactor for media and a uv sterilizer. That way everything is run off of 1 big pump. I have a ball valve that will redirect water directly to the drain for water changes.

 

[cilyjr]

I should talk about the rock I'm using. It was all rock that came from various tanks from people that I allowed to dry out. Then I gave it all a pretty heavy duty muriatic acid bath. The tank has been running for about 5 months now and I have had zero algae issues. And that is a first for me. I think if I ever do that again I would absolutely do the muriatic acid bath for all the rock.
I kept about a hundred pounds from my previous display live, this was rock that I had trusted and knew was pretty clean. When I tore down the 120 it was living in the sump .

 

[cilyjr]

When I was waiting to pick up the display we had some time to get a rough aquascape game plan.
My goal was to split the difference between the super modern bonsai and the more common rock mound islands.

I used superglue gel and accelerator initially adhere the rock then aquaforest stonefix.

This is what we ended up with.
Everything is in sections to be able to lift into the tank. Accept the arch, it's one piece it two of us to lift it into the tank.