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

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Joe - looking good my man. Glad to hear surgery went smoothly too.

Question: Where did you pickup that big ole water storage vat? and how much did you pay? I'm in the market for something similar although it'll probably be on a smaller scale.

thanks
Ben
 
I know what you mean Kirk, I snuck by Jason's today to drop off my moonlights, that is one herking stand. I don't know if two guys can lift it.

Ben, I got my tank from National Tank Outlet,

http://www.ntotank.com/info.html

Mine is the 105 gal under vertical tanks (not vertical water tanks), they have a lot of different shapes and sizes, horizontal tanks, etc. The tank was around $125.00, I thought that quite reasonable, then I found out the shipping on UPS was $130.00, 38 pounds but the oversize nails you. I looked at several other dealers, they say there are only two manufacturers in the US, anyplace closer like CA that had cheaper shipping had higher prices, probably due to their shipping to get them. I couldn't find anyone in Wa that sold these kind of tanks, but they must be out there somewhere, probably would cost more with the sales tax anyways...
 
Joe,

It is going to take a minimum of 4 good size men to move your stand into place. Hopefully, you do not have to go up any stairs, etc. otherwise it is going to take more lifting power. I was lucky that they just rolled in on the garage floor and the 3 of us were able to drop it in place with realtively no trouble.

Looking forward to see the pics.

BTW, I have a pair of cinnamon clownfish in the tank. I will be posting pics later today.

Kirk
 
My tank has taken on a life of its own, it is now 36" high and over 600 gallons, turns out the sheet of 1" plexi will work for 36", any less just is wasted plexi, gotta buy the whole sheet, might as well go for the max height, I'll be swimming in this thing anyway to work on it.....
 
Joe,

I know this is prolly getting ahead, but do you have any idea what and how you are going to stock this tank?? Reef only, fish/reef, or FOWLR ??

I did my first 35 gallon water change. It took 15 mins to complete and I didnt even lift a bucket or get any water anywhere. Gotta love the automation.

Kirk
 
36" -- wow Joe.. it's going to look awesome. I love the look of deep tanks. but you're right, better invest in a good snorkel :):D:):D
 
Hi guys, this will be a reef system, one that I will definitely be swimming in, I'm going to use a minimal amount of live rock to give the corals lots of space to grow, I've got 800 pounds curing in my 500 gallon kiddie pool, that will probably be all I will use, but we will know better once it is in the tank. 430 pounds of that is made up by 7 (seven!) chunks of Tonga Kailini, these will be the basis for my twin peaks (inspired by the show...not), the rest is equal amounts of Fiji Totoka and Marshall Islands, a lot of which will be piled up on the back wall just because, there will be a four inch space between the wall and the back of the tank, I'll have Jason do a few vertical mounting plex strips to accomplish this. I'm running a Euro-reef CS-180 on the curing vat, after two weeks I am still getting a full collection cup a day of dark skimmate, I've never cured my own rock before, but I'm assuming that once I quit getting skimmate I can assume it is fully cured, please correct me if I am wrong...

I can't wait to try an automated water change, the weird thing for me will be the fact that it will take weeks to get this all set up and running properly once Jason installs it, I'm used to smaller systems that are up and running and thoroughly tweaked in a few days...

Hey Mark, I'd like to hear what you have to say about other skimmers, and I'm sure other folks with big tanks will appreciate it, it's great to know the cutting edge, things are always evolving in our hobby... Jason ordered my BK about a month ago, it is somewhere in the "shipping on a boat/customs" limbo, hopefully it will show up soon. The three factors I liked about the BK were (1) height of the unit, I had to have one that would fit under my tank with plenty of clearance for accessibility, (2) it needed a footprint less than 15" in width so the whole unit would be easily removable with 14 inches of clearance between my sump and the bottom of the stand, and (3) it had to have just one pump. Just one of my quirks, I can't stand skimmers that have three or four pumps strung around them, I'm just hard wired that way, it's tied to the same part of my brain that will never let me buy a pink car....
 
