ReefDVMs Dream Tank Build in Central Minnesota

[ReefDVMs]

We started three years ago planning for the consolidation of our tanks/reefs down to one or at least two systems. We over the last few decades, are like most people in the hobby, have accumulated multiple tanks via the stores, friends and just plain purchases. We have at times been running multiple systems and also different systems like fresh and salt, or daisy chained salt tanks. The cool part to doing all that is one can really get a lot of variety and play with multiple aspects of the hobby in general. The BAD part is the work load to maintain them. We here found that my wife and three girls had harder time making any of them great instead they all just became standard. So a few years back, since we live in multiple level farm house in central Minnesota, we decided to plan one bigger build that was the best of the knowledge/preferences we have and make it our "Dream" reef. Surprisingly at we brain stormed the idea we came up with 2 floor system, tank upstairs, sump in basement and the size didnt grow to large. I think that is because we love the larger tanks but to a degree-to large gets crazy cost and work wise so we have learned over the years with our tanks and our clients.

Okay with that in mind we decided on a few things we liked, in the family room we liked quiet and hence the sump needed to go, hence basement. Also the tank has to long, for we love to see fish use the distance, depth is cool yes but swimming length is must for larger fish in the veterinarians view here. Then came the process of weight support....all I can say is added trusses to the floors two years later. So sorry we dont have great pics of all that but at the time structural engineers were working their magic we were not thinking yet of video shooting all those aspects.

Once all that was out of the way we started the fund setup, budgets and planning phase. That all leads to today where we have picked out the tank builder, sump builder and many parts for it-mostly people from Reef2Reef we have used through the forum here. The assembly has started as things are arriving. We do most of the documentation in video form for that is easy for us. We enjoy seeing everyone builds here and learning likewise from you all, we hope to share this build with you.

 

[ReefDVMs]

Started with the tank size and type, settled on (after many changes) low iron glass for best photo ability, 25 inch high, 6 feet long, roughly 20" deep Reef Savvy tank. We went with Ghost Overflow on it to save tank space. This allowed us to get a wood structure made then for it to which we will custom stain to match in the farm house here. The setup here is in the living room area and hence kinda going to be tight to the wall and then plumbed 14 feet down and eight feet over to sump setup.
[video=youtube_share;fGOp6hX6iEI]http://youtu.be/fGOp6hX6iEI[/video]

 

[ReefDVMs]

Next was the sump setup.....a task worthy of it own build thread for sure. We went with Rick over at Synergy and he did custom sump and we started the process of equipment purchases. Most of the equipment is from Ryan's company here in Minnesota BRS.
Any questions on what we used feel free to ask or comment, we dont mind a bit:smile:
[video=youtube_share;jQjZ_xcpFz4]http://youtu.be/jQjZ_xcpFz4[/video]

 

[ReefDVMs]

This vid really is for more the skimmer line of thought and product assembly but it is the one we chose for our build and plan to use. We really like recirculation and when head height pressure and back flow into the sump after pump shut off with a system like this hence affects sump water level greatly these kind of skimmers work very well due to there not caring about sump water levels.
[video=youtube_share;wt6paCSA-Cw]http://youtu.be/wt6paCSA-Cw[/video]

 

[revhtree]

Cool build!

 

[ReefDVMs]

Cool build!

Thanks we are trying our best. On side note thanks for the great forum work, your forum has put us in touch with these people that are helping us do this and so much more.

 

[powers2001]

WOW this is great to see a build by you guys on this forum !! I follow you guys on youtube and love your videos there too! I will definitely be following this one!

My next build will be in the bunkhouse/office of our barn. Another farm tank

 

[mixer911]

This is going to be a very nice build! Ryan, the attention to detail in the sump plumbing is amazing.

 

[zibba]

Nice video of the build progress -- lots of work just getting that 55 moved over and the sump in place! Going to be a fantastic build, I'll be following along. Where are you at in Minnesota? I was born in Brainerd, grew up in Nisswa and lived in the Metro-area for several years.

 

[ReefDVMs]

WOW this is great to see a build by you guys on this forum !! I follow you guys on youtube and love your videos there too! I will definitely be following this one!

My next build will be in the bunkhouse/office of our barn. Another farm tank

We love Farm builds, we would love a bunkhouse build for sure.

 

[ReefDVMs]

Nice video of the build progress -- lots of work just getting that 55 moved over and the sump in place! Going to be a fantastic build, I'll be following along. Where are you at in Minnesota? I was born in Brainerd, grew up in Nisswa and lived in the Metro-area for several years.

We practice veterinary medicine in the cities but we live in Rush City area on small 80 acre farm. We run into people a lot that love the reefs and we thought why not have one out in the country up here=)

 

[ReefDVMs]

This is going to be a very nice build! Ryan, the attention to detail in the sump plumbing is amazing.

Thanks for the compliments on the sump plumbing. We can say it was a creation on anal-ness and well foresight for we have so darn many times wished we had planned it out more. Ryan decided this time Rick to make sure the plumbing was thought out and planned along with the sump you created. I think he is worried about the downward pressure on the lines from 14 feet above and also the plan old logistics of working space. The one advantage we recommend to anyone doing a build like this is take your time and use people that in each area are very knowledgeable. This saves time and money we found out the hard way when things goes south later on. PS we are shooting video on the new QT part today and hopefully by weeks end have a little update on the sump and how its going along with the QT tank that you made us that we added to the area below the sump. The owners of BRS aka Ryan talked us into a cleaner head install on the recirculation skimmer too, so we will show that also, I think that will save a little more cleaning time for sure=)

 

[ReefDVMs]

More info on the assembly of the basement part of the system.
[video=youtube_share;t4-GFzftZl4]http://youtu.be/t4-GFzftZl4[/video]

 

[ReefDVMs]

So we are working out more details, after much consideration we decided a sand finally for our build, we really like things that perform well and hence the flakes did the best.
[video=youtube_share;FrlZVXbpNU4]http://youtu.be/FrlZVXbpNU4[/video]

 

[ReefDVMs]

We are hoping for the new tank to arrive soon and it will have a ghost on it.
[video=youtube_share;TtXkntfYgsM]http://youtu.be/TtXkntfYgsM[/video]

 

[powers2001]

Love the sand demonstration. I'm kicking myself for not looking into the cloudy factor when I chose my sand. Now I'm looking at taking it out because when I stir it, it blows everywhere and sticks on everything.

 

[ReefDVMs]

Thanks for the kind words, but the reason we looked into the sand is that we are just frustrated with the result of the common LFS types, we knew there was better and actually this forum helped us find it. I really hope to see how well this performs when we stress the sand with powerheads and such but so far it looks good.

 

[ReefDVMs]

One person PM us lately and asked if we were going to plan of emergency's with our tank and we are but one cant plan for everything, anyways here is our power solution in case of outage on the farm here.
[video=youtube_share;VHxIs5IHmt0]http://youtu.be/VHxIs5IHmt0[/video]

 

[ReefDVMs]

Ahh the toys we asked to have Rick build us arrived.......
[video=youtube_share;vDkABhd8Ib4]http://youtu.be/vDkABhd8Ib4[/video]

 

[mixer911]

Nice video as always! Glad you are enjoying it all.