EternityBC's 450g 12 feet of floating fun

[eternitybc]

I have always wanted to do one of these tank builds but never seemed to get around to it. Since I hope this is the last time I upgrade my tank (fingers crossed) I figured I would give it a shot. My wife and I have been in the hobby for about 12 years now slowly progressing from a 5 gallon to having multiple 100+ tanks.

This all started when I just finished setting up 125 in the living room last year.

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I even had my fish room plumbed into the basement and had everything well underway.
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It included a easy inline water change system where I could isolate 20 gallons (bottom Bin) with a 3 way, dump it into the drain, then gravity transfer 20 gallons RODI (top bin) into it within 30 seconds. I would just add salt and then return it into circulation once mixed.

So..........
That was all great except by the time it was setup we had already outgrown the 125 and I didn't want to keep multiple display tanks anymore. So instead of starting the quarantine process with new fish, we made the hard decision to start again and this time we are going BIG. As Big as we can.

That left us with this 144x22x33, and yes it's going to float in the air with the bottom open :biggrin:
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I put together a PVC frame to get an idea of the size.
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Now I wanted to go a lot deeper, but 22" was already right up to the window sills. Having dealt with tall tanks before, the 33 is going to be a pain, but I love the look and the extra water volume, so it will be worth it. It's going to make my aquascaping a little tricky but I have 100 pounds of branch rock that should help.

I have been planning this build on and off for the last year or so and we're about 6 months into the build. We have the tank on the way from Concepts, LVLs in place, and fish room gutted. I will try to post each major step in the next weeks to get up to current date.

Next post, the support beams. 5-1/4 x 18" PSL2.2E Monsters

[hillegom]

Go big or go home?
I want to see the build.
Keep the pics coming

[WarDog]

Oh this is going to be good. Can't wait!

[eternitybc]

So the first step was the structural engineer. At 8.6 pounds per gallon we're nearing 4000 pounds just to start, add the glass weight, rock, sand, beams, etc and we're easily approaching 6000. The tank is 3/4 sapphire glass and the bottom can't deflect more than 1.5mm over the 12 foot span.

Now luckily the room sides are directly over the foundation so we came up with a plan to embed two sets of 16 foot LVL beams into the walls on each side.
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Now with the structure figured out it was time to try and find someone to build it. This proved a lot harder than you would think, after having a bunch of people look at the job we finally found a company that could pull it off.

And so it began:
The beams were so large they only could be moved by crane.
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How do you get two 16 foot 1000 pound beams in the house? Well you cut a hole in the side of it :biggrin:
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They had to cut through the floor and make sure the weight was directly transferred onto the foundation:
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Each beam was tied together along the full length. Here is a shot from below.
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When it was all done we had a floating shelf spanning from wall to wall.
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And finally here is a mock up of what we're planning to do on the face of the beam. With the bottom open and lit up with a led strip.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50048092187_eacf565698_b.jpg

[hillegom]

that was a lot of work. You will have to stay in that house for a while.
Looks sharp.
I"m glad you had an engineer to help
Tank next.
I am waiting for water Woohoo

[Ryancw]

Incredible, i cant wait to see more.

One of my favorite parts of build threads is peoples creativity and ability to tie it into the home rather than just a tank, on a stand, in a room.

Great work:pop2:

[eternitybc]

Thanks for the kind words guys. Sadly no tank yet, it's with the movers and scheduled for delivery on July 6th which has me both terrified and thrilled.

Here it is being built:
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3/4 Sapphire all around. Overflow on one side with three 1.5 bulkheads, and two 1" return holes on the other. We put holes along the top back brace to allow for 4-6 gyre to be positioned along the back wall. I plan on putting 2 MP60s and 2 MP40s on the sides.

