Byron & ReneÃ©'s 465g reef - 700g+ total

byron · Jul 9, 2012

Not sure where to jump in here...

We started to pull things together in February and finally have it to a point where it is just finished cycling -- I think. I will begin to post pictures of the earlier phases later tonight.

the basic setup:
465g DT from Miracles - Starfire front - 96 x 36 x 31.25 - mounted in-wall
125g refugium (Rubbermaid 150 stock tank)
125g sump (Rubbermaid 150 stock tank)
Bubble King 300 External - Red Dragon fed by Iwaki 30RT
GFO reactor (BRS jumbo)
Carbon reactor (BRS jumbo)
65g salt mix reservoir
65g RODI reservoir
BRS 6 Stage RODI 150gpd
ATO - 50mL/min Apex driven BRS dosing pump
2 Part dosers - 3 x BRS 1.1 mL/min dosing pumps
ReeFlo Barracuda / Hammerhead Hybrid return pump
Panworld 30PX - water change pump
Panworld 50PX - RODI/Salt mix pump
6 x Ecotech XR30 LED illumination systems
4 x Ecotech MP30 wave pump - Apex WXM driven
schedule 80 plumbing

I think that's most of it... I'll update if I forgot stuff

ritter6788 · Jul 9, 2012

Sounds like a great set up. Can't wait for pics! Good luck!

turbo21 · Jul 9, 2012

Looks good on paper, can't wait to see some pics. Where in pa are you from?

byron · Jul 9, 2012

ritter6788 said:
Sounds like a great set up. Can't wait for pics!Good luck!

thanks

turbo21 said:
Looks good on paper, can't wait to see some pics. Where in pa are you from?

everything looks good on paper

NE PA (near New Milford) - out in the sticks of the Endless Mountains region - not a PA guy till recently, will explain how I got here later

revhtree · Jul 9, 2012

Can't wait for pics!

Electrobes · Jul 9, 2012

I'm with the other guys... I definitely am waiting for pics of this awesome monster!

byron · Jul 9, 2012

where is the best place(s) to host pics for the forum... I have been putting them on my server, but once I take them down it will mess up the thread here...

wysiwyg · Jul 9, 2012

wow sounds like my dream system cant wait to see pics

revsgirl · Jul 9, 2012

Did someone already mention pics please?! :tongue:

byron · Jul 9, 2012

btw, when I click "Reply To Thread", nothing happens... must have my browser settings messed up. Have to right click and say "open in new tab" to get this window ???

while I'm waitng on how to post pics info, some ABOUT:

We brought up our 1st, and only, tank in 2003 when we were living in Houston, TX -- an Oceanic 175 (?) Bowfront Reef kit. I struggled with it until early 2006 when we shut it down to move to the Bay Area. Didn't bring up another tank until now. We were trying to learn and did reasonably well I guess, but were defintely still in the (advanced) noob range when we shut it down.

In early 2009, we moved to NE PA where ReneÃ© was raised -- she decided it was time to come home. I worked in high tech for 30+ years designing computing systems beginning with IBM and ending with HP. HP offered me an early retirement package at the end 2008 (and since I was actually into retirement age anyway) and I took it. We began to build our new (and final) home in late 2009 and finished it in late 2011. So once it was done, we got serious about building in the reef system ol our dreams. The room housing all of the fish stuff is 10x13 connecting to one side of the media room on the lower floor.

We waffled on acrylic or glass, finally settled on glass and began talking with Miracles in 2011 and kicked off the DT build in Feb 2012. It was scheduled to arrive around May 1, but a fracture of the back glass during the temper process pushed it out to June 1ish...

I brought up the refug and sump in early Mar, so it had been looping water for several months when the DT arrived.

So we are still noobs with a 700+gal system... so if some of my design or questions will seem dumb... go figure.

btw, I have decided to create this thread on R2R under the assumption that a friendlier crowd lives here. My hope is to encounter comments such as "that is certainly a unique approach that you used, but have you considered...", rather than "that is the dumbest way I have ever seen, even a complete moron would have..." (and we all know that no morons are complete)

byron · Jul 9, 2012

while I'm figuring out the whole pic thing, here is a shot I took into the tank this weekend... nothing in it yet but a couple of snails, its just finishing up cycling and starting go grow algae. Will probably bring more in snails in 10 days or so and will maybe setup the QT in a couple of weeks and think about a fish or two -- QT will likely run 8 weeks though, don't want to start off with any pathogens in the system.

I will next backup tp the begining of the build and start forward... but at least, here is a pic FWIW

byron · Jul 9, 2012

sorry for the dupe, still figuring this out...

byron · Jul 9, 2012

4/3/12: here is the media room as it looked when we started the project. We taped the wall to we could see approximately what the tank would look like (I'm not sure the species of the fish).

uall8up · Jul 9, 2012

photobucket is the easiest for me to upload several pics at once

byron · Jul 9, 2012

4/3/12: looking toward the front wall of the fish room. The refugium and sump are along the back and the Apex system if mounted on the right wall. The refug is sitting on a platform so that it can gravity feed down to the sump. At that time, the skimmer was going to be on a small stand along the right wall -- it moved... the bllue tape on the floor shows where the DT will sit.

byron · Jul 9, 2012

4/3/12: the back wall of the fish room showing where the salt & RODI reservoirs will sit. The GFO & carbon reacotrs turned out to not be located in the best spot, but we'll get to that down the road. The 6 stage RODI system has a booster pump front-ended by a sediment filter because we are on a well and to boost the presure to get any reasonable efficiency our of the system. I did buy a flood detection system to monitor the RODI operation, but have not installed those components yet.

The ceiling mounted system on the right is an HRV that actually is unrelated to the fish room -- it just got located there. I will discuss later why it may need to be ducted into the fish room afterall.

As you can see we are sitting on a concrete floor, so strucurally we should be sound. The back wall is into a hillside and the lower structure was created with ICF (insulated concrete forms). You will notice wall outletrs at normal height down on the floor -- bonehead move on my part, they should have all been above the expected water line.

byron · Jul 9, 2012

to put things in perspective, this is an image of our home. The media room is just inside the lower double french doors in the center and straight on back from that is the fish room against the back wall. The lower floor is stained concrete. The home sits on 24 acres - half treed, half open. We share the home with 4 cats -- and soon fish, coral & inverts.

BTW, ReneÃ© sat down with an architect and designed the home back in 2007, her dream home, because we knew that we would someday move over here and build it -- we had purchased the land over a decade ago when were still living in Houston.

byron · Jul 9, 2012

if this starts to get boring let me know

byron · Jul 9, 2012

mid April: here we have an opened up view of the fish room where I had cut out the wall separating the media room and fish room. I framed the opening to be 2in longer than the tank to hopefully slide it in place easily -- it wasn't easy, more on that later.

A couple of images were stiched together to create the panorama perspective - i gave incorrect dimensions earlier, the fish room is 15x10