I'm a reasonable man. I do reasonable things.

[DigitalFishAquariums]

Once upon a time, I started keeping reef Aquariums. About ten years after that, I got a degree in Marine Biology. About Ten years after that, I saw where an ocean was not, and in defiance of decisions of gods, the ways men, and the natural law of order, I built an 800 gallon reef tank.

These are the voyages of the gigareef.

So how does someone get into something like this? Well, it kind of started when my kids showed an interest in my 80 gallon frag tank which was a display for a plywood coral farm I was running as a hobby at the time.

I started getting lots of help, and I was asked why we couldn't see my big corals, only my little corals in the 80.

When you reef, you reef together, as everyone knows:

So we embarked on a two year pandemic project journey to see the big corals, per my kids request.

The first thing we got was a skimmer, I chose the Rk2 AC8, because it was taller than the AC5 and my buddy insisted I get one that was at least five feet tall, so I did:

Here it is put together, next to my nano skimmer for my 20 for scale:

Much to everyone's surprise I hadn't used a UV skimmer before, and I guess since I was building there's a first time for everything, I got one of those too, this is the 6 foot long RK2 XLF5-150H rated for up to 2000 gallons :



I got some small canisters for media from bashsea:

Fun fact, I buy media in five gallon buckets.

I got a few rocks (1 ton, from pristine rock, they're great I recommend them www.pristinerock.com)

I rinsed my sand in a 100 gallon rubbermaid bin (soon to be my sump) and turned my sidewalk white.

Made a few LIGHT changes to the floor.

Fun fact the owner of the house before me didn't wait for the concrete to dry before rafting an engineered wood floor on the extension so I had to re-pour concrete in the whole house, (in testing found out self leveling concrete isn't THAT self leveling had to re-re-pour the sunroom after scraping it all up). In the process, it rained and water started running into the house, so bonus, we discovered my windows were not watertight and had to do a reside-ing on the house. I got new windows, it was fun.

BUT! Back to the floor. I poured and leveled concrete, then lay slate tile. it was BIBLICALLY level. We're talking true level here Morty, I got familiar with the bubble.

IS very nice.

Then came time to weld and powder coat the stand. Getting 12ft tubes of 4130 chromoly steel during the pandemic was hard, if I'm honest. I got my welding friend to help, he did most of the work to be honest, and I got my aerospace friend to sign off on the structure engineering numbers, and got another guy to x-ray our welds:

put some PVC, started playing with rocks for visualization

Put in a BUNCH of work cutting, leveling, skinning in plywood, tapping in and drilling leveling feet:

Since Icouldn't get the stand under my drill press, I was using DeWalt clamps and jigs:

Kinda looked like a chicken with the leveling feet, so i cut them all down and re-threaded them:

Once the stand was "done", we had to use a test aquarium to see if it worked out:

Great success!

The tank is from www.glasscages.com they're great. Their support is great, their team is great, and their prices are great. Spoilers, but I had an error in my stand or plumbing or something, but my fault, which did cause a leak and they wanted super hard to support me. In the end I was unable to accept their help, but I made the mistake, so I paid for it.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

So then we had some wiring to do. I ran 6x20 amp circuits from the box to the fish room, and I had some guys come put on solar panels.

I them increase my service from 75 to 200amp main panel (old house, bad wiring) and in the interim rewired the entire house, buuutt we got the box put together, 6x20 amp fuses for the fish room. Eagle eyes will spot that's only 5 fuses, but I ran a 6th wire and if I need it i'll have it:

Each of the six circuits starts with a 20a extra heavy duty light switch that I paid extra for JUST because they're more click-ey than the other ones. The next step of each circuit is the GFCI 20a outlet, and i put it all in a wet use metal lid-ed outdoor box:

I built and labeled six of these:

and I hung 'em on a wall:

For all outlets I added wet area covers ('cause you have to under-stand electrical safety, wakka wakka):

For the hood I got these metal individual covers, and I ran 2x20amp wires through conduit, I still have to finish my hood design:

It was kind of a nightmare, my hands hurt all the time, but safety and future-proofing is worth it. I have wet area outlets, and wet area switches to cutoff for the skimmer independently (left) the sump (right) outlets, and then another switch to cut off the tank outlets for the power-heads (not pictured):

The top outlet/line is the "main lights" circuit and the bottom is the"main flow". We haven't talked about my plumbing yet, that's next post, spoilers:

Of course, after plugging in the three ink-birds, the outlets for the power-heads, the three big jebaos (DCP-20000) it needs some wire management, which I've yet to do, there WILL be a post complaining about it later:

The lights are just Chinese Black Boxes, they'll get upgraded when i'm out of the poor house. They're on 20a outdoor manual timers, and there are 12 of them. They need a better mounting solution, but since I have glass lids on the tank for now, just piled on the top. Suuuuper safe, suuuper cool. but that's why I have GFCI and cutoffs everywhere. More on this later.

 

[rmorris_14]

Fun thread so far! Keep it coming! I can't wait for more.

 

[GoneReefin]

Wow you basically ended up rebuilding your house for this tank. Incredible start and I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

So one day I started plumbing. My original plan was to have recirculating pumps, but part the rock scape fell on one of the bulkheads and cracked the bottom of the tank (oops) and I had to put in 1/2" of fiberglass. It happened while I was away on business and the tank had been leak tested/full for a week, so big shoutout to my sister checking the house at 9pm then cutting up all my 1/4" PEX tube and running like 19 of them as siphons into my front yard. For real she's the unsung champion here.

