My 240 gal. Salty Addiction

[Mark L.]

I've recently started browsing R2R and I'm really liking it here. I also recently finsihed my 240 gal. full ZEOvit build and figured I would post my build thread here from my local clubs forum. Tank has been up and running now for 21 days. My cycle is complete and I'm slowly adding fish and coral. So here you go, I hope you enjoy the build.....

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After 1 year and 7 months I have decided it's time to upgrade my 100 gallon D.A.P. tank. I did some shopping around for tanks and decided I wanted to go with Mike over at Aquarium Design Group (ADG). We've been having meetings over at his place for some time now and I just love the build quality in his tanks. I spoke with him a bit at the photography workshop about getting a tank from him and he was more than willing to help me out. We met for lunch today and finalized the details and payment was made to make it official. I should have my new tank in 4-5 weeks!!!

The specs on my new tank are the following.....

• 96 x 24 x 24 = 240 gallon custom aquarium
• Stainless steel black powder coated frames
• Starfire glass front and both end panels
• Overflow box center of back w/2- 1“ returns and 2- 1 ½“ drains
• Custom ADG fabricated durso stand pipes
• Black overflow box cover
• No bracing open top style aquarium
• Solid oak stand / finish black
• 36†finish height
• Solid top no lip
• 2-full front doors , 2 – full doors on each end of stand
• Raised panel doors
• Bottom of stand to have sealed lip for minor water retention
• Water proof finish seal on cabinet finish work
• Interior cabinet oil base paint seal / black
• Quality stainless hinges for all doors
• Black vinyl background
• Black silicone
• 100lbs reef base rock large pieces
• Delivery and installation , includes leveling of stand and aquarium

I'm really leaning towards making this an SPS dominant reef. I will still have a few LPS corals around the sand bed but not quite the mix I have now. I seem to be constantly fighting chemical warfares between my SPS and LPS corals from 1. having them too close together and 2. just being overstocked in general. I've learned a LOT over the past year and a half and want to do quite a bit different this time. First off, I'm taking my time and buying all my equipment first. My current tank is a wiring nightmare because I added a bunch of stuff after the fact and can't really get in the stand to clean up the wiring. I want to do my sump different and have one custom made to fit my needs. I want to see if I can get my skimmer far enough away from my fuge section so it will quit growing algae inside it from the light spill coming from my chaeto light. So much more I could go on and on about.

My plan of action so far will be to first paint my room. It's been 9 years and the walls are looking bad. That is a must before the new tank is in place. Then I will get the tank in and set up. After that I will slowly start piecing the equipment together as paychecks come in.

Equipment list so far.....

• 5 Ecotech Radion XR30w LED fixtures for lighting
• 2 Ecotech VorTech MP40wES powerheads for flow (not sure if that will be enough for an 8' tank)
• Neptune Systems Apex controller
• Custom sump/fuge (leaning towards Precision Marine making me one. Not sure yet)
• Precision Marine GAC & GFO media reactors
• Super Reef Octopus XP3000 Internal skimmer (need to do more research here. I like the Skimz skimmers also
• 2 BRS 1.1 ml. dosers for Alk. & Cal.
• 2 titanium heaters
• internal return pump. Need help here!
• Autotopoff.com ATO float switches w/ usplastics.com 30 gallon black reservoir
• Hmmm...... I know there's other things I'm forgetting
• Oh I'll be going with 100% dry rock this time. No live rock and unknown critters. Something in my tank is eating my cleaner shrimp and small fish!!!
• Sand TBD later.

So that seems to cover things so far. Last night I built a wood mock up of the tank and made sure I could manuver it through the house and into place. No problems there. Here's a pic of where it will go. The wall is 20' wide but has a door on it. That eats up 4' leaving 16' of wall space. The tank is 8' which gives me 4' on each side of the tank.

yes I collect Dallas Cowboys memorabilia and yes I used my dogs kennel as a stand LOL! Sorry room was a mess and I just shoved the couches out of the way.

