HybridAZN's 180 gallon build

So after much haggling from friends, I have finally decided to make a build thread. My goal for this system when I first set it up in 2011 was for it to be simple but effective in all aspects. As we all know, when we do something sometime later down the road we look at what we have done and realize that it can be better in some way, shape or form. That is where I am everyday with this system. I will use this thread to update with pics of what I add, upgrade or improve on my system and I will always be open to suggestions from the R2R community on how to improve as well.

I'm sure some are curious as to my background, so here it is. I've always had fishtanks growing up as a kid, the first real tank I had was when I was 12 years old. A 20 gallon freshwater that I got to house a goldfish I won at a local fair. I kept that fish alive for years so my brother and I set up quite a few tanks, mostly piranha. I set up my first saltwater tank in 2002, a 29 gallon which crashed and burned very quickly. I took a break from it until 2006 when I set up a 75 gallon tank when I finally moved out of my parents when I got married. I kept that tank going successfully until I set up the 180. I have had some major set backs with saltwater tanks. Mostly due to major losses because of lack of a proper quarantine procedure. I have had almost complete livestock losses because of ich, but because of this I have become very committed to quarantining EVERYTHING that enters my system.

Now like I stated, I started this build in July 2011, so there will be a rush of pics in the first few posts from me. I looked thru all the pics I have taken to this point and realized I didn't do a good job of taking pics of the build along the way. So that is something I will strive to improve from here on out.

But here is a run down of equipment I am currently running on the system:

180 gallon (6'x2'x2') Glass display tank with custom coast to coast overflow with bean animal overflow
40 gallon breeder custom "sump" (It is a standard 40b that I divided into 2 sections, where my drains dump into-2 baffles-then return section. More info on this later)
Custom built stand by my brother and myself
Mag 24 return pump
2x Ecotech Marine Vortech MP40WES
3x Coralvue LumenBrite Reflectors
3x 250w 20k Radium bulbs
3x Galaxy Select-a-watt ballasts(hqi)
Workhorse 7 t5 ballast
2x 36" ATI Blue+ T5 bulbs
Neptune Apex controller full system
temp, ph, conductivity probes
PM2 module
Apex breakout box
Tunze 3155 ATO
Bubble Magus dosing pump (2 part)
Emperor Aquatics 18w UV Sterilizer
BRS Dual Reactor (ROX carbon & Seachem Phosguard)

Thats the equipment list currently on the tank. Over the years I have gone from MH, to LED and back to MH. I will have pics of the switch so I will go into greater detail with the pics as I post them. This tank has been a strong passion for me with a lot of people that helped me along the way, and I will drop names as I go along haha.

Here is a more recent FTS that I took a few days ago with just the t5's on.




So let the ongoing journey continue, only now on R2R for hopefully all to enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my build, I will keep this thread updated with pics and I take them.

 

yikes, so I was getting ready to start putting up the pics and I see its almost 4am. Time to go to bed. I'll get some up tomorrow before I head to work.

 

So here it goes, from the beginning...


Beginning the layout for my custom made stand. we used 2x4's for the frame



frame completed, now its time to skin




I chose to skin the stand with 1/2" oak plywood. After I did this I thought I should have used 1/4" to save weight, but I guess the extra thickness would help with stability and making it extra sturdy. I used Minwax 1 step stain black on the stand. it looks stunning in person!



Here is the 180 drilled with 1 1/2" bulkheads for the bean animal overflow. I also decided to use black vinyl instead of paint on the back glass. It was very easy to apply and not nearly as messy as painting. It came out great!

 

Here is the start of the coast to coast overflow. I have a local company that I get glass off of and he has helped out a lot. I used the Marineland silicone to bond the glass.



Fitting the overflow box to the tank. Making sure everything is level before I make it permanent.



Silicone applied! Not the cleanest job, I have gotten better at this since I started doing this years ago haha



water tested the overflow box, it holds exactly 5 gallons of water



Hard to see in this pic the plumbing inside the tank for the 2 standpipes and emergency pipe

 

1/4" black acrylic sheet. I used a dremel to make the teeth so larger snails couldn't climb into the overflow. I wish i would have made them a little tighter together because smaller fish have found there way into the overflow from time to time.



Finished! time to bond it to the overflow box



Started the plumbing for the overflow. I decided to use separate parts for the ball valves and unions because I have always had problems getting the all in one fittings to tighten snug. I don't have to worry about that with this setup. Now here is a place I wish I would have not used a ball valve on the emergency pipe and the vented standpipe. I feel they are just not needed on these 2 pipes, its just added weight and additional cost that could have been avoided. Maybe one day when I'm bored I will cut out the bulkheads and redo them….But I doubt it haha



Here is where I went back and forth a bit. I originally thought it would be easier to just use flex tubing for the rest of the plumbing. But after a few days of thinking i decided to just hard pipe it and get it done. And i'm glad I did, it is SO much cleaner this way.