I swore I'd never speak of it again, especially to strangers on the internet, and the whole disaster added about 6 months to the project and 800 gallons of water to the floor of my house.

Yes, that is a 4 sides complete crack in a 12 foot pain of glass in the bottom of an 800 gallon aquarium I later filled with water and put in my living room. I do reasonable things, keep up.


There was some worry about bottom flex after I patched it, and that's a fair cop, so I notched 12 foot long 4x6s and decked the top/bottom. I lay in struts like i was laying brick with wood glue, and the doors don't fit on correctly yet. I don't recommend in place wood working projects of this scale in your living room, you make a mess:

I added some rocks on top of the layers of fiberglass, and poured ten gallons (about 1/2) of marine epoxy resin on the bottom to be sure, I put a layer of gravel on top of that and glued it in to cover my sins:

It held water pretty good so we were back to the races:

Everything's still on the level, I swear.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

So anyway overflows. The drains are all 1.5" and the returns are all 2". There are three overflow boxes on a custom 90" acrylic low profile overflow box (Thanks to Modular Marine, they really hooked this job up).

The 1.5" hits an elbow, goes into the garage using bulkheads ('cause I thought they'd look cool) and then a union (cause someone has to clean this ****) and then is T'd to a 2" drain line (red):

I later hung pvc sheets to make it more splash proof and look more snazzier.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

So how DOES one move a 1500 pound tank made of glass? With the old heave-ho I guess. But mostly you get jacks, dollies, dozens of glass suction cups and a local aquarium club (WHAT UP CMAS). You feed them pizza, and you tell them all it's "Not that heavy".

You get it on a truck:

You hand a United States Marine a sledgehammer and a saws all, and say "I don't want that door to be there anymore" and he will proceed to breach the door:

You nearly black out so you put the President of the club in charge.

You get the Army Rangers to belay a security rappel the thing "Like generators up the mountains in Afghanistan"

You roll it in on a couple of dollies into the house (not pictured the 10 degree curve since we couldn't get the truck straight making this take hours longer than it should, and the "hill" on the ramp making trash out of the dollies, a lurch that nearly killed me, and general heroics of all my used-to-be-but-might-not-be-anymore friends):

You jack it on pallet lifts, and shove. Hard.

Then you take suggestive photos so they can use them against you later:

Then you go shopping for PVC, ideally dad style:

 

[BanjoBandito]

I fully support this insanity.

 

[Snoopy 67]

Who built it for you?

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

Who built it for you?

Glass cages. 100% recommended. I guess the edit on the first post didn't take.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

I fully support this insanity.

thanks dude! but uh... what do you mean... insanity? It says right in the title I do reasonable things.

 

[BanjoBandito]

thanks dude! but uh... what do you mean... insanity? It says right in the title I do reasonable things.

Yeah me too. LOL.

 

[GoneReefin]

I fully support this insanity.

I’m showing this to my wife so she can’t say anything about my setup anymore

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

I’m showing this to my wife so she can’t say anything about my setup anymore

happy to help

 

[Gonzo74]

So how DOES one move a 1500 lb tank of glass? with the old heave ho I guess. But mostly you get jacks, dollys, dozens of glass suction cups and a local aquarium club (WHAT UP CMAS), you feed them pizza, and you tell them all it's "not that heavy".

you get it on a truck

You hand a United States Marine a sledghammer and a saws all, and say " I don't want that door to be there anymore" and he will proceed to breach the door:

you nearly black out so you put the President of the club in charge.

You get the Army Rangers to belay a security rapel the thing "Like generators up the mountains in Afghanistan"

You roll it in on a couple of dollies into the house (not pictured the 10 degree curve since we couldn't get the truck striaght making this take hours longer than it should, and the "hill" on the ramp making trash out of the dollies, a lurch that nearly killed me, and general herocis of all my used-to-be-but-might-not-be-anymore friends)

you jack it on pallet lifts, and shove. hard.

Then you take suggestive photos so they can use them against you later:

Then you go shopping for PVC

I see me in this picture!!

 

[Gonzo74]

So how DOES one move a 1500 lb tank of glass? with the old heave ho I guess. But mostly you get jacks, dollys, dozens of glass suction cups and a local aquarium club (WHAT UP CMAS), you feed them pizza, and you tell them all it's "not that heavy".

you get it on a truck

You hand a United States Marine a sledghammer and a saws all, and say " I don't want that door to be there anymore" and he will proceed to breach the door:

you nearly black out so you put the President of the club in charge.

You get the Army Rangers to belay a security rapel the thing "Like generators up the mountains in Afghanistan"

You roll it in on a couple of dollies into the house (not pictured the 10 degree curve since we couldn't get the truck striaght making this take hours longer than it should, and the "hill" on the ramp making trash out of the dollies, a lurch that nearly killed me, and general herocis of all my used-to-be-but-might-not-be-anymore friends)

you jack it on pallet lifts, and shove. hard.

Then you take suggestive photos so they can use them against you later:

Then you go shopping for PVC

You should have posted a picture of J crawling through the window.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

You should have posted a picture of J crawling through the window.

no one has that picture!!!! if anyone had it i would absolutely do it.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

I see me in this picture!!

Mr. Rare Steaks Himself

 

[Sean Clark]

This is beyond fantastic and perfectly reasonable.

 

[FurrierTransform]

I'm waiting for the part where you do something reasonable.