I have also drawn the tank in 3D to give me (and y'all) an idea of what it will look like. Here it is!! I may model that stand later if I have time.

So what are y'all's thoughts? I'd love to hear your opinions on the equipment choices. I really need help with the return pump. I have no idea at this point what I'm going to use. I'd like it to be an internal if possible. Thanks for looking!

 

[Mark L.]

Just a quick update, I'm almost finished painting my room! LOL Note much else has happened. Tank is still being built so I think I'm going to wait until I actually have it and the stand in place before ordering my sump. I want to make sure the sump I'm designing will go inside the stand.

Speaking of sumps.... I've been looking everywhere at designs. I honestly can't make up my mind what i want. I found some pics of one someone made so I used it as a go by. This is what I have come up with so far. What does everyone think? Do you see any major problems with it? Something that may not work out? I'm going to use solid black dividers inside to help minimize the amount of light that escapes my fuge/chaeto chamber and contacts my skimmer. that is one problem I have now with my current setup. My skimmer constantly has algae growing in it from the light being inches away. Also, in the pics below I'm using 4 - 4" filter socks. I may change that too 2 - 7". Not sure about that yet.

Sump dims are 60"x18"x16" (75gal.) Once I get my stand I may see if I can fit a 60"x20"x16" (83gal.) in there.

 

[Mark L.]

Good one!




Human Nature, ENVY...

Mark,

Which skimmer are you getting?

I think I've decided on the Super Reef Octopus "Super Reef XP3000 Internal" I"m 99.99% sure I'm getting that one

I was thinking about going with the XP5000 but after talking to Jeremy at CoralVue on the phone for about an hour he really convinced me that the 3000 would work best on my size tank, sump and bioload I'll most likely have.

 

[Mark L.]

Well I feel like I'm finally making some progress. Tank and stand isn't ready yet but my skimmer did come in! I had decided on the Super Reef Octopus but I called an audible at the last minute and ran a different route LOL. I'm glad I did because I scored a touchdown! I present you with my new skimmer......

Nice big box!

Here's a little hint...

Hmm.. Packaged kind of odd. Not really what I was expecting

Oh well, It worked and everything was fine

Man this thing is built like a tank!

I can't wait to get this thing running. It's a beast.

 

[Mark L.]

LOL y'all are crazy. I do have a goal for this build. Every single item I purchase will be paid with cash. Literally green paper money. No plastic cards, no checks, good ol' Ben Franklins. I refuse to pay interest on any of it. You should have seen Dennis when I pulled out the stack of 100's today. LOL

Anyway what build thread isn't good without pics right? Here's my haul for today.

First up is lighting. Tank will be lit with 5 EcoTech Radion XR30w's

Next for flow I'm going with 2 MP60w ES one on each end of the tank and 2 MP40w ES on the back wall. One on each side of the overflow box.
If you are contimplating using MP60's on your tank I suggest you swing by Dennis' shop and look at his. These things are awesome. They changed up the design of them and they look so much better. If they work as good as they look then they will be unbeatable.

For GAC and GFO I went with 2 Precision Marine SR45P Professional series reverse flow reactors

Here's a pic with a can of soup to give you an estimate on size. These things are monsters and built like tanks. PM makes some quality products.

And finally, some food for my current tanks. I'm sure I'll keep using this brand on the new tank as well. My fish went nuts for the flake and pellets today when I got home. I haven't tried the ring yet.

 

[Mark L.]

Picked up a few more goodies tonight.

I've officially decided this will be a full blown ZEOvit tank. I went back and forth for some time trying to decide if I wanted to do it. I finally decided what the heck? You only live once right? I'll give it a try for a year or two and if I don't like it I can always go back to traditional methods. I know a lot of people don't like the colors SPS have on ZEOvit but I do. I've also heard they are working on their formulations to darken up SPS some so they are not as pastel as in the past. That will be nice and not a must for me.

I went with the Vertex ZF-30 Zeolith Media Reactor, ZEOvit zeolites, ZEObak, ZEOfood 7, Sponge Power, ZEOstart3, and Coral Snow to get me started.

