Warren's 220 Crystal Dynamic build

[wangspeed]

I've been tankless since we moved to our new home in Dec 2015. Tough being away from a hobby you love, though my wife doesn't mind :) We planned on putting the tank in our basement, which was unfinished when we moved in, so the basement had to get built out. After many designs, we ultimately decided the basement wasn't the right place for it, and that the small office near our kitchen would be better.

I started contacting a few aquarium builders and ultimately settled on Crystal Dynamic. Some of them were from Lee Mar. Trent and Zoya run the show, and Trent seems detail and quality oriented, while Zoya was easy to work with, and helped answer my many questions. My tank and stand are built, but still need to be shipped out. In the meantime, I am amassing a huge amount of equipment that I don't really have space for since our basement is still not done, and my home office is a bit of a wreck, since I'm awaiting the tank to finish out cabinetry.

My collection of equipment so far:

• Crystal Dynamic aquarium
  • 84'l x 28'w x 22'h
    
  • 3 sides Starphire
  • Starphire euro brace
  • Internal glass overflow (no room for external)
    • 5 x 1" bulkheads in overflow, in Bean Animal config + 2 returns
• Precision Marine R48 Pro Plus sump
  
• GHL Mitras * 5
• Bubble King Double Cone 200
• GEO CR624 Calcium Reactor
  • Fed by Watson Marlow 520Du pump
• Reef Octopus Varios 8 return pump
• Neptune Apex and many modules
• Iwaki MD-40RT
  • pump rapid amounts of water from basement

And because this would be boring without pics:

The aquarium to be delivered in a few weeks:

Calcium reactor parts:

Mitras that I blame on @slief and @d2mini :

Big box o gear near one of my other hobbies:

 

[wangspeed]

This is where the tank is going to go. The room is about 10' x 11'. I'll have to explain some of these pipes.

Near the top:

• Tape over the hole leading to a radon fan to vent outside the house
• dedicated 20A circuit above tank, Neptune apex cable, and a second outlet on the same circuit

Near the bottom:

• 3 sheets of 3/4" plywood as a base for the steel stand
  • lots of shimming to do, as the floor is very uneven :(
• Emergency drain for sump area
  • debatably useful. I may just seal it off if I can't find a good way to plumb this upwards to the sheet of ply in the stand

From left to right in primed area

• empty 1" pipe to basement area
  • rapid fill of RODI or NSW
  • re-purpose as chiller loop if needed
• dedicated 20A outlet
• Neptune Apex cable leading to above aquarium
• gray electrical conduit box that will be used to run 1/4" tubing for peristaltic pumps and another very long Neptune Apex run to basement equipment
• repurposed vent stack that I can remove the vent cap (not in pic) off of and use as impromptu drain
• 1/2" cpvc leading to soffit for skimmer air intake
• another empty 1" pipe to basement area

Warren

 

[d2mini]

Dude, so awesome... where to start. lol
The tank is gorgeous.

Where did you end up buying the dual stage regulator?

 

[wangspeed]

Dude, so awesome... where to start. lol
The tank is gorgeous.

Where did you end up buying the dual stage regulator?

Thanks! I picked up the regulator from a freshwater aquarium shop on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/ishop-365/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

 

[d2mini]

Thanks! I picked up the regulator from a freshwater aquarium shop on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/ishop-365/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

Cool, thanks! I think I was looking at some of their's the other day.
Might also see what Alan from RC has available.
Good luck with the build! You're off to a fantastic start. :)

 

[wangspeed]

Carrying those Mitras from the MACNA show room over to Fedex in the very same conference room was heavy! Normally LEDs are pretty light. These 5 together weighed in at 48 lbs. I love how modular they are, and how serviceable. Best of all though, the quality of the light in the tank. My goal for MACNA was to pick my lights and skimmer and I had to see in person if the Mitras really did have no color separation. The shimmer is just the right amount, and sure enough, no color separation.

Funny story from MACNA. I missed my flight because I was stupid and got my time zones mixed up, so I had to stay an extra night. I ended up entering the BRS raffle as a result, and won a Reef Brite hybrid MH light! I was super grateful, but stared down at it wondering how the heck I was going to get it and the bulb home in one piece. Other reefer to the rescue! He offered me cash money on the spot, and I took it. I gotta say though, @Ryanbrs and the rest of the BRS were awesome to hang out with. As a token of thanks, I ordered a metric poopy ton of gear from them while they had the MACNA sale going on. Missing my flight also led to the opportunity to have dinner with Trent and Zoya from Crystal Dynamic. I'm really glad I ordered from them, we had a great time hanging out, and I found out that my tank builder is even more detail oriented that I thought. It seems Trent has really high expectations from his tanks. The only crappy part was that we screwed up the start time of the finale of Game of Thrones. Oops!

 

[wangspeed]

It’s here! It was delivered and moved into the house. A bit nerve wracking to see the freight company manhandle it off the truck, but it’s undamaged.

I hired a moving company to move the tank from the garage to my office and it all occurred on the same day, thankfully.

It’ll be a while before it’s wet still. Need to finish the basement first before I will have a saltwater mixing station.

 

[toybox22]

I love CDA. Such nice clean tanks. They supply my LFS with tanks. I'll definitely be going with them when I upgrade.

 

[TonapahNorth]

Love Zoya and Trent. Great people and build was perfect. Looking forward to following.

 

[Hedrick99]

Love Zoya and Trent. Great people and build was perfect. Looking forward to following.

Zoya is a pleasure to deal with. I have two of their tanks w/ one on the way. Love crystal dynamics!

 

[wangspeed]

Had a scare that the sump wasn’t going to fit. Trent and I thought we could slide it in diagonally on the side and rotate it. Well, it’s too wide for that.

The very last hope was cutting off the cabinet mounting tabs and sliding it in vertically. That started to work, but then we got hung up on the board I had just put in place on the underside of the stand for mounting stuff. A little Hackzall action and we were good to go!

I was seriously thinking I needed to get a different sump for a while there.

I siliconed and taped some areas to make sure the stand would hold water and allow it to go down the little drain, which is just barely uncovered still. I learned to tape the stand against the wall after my last tank, which was against the wall, but small splashes, fish, and other objects would inevitably sneak back into the little gap between the stand and wall.

 

[Clayton Jessup]

Looks very nice , I am loving the PM sump, it looks massive. So looking forward to this build ;)

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Looking great already!!

 

[dbraun15]

Looks awesome...love the dimensions! I have a standard 220 and don't like the depth and wet armpits! Looking forward to see this develop.

 

[wangspeed]

I always wondered how people could manage to drag out their builds for so long. Yeah, now I am one of them. Slowly but surely making progress.

I definitely regret the outlet placement now, but it will do.

 

[xaflatoonx]

i am liking the flex PVC you are using instead of the hard ones.
Your take? safe?

 

[wangspeed]

i am liking the flex PVC you are using instead of the hard ones.
Your take? safe?

I've used it in the past. I don't know of any issues, but if there are any, I hope someone tells me sooner rather than later!

 

[S-t-r-e-t-c-h]

Only problem that I've ever heard of with flex PVC is that some species of ants will eat it, but that's only a problem if you are plumbing a pond and burying it.

It's also a lot more expensive than rigid PVC...

Really great build so far! :)

 

[Dave78]

That is one nice looking display tank. I can’t wait to see it full.

 

[paulweck]

Awesome build!