Vis's 150 Gallon Mixed Reef

visuvius · Jun 5, 2020

Hello, I'm relatively new to this community. I've had a login for years but never really posted. This place has apparently exploded in activity over the last few years and I'm glad we finally have a modern forum for the community.

BUT I DIGRESS.

Been in the hobby for quite a few years and I've put together and kept some decent tanks over that time but a successful, long term mixed SPS reef has eluded me. I'm hoping to turn that around with this new setup.

The tank is 50" x 30" x 24" and is being manufactured by Crystal Dynamics. They also made a custom stand and canopy per some reference images I provided. The tank I had before this was actually fine as far as the setup was concerned. It was a 48" x 30" x 19" tank but the stand was very basic and beat up looking. This whole new build process really started with me just wanting a new stand. I'm not particularly handy when it comes to woodworking and by the time I got quotes back for the stand I wanted, it just made more sense to me to get a whole new setup (of course!).

So I put the order in around February of this year and finally last week was (supposed to be) delivery and setup.

So after removing a small gate and the front door we get the tank in. I was actually losing my mind the morning of delivery because I realized I hadn't considered the door width! The custom tank I wanted had molding and basically a ledge all around the tank. My door is 34.5" inches wide. The stand is 34" wide. Just BARELY made it.

I LOVE IT. I was worried it would be slightly too big for the spot and maybe it is but OH WELL. Happy with the color choice as well. Agonized on that for a couple weeks before deciding on Sherwin Williams Pewter Green.

So you may be wondering, okay well where the heck is the tank. Well after much hand wringing and precarious dolly wiggling the tank makes it inside the house. Here we are removing the wrapping. I'm insanely excited at this point as I'm sure my fellow reefing brethren can only imagine. Plastic wrapping is removed, cardboard edge pieces tossed to the side. OMG OMG OMG here we go....

...and a giant crack across the bottom of the tank

Queue momentary devastation. I was seriously bummed. Wish I had taken pictures at this point but I totally forgot. Basically what we think happened is that the bottom of the tank got very, very hot and some kind of temperature differential thing (science) caused the crack. When I put my hand on the bottom of the glass, it was SUPER hot. Whats weird is the tank was covered the whole time with white wrap. It was on a 45 minute drive then sat another 20 minutes in the back of the track before being unloaded. I guess in that time it got super hot. One of the guys also noticed that the bottom of the tank was super hot but then when he put his hand inside the overflow area it was cool. That corner is where the crack started and extended out across the middle of the tank. Sans crack, the tank looked unbelievable. Super clean work. Made it that much harder to see it loaded back onto the truck.

I'm just stoked I paid to have Crystal Dynamics deliver and install the tank. Up until a couple days before delivery my plan had been to pick it up myself. Boy would I have been screwed.

Anyhow, I'm in a prioritized queue and I'm hoping for delivery of the replacement tank within the next couple weeks.

visuvius · Jun 5, 2020

The tank has a corner overflow with dual returns. I had Crystal Dynamics put together all of the plumbing. I dropped off my sump to them a few weeks ago and they custom build the plumbing around it which is pretty nice. Quite frankly I didn't want to deal with any of the plumbing.

Heres a shot of the plumbing plus the tank (pre crack):

The drain on the far left is going right into the refugium chamber then the other two on the far right are going into the skimmer section. Return will be in the middle. Just remembered I'll need a valve on the drain to the refugium chamber to regulate flow.

The sump is from Advanced Acrylics:

Equipment panel on the left:

visuvius · Jun 5, 2020

Tank: Crystal Dynamics 50 x 30 x 24
This is all I could fit in the spot I have. My previous setup was the same footprint but 19" tall. Went with a little more height on this one. For a hot second I was considering having him increase the size to 50x30x30 but I don't think I'll be gaining much.

Sump : Advanced Acrylics
Sump has worked fine over the years except I was never happy with the refugium. My biggest issue was that my sump was very detritus filled. I'm assuming this is because I didn't use filter socks. With this setup I'm going to use filter cups filled with some kind of polyfilter or floss. Seems easier than socks and many people seem to prefer this method so I'll give it a try. I'm hoping that cleans up the sump a bit. I was using a decent grow light I got on Amazon but I didn't have much flow in the fuge chamber. I see some people put a small powerhead in there to keep the chaeto tumbling so I may try that.

Return Pump: Fluval SP4
This has served me pretty well over the years so I'm sticking with it.

Skimmer: Aquamaxx Cone 2
This has also worked well, almost a little TOO well so I'm sticking with it. Had to replace a swollen impeller once for like $50 which kind of sucked but other than that we're good here.

Lights: ATI 6 bulb with 2 48" Reefbrite XHOs
I've got two Maxspect Razors sitting unused but I think I will stick with the T5/LED combo. I was previously using 6 blue+ but I'm going with 5 blue+ and one purple+ this time.

Flow: Gyre XF280, one Hydor Koralia and a couple Tunzes
Honestly I never felt like I had flow just right in my last tank which was 50x30x19. Too much flow, too little flow, etc, etc. Same old problems. I'm sticking with the same powerheads but I'm going bare bottom with this tank so I'm hoping I'll have an easier time dialing the flow in. Cleaning the Gyre pumps is a bit of a pain but I really like the wide flow pattern over the direct flow of traditional powerheads.

Other: Apex with Trident, MTC Calcium reactor
I'm not super fancy with Apex programming but I may add a breakout box to try a few things with this setup. The MTC Calcium Reactor is paired with a Masterflex pump and along with the Trident gave me pretty precise control over kH so I think I will stick with this setup.

Let me know if you have any equipment suggestions or think I should change something up. At this point I'm kind of just waiting for the new tank and trying to plan out how I want to organize the equipment panel. The panel is great but what the heck am I going to do with all the wires on the other side.

uninformed · Aug 11, 2020

Are you happy with the 50" length? I'm planning nearly the exact same setup and have considered bumping the length from 48" to 50" to more easily accommodate lighting in the canopy.

visuvius · Aug 12, 2020

uninformed said:
Are you happy with the 50" length? I'm planning nearly the exact same setup and have considered bumping the length from 48" to 50" to more easily accommodate lighting in the canopy.

Thats the exact reason I had to go to 50". I've got a 6 bulb ATI and it wouldn't have fit in a 48" wide canopy. I'm really glad I went with the extra length.