Kris’ 390g Drop of Ocean

[krisfal]

I have been running a 130g non-drilled reef for almost 2 years. I was frustrated with having to go “over the top” with plumbing for my overflow and closed loop. I felt I could not 100% trust my tank to start itself back up if the power was out and came back up when I was not home. I got lucky and never had the situation occur.
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However; this lack of trust got me thinking about getting a reef ready tank, so I began looking and dreaming. The 130g had a 72”x18” footprint which I was not really happy with, but I absolutely loved my stand and canopy. At first I thought I might try to fit a 72”x24” but further investigation showed although the stand had room to support the bigger footprint the canopy, which was designed to extend to the wall behind the tank would fall a couple inches short.

So I was either stuck with staying at the same size or biting the bullet and also getting a new stand. Since I had to get a new stand anyway, I began to think about a longer tank. Then one day my husband said, “why not do an in wall tank”. This was a surprising comment from my “reluctant hostage to the hobby” husband. Although many of us dream of the in-wall tank with a fish room behind, I was at first reluctant. My husband and I built our home, and I was not real anxious to begin tearing out a wall. I was also concerned about being able to sell our home in the distance future. After all, as weird as it seems, not everybody in the world wants a giant reef tank in their house. But my husband argued that he could put the wall back in just a couple of weekends (of course that doesn’t include the time it would take to take the tank down J). Since my husband is a contractor, and probably one of the better “drywall patchers” I finally grabbed onto this idea and decided to go with it.

 

[NC2WA]

So when is your tank going to be delivered???

and BTW, you got me by 15 gallons

 

[krisfal]

So now began the planning and pricing stage. I wanted to give my tangs plenty of room, so decided I would go with an eight foot tank. I like being able to view 3 side of the tank (front and two sides) so I did not really want to put the tank flush into the wall. So decided to build the wall out and around the tank, leaving the two ends exposed. Something like this:

 

[krisfal]

I spent several months pricing debating glass vs. acrylic, and getting prices from many sources. I finally settled on acrylic. I had gotten some great quotes on some tanks, but then I began to watch on RF as a rash of acrylic tank failures occurred. I also watched along as both Joe and Kirk had their tanks built. I began to see that quality was more important than price. When it came to quality it seemed many people were in agreement, Clear Fabrications, Inc. was the place to go. That, combined with it being a local shop (no shipping to pay for) made me decide I wanted Jason to build my tank.
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So in April I contacted Jason, and together we began planning my tank. I was a little intimidated to plan a custom reef ready tank as I had never owned a reef ready tank so did not know what worked well and what didn’t work well. Jason was great, he talked to me about options and shared his wealth of knowledge and walked me through all of the decisions. I would have never gotten that from some builder half way across the country. In fact my first visit to his shop was four hours long, we talked about tanks, motorcycles, cars and driving fast! I left feeling excited, my dream was going to become a reality and I felt confident in my decisions. All through this process Jason has been very supportive, listening to me and answering my questions. He helped me design the biggest tank I could within (ok lets say pretty close) to my budget. Jason believes in minimal waste of acrylic (he has another term for this but I forgot it). I will never regret the decision to have him build my tank, it turned out so beautiful (oh but I am jumping ahead).
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One of the better pieces of advice Jason gave me was to go home and use tape to map out the location of the tank. As stated above I was thinking of an eight foot tank, and the wall I was using was almost nine foot, no problem right? Well the plan was that the back six inches or so of the tank would be in the room behind this wall. When we began mapping out the tank and the foot print of the new wall we quickly discovered we only had 94 5/8” inside of the room behind the wall, while Jason teased and said the tank should be 94 3/8” (don’t want to waste that acrylic) I decided to leave a bit more play and go with 94”. The width and height would be between 30” and 32” depending on how the cuts went (using the full sheets of acrylic). In the end the tank ended up 94”x 31” x 31”, built out of ¾” acrylic.
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</o>I also ended up having Jason build a metal stand. At first my husband and I were going to build with wood, but my husband tends to overbuild and his ideas were really cramping the room for the sump and skimmer. A metal stand gives you the strength without all the bulk of wood.
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</o>For my sump I was planning on converting my 130g tank. Then at the PSAS picnic Jason had generously donated both 50% off a custom tank and 50% off of a custom sump. So I bought a lot of tickets in hopes that I could win the sump, and it worked!! So when I picked up the tank, Jason and I planned the sump.

 

[krisfal]

<o></o>Equipment Plan: After talking to Jason about closed loops I decided to go with 2 pumps with 4 way Ocean Motion wavemakers for a total of 8 outlets all coming up from the bottom. I may in the future add a pump to run a sea swirl (or 2) on top if I find I do not have enough agitation at the surface, but I am hoping between the returns from the overflow at top and the power of the two closed loop pumps that this will prove unnecessary. I am currently using a Dolphin amp master for my closed loop which will be transferred to the new set-up. In addition I just purchased a Reeflo Hammerhead for the other closed loop pump.

I will also be recycling my current mag 24 for my return pump. I am really trying to recycle as much equipment as I can. So, on that note I will also be using my 3 x 250w metal halide system and bumping up the efficiency by adding some luminarc type reflectors. I have DIY’d a couple of these already and I cannot believe the difference! I am currently only using two of the MH fixtures on the temp 180g (it only has 2 small portholes) with the new reflectors and to my eye I am getting as much light as I was on the 130g with 3 fixtures. In addition I will add two Compact fluorescent fixtures that originally came with my 130g.

