A senior moment, building a 210

[Harold Green]

Good morning everyone. I'm probably going to bore the hell out of everyone but I wanted to talk about the 210 gallon build I did over the last year. Instead of posting a long series of photo's I'm going to limit them to the number I need to illustrate the build. Hopefully the build and my reasons for doing it my way will give new to the hobby members another point of view in how to go about a build. I started off like most of us trying to decide what size would be right for me. It's been decades since my 250 so I looked at tanks, size versus costs, versus what I wanted to do with the display. I ended up ordering a 210 reef ready tank. With the measurements of the tank it was time to decide on what type of stand to build. Haven't bought a stand since the metaframe tank days. Before most of your times. After a lot of research I ran across a 210 build that I immediately thought was overbuilt. After considering for a few days I decided nothing wrong with overbuilding so it was time to figure stand dimensions. I wanted the tank top at six feet above the floor. That way it was comfortable to stand and look into and sitting in one of the high bar chairs I have put my eye level at the center of the tank. Best viewing for me. Next thing to consider was the interior of the stand. I wanted to use a 75 gallon tank as the sump and the stand sized for the 210 was too narrow for the 75 to fit inside of. So I added 3 inches to the front to back dimension of the stand. I haven't been able to locate any pictures of the stand carcass before skinning it. It's simply all 2x4's. Jointed and glued together to form (8) 3and a half by 4 inch beams or posts. A little math gave me the lengths to end up with the size stand I wanted. Four 2x4's were cut to 73" and narrowed to the height of the 3x4's. Two were laid down on the floor and the four 3x4 beams were placed between the long 2x4's and screwed together. It's important to measure where the tank drains are located so the beams aren't in the wrong place. The eight posts were cut to length and screwed down to the beams. The two additional long 2x4's were screwed down on top of the posts along with the four remaining beams. Next came skinning. I used 3/4" birch plywood leaving one end of the stand with the end panel screwed in place so it could be removed at any time to slide the sump in. I took a piece of plywood and cut out for the posts and screwed it down inside for a base to set the sump on. Screwed down a piece on the top of the stand for the tank to sit on. At this point it was time to decide on how the outside of the stand would look. There are some really impressive diy stands on this forum from members who built a piece of quality furniture for their home. But every time I looked at one of them it was the stand that caught my attention and not the tank. So I decided I wanted a stand that you wouldn't look at twice. You'd walk up and see the tank instead. So I added only a little rope trim where I wanted to hide a plywood edge. Cut simple plywood panels for the doors. A 45degree routed edge to soften them up. A built up solid wood edge to the top panel with a 45degree edge. Finished with an oak stain and several coats of poly as a sealer.

 

[Harold Green]

Next up you'll notice a pantry cabinet next to the stand. Unfinished oak and around a $100 dollars. It gave me a place to mount lighting and pump controllers along with timers. It's also a good storage area for test kits, cleaning materials, spare pumps etc. In my sixties I wanted to limit the things I had to do under the stand. I mounted a wood tray painted to match the wall on the wall at the height of the pantry so I could run light fixture cords into the pantry without them showing. Open basement ceiling so I wasn't worried about the light mounting appearance.

 

[Midrats]

Looks good Sir! Nice work. I look forward to seeing the tank on it.

 

[Harold Green]

It's alive. Tank arrived and set on stand. I think the stand weighed more than the tank. Had to get it into the house from the work shop where I built it. It took a while to install the bulkhead fittings and after testing with a bucket below I ended up having to tighten them up more. Next on to the sump. When I tore down two 75's that were in the location where I set up the 210 I saved one of them for my sump. Found hundreds of different layouts for sump design and finally settled on one that would do what I wanted for the sump to do. Now I won't argue with anyone on the fact that silicone won't stick to acrylic but I have always preferred to make baffles out of acrylic simply because it's so easy to cut, drill, make overflow teeth and so on. I clean the inside of the glass and the acrylic with alcohol to remove any dirt or grease. I want the best bond to the glass. I fit the baffle tightly in place, add masking tape on one side to hold it in place along with a square for the vertical. Run a heavy bead of silicone on the other side and smooth it out with a wet finger. Let it dry for 24 hours, remove the tape and silicone the second side. For bubble traps glue the first panel in place then mark where the middle trap panel will go. Run a thick bead of silicone up both vertical seams and slide the panel into the silicone using a couple of spacers to keep the panel the height you want above the bottom of the tank and a large paint can or anything else to hold the panel in place. With a dowel you can smooth the silicone where you can't reach with your hand. 24 hours later silicone the other side. Repeat for the other panel. I have to mention from my experience I've got one sump I siliconed acrylic in place 30 years ago that's still in place. If I had to guess where most people go wrong is you can use thin glass for a sump divider but if you do that with acrylic it will flex and pop out of the silicone. I use nothing thinner than 1/4" acrylic for dividers. At any rate it works well for me. There or lots of schools of thought on feeding water to the refusium. Overflow from the tank brings lots of nutrients to the fuge and promotes lots of growth but I didn't like the detritus that would eventually build up in the fuge. Instead I have a tape on my return line that feeds a gfo/carbon reactor that provides a slow flow into the fuge. This way the fuge picks up and removes anything that gets by the reactors and allows me to add a little green water to the fuge from time to time to feed the pods and clams growing in there.