The first light rack. I used 2" PVC and I painted it black. It was much cheaper than buying 2" black PVC. This is just a test fit of the 2 400watt ice cap metal halides i originally had on the tank.

 

Here is the light rack completed with a 250 watt lumenmax elite reflector in the middle.



My original "controller" DJ strips work wonders until the switches stop working, which was early and often. You can also see the ASM G3 skimmer that I ran on the tank originally. That would later get replaced by a bigger skimmer



I put a DJ strip on each front door, mounted up top for ease of use



Aquascaping time! I am terrible at doing this, so I asked my brother to do it for me. He has always been pretty good at doing these things

 

My original fuge I had on the tank was a 20 gallon extra tall which I teed off the return and had it feed back into the sump. I used a ReefBrite 50/50 light strip for it. This thing is awesome for a fuge light



My return plumbing, surprisingly it doesn't vibrate this way. I am currently going to redo this whole setup after the upcoming frag swap in Feb. I haven't been happy with this set up but it was after it was done and I didn't feel like redoing it at the time.



Tank has water! I used tap water for the first couple years on this setup. I have pretty good tap water so there was never any problems doing this. I grew sps and everything else.



Upgraded the ASM G3 modded skimmer for this EuroReef RS250. This thing is a monster, and because I built my stand 3' tall it fit perfectly.

 

Here are the handles I decided to use on the stand. I found them at Lowe's

So after this point is where I hit some major snags, I didn't document this part because it was stressful and heartbreaking. I added livestock to the tank and I had a ich outbreak in the 180. This was before I put many corals in the tank so I was able to put the entire tank in hypo. But this was after I lost almost all my fish except for my african cleaner wrasse and powder blue tang. They both survived the outbreak and a very long hypo session. So after that I started to stock the tank again and had it just about ready to go, then on my anniversary we order a yasha goby pair from DD. I didn't think it was necessary to QT so I put them right into the display. 2 days later another big ich outbreak in the tank wiped out everything but the powder blue, cleaner wrasse and 1 of the yasha gobies. So after this I set up a permanent QT tank for livestock, i will never go thru this again in my display tank. The first year of the setup was the hardest. It was basically just back and forth with hypo and making sure my fish are healthy. While I use a strict qt process now, I am still gunshy when it comes to buying new fish. Even in qt I hate dealing with disease and illness with my fish. But if I must, I must.

 

Awesome! Your tank is one of my favorite tanks! When my tank grows up, it's going to look like yours! :hail:

I'm SOOOOOO glad you finally decided to do this thread! I was just about to ask you when you were gonna do one... He he he! :angel: :bolt:

Following!

 

Haha thanks man, I am currently at work so I will post up more pics and details later tonight!

 

Looking great!! I like the handles.

 

Fast forward to 2012. At this point the tank has been disease free and I was slowly adding corals to the tank. I attended MACNA @ Dallas as a board member of MASNA. While at the show I won a Ecotech Radion G1! Obviously I was excited about this because I was contemplating the idea of LEDS and now I can actually start the LED journey.



A couple months later I was able to get a 2nd radion mounted on the tank completely replacing the 400w mh's. It saved me a bunch on my electric bill lol. Corals all seemed to respond very well to the led switch. I assumed it was because they went from 400w mh to the less so there wasn't any increase in par.



ALL 3 lights are now radion leds. So now there is 3 Ecotech Radion G1 w/TIR lenses on the tank and it was in my eyes rocking and rolling. SPS were growing and all is well



radions on 20k, man were these things blue! I ran them on 100% intensity on the rapid growth program. Lights came on at 4pm and shut off at 3am(I work a late shift at work, so these times are best for me to see the tank while I am home from work)

So at this point I am realizing that my DJ strips are no longer keeping me happy and I need more automation and monitoring in my life. Out of the 16 switches on my 2 DJ strips, about 6 of them have either stopped working or the switch itself literally popped out of the strip itself. upsetting to say the least.

 

Lets welcome the Neptune Apex full system to the build. I was able to get a tremendous deal on a brand new apex from someone who bought it but never used it. They thought there apex had failed so they bought this one but were able to fix there's and parted ways with this one. lucky me i guess lol. I knew I didn't want my Apex located under the stand like the current electronics currently were at the time. I had a old towel cabinet left over from our master bathroom remodel, so I figured I could modify it to house my electronics in. The cabinet was the typical wood fashion so i spray painted it black to match the stand and the rest of the room. I then started mounting the electronics as in the pic.