The skimmer is where I will have to sacrifice for a while. At this point it is not in my budget to buy the skimmer I want (Ok lets say the skimmer Jason tells me I want :lol:) so I am hoping to get by on my current Octopus for a short time by not increasing my bio-load except for the live rock. I have read a little about the use of two skimmers, and there are varying opinions on that, but I have read that if going this way that different type of skimmers would likely be more efficient (not sure I understand all of it, but only trying to get buy for a short time). So on that note, yesterday I traded some equipment for a DIY Becket style skimmer that I think I will try to add to the set up while I save for a really good skimmer.

The last pieces of equipment that I have planned for at this point is I am buying Mike’s (Herefishyfishy) Ozone set up along with his AC III controller. Oh, I am also buying a good portion of his live rock (70lbs so far, and will be picking up more as he gets his coral sold). I am also trying to figure out an automated water change system; unfortunately, I do not have access to the house plumbing in the room I am using (our lower floor is a slab on grade and I am not into cutting concrete, so I am still trying to figure this one out). I have three 55gal food grade plastic barrels (We used to use these to practice barrel racing on our horses, but I don’t ride anymore since my partner (daughter) grew up and moved out). I have cleaned these up and currently use one as storage for my ATO. I think I will connect two of these together for the ATO for the new system and use one for mixing saltwater.

 

[NC2WA]

Kris,

I can calm your nerves as you will NOT be disappointed on the tank Jason builds. It is a solid piece of equipment and the craftsmanship is exmplerary. You saw this first hand when you visited a couple weeks ago. Hopefully you saw the steel stand he also built. The tank is not going anywhere.

Post some pics when you get some time.
Kirk

 

[NC2WA]

Kris,

Besides the tank, the most important two pieces of equipment that you will buy are lights and a skimmer. I would not skimp on these. You want to enjoy your investment, not working on the tank every 1-2 days, because you didn't get the proper skimmer. But I think you already know this.

My .02 <sermon off>

 

[krisfal]

So are you ready for some action and pictures yet?


The first thing I needed to do was get my current set up out of the way. I was not looking forward to taking out all of the livestock, tearing down my tank, cleaning it up, resetting it up and then acclimating all of the livestock. So I began looking for a cheap temporary set-up that I could have ready in the office and just move the livestock. I found an older 180g acrylic tank very cheap that fit the bill, it also came with a real ugly stand. So I set this up in our home office. I needed to plumb this new set-up as cheaply as possible so I recycled plumbing from a failed over the top closed loop I had replaced a while back, it looks really funky as I had to use it in a total different layout so what was before the line out of the pump is now a capped of piece of plumbing sticking in the air (don’t laugh too hard at this Tracy, I am not a plumber, I just play one at home).


Action:


Take everything from glass box A:

and move to plastic box B:

Remove wall marked X (ignoring robosaurous who is trying to protect the wall)

The tank will go right about here:

 

[krisfal]

Demolition Day

And the fun part, DEMOLITION!
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[krisfal]

While I was doing the demo Jason was building the tank

 

[krisfal]

Big Day!

[FONT=&quot]Picked up tank and stand Friday 7/13/08

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[krisfal]

I decided to use a brush on Line-x type product to protect the stand. Following the directions I washed the stand with soap and water, then scuffed with 60 grit sandpaper and then wiped down with Xylol, I used 2 coats of brush on Herculiner, applied with a texture roller (both found at GI Joes) and am very pleased with the results, a nice thick layer of protection for the metal.
<o>Here is the stand cleaned sanded and ready to go:

Stand with coating:

Close up:

</o><insert stand="" painting="" pictures="" here=""> While I was working on that my husband cut a piece of plywood for the top of the stand and cutout the holes for the plumbing (which all comes up from the bottom) in the plywood. I then painted the plywood and a trim board (which will attach to stand to both cover the pink rigid foam under the tank from view and serve to protect the tank from the door in the room which opens towards the back of the tank).

So this pretty much catches us up to date. Today included putting the parts of the stand put together and seeing if I have enough friends to lift the tank onto the stand and moving it into the room (I cannot get the tank into the room once the new wall is in place so this has to occur first). Then we can begin to frame the new wall. We are trying gather some people for Friday to lift this monster onto the stand and move it in the room. Then we hope to knock out the framing and drywall next weekend.<o>
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[krisfal]

Post some pics when you get some time.
Kirk

Fast enough for you?

 

[Snowboarda42]

Looking great! Keep up the pictures and postings!

 

[krisfal]

[FONT=&quot]Picked up tank and stand Friday 7/13/08[/FONT]

Have I mentioned I am blonde:lol:, this should be Friday 7/11/08. Who would want to add another Friday the 13th, when we just had one last month.

 

[NC2WA]

Kris,

Yes. I had no idea that the tank was done. It looks SWEET !!!
Damn, Jason knows how to build them tanks.

However, I believe the punch line you were looking for was:

I am not a plumber, but I did stay at a Holiday Day Inn.

Once you get everything plumbed, and moved over, I would love to come see it.

Kirk

 

[krisfal]

Kirk, You are more than welcome to come see it when it is up and running.

I really appreciate you demonstrating your automated water changing system to me, who would have thought a person could carry on a conversation while doing a water change!

I have promised my husband that this project will just be slow and steady progression, with no unrealistic deadlines/goals. I am going to try hard to keep my promise although I know the urge to get it wet will be striking before too long!

 

[NC2WA]

Kris,

Take it slow..I did..I waited one year before I purchased my "showcase" fishes, and glad that I did.

 

[Krish]

Looking good!

 

[Scooterman]

I know what it is like taking your time doing it right, two years I got mine almost the way I wanted it & then sold it
LOL

Anyway, nice progress, tank looks great!