Maroun.c 400 G build thread

[maroun.c]

I got the wood work from the cabinetry removed so that we can directly proceed to tank swap when I'm back.

few months before I was considering an additional frag tank or a SPS with angels and butterflies tank... so had one made but never filled it as i had to reloacte. so decided to leave it empty and use it to hold the corals and fish while replacing the tanks. It sits on the stand above my sump in the basement and I had done the drain plumbing to the sump.

This is the last picture of the tank as it looked before I flew back to Dubai on the 5th of Dec and plan was to come back on 20th of Dec for 2 weeks for christmas vacation and replace the tank.

 

[drernesto]

Finally the long awaited update. Great work

 

[maroun.c]

One would expect things to always go as planned especially when the whole swap was made to just be on the safe side or at least that's what I thought.
Same day I left to Dubai at 2:00 Am I receive a call from my wife. Alarming as it is at that time, something inside told me it was about the tank. While picking up the phone I notice an Apex automatic leak detection alarm as well.
Picked up the phone and had that confirmed. My immediate concern was to have wife shut down tank electricity. then to know if this was a whole tank failure or just a leak. as wife had told me teh water was all over the house in 2 living rooms, kitchen and 3 bedrooms which was scary as I had a drain besides the tank. so i was fearing a total pannel failure.
I get the first picture from my wife and to some relief front panel is still there but tank is leaking severely from top to middle of left front seam. water was like a Jet.
I shut down the basement return pump by Apex (as it has a power supply independent from the house) to avoid more water being supplied to the tank.
at that moment I realized that I'm risking a complete loss as my wife is definitely not able to handle this.
I make a call to the LFS owner who built my new tank at 2:05 AM and to my relief he answers and instinctively knows my tank has failed. in 20 min he's at my place with an assistant, I still dont' believe how. I wake up the building concierge as well who goes to my basement in the mean time and prepares buckets and hoses...
He starts by putting thick scotch tape on the front glass and pressing it on the side glass (as he didn't have clamps since he was at home) and this stops the leak, At this stage water was at 3/4 of the tank so the intensity of the leak had reduced. they run the hose from home to basement and syphon the water to the tank I had previously prepared months back. they catch all the fish and move the rocks with the corals down. couple big rocks didn't fit in the holding tank so they break off corals on them and lace the corals in the tank. they also connected a return pump from the sump to the holding tank. Another issue we realized is that the ATO container had been all pumped into the system (around 120 Litres 35 G) luckily the salinity was still at 1.025 so we didn't even add salt.
I book the first available flight home and arrive the same day at midnight. During the 4 hours flight i was mentally prepared for the first time to take down my tank and kept thinking it could have been worse with the electricity being close...
Arrive home and my wifes first words are, its good that you have the new tank ready so it should be easy to get it going again right?!!!
I just couldn't believe my ears after all she had been through.
Check the tank and I come back to this.

To think that this

was reduced to this

in only 4 hours , was simply heartbreaking.

chekcked the fish and corals in the basement and luckily everything looked fine except for couple of fish that were stuck in the rocks that didn't fit in the holding tank which I found dead between the rocks (flasher wrass and a fridmani) this was sad but an acceptable loss so far.
i quickly added 3 LED lights I had over that tank (2 orpheks and 1 razor) and set them at low intensity as my corals are mostly used to halides and minimal LED.

 

[fabutahoun]

Oh My God, you told me about it earlier but photos speaks more than words. Thank God no one from your family got hurt, and luckily everything was handled quickly with minimum loss.

 

[maroun.c]

Finally the long awaited update. Great work

were you really waiting for my tank crash update?
Thanks

 

[maroun.c]

Oh My God, you told me about it earlier but photos speaks more than words. Thank God no one from your family got hurt, and luckily everything was handled quickly with minimum loss.

Thanks Fadi,
yeah was a close call on all aspects.

 

[drernesto]

Your wife should be awarded for the reef angel of 2017! Thanks god that no one got hurt.

