750 gallon build

[mikeintoronto]

..........

 

[AiKkz]

That stands a beauty, you’re not alone being the nervous type lol I beefed up my stand also. The manufacturer thought I was crazy.

 

[ArizonaAquatics]

That's pretty radical. Excited to see how this turns out!

 

[mikeintoronto]

....

 

[mikeintoronto]

For lighting I went with 10 Radion G4 Pros. I picked them all up during our Boxing Week so they were on sale. To hang the lights I build a rack out of t-slot aluminum.


It feels super heavy but it weighs like 56 lbs. Weird.

I installed 3 dedicated 20 amp circuits for the tank. The lights have one installed in the ceiling. I built a box to hold all the power supplies so there are no wires hanging around. Since I redid my basement prior to putting in the tank, looking back I should have had the power supply box sunken into the ceiling to make it flush. It’s okay though. The box is that white thing in the second post.

The other two circuits are to hold two Apex power bars. Since they are max 15 amp each, this gives me some wiggle room. I’m not even close to using that much electricity.

 

[mikeintoronto]

The sump I built sucked. I intended to use 5 heavy black totes that fit perfectly under the tank and we’re connected via PVC pipe. Well, the totes cracked near the bulkheads so that was out. So I built a crappy rush DIY sump out of a 135 gallon tank. Expensive mistake. I could have invested that money into a custom sump. Regardless, the new plan is to have the overflows drain into the neighbouring laundry room. I made the hole and built most of the plumbing. The wall in cinder block, hence the delay. This is the current sump. Look at all those wires! Ugh.

Here the hole in the wall (I need to make it bigger):

 

[mikeintoronto]

The tank is heated with four 500W Finnex heaters. I did this instead of fewer big heaters because the draw from a 1000W heater is crazy on a breaker. Anyway, 1000W is HOT!
For the return pump I’m using two jebao DC pumps. 12000? They’re pretty good. I’m impressed.
For flow I’m using eight Neptune WAV pumps. I don’t really like vortechs (omg, I said that!) but the WAVs are cool because they connect directly to the Apex so there are no extra wires. When I had the tank built I requested 6 holes in the eurobracing so the WAV wires come through and are strapped along the top. This way they aren’t going over and around the bracingly. I’ll need to take a pic of that. You can see it in later posts when I discuss filling the tank and all that fun stuff.

 

[mikeintoronto]

So now the 5 weeks have passed and I did my leak test with fresh water. This is where I learned the tote sump was a bust; literally.


I let the tank run like this for a week. No leaks. Then I drained the tank completely so I could work on the aquascaping.

 

[infinite0180]

Nice! Cant wait to see more!

 

[mikeintoronto]

In preparation for this tank, I was curing some rock in a trough in my crawlspace. I used that Marco rock mortar and cemented my rock work. That mortar is AMAZING! I made my structures and left them to dry in position and the next day, it was like concrete. No water yet.
Then I added 10 bags of live sand. I only used live because it was cheaper than dry.
I like to put the rock first because it anchors the rock. If I put sand first, it moves over time and little burrowing things tend to make things worse.


The tank is all cloudy but you can see the holes where the WAV plugs come out. They go along the bracing to the wall and into the EB382’s and 1Link. The returns go over the overflow. I debated whether to cut into the box to have them flush but my buddy told me I’d regret it. Anyway, this way there is minimal backflow if the pumps go off. In later pics you’ll see the the end of the return is submerged. In this pic above it’s exposed.

Here is the rock work. It’s a few different clusters of rock with lots of space between. The idea is the tank will get full of SPS everywhere so the fewer rocks the better.


Here a pic of the light because I forgot to add it in the lighting post. I don’t like all the wires so I’ll work on that later.

 

[mikeintoronto]

So now I’ve added some fishes.

There are a bunch of anthias, a couple yellow tangs, a chevron tang, some weird cardinals, and blue-green chromis. There is also a little rabbit fish and some small wrasses to eat coral parasites.

Then I added some inexpensive coral I had lying around. There’s not much to see but here are some pics:


... etc.

And to close for now, some full tanks shots:

 

[Hemmdog]

Wow very nice! What’s your sump area look like?

 

[joseserrano]

Any follow filtration pics?

 

[mikeintoronto]

Please remember I threw this sump together fast, so the silicone work is horrible looking. It also wasn’t filtered well so there is debris in here.

Here is a pic of the current sump.


Water enters from the right and leaves from the left. There are 4 chambers (from R to L): overflow, bio blocks, skimmer, return.

Chamber 1: The water enters via a Beananimal overflow. The gate valve is almost closed. That’s how powerful the siphon is. There are also 2 heaters in here. The ATO fills into this chamber to get max mixing before it goes back to the tank.


Chamber 2 (reversed pic): This was supposed to be a reactor chamber but now it has some bio blocks. I was concerned there wasn’t enough rock. Now I’m concerned about aluminum in the water from the blocks. I can’t win. I made a little stand so I can put 2 heaters in this chamber as well. You can also see the ATO sensors here and the probes. Those are in here because this is the only chamber with a constant water level and no bubbles.


Chamber 3: As expected, a lot of the decisions I made were based on the limited space available under the tank. For this reason I chose the Nyos 300 for my skimmer. It’s decent I guess. No complaints but the tank has only been running a few months. It needs a low water level but I also don’t have much height to raise the skimmer so this chamber is only 8” water level. Yeah, I could have cleaned the skimmer before taking pics ...


Chamber 4: there are 2 return pumps here (Jebao 12000?). Also in here is a turf scrubber. It is undersized for this tank and belongs on the 220 but since I can’t fit a refugium here, I put it on to help. I’ll remove it when I move the sump. It’s fed via a tunze pump of some sort.