Next I bought a handful of 1 1/2" sch. 80 fittings and pipe. Mike confirmed with me my returns and refugium inlet so I'll be buying more pipe and fittings soon. Also in the pic is a vibration pad for my return pump and some Marine Pure Ceramic Biomedia for the sump since I want to have a minimalistic aquascape.

Little by little I'm getting there.

 

[Mark L.]

I brought home another piece to the puzzle today. Dennis is slowly trickling in everything I need.

Reeflo Barracuda Gold 4680 gph. Man this pump is sweet.

 

[Mark L.]

OK I finally figured out how I'm going to hang my Radion lights over the tank. I found a company called 80/20 Inc. and they have some awesome products. Their motto is "The Industrial Erector Set" and the products are just like an erector set. You specify which profile you would like and the lengths needed. You also pick out any hardware you need/want and they will put together your order and send it to you. Then you just build whatever it is you want. This stuff would be so awesome to use for building an aquarium stand. Your possibilities are endless. If you can imagine it, you can build it. OK now I'm sounding like their salesman LOL. So anyway, what's really really really cool is that they supply all their products online in 3D. I was able to download all the parts I needed and build my light rack before ever placing the order. So cool!

Here's a link to their website. If anyone is considering an aquarium stand or light rig definitely give them a look. They have a distributor in The Woodlands and he has a lot of their products in his office. I stopped by and he actually spent the time to help me design this. Super nice guy.

80/20® Inc. - The Industrial Erector Set®

I'm going with the all black anodized parts and profiles.

 

[Mark L.]

Thanks Steve. The fit and finish on this stuff is amazing. I was playing with some pieced Eric had in his office and it's very strong and durable. They have all different sizes and profiles you can choose from.

In this pic I pulled the end cap off so you can see what profile I chose.....

 

[Mark L.]

Update 07/31/12:

I went by ADG yesterday after work and inspected my sump, tank, and stand. Everything looks great. They did a really nice job building the tank. My Precision Marine custom sump looks awesome and is built like a tank as well. I'm a little concerned about my protein skimmer fitting in the sump. I forgot to take it with me last night so we will have to make sure it fits when ADG gets to my house tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Now that everything is good to go ADG will deliver my tank tomorrow afternoon!!! Finally!!

Here's a few pics a snapped while looking over everything.

Brainstorming where to drill for pump

PM custom sump w/fuge

Tank and Stand

Tank showing newly designed overflow box. MUCH smaller than the last one and returns moved to the sides and not the front

Custom lid on overflow box. Thick black acrylic and they routed a groove on the bottom so it fits on the overflow box and will not slide off. Perfect fit!

(Disclaimer: sorry for the blurry pics. Need a new cell phone.)

 

[Mark L.]

Update 07/31/12(evening pics):

I finally got some time to round up a bunch of stuff that I haven't documented yet and took pics. Here ya go! The night before the tank will be delivered and I'm getting everything ready.

My ZEOvit Linup

Battery Backups

RO/DI Upgrade kit. Upgrading from 75 to 300 GPD.

Miscellaneous items. Decided to give the Hanna Checkers a try.

Apex Controller

Group pic of everything in our spare room

(Disclaimer: sorry for the blurry pics. Need a new cell phone.)

 

[Mark L.]

Update 08/01/12:

Tank has been delivered! Took me some time to post my update because I have been cleaning up the tank and getting the house back together. Man this thing looks like a monster now that it is in the house. I love it. The glass was pretty dirty and there was some stray silicone on the glass that I scraped off. Other than that it is perfect. I'm very happy with it. Of course I took a bunch of pics so here they are......

Arrival and unloading

Making sure the protein skimmer fits

Here comes the tank!!!

Durso stand pipes and return pipes

More misc pics of the tank and my room in general

 

[Mark L.]

 

[Mark L.]

