360 gallon logistical nightmare and no spare time!

[nsamouroux]

It's getting there, slowly but surely! 360 gallon acrylic tank (8' long x 3' wide x 2' tall, 350g or so water volume). Most of this build has been from the seat of my pants and with sporadic progress as I try to find the time to work on it while I remodel a house, take care of my current reef tank, and agonize over various design options and search far and wide (or at least on Craigslist and the Reef Frontiers forums :lol for the necessary equipment.

Tank when it first arrived at my previous residence roughly 1 year ago, had no space so it went to the back "yard"!

A few months ago, I bought a house and moved all of my tanks and whatnot, and now I was finally able to start working on this monstrosity. First order of business was to build a horizontal overflow box and drill some holes for the drain plumbing! I realized after putting it all together than I spaced out and forgot the 90* fittings that go inside the overflow box. Bleh. :doubt:

And finally this weekend I visited two different McLendon's hardware stores and a couple of Home Depots in between to piece together the plumbing for it. McLendons carries schedule 80 bulkheads in all the normal sizes (1/2" up to 2") for only a couple bucks more than Savko.com (not counting shipping price from them). Perfect option for people like me who hate waiting for things to be delivered!

As for the next major hurdle... The "fish room" in the basement where the sump / refugium, skimmer, return pump, RO/DI, water change / saltwater / RO water storage tanks will reside! I'm friggin' doomed. This is taking forever, and I'm not exactly the most patient individual when I feel motivated to do something! :badgrin:

 

[fatboyt123]

OOOO i hate you sooo bad i want your tank.Its going to be an awsome build like i said in your thread. Good luck and remember pics pics pics that all we really care about:lol:

 

[nsamouroux]

Awwww, don't be too bitter! I've seen a couple tanks only slightly smaller on Craigslist lately for about $1500 with stand / pumps / etc (one up near UW I believe that was an 8' long 300 gallon?) Eventually once I get to the point of moving my halides from my 100-gallon over to this tank I'll have to buy some of those DIY / clone reflectors off you since I don't have the equipment to put 'em together myself I almost went and bought the previous 3 you had, but it's going to be some time before I'm ready for that step. I still have to build a canopy for the thing, after all!

 

[fatboyt123]

I have seen alot on there latey.There reason i guess i am not liking you is because there was a tank on there that had just been posted that was the same dims as yours.It was glass, coast to coast overflows, and just a 2x4 stand he only want $250 for it.Well i sent him an email saying i have cash in hand and can be there that weekend to pick it up and he was over in spokane.Never got one email from him nothing.That might be way i love to hate your tank.

 

[nsamouroux]

That makes sense then... Carry on! I drove clear down to South Beach, OR to pick this blasted thing up because nothing local at the time matched what I wanted. Since then I've seen a few similar setups (like the one around UW area) that ended up costing about half what I spent to get this thing and bring it home. If I had seen one even close to this size for $250 like you found I would have been knocking on the person's door within the hour! I hate when people don't return messages!

 

[fatboyt123]

No i am done you can carry on with your build.Have you decided on any equp. yet?What type of tank is it going to be mixed reef?

 

[EriksReptiles]

Nice tank! Love the 3' depth!

Just one question. Did you glue the overflow onto the tank? If not how did you seal the hole between the tank and overflow box?

Looks great so far.

Thanks Erik

 

[nsamouroux]

Yep, mixed reef. I have almost exclusively soft corals right now (a couple dozen pocilopora, some monti caps, and a brain coral are the only stony types), along with my two huge anemones. Eventually I will add more SPS, but I like the movement from softies in the water current so it won't be an all-sps tank.

As for equipment, I have a dual-output Hamilton 400w halide ballast with XM20k bulbs (in use on my 100g reef) and a generic DIY 250w halide setup. I'll probably either pick up two 250w halides to place between the 400w bulbs, or trade in the 400w setup and go with all 250w bulbs since the tank is only 2' deep. I'm using an ETSS protein skimmer which I'm going to modify a bit to handle the tank. For the water flow / circulation, I'm looking at four Koralia Magnum 8 pumps and perhaps also my current koralia 3 powerheads in between the larger ones on the back wall. The sump / refugium will be located in the basement. I will eventually DIY some media reactors and fluidized bed filters, but will not be using a kalk reactor or calcium reactor initially until I get more heavily into SPS corals.

My next steps here now that the tank itself is essentially finished is to acquire a pair of 100 or 150 gallon rubbermaid stock tanks for the sump / refugium, a large pump (Hammerhead or similar) capable of at least 2,000gph at 12' head, and then a crapton of aragonite sugar sand, probably from Petco since it's the most reasonable price I've seen without paying ungodly amounts for shipping. I've got over 300 lbs of rock, but probably won't use all of it since I want this tank to stay open for swimming space and coral grow-out. I will either sell off the rock I don't use, or toss it in the sump / refugium tanks.