And finally, the new sump area. This is where everything is going to go. It needs to be cleaned up and there’s a toilet in the way. And also vent pipes. I can’t move those but I’ll cut away the copper pipes. It used to be a bathroom here but this tank isn’t going anywhere for many, many years so I’ll just use the space. It has a few limitations but it’s better than under the tank. The drains come in through that hole on the right.

 

[joseserrano]

Please remember I threw this sump together fast, so the silicone work is horrible looking. It also wasn’t filtered well so there is debris in here.

Here is a pic of the current sump.


Water enters from the right and leaves from the left. There are 4 chambers (from R to L): overflow, bio blocks, skimmer, return.

Chamber 1: The water enters via a Beananimal overflow. The gate valve is almost closed. That’s how powerful the siphon is. There are also 2 heaters in here. The ATO fills into this chamber to get max mixing before it goes back to the tank.


Chamber 2 (reversed pic): This was supposed to be a reactor chamber but now it has some bio blocks. I was concerned there wasn’t enough rock. Now I’m concerned about aluminum in the water from the blocks. I can’t win. I made a little stand so I can put 2 heaters in this chamber as well. You can also see the ATO sensors here and the probes. Those are in here because this is the only chamber with a constant water level and no bubbles.


Chamber 3: As expected, a lot of the decisions I made were based on the limited space available under the tank. For this reason I chose the Nyos 300 for my skimmer. It’s decent I guess. No complaints but the tank has only been running a few months. It needs a low water level but I also don’t have much height to raise the skimmer so this chamber is only 8” water level. Yeah, I could have cleaned the skimmer before taking pics ...


Chamber 4: there are 2 return pumps here (Jebao 12000?). Also in here is a turf scrubber. It is undersized for this tank and belongs on the 220 but since I can’t fit a refugium here, I put it on to help. I’ll remove it when I move the sump. It’s fed via a tunze pump of some sort.


And finally, the new sump area. This is where everything is going to go. It needs to be cleaned up and there’s a toilet in the way. And also vent pipes. I can’t move those but I’ll cut away the copper pipes. It used to be a bathroom here but this tank isn’t going anywhere for many, many years so I’ll just use the space. It has a few limitations but it’s better than under the tank. The drains come in through that hole on the right.

Good work on the sump. That job is a lot more difficult than one would think before you start doing it.

 

[ArizonaAquatics]

What are your plans for the new sump? Socks and sponges? Bio bricks? Fuge? That's an area you could do a lot with!

 

[don_chuwish]

Must be nice having such a great tank builder close by! Love the aquascape and the big group of anthias. I'm curious to see how they do with all that space - hopefully they don't pick each other off one by one...
And I really hope the Jebao pumps work out long term - but suggest having one spare on hand.

 

[mikeintoronto]

Short term I’ll reuse the sump. But I’ll add an independent manifold to feed a refugium, calcium reactor, any other media reactors, and perhaps a scrubber. Because of those black vents, the sump will need to be 20” from the long wall (sort of where the toilet is) since I can’t fit it behind them nor between them. The refugium will likely be a spare 75 I have lying around. It will fit between the long wall and the sump and and it’ll drain into the sump. All of those tanks and things and the toilet are moving out.
I’ll probably just leave the bio bricks in there. I don’t know what I’ll do about the filter socks. I’m horrible at changing them and since the original sump plan was a fail, I don’t have a plan B.
Next step is to put up a small wall to hang the Apex. I’ll be nice to not have wires everywhere.
I think the sump room part will be the most interesting part of the build. I’ll need to take lots of pics.

 

[mikeintoronto]

Must be nice having such a great tank builder close by! Love the aquascape and the big group of anthias. I'm curious to see how they do with all that space - hopefully they don't pick each other off one by one...
And I really hope the Jebao pumps work out long term - but suggest having one spare on hand.

Certain anthias in there are mean while others seem more tolerant. The red bar male is mean and has caused two females to jump. The rest are okay. Thankfully the most expensive ones seem to be nice. That’s the borbonius and the cherry. There’s a ventralis in there but she’s just shy. I have a couple other species but I have no clue what they are. One is super pretty, though. It’s supposed to be P. hypselosoma but it’s not.
It looks like a male Lyretail but more pink with no red fin spots or the little banner. The bimaculatus are chasey but the male is pretty nice to the females. Strangely, I can’t keep squarepots alive. An easy fish but I just can’t do it. No fighting, they just die.

 

[mikeintoronto]

I was finally able to move the sump next door to the laundry room.

I tried to be methodical about this so to start, I added a few boards on the walls to mount the Apex and extra bits. I also split the circuits that go into the tank room so there are also outlets in the laundry room.

On the right, those are the drain pipes from the tank.

Then I added a spare 75 gallon tank for the refugium:


I then added the hard return lines for the display tank behind the refugium:


The returns are a mix of hard and soft plumbing. I would have done a mix for the drains as well but 1.5” soft lines are still pretty rigid so it seemed pointless.

I then moved the sump into the room and set that up. Here it is running (That black ring on the floor is a toilet flange cover thing).


Here are pics of the chambers again:


The mixing station is right beside the sump:


The ATO is connected directly to the freshwater reservoir. I have a couple extra safeguards to prevent flooding but I’ll need to install them. I love this AquaFX Octopus RODI, btw.

Some of these things are temporary until I get everything going. Then I’ll fine tune. For example, the vinyl tubes are clear; I want black. Also, some of the tubing is too short for the returns so there’s something eggcrate raising the pumps up. Easy fix but I just haven’t done it yet.