Update 08/05/12:

I didn't get too much accomplished this weekend. It was my daughter's birthday so she wanted to spend the day at the beach. We spent all day Saturday there with a bunch of her friends. So today I tore apart my RO/DI unit and upgraded it with my 300 gpd parts and also installed the booster pump. All I have to say is........OMG! If you have an RO/DI unit I would recommend doing this. It's so nice filling a 5 gallon jug in about 15 minutes.

Next I'd like to say Mike at ADG is the man! He hooked me up on my live rock. I swung by Friday after work and picked up 220 lbs of the purple Fish Heads Reef Rock for $300. That stuff is NOT cheap. I laid it all out today and cleaned it up a bit. Snapped a few pics of what I got. There's some real nice show pieces and also some nice shelf pieces. Depending how it looks in the tank, I may pic up a few more larger pieces. I should have put something in the pics with the rock to give a sense of scale. Some of the piece are huge.

I have a huge load of sch. 80 pipe and fittings coming in on Tuesday. Before I start my plumbing I think I'm going to paint the inside of my stand with Kills and seal all the corners with silicone. That will be scheduled for next weekend. Little by little it will come together.

75 gpd before upgrade

Pile of parts for 300 gpd upgrade

Upgrade finished

220 lbs. of Fish Heads reef rock

 

[Mark L.]

Update 08/17/12:

In the spirit of keeping my thread alive I have a small update to post. I've gotten in my UV protection, and my salt. I've almost finished painting my stand so I'll finish that this weekend and get the doors mounted back on. Dennis at FJW got my chiller in yesterday but unfortunately they sent the wrong one! No problem, Dennis refused the shipment and called his distributor to get a replacement sent out asap. I also received an email from the manufacturer of my dosing pump. The dosing pump is ready to ship but he is going to wait until the new firmware is finished so he can update it for me before shipping it out. Hopefully I should have that sometime next week.

UV Sterilizer

Got Salt?

Soaking my reef rock in RO/DI water. Glad I did. Rock was kind of dirty and the water has a smell. I'm going to check for phosphates this weekend and change the water.

Slowly making progress.

 

[Mark L.]

Update 08/21/12:

Next up, Lighting. I spent some time yesterday getting my lighting squared away. I took the two Radions I had over my 100 gal. down and re-hung my ATI Powermodule. Holy surfaces of the sun batman! I forgot how bright that thing is LOL! After hanging the Powermodule it took me 1/2 the day to get it working again. First the control box was too big to fit between the stand and wall. I had to open it up and remove all the wiring from the control box. Pass the cord behind the tank and then rewire everything with the control box inside the stand. No problem just time consuming. Then, I connected my APEX controller to my Powermodule and my dang voltmeter was messing up. Not sure what was wrong with it by the display kept going nuts showing all characters. Because of this I didn't know which channel was my moon lights and which was my main day lights.

I ran and borrowed another voltmeter and got all the wiring done. Now that the Powermodule was installed and all wiring done I reprogrammed my APEX controller to turn the Powermodule on and off and also dim it at the correct times. Finally, 100 gal. tank back in business.

Next I took apart the lighting rig I made for the 2 Radions and I cleaned them up. Man those fans collect a lot of dust! After I got those cleaned up I laid out all my Radion units and I upgraded them with the new TIR lenses. Woohoo! Better light spread!

Now that I have the 100 gal. back to it's original configuration, my Radions upgraded, and my stand painted, I can finally start laying out all the components inside the stand and start mounting them and doing my plumbing. I feel like I can now start making some nice progress with the tank build.

Upgrading Radions with TIR Lens kit

All Done!!!!

Stand sealed, primed, and painted

Picked up a few little guys this weekend. They are waiting for their new home

 

[Mark L.]

Update 08/30/12:

More progress has been made on my build. Of course as my luck has it, there was no studs in the ceiling where I was going to mount my lights. I crawled up into the attic and added some supports on the back side of the ceiling sheet rock to hang my lighting rig. After that I had a good area to screw the hanging kit into the ceiling. I assembled my lighting rig and mounted my Radions to it. Once that was done I hung the lighting rig on the Ecotech hanging kit. For now the cables are just hanging behind the tank. I'm going to clean those up in the next few days and zip tie them up and out of the way.