The Apex fired up and one of the 2 Vortech drivers mounted. For the 2nd driver for the Vortech to reach to cabinet located on the opposite side of the tank I had to send in the dry side to Ecotech to have them extend the wires so it would reach to the cabinet.



So I am truly ashamed by this pic. But I am posting it so it motivates me to clean it up. I want to strip this whole setup and build a false bottom so to speak so then I can run all wires underneath the controllers and such and can't be seen. I then want to add hard lines to the dosing containers and run them behind the cabinet so they can't be seen as well. Life has gotten in the way of doing this up to this point and when I work on the tank it is usually in tank anymore. But as you can see I mounted the 2nd Vortech driver, mounted the Tunze ATO box, and added a PM2 module to monitor salinity and the Bubble Magus dosing pump. ugh, every time i see this pic it makes me cringe, people keep on me to clean this up, I hate messes...

Ok so the next posts will involve mostly livestock. They will be up shortly...

 

Haha, thanks bro......I think
spspirate thanks! I knew they were the handles to use as soon as I saw them


More pics coming soon...

 

Ok so here is the CURRENT list of livestock I have in the tank.

Fish/inverts:
Powder Blue Tang(had him for going on 9 years now)
Desjardini Sailfin Tang(3 years)
Yasha Goby(lost the female due to ich)
Maldives Lyretail Anthias(it was a trio, but I lost both females)
ORA Springeri Dottyback
ORA Semi-Picasso Percula and ORA True Percula clownfish pair
Pajama Cardinalfish(pair)
Target Mandarin
Coral Banded Shrimp
Fire Shrimp
Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

Corals:
RR Pink Floyd
RR The Vihn
RR D-day
RR Prometheus
RR Oblivion
RR The One
RR Fruitopia
RR Dantes Inferno
RR Wolverine
RR Dupont
RR Chili Pepper
RR Diesel
RR Super Blue Tenius
Oculus Lime in the Sky
CITR Red Dragon
ORA Pearlberry
ORA Shortcake
ORA Miami Orchid
ORA Red Planet
ORA Hawkins
Tyree Monti Setosa
Tyree Tri color Valida
Tyree Lime in the Sky
Tyree Mr. Pacman
Tyree Pink Lemonade
Tyree Rainbow Stylo
Tyree Purple Unknown
Exotic Frags Thanos
JKR Joes Rainbow Acro
Jfox Flame Acro
Jfox Beach Bum Monti
JFOX Jack-o-Lantern Lepto
SC Orange Passion
SC Lady in Red
SC Rimless Rainbow Chalice
SC Mcnasty Acans
SC Orange Psammacora
CC Watermelon Milli
ATL Strawberry Fields
Wet Thumbs Mother of Pearl
Wet Thumbs Tierra Del Fuego
Pro Corals Rainbow
Unique Corals Strawberry Shortcake
$500 Efflo
Paletta Pink Tip
Meteor Shower Cyphastrea
Vivid Rainbow Delight
Raspberry Limade Acro
Miyagi Tort
DM Marauder Acro
Mystic monti
Sunset Monti
Turbo21 rainbow acans
Pink Zippers
Candy Apple Red
Candy Apple Orange
God of Wars
Sunny D
Red Hornets
Purple Hornets
Tyree Space Monsters
Pink Hallucinations
SC Playboy Bunnies
Utter Chaos
Purple Rains
Fire and Ice
gorilla Nipples
Goochsters
Fruit Loops
My Clemintines
True Rastas
Gummi Bears
Spiderman Blasto
Jfox My Miami Chalice
I'm sure I'm forgetting more zoas, i have so many i can't remember lol

I think thats it…I think lol I'm sure I forgot something. I'll update as I remember haha

Pics to come later tonight. I have to get ready for work

 

So the radions have been really good on the tank. The following pics of of the livestock during the period of the time with LEDs.




Tyree Rainbow Stylo


ORA Ponape Birdsnest


Exotic Frags Thanos Acro. I had this piece really high up in the tank getting blasted with light. It looked the best here. I set the radions on 10k setting for this pic

 

God of Wars with Tyree Space Monsters


Pink Zippers


JFox Beach Bum Monti and Jfox Outrage Monti




Tyree Mr. Pacman ORA Shortcake and Copps Hulk Milli

 

PC Rainbow


RR The Vihn centered in the pic when I first got it


Jfox Jack-o-latern lepto


RR Pink Floyd

 

ATL Strawberry Fields and RMF Jareds Red Matrix behind


CITR Red Dragon


My forever encrusting CC Watermelon Milli lol


Sexy Corals Rimless Rainbow


Jfox Flame Acro