The ins and outs of my 20,000 gallon reef tank .

[Pigpen]

JVH , I started with a 90 gallon concentration camp for fish . I killed everything and had no idea what I was doing so I bought a 150 to and tied it to my 90 . while I was playing with this I built a 500 gallon plywood that worked good for a few months and the started to leak . I fixed the leaks and taught myself how to work with acrylic and the built my first 4x4x4 cube tank . this tank worked well for a wile and then I moved out of my parents house at the ripe age of 24 and bought my first house . I speced the house not to have windows on one side so i could add a tank later . I moved al my fish into the basement of the new house and started building an addition n the side where I put my 1500 gallon tank . around 06 the girlfriend at the time wanted a bigger house for her not to live in so the genius that I am decided to build her a 12,000 sf house and that was my change to go bigger so I did the 20,000 gallon tank . the tank was not running until 10 or 11 . right now I am in the planning and permit stages of a much larger tank .

 

[JVH]

JVH , I started with a 90 gallon concentration camp for fish . I killed everything and had no idea what I was doing so I bought a 150 to and tied it to my 90 . while I was playing with this I built a 500 gallon plywood that worked good for a few months and the started to leak . I fixed the leaks and taught myself how to work with acrylic and the built my first 4x4x4 cube tank . this tank worked well for a wile and then I moved out of my parents house at the ripe age of 24 and bought my first house . I speced the house not to have windows on one side so i could add a tank later . I moved al my fish into the basement of the new house and started building an addition n the side where I put my 1500 gallon tank . around 06 the girlfriend at the time wanted a bigger house for her not to live in so the genius that I am decided to build her a 12,000 sf house and that was my change to go bigger so I did the 20,000 gallon tank . the tank was not running until 10 or 11 . right now I am in the planning and permit stages of a much larger tank .

WOW! Big leaps! You are very brave! Lol thanks for sharing that! I look forward to seeing and hearing about the tank! Or next upgrade! Lol

 

[Pigpen]

It will be a while till I get around to it , have to get all the installs done for other people .

 

[Acrononomus]

Hello I was wondering if you could show off your surge setup, I may be looking to build one, looking for good ideas and u seem to have a lot! Epic builds my man....

 

[schlitz]

Awesome is all i got. I sit in my living room and stare at a 75 gal tank. Bet i could sit in front of that for a while. Wife gets mad when we watch a movie "you going to watch this with me?" :wink:

That is funny. My tv is located between 90 gallon tank and a 120 gallon tank. I find myself watching the tanks more than the tv sometimes.

 

[mm949]

glad you joined bill....BEST forum around!

 

[Pigpen]

Right now I am redoing all the lights , figured I would take this time to redo them when there is not a whole lot of corals in the tank and they are still small . right now I run 12 400s with lumatek electronic ballasts . first off the ballasts are getting replaced with new ones and I am adding some 1000 watt MH to light certain areas . the lighting has always been the worst part of the tank so its tie to fix that . before anyone asking I have been trying Leds and so far nothing compares to a mh . I have some of the new 500 watt fixtures on the way from coral vue so I will see how they work out . I love their reeflux bulbs and have used them forever but the lumiteks would not light them reliably so the lumatek have to go it favor of new electronic ballasts . if anyone needs some lumatek ballasts look me up .

 

[Steven C]

I do alot of testing just like everyone else but one nice this is I own a company that sells and services the instruments used in laboratories to analogize samples , we work on things like HPLC, LCMS and all different types of mass spectrometers . it is not financially fesable to own these instruments your self to test you water as some of them cost 200k and up and the maintenance cost would make you cry .

I do not dose anything to my tank expect MG . the calcium reactor does everything else for me . I do not believe in dumping a ton of chemicals into my tank nor do I believe in using any drugs to cure ich . ich is very easy to avoid if you pay attention . all I see when I go to shows now is that everyone sells a chemical for everything . most people do not like my tank because I do not drown it it blue lite to make my corals look better and i like to have some algae growing so my tangs can graze . guess I am weird .

To avoid ich and take care of ich with out chemicals what did you mean what am i looking for and if a fish was to get ich how would you go about getting rid of it

 

[DurocShark]

To avoid ich and take care of ich with out chemicals what did you mean what am i looking for and if a fish was to get ich how would you go about getting rid of it

First, get a 20,000 gallon tank...

 

[BigMike81]

Then get 200 pristine examples of marine life.:wink:

 

[Pigpen]

Started working on a new calcium reactor for the tank .I got bored with the old one so I decided to build a new one out of 10 inch clear PVC pipe . it will be driven

by an Iwaki 55 pumps for good flow . you can see on of the 4 inch calcium reactor bodies that I build in the picture for size comparison .

 

[jt17]

Amazing tank Bill. Thank you for sharing. So how big is the next tank going to be?

 

[anarchy]

Your system is a work of art

 

[Riley S]

Bill, what is the reason for using a diaphragm valve on the new reactor vs using a different type of valve?

 

[revhtree]

Sweet reactor!

 

[allenjj]

Dear Bill,
I am so sorry to hear about the failure after watching your build over the years on another site. Great to see some more pics of your equipment room and am always impressed. Im surprised at the low cost of utilities as I operate a 700 gallon system and spend about a third of what you reported.

 

[Pigpen]

Thanks , I have got pretty good at reducing the electrical cost on my system over the years . the bill is for our gas and electric on the whole house .we have a 12,000 sf house so I would say the tank is about half the cost . its really not that bad based on the size of the tank .

 

[greg11]

Bill, did you ever get that car put back together? I remember you pulled the engine and we were amazed

 

[Pigpen]

Yep, I put that back together a long time ago, then blew up the engine on my other one and rebuilt that .

 

[Deep_Six Corals]

Amazing work Bill. As a Do-it-yourselfer, this is truly an inspiration! I to use Mark at ME corals chemicals and have nothing but good things to say about it. The 2 part and Mg he makes has given me happy corals for as long as my tank has been running. I can't wait to see more of this tank!