Since the tank sits almost against the wall I needed to make room for the Gyre magnets and a way to hide all the cables. I put together some recess boxes:
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Here are all four done:
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Each has a hole in the bottom so I can run cables down below the tank.
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Here it is all mudded and painted:
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[bauder1986]

Now this...this I must follow

[eternitybc]

Well, small set back...
I put a level on the beams after the construction and everything looked pretty good. Not perfect, but totally passable for standard construction. It was kind of nagging me in the back my mind for a couple months though and it occurred to me I had a laser level. So I shot a line 5 inches above the beams and measured down. Well I'm glad I did. It turns out over the span of 16 feet a tiny bit out of level translates into almost 1/2 of an inch, with more than 1/4" racking corner to corner. So that sucked.

Not wanting to try and bandaid it with foam I decided to bite the bullet and redo the top.

Before I leveled it, I wanted to put as much weight on it as I could to ensure I didn't get much settling.
9 bins of water and 1500 pounds later; I'm pretty sure my neighbors thought I was nuts as I filled these with my garden hose.
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A week later, off with the plywood, and of course it had to be glued :mad:
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Tip: if you ever have to remove PL glue, a heatgun turns it soft enough to easily scrape it right off but use a chemical respirator, I did half of it without one and paid dearly that night.

Now to shim it, I have a planner so I made a jig to plane 1x6s down into long wedges. I ended up making eight 4 foot wedges which where about 1/8" shorter on one side. It was tedious as hell but worked well. Here they're installed:
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Grabbed a nice finished birch 3/4 plywood from Windsor and proceed to glue it down only to realize I only had about half the amount of glue I need. That was proceeded by a frantic trip to the hardware store and a ton of clamps to get the curing glue flat. In the end it turned out perfect, less than 1/64 from end to end.
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Putting me right back to waiting for the tank :lol:

[Piscez]

Wow already a roller coaster and the tank hasn't arrived!! Good for you man perusing your passion and an understanding wife LOL. I see you used PoCo building supplies! We must be near neighbours I"m in Citadel heights, best of luck going forward.

[mseepman]

Awesome build thread. I'm hooked. So glad you put the effort in to fix the slope, it would have driven you crazy.

[eternitybc]

Wow already a roller coaster and the tank hasn't arrived!! Good for you man perusing your passion and an understanding wife LOL. I see you used PoCo building supplies! We must be near neighbours I"m in Citadel heights, best of luck going forward.

Thanks! I'm over in Port Moody so not too far away.

Time to start thinking about the fish room, I have been putting it off for a while. Here is the basic layout I have so far:
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So the idea is the Frag tank and Refugium will overflow into the main sump. If I have enough flow I will tee off the return line otherwise it will be a separate pump. Sadly I'm dealing with 16' of head pressure back to the display.

I will run the RODI unit into the top of the Salt container and the RO Tank, each having there own solenoids and float valves. I may even plumb a drain at the top of each tank too in case they fail.

The RO Tank will be used for top off to the sump and quarantine tanks.

I liked the idea of having lots of quarantine tanks, but I haven't decided yet how I'm going to plumb them. Part of me wants to add drain holes to the sewer on each and a filling pipe from the sump so I can easily empty the quarantine and refill it with tank water.

I have all the tanks except the four 20G quarantines. Here is the beast for salt water:
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Any ideas are welcome as I haven't fully committed to this yet.

[eternitybc]

Oh and this just arrived:
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[hillegom]

A heat exchange unit?

[eternitybc]

A heat exchange unit?

Yup! The plan is to run a re-circulation pump from my gas hot-water heater through it and use it to heat the sump. I did some rough math and it should save me about 40% on my heating.

[mseepman]

Wow, interesting idea on the pump. Would that be in the water out would it just be Pex lines coiled inside?

[WarDog]

Yup! The plan is to run a re-circulation pump from my gas hot-water heater through it and use it to heat the sump. I did some rough math and it should save me about 40% on my heating.

Very interested to see this in practice. Please provide details and pics of the installation and final product. I'm guessing your home has an instant hot water boiler and is already plumbed with a re-circ system?

[hillegom]

Is the heat exchanger made from 316 stainless?
That"s one of the best corrosion resistance ss. However, it will corrode as well in saltwater, albeit very slowly.

