DieselDave's 175bow front Project

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-=dieseldave=-

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
250
Location
Snohomish Wa.
So it is time for me to get off my bottom and get this project going. All the equipment and the tank I have had for about 6-9 months sitting around collecting dust. Everyone that visits always ask, “When are you going to set that thing up?” So this last week I have been busy and hope to have saltwater in the tank by the weekend. Let me describe some of the choices I have made.
The tank-
I was at a local shop and they had an Oceanic 175gal reef ready bow front. The rep from Oceanic was there and made me a deal I could not pass up on the stand, tank and cheesy hood. He threw in an AGA model 4 wet dry sump not my first choice of a setup but it was a good deal so I took it. Overall thinking about the tank and stand I would have rather gotten an Oceanic RR 210 brick style tank, oh well. The tank 175 does look pretty good though. I lined the bottom with starboard and placed silicon around the edges and on the bottom to avoid stuff collecting under it.
The layout-
I originally was going to place the sump and most of the equipment under the stand, and I built a little 4’ counter/cabinet to hold the chiller, light ballasts, controllers, and a 24’’X 20’’X 12’’ frag tank.
View attachment 12111
Last week I was looking how everything was going to go together, and it was going to be a tight fit, too tight to be fun to work on. So luckily the wall the tank was against the other side was the garage, even luckier it was my side of the garage and it had at least 4’ of wall space. So some holes went though the wall for hoses and electrical stuff, and wall-la the skimmer, sump, chiller and auto top-off magically appeared in the garage displacing my Pink Floyd The Wall movie poster. I’m sure I’ll find another place for it real soon.
View attachment 12114
Electrical-
I ran 3 X 20 amp circuits, one for Lighting, One for Heating and cooling, and one for everything else.

Equipment--

Brains -
1 X Aqua Controller III Pro, 2 X Direct connect 8’s, 2 X Direct connect 4 heavy duties, 2 X x10 modules and an alarm module.
Tunze 7095 controller
View attachment 12112
Tunze Osmolator
Circulatory system –
2 X Tunze 6100’s main source of flow
4 X maxi jet 900’s to blow strait down at the corners on the outside of the over flows to blow things that may settle to the front of the tank where I can easily siphon them out.
1 X Eheim 1262 used for a return from the sump.
1 X Eheim 1260 used to supply the chiller.
Heating and cooling-
2 X 300watt pro-heat titanium heater
JBJ Arctica 1/3hp chiller
Filtration-
3 X 150 PhosBan reactors, two for rowaphos and one for carbon
2 X maxi jet 400’s to feed the reactors, one for the two phos reactors, and one for the carbon.
1 X Deltec ap701
View attachment 12113
225 pounds or BaseRock from ReeferRocks.com, Nice suff
View attachment 12115
1 X Korallin 3002 reactor
Lighting-
1 X Sunlight supply 72’’ Maristar, contains 3 X 250 watt DE MH(bulbs, BLV 10k’s) and 4 X 36’’ T5 (bulbs, Blue +). Ballasts are all blue wave enclosures and contain m80 magnetic ballasts.
Moon light came on the Tunze 7095 controller
I’m sure I’m leaving a bit here and there out.
 
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Dave...Any thoughts on how you are going to run that sump? I know it is a standard wet/dry by All-glass now, but do you plan on converting it to a sump/fuge so you don't need to use the bio-balls or do you plan on using them?
 
I see that you very much appreciate the german technology. Looks like this is starting off to be one hitech reeftank. It dosn't look like it will be long before its ready for water.
 
Thanks for the compliments and comments everyone.

krish75 said:
Dave...Any thoughts on how you are going to run that sump? I know it is a standard wet/dry by All-glass now, but do you plan on converting it to a sump/fuge so you don't need to use the bio-balls or do you plan on using them?

No bio-balls for me please. I will be pulling out the filter tray and letting the water fall the 6-7 inches in the main sump chamber. I did toy with idea of putting some rubble in place of the bio-balls, but I think the sediment in the rocks would be a rotten mess. It will be noisy setup this way but it’s in the garage so it’s not a problem. There is a lid for the sump I will customizing to cut back on the evaporation in the garage and salt spray, the last thing I need is my tools and equipment rusting. Flow thought the sump will 500-700gph so I’m hoping that most of the sediments end up in the sump. When I do my weekly water change I should be able to just empty and clean out the sump. The water volume should be close to 20 gal or roughly 10% of my total water volume.
 
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Sounds good man...I didn't want to knock you if you were using bio-balls:p Whatever works for you in this hobby:D I think it will work out well man and glad you've chosen not to use them...

When I do my weekly water change I should be able to just empty and clean out the sump. The water volume should be close to 20 gal or roughly 10% of my total water volume.

What are your plans for a sand bed? The reason I ask is if you plan on using a sand bed (specifically a ssb) you will want to vaccum it to keep waste and nitrates down and if you only do your water changes through your sump there will be a lot left behind in the tank that can eventually degrade water quality over time...Just a thought. Best of luck man getting her up and running:)
 
I plan to use no sand. I will do my best to make sure that there are no areas collecting detritus in the main display. I’m sure I will occasionally have to blow it around so it can hit the over flows and settle in the sump Thanks for lookin out for me Krish.
 
I plan to use no sand. I will do my best to make sure that there are no areas collecting detritus in the main display. I’m sure I will occasionally have to blow it around so it can hit the over flows and settle in the sump Thanks for lookin out for me Krish.


No problem man...You'll love the bare bottom. My tank is setup bare bottom and my detitus only settles in one spot which makes it easy to siphon up. Best of luck :)
 
Looking good DieselDave. Love the skimmer. I been running a Deltec APF600 for 18 months now and have been very happy with the performance.
 

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