 

[Harold Green]

At this point I reached the hardest part of the build. Fortunately I had a fridge full of cold beer close by. Seems like it took me forever to pipe all the supply and return lines in and I won't even bother to take a picture of all the lines under the tank. I used unions just below the bulkhead fittings and at the return pump in the event I have to remove a line for some reason.

 

[Harold Green]

And for my next trick I'll pull an ato out of the hat. I chose to put the tank on a wall were there is a utility room behind it. That's where I have my ro filter mounted. I bought (3) thirty gallon brute containers and the ro water pours into the first one with a float switch to shut off when the tub is full. The second container is ro water plus clear kalk liquid. The third container is made up salt water. A 1/2" pvc pipe connects all three tubs and empties out into the back of the tank sump. A pair of float switches controls an outlet that the pump in the center tub is plugged into providing ato to the tank as needed. By flipping shutoff valves and plugging in the pump in the saltwater tub into the relay plug I can do a water change and the ato will automatically refill the tank with salt water as I siphon water out of the system. I can also fill either the middle or right tubs with ro water by turning on the pump in the fist tub and changing valve positions. The whole idea is to make it so I don't have to haul water around. A lot easier to just flip a switch and open a valve.

 

[Harold Green]

I filled the tank with a mix of dry rock that I had. Live rock that I reused. Fresh live rock from Florida. So far I've never had a problem with using fresh live rock and I like getting corals, plants, clams, inverts etc. with the rock. I added a little live sand to the sand in the refusium to give it a start and never had any rise in ammonia. Probably from all the live rock and very little load on the new setup. It had corals in it from the start and a large clean up crew but no fish for six months. The tank was meant to be an sps tank from the start. Here's the original layout at startup.

 

[Harold Green]

Now on to the completed tank. After most of a year I wasn't satisfied with the rate of coral growth so I added another 500 watts of led's on the tank bringing the total up to almost a thousand watts and then I cut the whites down to about 20% and the blues down to 80%. Growth picked up immediately. Here's a few tank figures. Two filter socks-keeps the water polished clear, mag 18 return pump, bm220A skimmer, wp 40 wave maker- acceptable water flow in the tank but I've picked up a wp 60 to replace it with in the future. Lighting is a mix of diy crees and chinese cheap led's. I added a large surround to the top of the tank to hide the lights and then since it's in the basement anyway I mounted a kayak lift above it to raise the surround easily so I can get into the tank for maintenance.

 

[Harold Green]

And last but not least I wanted a small frag tank. After pricing some on line I decided the best option was to use a 29 gallon and stand I had sitting around empty. Pulled out the acrylic and silicone and eggcrate. Hunted up an old used skimmer pump(250gph). Drilled a hole in the lower portion of the acrylic and glued it in place. Set up the eggcrate to hold a platform up near the top of the tank for best lighting. As the water level drops in the pump chamber it stays at the same level in the frag portion of the tank. It seems to be working well. I've placed a couple of monti caps along with some zoa's and other frags in it and they are growing nicely. The only draw back so far is I have to replace about a half gallon of evaporation daily. Since it is easy to get to it's not a problem.

 

[cginter]

nice build man

 

[Harold Green]

Thanks. I figured as a senior I'd better build what I want now while I was able to do all the heavy work. The main goal here was to have a tank that I could maintain with a small amount of effort.

 

[cginter]

That's what I went for as well, even being a young reefer. I'm always gone from home on the weekends and the gf doesn't seem to care for the tank as much as I would like her to, so I tried making it as maintenance free as possible. Helps to have a controller to monitor everything from your phone, but it gets expensive.