[eternitybc]

Wow, interesting idea on the pump. Would that be in the water out would it just be Pex lines coiled inside?

I was originally just going to coil some Pex into the sump but I read that having all that water in the coil sitting at 25 degrees isn't ideal (legionnaires) especially since it's returning back into the water supply. That's why I went the heat exchanger route.

Very interested to see this in practice. Please provide details and pics of the installation and final product. I'm guessing your home has an instant hot water boiler and is already plumbed with a re-circ system?

The fish room is an unfinished bathroom in the basement so it has the hot and cold lines already there. The plan is to use those as the loop back to the hot water tank using one of these:
Watts Recirculating Pump (https://www.watts.com/products/plumbing-flow-control-solutions/water-heater-accessories/hot-water-recirculating-systems/500800)

So here is the design I'm thinking:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50065747238_23cb68de0f_b.jpg


Is the heat exchanger made from 316 stainless?
That"s one of the best corrosion resistance ss. However, it will corrode as well in saltwater, albeit very slowly.

Since I'm going to put saltwater through it I had to go with Titanium for exactly those reasons.

[eternitybc]

Next up on my immediate list is figuring on my aquascape. Since my tank is so tall I'm going to need some very high structures but I want to keep them very long and narrow. Something like below but having it raised up about 12 inches.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/28/98/c1/2898c1d2de3f47c1fe6fe711f44566e2.jpg
Or
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f8/55/98/f85598378fef68dd7fc1465cbaaae4af.jpg

Anyone have any experience making something like this? I'm thinking of smashing up some dry rock, using PVC or Acrylic rods then using Marco mortar to stick it all together?

[msjboy]

I recall the tidal garden guy having some youtube reference to a "guy in asia doing a floating aquascape"( don't remember which youtube of his but had some link ) but you can see this show tank he is working on in eps 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_3zTB6Fllg . His tank is similar to your except deeper. You can always ask him a question as he is quite receptive..he was on reefdudes not long ago.

[msjboy]

...and from tidalgarden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MfhEFRTgk4, his link is to some guy in korea using marco dust and glue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YabRU1LYDY4 there are some other related links as well from there.

[eternitybc]

Very nice. To bad there isn't a place in Canada that does this. I noticed on BRSTV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIfXc-Pg0cQ) the host got his rock done down in Florida, but I can only imagine the cost to ship and the border nightmare that would be.

[LifeIsGreat]

You can also glue rocks together using white pure portland cement. The downside is that you have to add at least 2 months to the curing time or the tank's water ph will climb out of control. The plus side is the cement is more chemically natural and cheaper than glue, and will house good bacteria.

[msjboy]

You can just buy the marco rock, slice it up with a band saw, chisel or dremel it and go from there as well... BRS did a video on that. Don't forget to save some costs, but some hydron and put it in a bucket in your sump. It's cheaper than the biofilter blocks yet equally as effective with it's surface area /density. Is the tank going to be SPS or a bit of everything? - there is enough room for it.

[eternitybc]

Now I'm kinda leaning to do both cement and break up a bunch of rock.
As a test I bought a reciprocating saw diamond blade
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I forgot to get a before picture but here is what it looked like. This was one of my more dense pieces.
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And now in half, took about 30 seconds and was super easy.
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For the cement this stuff looks good
https://www.lowes.ca/product/mortar-mix/quikwall-50-lb-white-cement-mix-10396
Here is a note from the manufacturer:
QUIKWALL® Surface Bonding Cement (No. 123150 – Gray; No. 123050 – White) with QUIKRETE® Concrete Acrylic Fortifier (No. 8610) replacing a portion of the clean mixing water as per instructions would be appropriate if you are looking for a trowelable coating for potable water containment. Two 1/8” thick coats will need to be applied for water containment. Products containing cement, such as QUIKWALL® Surface Bonding Cement, change the pH level of the water with which they have contact during the curing time of the concrete – typically 21 to 56 days. It would be recommended to check pH of the water after 1 hour, and periodically thereafter to ensure that it meets the requirements for potable water. You may view the data sheet for the QUIKWALL® at https://www.quikrete.com/pdfs/data_sheet-quikwall%20sbc%201230%201231.pdf. Consult local codes since requirements vary.