Jobiwan said:
I'm just hard wired that way, it's tied to the same part of my brain that will never let me buy a pink car....
Click to expand...

lol!!!!

here's the main one i was thinking about...

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merc...&Product_Code=SQ-OCT-PK&Category_Code=reefflo

then people all over the world (lol) are turning in their bk's for these..
http://www.korallen-zucht.de/en/shop/products-technology/skimmers/39_revolution-l-abschaeumer.html

so now that the bk is on it's way, tell them to send it back...lol


ahhh, but if only you could have waited for the bm300, it would probably skimm more that the bk plus one of the other ones i mentioned
 
Last edited:
Those both look great Mark, I'm sure skimmers will continue to improve, when I get tired of my Bubble King in a couple of years I'll talk to you about the latest greatest, you are a wealth of information. I'm considering adding a 100 gallon cryptic LR setup on my system, that will put the system gallonage up to 950, so I did need something herkier than the BM250. I would have given the BM 300 a serious look, I was impressed with the performance of the 250 you showed me at Barrier. I just didn't want to wait indefinitely, back in Feb the BM owner posted on Zeovit that the 300 would be out in about a month, I emailed him in April and he told me it would be out in about a month, a month later I called your distributor in CA (Andy?), not to buy from him, just to get the most direct info, he hoped they might show up in a month, I can't find anything indicating they are here yet, let me know if you have any info, here is something I just got off zeovit dated July 7...

4) Currently, the BM250 is the biggest skimmer available in the USA that ATi makes. They are working on a BM300, but there is no clue on the release date. Base on your proposed setup, you wouldn't need a BM300 as I believe it is designed for the 1,000g range.
 
well, in all seriousness, you bought one of the best skimmer around, you will be very happy!
untitled.jpg
 
On Wednesday(7/11) I rode into Seattle with Jason to pick up all the plexiglass for the system, the pieces were so large that he had to use his trailer, they wouldn't fit in the back of his pickup. 1 inch thick plexi is some impressive stuff.

Yesterday Jason and I drove to Tacoma where we met with a gentleman whose business is all about Stainless steel sheetmetal work, he fabricates just about anything you can imagine, they do some beautiful work. He took the basic ideas for the stand and hood that we had and suggested some dramatic improvements. He will have an estimate for us on Wed after his CAD guys finishes up, I have absolutely no idea what this will cost, I am holding my breath in hopes that I can afford to do go ahead with this, as they say in France, this will really be the piece of resistance..

The port holes have been cut out of the top, I made sure that I could fit through them for future swimming pleasure, there was room to spare. I had my camera, but I thought I'd wait till next week to take anything for posting, it will be more interesting when it starts to be assembled.

My live rock is still curing away after 3 weeks, I'm still getting several cups of skimmate every day which I assume indicates continuing organic decay (please correct me if I'm wrong), I would have thought a couple of weeks curing would have been plenty of time, glad I didn't just throw it in my system.
 
Joe,

Can't wait to see some pics !!! It sounds like this is a very expensive project. I went waaaay over what I wanted to pay, but I am very satisfied and pleased with the end result. You will be awestruck by Jason's craftsmanship; it is truly amazing.

I plan on adding a pair of mural gobies, sand sifting starfish, and several cleaner shrimp next. I am another week away from adding any coral. Will start out with soft leathers, etc..and see how they fair first.

Kirk
 
Hi Kirk,

I know what you mean about Jason's craftmanship, I only wish it were shoddy, If so I wouldn't have dove into a project of this size. Glad things are going so well for you, I plan on going down the same road you are, slow and easy, softies before any stonies etc, I'm gonna leave lot's of room for the sps to grow out to a more natural state without all the pruning, it's gonna drive me mad to have such a sparse tank while I'm waiting for it to mature, although I suppose it will be tolerable since I am already certifiably insane....
 
yeah, it is very hard for me to see such a nice big tank and only have 2 fish in it, but in the end all the patience will pay off..
 
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