My 300 Gallon System Build

[coralfarm123]

Hello everyone,

I've decided to keep a log of my tank build here and on my local clubs site INDMAS. The main build is a project that I have been working on slowly since the beginning of Summer. The whole build got delayed for a couple months waiting for a replacement frame for the top of the tank. I broke the original frame when I tripped over my golf bag getting the final measurements for the stand. Removing the old frame along with every tiny bit of silicone was a real nightmare.

So on to the details.

I will have a 210 gallon main tank(thanks misterio1) and my current 90 gallon shallow tank will go below and will be partitioned for the sump and frag tank.

Old video of my 90 gallon shallow reef that will go underneath the stand.

Reef Tank on Vimeo

Tank specs:

210 Gallon Main Tank 72x24x29

The steel stand is 40 inches tall. It will be open in the front with no center brace. Front top rail 6ft span made of 3" X 1.5" tube steel 5/16" thickness. There is also a 3" piece of channel 1/4" for addition support even though it is probably not necessary. I figured better safe than sorry with spanning such a long distance with no brace. The rest of the stand is made with mainly a combination of 2x2, 2x3, and 3 inch channel mostly 1/4 thickness. To test the strength of the stand, 3700 lbs was placed in the center 3 feet of the stand with no noticeable deflection.

Pic of the stand before I coated it.


Last winter I had to redo my kitchen and laundry room floor in preparation for the new tank so that is part of tank build too I guess . I spent about 75 hours over 4 days doing this part of the project and I got about 25 hours of labor out of my brother. Luckily, my wife went out of town because we made a mess.

My brother starting on the Durock. The tank will be put in the cutout behind him and walled in. I had a built in desk that I tore out the area.

Laid the 16" tiles on a diagonal. My brother thought I was crazy, but I like the way it turned out and it really didn't make it too difficult.

I have a small room in my garage directly behind the tank that I plan to have the ballasts, storage tanks, and other stuff in it, but it will not have access to the tanks from the back. I ripped out a bunch of shelving and resurfaced the drywall and painted. Here are some pics.

Before

After

 

[coralfarm123]

In this location I only had one existing outlet on a 15 amp breaker so I knew an upgrade was critical. Luckily one of our local club members is a certified electrician and a great guy. Many, many thanks go out to Dave(noodlenugs). We fished some new lines through the attic and walls and now I have 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits split between 3 outlets (2 outlets under the tank and one in fish room).

Next I had to make sure that my tank and floor would have plenty of support. The tank sits on 2 exterior walls, but I also wanted to brace the floor as well. My brother and I got under the house and put the floor jacks in place. I didn't look under the house before buying all my supplies, but had been under it several times. I forgot that I had a concrete support running all the way across the center of my house and it just happens to be 4-5 feet from the wall the tank is on. I probably could of gotten away with not using the jacks, but decided to anyways especially after dragging everything down there. In the pic you can see how close the concrete support beam(upper left corner) is to the wall. I put the 8' beam under the center of the tank with 3 screw jacks on concrete pads.

The stand was finished and tank trim has been siliconed in place. I etched the stand with phosphoric acid to remove any surface corrosion before painting with a rust inhibiting primer. Then I coated it with a 2 part marine grade epoxy. I also painted the back of the tank black.

I also patched the walls along the backside of tank after removing the built in desk. I also coated the walls with a shellac based primer with a low permeability rating to seal the drywall and protect it from the humidity. I plan to have temp and humidity controller attached to a exhaust vent and chiller if necessary. My brother and I put the tank and stand in place.

 

[_Alex_]

looking good, cant wait to see it running

 

[coralfarm123]

Got some sand and the base rock structures in place. I made them with the help of some fiberlass rods and lots of epoxy and superglue. I plan to have a pretty open scape, but it will fill in some when I get my coral in the tank. I drilled a ton of holes throughout the rock structure. I will be pegging all of my SPS on carbon fiber rods before attaching them to the rock so that if they overgrow a certain area they can be easily moved without too much trauma. This is about 80lbs of rock and 240 lbs of Tropic Eden Reefflakes and Miniflakes. In this pic there is no water, but I've had water circulating for almost a couple weeks now and this is pretty much where I am now.

