Mike’s 300 gallon In-Wall Tank and Fish Room Build

thefort15

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I will be running one with low flow for fish pests and the other one with high flow for algae. I stole the idea from Ryan at BRS’s 360 build. I was going to do 2 50w but I found the 80s on sale so I figured why not.

I was ready to pull the trigger on 2 50w Pentair’s, and then I saw you put 2 80w on your tank. I like it!! You mentioned that you found them on sale, mind letting me know where? I need to purchase them soon.
 

Daniel@R2R

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This is gonna be NICE!!
 
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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I was ready to pull the trigger on 2 50w Pentair’s, and then I saw you put 2 80w on your tank. I like it!! You mentioned that you found them on sale, mind letting me know where? I need to purchase them soon.

Fishtanksdirect.com was considerably cheaper than anyone else online on the UVs, Varios pumps, and my reef octopus elite skimmer. That was like 9 months ago though so YMMV.
 

JakesOceanView

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And two more pics for tonight: the sink that will be going in the fish room and my water change station (I had to work on something while I was waiting on the drywaller
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Where did you find this sink? I've found a few websites for them but would love some input on suggestions. Im planning my in wall build and fishroom and need a sink nearly identical to this. Im wanting to have the bowl of the sink on the left and work table on the right.
 
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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Time for some updates!

Over the last few weeks I have managed to get all of the control boards installed and most of the wire management complete. The wire management took hours and hours and hundreds of zip ties. I am still waiting on 4 vortech pumps. I was waiting to see if they would go on sale for Black Friday but that didn’t happen so I went ahead and ordered them today.

All of the Dos pumps have been calibrated and ready for dosing when the time comes. The top dos is for AWC, middle one feeds the kalk stirrer and will dose Part C. The bottom one will dose Alk and Calcium.

The shelf built into the bottom right control board which houses the battery backups will be where the trident sits. I ordered one through Black Friday and it should arrive in a few days.

I also picked up a Klir filter roller to replace the socks. It’s a little buggy and I’m still troubleshooting it. I also plumbed in two reactors into my manifold.

I incorporated solenoid valves and optical sensors into my RODI/water storage system. Its now all automated. I only have to add salt when it sends me an alarm.
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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I also ordered the lights on the first day of Black Friday. I was leaning towards 8-10 xr15s but I was a little fed up with Ecotech not doing sales like every other manufacturer on Black Friday and decided to implement Ryan’s new “platinum standard” for lighting and ordered kessils and reefbrites. I am still waiting for my order from 8020.net to come in so I can build the light rack. I have plans of building a motorized light rack using a linear actuator attached to the ceiling.

I plan on ordering the first round of fish as soon as I get the rest of the vortech pumps installed

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BAPrince

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OMG! Your build and @Rob.bucek are the role models I'm chasing. I'm a few months behind both of you, and learning SO MUCH as you progress. Your control room setup is immaculate! I'm NOT that good with finish carpentry, so I'll likely buy controller boards. I just ordered the ReefBrite lights last week too. My tank will be 66X30, so I went with 4 60" strips and 3 Kessils. I was also thinking 80/20 for the light rack, and would like to motorize it. Do you have equipment/plans for the linear actuator setup yet?
 
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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OMG! Your build and @Rob.bucek are the role models I'm chasing. I'm a few months behind both of you, and learning SO MUCH as you progress. Your control room setup is immaculate! I'm NOT that good with finish carpentry, so I'll likely buy controller boards. I just ordered the ReefBrite lights last week too. My tank will be 66X30, so I went with 4 60" strips and 3 Kessils. I was also thinking 80/20 for the light rack, and would like to motorize it. Do you have equipment/plans for the linear actuator setup yet?
Thank you for the compliments! You may catch up to me as it has taken me almost a year to get to this point but I have finally learned that nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

I’m actually trying to figure out the linear actuator right now. I’m leaning towards this: https://www.progressiveautomations.com/products/track-linear-actuator

I found this video on YouTube and I think I will be trying to copy the design:

Here’s a screenshot of the video:
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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OMG! Your build and @Rob.bucek are the role models I'm chasing. I'm a few months behind both of you, and learning SO MUCH as you progress. Your control room setup is immaculate! I'm NOT that good with finish carpentry, so I'll likely buy controller boards. I just ordered the ReefBrite lights last week too. My tank will be 66X30, so I went with 4 60" strips and 3 Kessils. I was also thinking 80/20 for the light rack, and would like to motorize it. Do you have equipment/plans for the linear actuator setup yet?
I wanted to go 72” on the reefbrites but with my hood I only had 71” to work with so these are 60”.
 