 

[nsamouroux]

Erik, no, it's not glued to the tank since I'd never be able to access the bulkheads in the event something went wrong (because of the bracing on the top panel of the tank covering the majority of the overflow box). I built the box just in the Sketchup plans above, and drilled three holes in the back of it with matching holes on the tank's rear panel for the bulkheads. It's the same method glass-holes.com uses for their overflow boxes. There's a rubber gasket between the bulkhead flange and the overflow box, and then another gasket between the overflow box and the rear panel of the aquarium to prevent leaks on that side.

 

[EriksReptiles]

Cool. I just didn't see a gasket. Sounds good though. Cant wait to see it up and running!

Thanks Erik

 

[nsamouroux]

If the stars align, my work schedule accomodates, and I pick a few choice numbers on my next Lotto ticket I can probably have it ready for water within a month I don't know how long it'll take to move the 100g reef that is currently sitting where the large tank will be placed and start putting water in the new setup... Not looking forward to tackling that transfer!

 

[roscoe]

Looking good! Another beast in Tacoma.

 

[returnofsid]

This is going to be a great tank!! Can't wait to see more progress. I really like the Coast to Cost overflow!!!

 

[nsamouroux]

Not fully coast-to-coast, but almost The tank is 8' long, and the overflow box is 4' long x 6" wide x 8" tall. It took me quite a bit of brainstorming to figure out a way to get plumbing into this thing due to the design of the top panel. I didn't want to build an external coast-to-coast overflow because the tank will be up against a wall, so after some feedback from people on another forum's DIY section I settled on copying (and increasing the size of) the glass-holes.com overflow kits. I basically looked at their Dart overflow kit and scaled it up. I'll be running about the same volume of water through the overflow as their Dart setup, but I didn't want to deal with cutting teeth into this. Some people said that a thin sheet of water across a straight-edge overflow is best for surface skimming, but in all honesty I'm just too lazy to router out all those blasted slots

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Can't wait to see more!

 

[nsamouroux]

If I'm able to pick up a large return pump in the next few days, and then find a pair of rubbermaid stock tanks (and of course finish all the accursed plumbing and cut a bunch of holes in my floor behind the tank...), I'll be able to start moving my livestock / corals / rock from my 100 gallon into the rubbermaid tubs while I move the big tank into it's final resting place Be scarce next weekend, or I might have to bribe some of you Tacoma locals with beer in exchange for help moving this blasted thing into the house! My nearest friend geographically is up in Shoreline, and he doesn't drive... Convenient way out of this for him! The livestock might have to sit in the stock tanks for a couple days while the big tank is filling with RO/DI water, but that should be fine. Initially I'm not really sure if I want a shallow sand bed in this or not... I love the look of a white sand bed in a reef, but I don't want to spend $500 on a substrate when there's much better things to waste it on right now I'm tempted to go with a bare bottom tank (with the rock sitting on egg-crate panels), especially since I'll have about 20,000 gph water flow in this tank. I have a feeling that sand would quickly become the bane of my existance...

 

[fatboyt123]

Where are you located at in tacoma.I am right over by Foss high School.

 

[nsamouroux]

I'm over on Portland Avenue near 38th. Once I get off work this afternoon I'll be picking up a large return pump and will then begin the hunt for a 50 to 150 gallon rubbermaid stock tank to use for a sump. While searching for the sump, I'll be working on a plan for the plumbing to the basement "fish room"

So far, my to-do list is:

- Pick up pump today
- Buy rubbermaid stock tank sump
- Design plumbing
- Buy at least 2 Koralia Magnum 8 powerheads (will add another 2 later when it's all set up)
- Buy 200 lbs of aragonite sand from Marco Rocks (160 lbs for $99 which includes shipping!)
- Build light canopy (or at least a half-assed temporary one just to get running faster )
- Buy or DIY reflectors for the halides
- Pick up a pair of water tanks (Brute cans or something, maybe 50-ish gallon drums) and start making saltwater and filling the RO/DI resevoir for topoffs

After that, the tank will be ready for water, at which point I'll have to gut the 100 gallon and dump everything into buckets / tubs and get it out of the way since the 360g will be where it currently sits. Then I'll have a day or two to aquascape the rock (have to do this on a weekend) and then put all the livestock into their new home.

I'm 27, so given this list I should be done with this build shortly before retirement. At that time I'll be able to take out my dentures, sip on Ensure drinks, and enjoy the aquarium until the viewing panels get coated with coralline and algae. I'll probably have a heart attack trying to clean the blasted thing, so that should bring the journey to a close! :lol:

 

[nsamouroux]

Jeebus... I never thought about just how much a canopy for an 8' x 3' tank would weigh. I even built it out of 1/2 birch plywood with a lightweight interior frame (1x2 boards) and it still weighs about 100 lbs. I need to run over to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up 8' worth of heavy duty piano-style hinges, some 1"x3" or 1"x4" boards for more reinforcement over the center area, and finally some corner / edge trim pieces to cover up the ugly joints and then I'll post some pics.

On a somewhat related note... I absolutely hate my table saw...

 

[fatboyt123]

i want some pics now though i cant wait