The next step will be building the light rack and letting the tank cycle.

 

[underwaterfirefighter]

WOW!!! Nice job. Did you do the tile or did your brother? I do tile for a living and must say that looks very nice. Great start to your build! Will be watching to see it all come together.

Dave

 

[coralfarm123]

WOW!!! Nice job. Did you do the tile or did your brother? I do tile for a living and must say that looks very nice. Great start to your build! Will be watching to see it all come together.

Dave

Thank you. I did the majority of it, but he definitely put in a lot of free labor. I got off easy with helping him replace gutters on his house. We have both done a couple other smaller tile jobs before so I was glad to have that little bit of experience. I was also lucky that my floor was pretty level to begin with and I did a lot of planning and layout before I jumped into it.

 

[sexycorals]

With all the money you take from me Ian, Im sure ill be paying for this whole Project.. :tongue:

 

[sexycorals]

Ohh forgot to add that it looks great!! love the scape so far!!

 

[underwaterfirefighter]

Again it looks great! When we finally get around to setting up our 120 it will start with taking up old floors and putting in travertine. Your tank is looking great! Really like the scape you have going there. If you ever need any advice on tile or anything related please don't hesitate to shoot me a pm. Now lets see some livestock in there! :bigsmile:

Dave

 

[Antonias1391]

Lucky!!! i cant wait to see how this bad boy progresses keep us in the loop man!

 

[las]

nice rock work!

 

[killingseed2000]

its a great start cant wait to see more over time.

 

[MarvinsReef]

let's see some updated pics Ian.

 

[m and m]

Thanks for sending me the link love the Mostly tonga branch rock work i have never seen that before, you have a pm coming your way.

 

[MimicOcto8]

Awesome build bro. absolutely love the rockscape so far. looking forward to the rest of the build! Don't know nothing about tile but you made it look easy and i'm sure its not.

 

[m and m]

Awesome build bro. absolutely love the rockscape so far. looking forward to the rest of the build! Don't know nothing about tile but you made it look easy and i'm sure its not.

All i can say is pay some one to do it. I have done it a few times and its placing the little white spacers then grouting then taking away the group to make it look nice. So time consuming and alot of knee work.

 

[MimicOcto8]

thanks for the heads up. i'm a huge DIY guy for things around the house and often I jump in too deep with projects

 

[m and m]

thanks for the heads up. i'm a huge DIY guy for things around the house and often I jump in too deep with projects

I feel ya on that the only reason I know is my dad is the same way. Unfortunately I’m the son and I’m the first to get a call to come over a help. Let's just say he soon put in some brazilan hard wood floors soon after.

 

[coralfarm123]

Ok, time to update the progress and of course more pics. Sorry for slacking, but I've been busy redoing the room my old tank was in and other projects around the house.

The lighting for the tank is 3x250 watt Phoenix bulbs on M80 ballast in Sunlight Supply Lumen Max Elite Pendants supplemented with two 72 inch VHOs. I made the light rack out of aluminum tube and angle.

All of my coral and livestock has been transferred to the tank. Acros browned out a bit at first, but are coloring up. I've already seen quite bit of growth with the new lighting and colors are coming around. I've always been fascinated by all types or coral so I like to keep a wide variety of stuff. The tank is a mixed reef and I plan to keep many smaller sized fish vs fewer large fish.

Here are a few pics that I've taken so far.

I still have a lot of work to do finishing up the construction phase, but I really had to get everything moved over first. My wife has been wanting to claim my old tank room for a long time. Now that I've gotten those projects completed I should have at least a little bit of free time to work on the tank again before something else comes up:smile:

 

[Alattner]

you lucky guys and your fish rooms. i wish i could talk my girlfriend into letting to set up one. anyways your tank looks great awesome lighting thats basically the light set up i am going to put up on my 220 except i think i am going to run radiums