I figured I have about 100-200 pounds of mixed marco, pukani and shelf rock. I also have a bunch of branch rock coming.

As for the stocking, I'm going for a bit of everything with a fairly high fish load.

[msjboy]

You should check out recipes for the cement mix for your setup; I am sure there are but the ready mix might have undesirables in it?. I recall Russell of Prince George doing some DYI frag plugs with is cement recipe. Here is a link to his recipe: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=59760&highlight=cement+frag .

[LifeIsGreat]

I concur with msjboy, the only factory made cement product that is pure enough for reef tanks is portland cement - it is made of baked limestone without the additives. Brock White sells white portland cement if your local big box stores don't carry it. I have successfully used this material for years. Just be sure to fresh water cure in the dark for 2 months, rinse it well, then switch to salt water, and after adding salt water let it sit for a week then test the PH. If the rock is raising the PH then let it cure longer before adding life to the tank.

Nice choice on cutting the rock, those flat pieces are great for stabilizing the base. Rubbing them on the driveway will grind off any ridges.

[eternitybc]

I concur with msjboy, the only factory made cement product that is pure enough for reef tanks is portland cement - it is made of baked limestone without the additives. Brock White sells white portland cement if your local big box stores don't carry it. I have successfully used this material for years. Just be sure to fresh water cure in the dark for 2 months, rinse it well, then switch to salt water, and after adding salt water let it sit for a week then test the PH. If the rock is raising the PH then let it cure longer before adding life to the tank.

Nice choice on cutting the rock, those flat pieces are great for stabilizing the base. Rubbing them on the driveway will grind off any ridges.

Thanks, yeah finding it was more the issue. I saw a couple posts with people using the quickrete since it was safe for portable water. But if the Portland stuff is tried and tested I will go ahead with that. It looks like there is a Brock White in Burnaby so I will see if they will sell to the public.

[eternitybc]

Moving day has arrived. Thankfully it went off without a hitch but talk about nerve racking!

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And it's in!
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The RedPath guys were great, in and out in just over an hour!


Got my sand and rock too!
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[LifeIsGreat]

Wow! You know you have a big tank when it takes two trucks to move it!

[canadawest]

This is mental!

I'm so impressed by people who have the imagination to come up with these unique builds and all the challenges they produce.

This should end up being an amazing centerpiece of your home.

Following!

[Dash]

Holy schmokes! Wow, having a lot of fun just following along. You’ll be able to do some amazing rockscapes in there.

[DKoKoMan]

I thought my 300g was big! Awesome build you got going on. Now I will pass on to my wife that my tank is small :biggrin:

[Mattyb]

Wow, awesome build

[Ken]

Nice build, who did you get to move that huge tank its awesome? regards ken

[eternitybc]

I think the scale is starting to sink in :lol: It took over 1/2 hour just to wipe the glass down!

Tank is by Concept Aquariums in Calgary.

Nice build, who did you get to move that huge tank its awesome? regards ken
RedPath Relocations
It took me weeks to find a moving company that either didn't just laugh, not understand the scale, or want like 4K to move it. I ended up steering toward industrial and corporate moving companies. Thankfully I came across Tim at RedPath and he was great! Would highly recommend them.

Here is a night shot, one LED should be enough right...
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[lastlight]

Can't wait to see more I love the ridiculous amount of pre-tank effort going into this thing. I was expecting to see steel beams. Those LVLs must weigh a TON! Nice work so far.

That could be the most over-built, built-in bookshelf ever if you decide to move.

[Piscez]

Top notch work so far, looks amazing! Inspiring.....

[msjboy]

What is your lighting...I see some large tanks use extra tilted leds ( egRadion)or t5 for lighting the undersides of the rock work/corals which is shadowed. Also for flow, do you think that is enough with 4 mp60/40s? check out the reef builders guy jake who uses powerful vectra pumps and wave boxes..https://reefbuilders.com/2020/05/14/high-water-flow-aquarium/. ..he claims strong flow that is directional is more important than random flow (which is good for moving the poop to desired area for suction).

