450 Hurricane Harvey Redemption build

[Dmax]

So we have recently picked up a 450 Planet tank. 3/4" glass 1" pvc bottom and a ghost overflow. Tank Dimensions 7' long x 42" deep x 30" tall. This is replacing my 300 we lost during Hurricane Harvey. This is going to be a long process and even wondering why I'm starting the thread now. The excitement is why and I'm ready to get this show on the road. Which a lot of you know nothing good happens fast in this hobby. Enjoy the ride.

 

[Dmax]

Overflow is absolutely amazing. Excited to start the plumbing.

 

[Dmax]

Old school

 

[Dmax]

Was on the hunt looking for another Hamilton Cozumel Sun. I had 2 of them and needed one more. Started to get worried the metal halides with the Cozumel suns wasn’t going to be possible.

 

[Dmax]

My old 300 I ran 3 400 watt metal halides over if for about 3 years with VHO super actinics as supplemental lights. I eventually ran across a deal on some radions I couldn’t pass up. Replaced the MH with 6 Radion G3 Pros. I no longer have that equipment so I needed lights for this build. I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around the price it would cost to light this tank sufficiently with leds. My plan is to use reefbrite XHO’s along with the metal halides. I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to get away with two of the 72” XHO’s or will I need 4?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Love watching the tank come together!!

 

[Dmax]

Dave at Hamilton Technology really helped me out with this and for that I want to thank him.

managed to find another light they had and sold it to me to complete the metal halides... Thanks Dave!!!

 

[Dmax]

And let there be light. Love the 400 watt Radiums. Which that might be the next problem with running these lights. We will see.

 

[Dmax]

Love watching the tank come together!!

Thank you. It’s going to take me some time, but I’ve been very patient. Over 4 years without my big tank in the home. Long time coming.

 

[Dmax]

Below is a link to the 300 moments before evacuating during Harvey. So glad I took this short little video of it. Just had a bad feeling.

 

[Dmax]

A lot of the equipment I’m able to use again from this tank. A lot of it was shorted out from the electrical in my home doing whatever it did during the damage.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

A lot of the equipment I’m able to use again from this tank. A lot of it was shorted out from the electrical in my home doing whatever it did during the damage.

Glad you were able to recover a lot of the equipment that way you didn't have to rebuy everything again.

 

[cdw79]

So sorry to hear about your (beautiful) previous tank, I'm originally from Houston (and might be moving back sometime semi-soon) and have heard so much about how that hurricane absolutely devastated the area at the time. I'm excited to follow your thread for some inspiration for a new build should I make the move back! Do you have particular plans for this build with natural disasters in mind? We don't get as many Hurricanes or intense storms out here, but back on the gulf coast you can never be too sure unfortunately

 

[Dmax]

So sorry to hear about your (beautiful) previous tank, I'm originally from Houston (and might be moving back sometime semi-soon) and have heard so much about how that hurricane absolutely devastated the area at the time. I'm excited to follow your thread for some inspiration for a new build should I make the move back! Do you have particular plans for this build with natural disasters in mind? We don't get as many Hurricanes or intense storms out here, but back on the gulf coast you can never be too sure unfortunately

So we were very fortunate and our home didn’t flood. We did have water touching the foundation all the way around our home, but didn’t enter the home. We ended up having a very large tree fall and go through the house. Very fortunate we evacuated. I wanted to stay terribly bad, but momma wasn’t having it. Lol.

 

[Dmax]

So we were very fortunate and our home didn’t flood. We did have water touching the foundation all the way around our home, but didn’t enter the home. We ended up having a very large tree fall and go through the house. Very fortunate we evacuated. I wanted to stay terribly bad, but momma wasn’t having it. Lol.

I ended up putting a camera on the tank prior to evacuating. I took my small John boat with a generator with the intentions of coming back to the home in the event of a power failure. While evacuated I would constantly login to make sure the power was still on and tank was going strong. One morning woke up at 5am and couldn’t login to the camera. Loaded up and headed to the house. National Guard and State Troopers had the hwy blocked going to my home. I begged and pleaded explaining the situation and they would not let me access the property.

 

[Dmax]

So now we have installed a Generac whole home generator that will come on in the event of a power loss. As far as flooding if we didn’t get water during Harvey we should be fine. We were one of two homes on our street that didn’t flood. Many homes in our neighborhood had excess of 6’ inside. If we flood it’s going to be very bad for a lot of people. Hopefully that never happens.

 

[Dmax]

So I have a few frag tanks I’ve had setup that also lost during Harvey. These have been set back up and running for almost 3 years now. I was very fortunate that I have a few local reefers that we’ve shared corals amongst each other. They gave me a lot of corals to get started again.

 

[GatorGreg]

Below is a link to the 300 moments before evacuating during Harvey. So glad I took this short little video of it. Just had a bad feeling.

I had a similar thing happen to me with hurricane Laura. Before getting back into reef tanks. I kept dart frogs. I had 4 fully grown pairs in 4 fully grown out vivs with some rare plants and everything was going so well. I also had a pair of rare ones that were babies that I had just grown from tadpoles. The babies were the only ones I could take and everything was dead and nasty when we could finally come back home to our destroyed house.

I was staying with my parents until house got fixed again (2.5 years) and their bug guy came in one day and accidentally sprayed around the babies container not realizing what it was. I came home from work to feed and stare at them like normal and they were dead. Was so gutted I quit the dart frog hobby.

it’s also one of the big reason I don’t want to reef large. Hurricanes

 

[Dmax]

I had a similar thing happen to me with hurricane Laura. Before getting back into reef tanks. I kept dart frogs. I had 4 fully grown pairs in 4 fully grown out vivs with some rare plants and everything was going so well. I also had a pair of rare ones that were babies that I had just grown from tadpoles. The babies were the only ones I could take and everything was dead and nasty when we could finally come back home to our destroyed house.

I was staying with my parents until house got fixed again (2.5 years) and their bug guy came in one day and accidentally sprayed around the babies container not realizing what it was. I came home from work to feed and stare at them like normal and they were dead. Was so gutted I quit the dart frog hobby.

it’s also one of the big reason I don’t want to reef large. Hurricanes

Sorry to hear about that. It’s all a risk in the end.

 

[GatorGreg]

Sorry to hear about that. It’s all a risk in the end.

It’s ok you lost a lot too. Sorry to hear about your massive tank loss. This new build is absolutely insane. Almost hard to even comprehend how y’all take care of those massive tanks. It’s impressive