Second item was my RO/DI unit. I had upgraded it with a booster pump and dual 150 gpd RO membranes awhile back. I wanted a little more muscle to the system so my last and final upgrade was to add a prefilter to the booster pump to extend the life of the pump and to add a second DI stage.

Lastly, I actually worked on my plumbing some. I cut and glued all the plumbing in the overflow box. Both drains and returns are installed, glued, and ready to go. Then I measured, cut, and glued all pipe and valves for the return pump. I didn't get pics of any plumbing work yet. I'll do that soon.

Radions mounted and lighting rig installed.

I made a last minute change to my original design by adding a piece of black acrylic to the
lighting rig frame. It really gives it a finished look and matches the top of the Radions perfectly.

Finalized RO/DI Unit

1. New 1 Micron booster pump prefilter (used to be my DI housing)
2. Booster Pump
3. RO/Carbon/Micron Filter unit
4. New Dual DI unit

 

[Mark L.]

Update 09/11/12:

Been awhile since I've updated. Moving along slowly but moving along. First things first, I've had a couple small set backs on the build. Nothing major just me acting like a monkey with a hammer LOL. For all the Radion owners out there be careful when mounting them. I broke off one of the heads on the mounting holes. I called Ecotech and the guy was awesome. I explained what I did and he walked out into the shop while on the phone with me and found a new button screw thing. He put it in an envelope and 2nd day mailed it to me. Just like that. Awesome! It was a pretty easy fix and took me maybe 5 minutes.

Broken mounting hole. Button head broke right off the threads

New button mounting hole

Next monkey with a hammer episode came when I was installing the fittings on my return pump. I used teflon tape and while screwing the top fitting on the thread outlet just split. I didn't even really tighten it down much. Again I gave Reeflo a call and explained what happened. The guy I talked to sent me out a new cover 2nd day as well. Talk about customer service!! Free of charge as well, no questions asked. I got the new cover in on Saturday and swapped it out with the broken one. Pump all set now.

Thread neck split

All fixed!!

Now on to some good news LOL. I've made a little progress on my plumbing and started mounting my Radion power supplies. When I installed the return lines in the overflow the 90° fittings were hitting the under side of my overflow cover. It wouldn't sit down flush on the overflow. Because of this I had to use my dremel and cut out recessed areas to miss the fittings.

Drains and returns installed

Overflow lid modified

All better! Now it fits snug

Drain lines made and installed

Radion power supplies installed. Made templates to drill pilot holes

Power supplies installed

More to come...........................

 

[Mark L.]

Update 09/12/12:

It was getting late last night and I forgot to post a couple items. I got in another piece of equipment. Thanks to Dennis at FJW I'm now the proud daddy of a JBJ titanium chiller.

Now all that I'm missing from the build is my ATO unit, reservoir, a couple heaters, and my dosing pump. After the chiller you'll see I removed the barb fittings from my PM reactors and will be hard plumbing them in. As far as plumbing goes, I need to build my manifold that will come off my return pump and feed the reactors, tank returns, UV sterilizer, sump, etc.

JBJ Titanium Chiller

Reactors with new PVC fittings

More to come...........................

 

[Mark L.]

Update 09/14/12:

I got a little free time yesterday while waiting on the water heater company to come out and fix my leaking water heater. I used the time to polish up my Radion install and finalize the wiring cleanup. I got the inspiration from hanging multiple flat screen tv's at my, my sister's, and my mom's house. Hope you enjoy!

Drilled an upper and lower hole in the sheet rock to run the extension cables inside the wall.

Close up of the sheet rock "box" with extensions

Lower hole with sheet rock box, cover, and extension cables installed. This is the completed look.

Finished product. No visable wires haning. I painted the top grommet black to kind of blend in with the hanging kit and wires.

Sexy!!!

More to come...........................