Joe's Wet Dream, A 550 Gallon Work In Progress

[NC2WA]

Brenden,

Holy water falls batman !! How big is your tank that you need to perform a 200g WC?
---------------
Joe, I spoke to Sanjay re: LIIIs and 250w vs 400w. He said that if you use a LIII with 250w, you can get the same PAR value as if you were using a 400w. This will minimize your heating in the tank as well as saving some money other ballasts and bulbs.

I am using LIIIs (large ones) with XM 250w 10K bulbs, supported by T5 TEK Ready kits using 2-39W Pure Actinic Plus bulbs from ATI.

Kirk

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks Kirk, did you happen to ask Sanjay what the PAR rating would be for 400w with the Lumenarc III's vs 250w W/Lumenarcs? I understand there are 400w DE's out there, I wonder what a 400w DE W/lumenarc would put out compared to the 400w SE (mogul) with the same relfector, If you get the chance I'd appreciate it if you could bounce those questions off him, my goal would not be so much to get 250's up to 400w performance, I'm more interested in cranking the 400w's up to max performance so I can leave the 250's in the dust ;-)) To me another thing in the plus column for the 400's is that I want to be able to play around with a shorter time interval on my daily useage, for instance if I can get the same results with 8 hours/day usage vs 10 hours/day with 250's that will give me longer bulb life for the 400's vs 250's, and the power cost difference would be offset, but I gotta say also, we get back to the 4 400's vs 6 250's issues in addition, no way would I consider using just 4 250's on this setup, I used a 3 x 250w DE Gieseman hood on my 24" deep 180, awesome lights for that setup, it was optimal for the 180, but I just don't see 4 250's doing it for my new tank, What do you think? I hope I'm not coming across as argumentative, I get a lot of benefit personally by kicking around these subjects, thinking is learning for me...

Best regards, joe

 

[Jobiwan]

System update...

Getting down to the nitty gritty, construction to begin soon, firming up a few things, your suggestions are much appreciated... Just picked up a Current USA 36" DualSatellite 2x96w PC SunPaq with Lunar Lights & Fan for my refugium, we all know how important lunar lights are to fuge's. Raising the stand was a damn good idea, It will be 36" now instead of 32", thanks for the suggestion, four inches isn't much (just ask my wife...buh dum dum...) but it will make a big difference in accessibilty & maintainance, and if I ever upgrade to a taller skimmer I'll be glad I did this...Lumenarc III mini's will be the way I'm going to go for My MH reflectors, and we have worked out an automated water change system, another great suggestion. Great presentation at yesterday's PSAS meeting by Jake Adams on flow and current, I'm making a few improvements in my CL setup per his recommendations, nothing too drastic though... More to follow....

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

What are you using for your skimmer??
Kirk

 

[Jobiwan]

Hey Kirk, I decided on a Bubble King 300, Not that I'll need to upgrade, but if I do change anything a few years down the road I might regret not having that little extra bit of room, and the extra space will make any kind of maintainance easier I'm sure, especially with all the plumbing involved...

 

[NC2WA]

I hear ya...which is why I went with a H&S Skimmer 250 model..it is rated for 700 gallons and I know that I won't have to buy another skimmer, ever.

Jason is planning on coming out on Thursday to do the install of the tank, so I hope to have some pics for you then..I will try and get alot of pics of the plumbing.

Kirk

 

[Jobiwan]

Yeah, I learned the hard way on my 180, I spent almost as much on it as I will on this system, I was constantly replacing equipment on upgrades, when you pay for everything 2 or 3 times it does take the fun out of things. I envy you Kirk, I'm getting to the point where I want my tank yesterday, I'm getting burnt out hashing out all the details on this setup. I did email my closed loops info to Paul at Oceans Motions, he's gonna call me tomorrow and we'll finalize that setup. I'll look forward to seeing your tank and plumbing, it's gonna be an awesome setup...

 

[Jobiwan]

Project Update

Just completed a couple of boring but necessary steps in the process as the delivery of my system looms ahead, thought I'd post some equally boring photos just to keep the thread going, soon I will have some tank construction photos that will be a lot more interesting. Yesterday my electricians came out and installed a new circuit breaker tranfer panel which allowed five new dedicated 20 amp circuits to be installed for my system and will also allow me to use my generator when necessary without stringing multiple extension cords for my tanks, doing this of course ensures that we will have no power outages for years to come. The wall photo shows the placement of five quad outlets, each one a separate circuit, the two top ones for lighting, and the three lower ones for pumps and other equipment, there is also another dedicated circuit in the basement for a chiller when I get around to that. While the wiring was taking place I butchered our floor tile to create a couple of access holes for the remoted pumps inlets and outlets, note the perfect straight cuts, it is hard to find that type of old world craftmanship any more. I've also enclosed photos of some of the equipment I've picked up recently, the garage gorilla winch will be used for raising and lowering the hood when necessary for maintainance etc, once we figure out how to adapt it (and by we I mean Jason...), I also picked up one of the Current USA Satellite Dual 2 x 96w PC hoods for my refugium, seems like a nice well made unit, the casing is powder coated aluminum, Probably be a nice unit for a little softy tank.