 

[drernesto]

were you really waiting for my tank crash update?
Thanks

I was talking about the first part of the update!
[emoji850][emoji850][emoji850]

 

[maroun.c]

I know buddy, Just kidding.

 

[maroun.c]

I stay for two days just to make sure that all is well with the setup, remove old sand and cleanup the tank to avoid any die off in the sand bed causing bad smell. then I fly back to Dubai and Come back on the 20th as planned for the tank switch.
I also realize a big mistake I've done 3-4 years back when we drilled the flouring to pass the filtration to the basement I added one hole tat acts as a drain tot he open garage just in case there is a leak. At the time when they sealed the holes they inserted a tube to keep the drain open which I was supposed to take out a few days later but I completely forgot for years. I hope this pipe never goes into action again but I saw it off anyway. Luckily damage has been limited considering that I calculated the tank leaking around 1500 Litres (400G) of water which flooded most of the rooms.

Old tank is removed which was easier than expected

New tank is lifted in. always a crazy scary process.

 

[maroun.c]

Overflow was built in position, made it 45 cm (20") deep VS the previous overflow at 15 cm (6") to better control the level of water in it and minimize noise. also added a Gate valve Vs ball valve on the main drain for better control.

 

[nitro]

WoW!! What an amazing ride for sure. You have an amazing and understanding wife my friend. I surely hope your troubles are behind you.

 

[maroun.c]

WoW!! What an amazing ride for sure. You have an amazing and understanding wife my friend. I surely hope your troubles are behind you.

Thanks. Sure has been a tough ride lately. Wife has amazingly accepted and taken over running the tank despite multiple mishaps. Soaking the house, carpets, water in the cabinets next to the tank we found the following day from the jet would have normally meant shutting down the tank for sure. It has not been a consideration so far

 

[don_chuwish]

Amazing save by people able to help in a hurry!

 

[revhtree]

Nice job man!

 

[maroun.c]

Amazing save by people able to help in a hurry!

I still can't believe they were able to be there that quick. luckily all turned out to the best from that moment on.

 

[maroun.c]

Nice job man!

Thanks

 

[maroun.c]

With tank in place, next step was logically a leak test. I hate those regardless how small a tank is. and filling up this one after having the previous tank leak few weeks before was even more stressful.

Luckily no leaks

After that I prepped the room for moving in the sand and scaping. to think that I'm worried about a few splashes after flodig the house with 400G of tank water

New sand was extensively rinsed and placed in a tank connected to my system to seed it with some bacteria.

 

[fabutahoun]

looking good Maroun

 

[maroun.c]

Next to scaping which was the tricky part as most rocks had corals on them and I had to do it before adding water. Luckily left island is all made of ceramics and wasn't broken when taken out tot the holding tank. all I had to do was epoxy that bridge back in position. middle island was a bit tricky but as I'm returning to same position which I had taken pictures off to see where exactly each rock goes that was supposed to be easy. Rt island I never liked and decided to redo.
Going in the tank with the braces wasn't difficult so didn't really regret adding the braces. yet it felt sad to be rescaping and restrating the tank at the 5 years mark when the tank was supposed to be at its peak.

Scaping took way over than I anticipated (2.5 hours instead of 1 hour) and the fact that corals were out of the water and that it was cold weather had me freaking out. as soon as scape was done I filled up the tank with 1500 Litres of newly mixed salt I had prepared in a large home barrel I had. I placed a back on top of the sand to avoid stirring the sand with the jet of water. I had to gradually push water from mixing barrel to sump and pump up to the tank. took around 30 min to get the rocks covered. and another half hour to have the tank full. and start the flow.

I also made a modification on my return pipes as my return pump rated at around 20000 LPH (5500 GPH) and delivering 12000LPH (3250 GPH) After head loss was split on two outputs one with a mocean and I added a sea swirl on the second one to make use of that flow making it redundant in case of a constant linear flow hitting some corals and also causing sand to fly from opposite side.

So tank was full with a minor haze which was way less than I feared

Moved all the fish in

And after few hours.