Pigpen
Active Member
Hello, my name is Bill Wann I and I was invited here to share my 20,000 gallon reef tank . I built the tank and everything myself from scratch and have even made a spin off company building equipment for large tanks . my tank has been running since 2010 and everything was going great until January of this year when a 6 inch pipe for my surge broke and drained the tank down to 24 inches of water . I was able to save all my fish and have reworked the tank . the tank was back to running again withing a week and now I am in the process of adding all new coral to the tank . I have added well over 100 pieces of sps so far and will be adding more . I have a large amount of fish in the tank and a very heave bioload .
Some specs on the tank , It is 24 feet long , 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide . it is lite with 12 400 watt metal halides and i will be adding 6 more . there is over 10 tons of dry rock in the tank that was seeded to live rock . the tank is concrete with 6x10 viewing windows made out of 2.5 inch thick acrylic .the filtration consists of two 24 inch diameter by eight foot tall skimmers , two sand filters , heat exchanger , sumps and calcium reactor . I designed and built all of the filtration for the system .
The control system is a custom programed PLC with two touch screen displays , one upstairs by th etank and one down stairs in the filter room . ervey aspect of the system is automated except for feeding . there are sensors for water level , flow rate , PH , ORP, humidity and pressure .
There are 7 main pumps on the system and two automatic back up pumps . there are 22 electrically actuated ball valves on the system that are controller by the controller for various uses . the main flow is done by a 300 gallon surge tank that sits on the second floor of the house . it dumps through six inch pipe every 2 minutes . the controller automatically switches which side it will dump on in the tank to give a random flow pattern .
Water is made with a 10,000 gallon a day Ro system with a continuous Di system to polish the water . I also have 32 kw back up generator for those bad days . I dive the tank once a week to clean and plat corals .
I will be posting many pictures so please bare with me . I have kept most of this on my face book page but I think its a good time to share it now . my tank has appeared on Tv shows on the home and garden channel and a few others , it has also been on the news and had a mini documentary done on it .
There are many videos on my face book page to see , I am not sure how to post them here yet . feel free to ask me anything you would like and I hope you enjoy what I have built , remember I am just a hobbyist just like you who started with a 90 gallon tank and has killed everything 5o times over so please dont put me on a pedestal and feel free to ask anything you would like to know .
Some specs on the tank , It is 24 feet long , 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide . it is lite with 12 400 watt metal halides and i will be adding 6 more . there is over 10 tons of dry rock in the tank that was seeded to live rock . the tank is concrete with 6x10 viewing windows made out of 2.5 inch thick acrylic .the filtration consists of two 24 inch diameter by eight foot tall skimmers , two sand filters , heat exchanger , sumps and calcium reactor . I designed and built all of the filtration for the system .
The control system is a custom programed PLC with two touch screen displays , one upstairs by th etank and one down stairs in the filter room . ervey aspect of the system is automated except for feeding . there are sensors for water level , flow rate , PH , ORP, humidity and pressure .
There are 7 main pumps on the system and two automatic back up pumps . there are 22 electrically actuated ball valves on the system that are controller by the controller for various uses . the main flow is done by a 300 gallon surge tank that sits on the second floor of the house . it dumps through six inch pipe every 2 minutes . the controller automatically switches which side it will dump on in the tank to give a random flow pattern .
Water is made with a 10,000 gallon a day Ro system with a continuous Di system to polish the water . I also have 32 kw back up generator for those bad days . I dive the tank once a week to clean and plat corals .
I will be posting many pictures so please bare with me . I have kept most of this on my face book page but I think its a good time to share it now . my tank has appeared on Tv shows on the home and garden channel and a few others , it has also been on the news and had a mini documentary done on it .
There are many videos on my face book page to see , I am not sure how to post them here yet . feel free to ask me anything you would like and I hope you enjoy what I have built , remember I am just a hobbyist just like you who started with a 90 gallon tank and has killed everything 5o times over so please dont put me on a pedestal and feel free to ask anything you would like to know .
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