 

[NC2WA]

Kewl pics.

Jason and the crew were here today.. I have some good pics of the plumbing that I plan on posted tomorrow. Here is about 60% done..Is coming back on Tuesday to hopefully finish the job. I am just tooo dawg tired to post the pics tonite.

Kirk

 

[plack]

as far as a de lumenarc it has been modded in our club by jlehigh
I don't know if he posts much anymore if at all since going to fish only but he did achieve some sucess you can read the post but there is no longer any pictures :-(

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8480&highlight=luminarc&page=2

Paul

 

[class clown]

love that garage garilla Joe! I think you will too once it's installed. looks very neat!

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks Paul, I'll check it out.

Kirk, I wish I was at the point you are now, I can't wait to see it, get off your lazy butt and post those pics!!! All kidding aside, I am anxious to see how Jason does your plumbing, tell him I'm glad he got to practice on yours before he did mine...

Best regard, Joe

 

[Jobiwan]

Garage Gorilla

Thanks Ben, It doesn't matter if it works, it's just so cool that I can say I've got a Garage Gorilla, I may never plug it in....

 

[Damsel13]

kewl pics I want a garage gorilla too! AND Those lights! I am really very nice

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

Here you go !!!

I've updated my blog site, http://project370.wordpress.com/

It includes pics from yesterday's visit from Jason. We have one more day of installation left. Let me know what you think.

I will also be posting this in the sponsor forum under Clear Fabrications.

Kirk

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks Deb, hopefully it will work...

 

[Jobiwan]

I met with Jason last week and we finalized all details necessary to begin construction sometime within the next two weeks, I've attached the schematics for the sump, the final dimensions we decided on are 60" x 48" x 20", for a volume of 250 gallons. Jason will be sending me photos of the construction process which I hope to post in the very near future {hint hint Jason, I want this tank yesterday ;-)) } You would not believe the amount of time Jason has spent with me during the five months of planning and design for this system, he's an incredible wealth of knowledge with all his experience on high end systems, I've learned more in the last five months about equipment, how to set it up and how to use it than I had in the previous 5 years on my own....

The overflow from the tank will feed the prefilter, Jason custom builds the prefilter boxes, this one will measure 14" x 14" square, it will be 16 inches high. It has two pull out drawers for filter media, i.e. filters pads, carbon, etc. There will be a MJ 1200 or some such small pump feeding the DSB fuge from the skimmer chamber, I'm getting bored with chaeto, so I'm going to try my luck with seagrass in it. The small chamber after the DSB will have a bunch of large coral rubble and such for Copepods etc. This will then spill into the Calcium reactor chamber, which flows directly to the Iwaki 70 return pump, so the fuge residents won't have to fight their way through the Bubble King 300 skimmer. There will be a 9" partition between the skimmer compartment and Ca reactor/top off chamber, the water from the skimmer chamber will flow over this partition into the Ca reactor chamber, maintaining a constant optimal depth of 9" for the BK 300, evaporation will show in the Ca chamber only, that is where the RO top off unit will do it's thing...

 

[NC2WA]

nice pics of the sump.

Is Jason going to be installing your plumbing? He did a good job on my plumbing, esp. the automation for the water changes that flows into my drainage system under the crawl space. I figured that just saved me anywhere from 1-2 hrs of work every 2wks.

 

[Jobiwan]

Hi Kirk, I checked out your photos, That is one neat and professional plumbing installation. Jason is doing all my plumbing, if you had seen my 180 (I did all the plumbing, and I use the term loosely), you would know why I decided before I ever saw your setup to have Jason do everything, seeing your system gives me an idea of how well done mine will be. I do envy the fact that you have the garage location for all your equipment, you've got great access to everything, mine will be a little tighter since everything but the pumps and RO will be under the tank. Jason is setting up an automated H2O change setup for me, the water tank will be remoted to our garage (about a fifty foot run, I just bought an Iwaki 100 on eBay to power that and mix the salt), my wife will really miss having those giant red olive barrels sitting in our living room for a week at a time, but I suppose she will get used to it....

 

[NC2WA]

The Iwaki are a great pump, but are not as quiet as a dolphin or sequence pumps. I plan on laying down some extra padding on the stand to see if this will diminish some of the noise, but hey it is in the garage and not in our living room. My wife is happy.

The only thing left Jason has to complete is drilling holes for the bulkheads for the mixing tanks and installing the backup autotop float value. Once this is done, I plan on adding salt and turn on all pumps to mix 'er up.