BAPrince

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I've heard about people using a linear actuator, and have seen a few jenky setups.... that's the first one I've seen that looked well designed! I can't see any reason that couldn't be mounted ON TOP of the rafters in the attic, and then only have the cables drop through the ceiling.... can you? My wife really wants a floating hood for the lights, and I've been racking my brain for months how I was going to do that... have it move up and down... and still have it look awesome (this being the main criteria she has for this huge project she's letting me tackle). Off to the drawing board!!
 

NEFFx

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Time for some updates!

Over the last few weeks I have managed to get all of the control boards installed and most of the wire management complete. The wire management took hours and hours and hundreds of zip ties. I am still waiting on 4 vortech pumps. I was waiting to see if they would go on sale for Black Friday but that didn’t happen so I went ahead and ordered them today.

All of the Dos pumps have been calibrated and ready for dosing when the time comes. The top dos is for AWC, middle one feeds the kalk stirrer and will dose Part C. The bottom one will dose Alk and Calcium.

The shelf built into the bottom right control board which houses the battery backups will be where the trident sits. I ordered one through Black Friday and it should arrive in a few days.

I also picked up a Klir filter roller to replace the socks. It’s a little buggy and I’m still troubleshooting it. I also plumbed in two reactors into my manifold.

I incorporated solenoid valves and optical sensors into my RODI/water storage system. Its now all automated. I only have to add salt when it sends me an alarm.
139ED6CA-064F-4707-B23E-22D14BBB28A8.jpeg
2C538B27-52AA-429E-9BB3-241E63242779.jpeg
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This is beautiful! I wish I had the patience for this. I was wondering what happens when something breaks... However I'm sure you've tackled that in the design. Whats been your favorite breakthrough and what are you still racking your head over? (I cant imagine the patience to take a year to get to this but its going to be epic!)
 

Manny’s Reef

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At this point I was still waiting on my back ordered Shadow overflow from Synergy Reef so I decided to go ahead and get started on some of the plumbing for the sump and UVs.

I am using 3 Varios 8 pumps. The external one is for a closed loop running the high flow UV. One of the in sump pumps is feeding the manifold and the left return line. The other in sump pump is feeding the low flow UV and the right return line.
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What size of PVP pipe are you using?
 
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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I've heard about people using a linear actuator, and have seen a few jenky setups.... that's the first one I've seen that looked well designed! I can't see any reason that couldn't be mounted ON TOP of the rafters in the attic, and then only have the cables drop through the ceiling.... can you? My wife really wants a floating hood for the lights, and I've been racking my brain for months how I was going to do that... have it move up and down... and still have it look awesome (this being the main criteria she has for this huge project she's letting me tackle). Off to the drawing board!!
Yes! Absolutely, this arrangement of linear actuators and cable/pulleys could be mounted in the attic for a super clean installation. If this is an option for you, you should absolutely do it. Unfortunately for me it is not an option as I am in my finished basement and I have ductwork directly above my tank. I ran some numbers last night and I am second guessing it’s use for my application. I only have 22” between my waterline and the “ceiling height” above my tank. By the time I account for the recommended mounting height of the lights and the housing mounted to the ceiling to conceal the linear actuator I will only have 4-6” of possible movement for the light. So, I’m second guessing it’s use. I would like a way to move the light rack out of the way but I’m unsure this is the right approach for my application. I’m going to build the light rack when the parts arrive and then see from there what the best option is. I’m thinking about some way to swing it out if the way towards the fish room now, but still unsure.
 
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Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

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This is beautiful! I wish I had the patience for this. I was wondering what happens when something breaks... However I'm sure you've tackled that in the design. Whats been your favorite breakthrough and what are you still racking your head over? (I cant imagine the patience to take a year to get to this but its going to be epic!)
Well, if I have to replace something I’ll have to cut a bunch of zip ties and re-fish wires. But, this headache is worth it to me as walking into a “clean” fish room everyday is worth that hassle for me. It soothes my OCD. Not to say this is the right approach for everyone!

Right now I’m “racking my head” over the light rack and the best way to make it able to move out of the way for maintenance. Also, now that I’m to the point of adding fish, I’m anxious about the best place to source them as I want to introduce qt’ed fish because I don’t have confidence I will do it properly based on past experience. I would love to acquire all of my fish from marine collectors but I’m currently exploring some more “cost-effective” options.

Once everything is up and running and coral are growing I’m sure I’ll have some better pros and cons on my decisions at that point. Hopefully more pros than cons. :)
 

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I've dabbled around on the 8020 website, but nothing too serious yet. Now that I have the light at home, it's feeling more urgent. So you have a schematic of the 8020 portion? How are you attaching the Kessils to the 8020? I just started sketching mine out this last weekend, and dang....the amount of options on the website is a little overwhelming.
 

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