[eternitybc]

What is your lighting.
I have 10 XR15s and 2 XR30s. I will try that to begin with and if that’s not enough I will grab three of the 4 foot T5 retrofit kits. That would add another 800 watts of T5.
. Also for flow, do you think that is enough with 4 mp60/40s?
So far I’m planning on putting two eductors on the return side which should flow around 2K / h. Also on each side will be a MP40 & 60. I will try and favour sending more water to the overflow side. Along the back I have 4 gyres spaced out with the thought of adding more if needed. That should give a nice rolling motion front to back.
I ran a closed loop before and wasn’t thrilled with it, it made changing the flow a huge ordeal, plus had a bulkhead gasket leak and vowed never to have holes drilled far below the water line again :cry:
I really like the gyres flow though, they’re a pain to clean but I’m planning on keeping spare assembles then just swap the parts and tossing them in vinegar.

[eternitybc]

That could be the most over-built, built-in bookshelf ever if you decide to move.
:biggrin: I thought the same thing, I could always just enclose the bottom and have wall to wall cabinets you could park a truck on!

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I have 10 XR15s and 2 XR30s. I will try that to begin with and if that’s not enough I will grab three of the 4 foot T5 retrofit kits. That would add another 800 watts of T5.

So far I’m planning on putting two eductors on the return side which should flow around 2K / h. Also on each side will be a MP40 & 60. I will try and favour sending more water to the overflow side. Along the back I have 4 gyres spaced out with the thought of adding more if needed. That should give a nice rolling motion front to back.
I ran a closed loop before and wasn’t thrilled with it, it made changing the flow a huge ordeal, plus had a bulkhead gasket leak and vowed never to have holes drilled far below the water line again :cry:
I really like the gyres flow though, they’re a pain to clean but I’m planning on keeping spare assembles then just swap the parts and tossing them in vinegar.

Looks amazing! Wow!

My experience so far with a Gyre XF350 is that after a few months, it has become quite loud. No matter how much I clean it, the sound is noticeable in my living room. I previously had an older MP40 which I could hear but was quieter.

[eternitybc]

Thanks for all the encouragement everyone!

Looks amazing! Wow!

My experience so far with a Gyre XF350 is that after a few months, it has become quite loud. No matter how much I clean it, the sound is noticeable in my living room. I previously had an older MP40 which I could hear but was quieter.

I have 3 running right now in the 150 but it has a bunch of loud external pumps that might be drowning it out. I will have to watch out for that as the idea is to keep it almost silent. I may have to look at other pumps if it becomes a problem.

Slowly amassing all the gear.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50084106128_4c5463ae60_b.jpg

I'm super psyched about the skimmer
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50084106473_5d15bac200_b.jpg

[mseepman]

I have the dcp-20000 as my return on my 300 and I'm so impressed. I was running a Reeflo and it was loud and always had seal issues and took too much power. I'm running the Jebao at 70% and it's using only 108watts and putting out the same flow in the tank above according the flow monitor I borrowed. I'm running it external and it's silent.

[eternitybc]

I have the dcp-20000 as my return on my 300 and I'm so impressed. I was running a Reeflo and it was loud and always had seal issues and took too much power. I'm running the Jebao at 70% and it's using only 108watts and putting out the same flow in the tank above according the flow monitor I borrowed. I'm running it external and it's silent.

Glad to hear! I ran an external Panworld for years which was pretty loud too. The part I hated most was the power and heat that I was losing with it being external so this time I wanted to stay in-sump. I was ready to buy two Abyzz A200 but I just couldn't justify the cost, especially since their price has gone up recently.
I was hesitant with Jebao as I had some of the original power heads that were nothing but problems, but the pumps seem to have a better reputation. Plus I can buy like 10+ of these for the cost of the Abyzz pumps.

[Skimmerking]

woooooooow dude this is pretty awesome 12 footer yes byyyyyy