Shoes Reef 320G Display

[Justshoe]

Hello All,
Skipping ahead about 7 years here since we moved into our house. Most of our basement buildout was boring anyway and now just getting to the fun stuff. Mostly going to be a soft/LPS mixed reef with a few SPS up high. Still working on finishing up freshwater testing now and confirming no leaks but will be starting on the scaping pretty soon here.

Specs:
96x30x24 Great Lakes Aquarium(Now Defunct) Tank.
Synergy Reef SK-60 Sump
Neptune for most of the rest of it. 2xCOR-20s for Return, 3 WAV's for Flow, FMM's for ATO.
Reef Octopus 300INT For Skimming.
Lights will be 4xKessil A360Ws

Lots of little details here and there but going for a super solid/clean build here with lots of redundancies built in.
Sorry about the messes here and there as its all still a work in progress.
But starting 6 years ago the tank was the first thing in the basement prior to finishing the rest of the rooms off.

So skipping ahead here is just about current state.


Behind tank view with internal overflow/drilled bean animal style back to the sump.

Sump Room with 2 20G QT's, work table, and sink.


Some of the few custom jobs already included ditching the power adapters/wall warts and moving all into one box.

Then a float switch/ATO Solenoid mount for the S/W mix tank.


Starting the clean up all the mess now and get a few leaks sorted out so i'll post some updated photos soon.

 

[IKD]

Wow!! Looks very well planned! Keep the pictures coming!

 

[blaxsun]

Love the upgraded basement! I gather the larger grey door at the far end of the tank leads to the fish/sump area?

 

[Justshoe]

Yea that's the door to the converted coal cellar. Now sump room and pantry. Extra 170sqft just waiting to be used for something.
Also a during construction photo of what it was like before.

 

[TokenReefer]

 

[Justshoe]

Kept running into issues with the 1.5" bulk heads cracking with threaded adapters on the return lines. Even hand tightened with only ptfe sealant I kept getting cracks and leaks. So waiting on slip fit bulkheads now and just going to solvent them in instead of threaded.

Also had some drain bulkhead leaks and realized I forgot to put a seal on the overflow side of the bulk head and water was wicking down the threads.
So removed the overflow box and bulkheads added another seal to go along with the seal between the box and the tank. Hopefully this seals up that leak. Overflow is similar to synergy reef shadow but just a single box inside 48" wide with holes straight through to the bean animal style drain.

While waiting on bulkheads I decided to make up the BRS net covers for the top. Turned out pretty good for what the cost was compared to custom tops.

You can also see the prep for the kessil power cords. The power adapters will actually be in the ceiling and should stay cool enough with the 120v connection in the ceiling opposite the tank. I'll just be running a 0-10v cable to each from neptune for control and leave them powered all the time. Lights will be bolted to the ceiling and basically right up against with about an inch or 2 for airflow to the fans.

 

[Justshoe]

Also realized I never showed under the tank. This is a 60g salt water mix tank and 40g innovative marine AIO I'm using for coral qt. The sw mix tank is hard plumbed to the coral qt and to the back room to make water changes easier.

Also in one of the above pictures you can see some 1/2" line with 2 valves. There is a small intake near the top of the tank so I can just open that and then I tee's into it for a python connection and it creates a siphon for me to drain off whatever I want. Once siphon is made I just close off the tank strainer side and can drain any tank off the siphon.

 

[LaloJ]

This is a great build, I love the tanks with a sump room and the equipment is very neat.

 

[Wiskey]

Fantastic Build!!! I'm following along because I'll be setting up almost the exact same size tank this year, and I will have a sump room as well. I love the idea of using the empty under tank space for a Coral QT!!

Whiskey

 

[ScubaShane]

Super Awesome! Love the bar around the tank. Following.

 

[Justshoe]

Small update with some semi cleaned up pictures of the sump room. Got all the leaks sorted and have been F/W testing for a few days now getting the drains tweaked and trying to keep noise down.
WAVs are way louder than I expected but we will see how they go once they get some stuff on rm and what not. On the other hand the COR20s push an insane amount of flow and had to dial back to 70% just so the overflow box/sump could handle the volume.
Still have lots of programming to do on the apex for all the various ATO options. The ATO tank and the coral qt both have a Neptune AIO float/optical setup. The sump was supposed to have LLS but found out after that it is NOT compatible with classic. So just some optical and will add a float there as well. Then the SW mix also has an optical and solenoid to control it but that will be its on virtual outlet and will be manually commanded on.

 

[Justshoe]

Finally onto initial rock work. Still very far from end product but at least getting there.

 

[Justshoe]

Pretty much wrapped up with the rock work I think.
Throw a few pictures up here. You can also see the channels in the ceiling that the front cover panels slide into as well.

Also test installed one light to see how my idea of mounting it will work and I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Justshoe]

Lighting wrapped up and filling has begun.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Aquascape looks great in your tank!!

 

[Justshoe]

Filled up. Going to give it a few days here just hanging out double checking leaks and everything before adding salt and starting the cycle with Brightwell quickcycle .

 

[Justshoe]

Cycling started today with all Brightwell products. First time cycling like this so we will see how it goes.
Still moving powerheads and returns around to try and avoid as much of a sandstorm as I can. Really didn't want a head on the end panel but the flow is much nicer in the tank this way.
Really impressed with the power of all these neptune pumps from the cor to the waves. Had to turn CORs down to around 70% and wav's to around 65 and flow is still amazing.
Sump room is getting cleaned up now and just a few odds and ends to deal with for ATO and cable management for the new WAV locations.