Is it variable flow? I tried a peristaltic pump once but it was one speed and too fast for what I needed. The only way you could control it is with cycling it on or off and that was beyond my capabilities..

You nailed it exactly. It is fixed flow. I'll control the amount with a timer function on the controller (Aquatronica).

There are variable rate pumps available but they can get VERY expensive. The least pricey variable rate pumps are really just fixed flow pumps with timers built in.

just came across this thread. Wow is all I can say! The planning you've done is really paying off, as it can be seen in your work. Great job, waiting for tank tour day :P Will donate!

Mermaid shot!
 

What a great tradition! We all know the expression...behind every great aquarium is a really understanding spouse!

Throughout this entire construction, she hasn't complained about anything...sawdust, money, never having access to the computer, drilling holes in our brand new walls and ceilings, spilling blue paint onto our brand new carpet, pending electrical bills, floods (yes, there was one while you were away, dear), filling the entire garage with construction materials, or money (did I already mention that one?)...

...and the topper....she even let me buy an entire brand new house just so that I could build this. What a trooper!

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0511.jpg

So Brad

When are we putting water into that tank. I am waiting for the tour.

Tom R

You told her it was a hot tub didn't you.

Well...It is looking like late February before there will be SW in the tank. The lights just arrived this week and I've started to build the lighting system. Just when that is complete, we're going to take a week holidays in the Carribean. I don't want to start up only to leave the tank for a week.

All that diving and snorkelling should get me really worked into a frenzy. As soon as I get back...it's time to get busy!

Tank tour is still planned for the summer.

Holy Cow! that is one beautiful setup man! hahaha, saying your wife is understanding must be the understatement of the century. Great work, keep it up!

How dare you get us all on the edge of our seat and then take off on a vacation. God the nerve of some people. I'm sorry but you can't go until you are finished the tank.:mrgreen:

HAHA.....she must have been drunk to crawl in the tank with a dress on.:mrgreen:

Love the picture. You should have had your wife dress up in a mermaid costume. Or is that your little secret??

Will

Light Lifter and Frame
 

Man, I would love it if someone could provide me with a simpler design to do this... If you think you have it, please keep the following in mind:

1) Move the lower frame straight up the upper frame. Lift must be balanced.
2) There's no available room ABOVE the upper frame. Nothing can pass through the lower frame during the lift.

Here is the draft of what I'm thinking of building to hold the lights. What you don't see in this picture is the linear actuator that pulls on the cables. It will sit horizontally in top/middle of the upper frame.

Lights will be mounted under the lower frame.

The whole idea is to lift the lower frame straight up as much as possible..hopefully right up against the upper frame. (about 30")

It's impossible to follow the individual cables in too much detail on this crudely drawn diagram..suffice to say that as the actuator pulls horizontally, the pulleys translate that into vertical pull on all four sides for a straight lift. I think it will work, but....is it ever complicated!

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...Lightframe.jpg

Anyone know a good supplier of pulleys? How about a favourite aluminum fabricator?

i would try princess auto for the pulleys. they are dirt cheap and have everything. a good friend of mine is a fabricator and a darn good one. have yet to see anything he cannot build or fix. if you want i can talk to him and see what he will charge to build the frame work. do you have the aluminum already? he live in richmond near the airport.

instead of having 4 points of lift, what if you were to put 2 supports across the middle, spaced out, on the lower frame at equal points. this is really hard to explain without drawing but on each of the 2 supports, had 2 attach points that a 1 cable is attached to. so in other words you would end up with a loop of cable attached at both on ends on one support. you would then only have to have 2 cables come down from the upper frame, attach to these 2 looped cable points and lift straight up. you can always use weights at corners to balance the unit if need be. sorry if this is confusing, i wish i could draw it for you

Like this?

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...suggestion.jpg

I think the problem is that the tighter you make the loops (left), the less stability you get. The larger you make the loops (right), the less you can lift the frame because the peak of the loops will hit the pulleys.

thats true. the is the idea i was thinking of. ok well back to your first drawing why not lift at the corners rather then the middled of the beams. i think that would give the most stability and even lifting

I think that lifting on the corners offers the most stability because it maximizes the distance between the pull points. Unfortunately, getting the cables to the corners would add even more complexity to the design than I've already got (more pulleys!).

Princess Auto was a great suggestion. I've now got the pulleys that I need.

It's ready!!!!
 

It would say that the tank is "Done"..but I know that is a foolish statement. So I'm going to declare the tank "Ready".

The final big step was just completed. I gave up on being able to design the light lifter so well that I could have some aluminum fabricator build it perfectly....so I built it from 2x2.

Here's the overhead tracks. These allow the lights to slide straight backward into the fish room.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0078.jpg

Here's the completed frames. This is a picture of both the upper and lower frames with the actuator fully lifted such that the lower frame is squeezed up against the upper frame. The actuator slides 30" horizontally, while the cables and pulleys tranfer the horizontal movement into vertical movement.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0079.jpg

Here's the end result. Let's just say that the forest behind our house is no longer dark in the evening!

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0082.jpg

Here's some additional shots of the lighting system.

This first one shows how the lights can be lifted straight up by the actuator. A lift all the way to the ceiling takes just under 1 minute. That's the up/down controller that is laying on the bar in the front. I have some plans for that thing...

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0084.jpg

This is a side view showing how the lights can be rolled backward along the overhead tracks. The lights will go back another 2 feet, but the mess of power cords is currently pulling the lights back to this position each time I let go of them. I suppose that is a good indication of how smoothly they roll.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0085.jpg

All in all...I can't believe that it actually works. I'm no engineer...I just made this stuff up and it actually works.

that looks awesome. what type of lighting fixtures are those. looks sweet

Wow.

Those are 48" AquaMedic Ocean Light(s). 2 x 250W MH w/ 2 x 54w T5 Actinics

http://www.aqua-medic.com/products/p...Combo%20Series

so your day job is building rocket ships or nuclear submarines?

This is the first thing I've ever built!

well you have done a great job\

Light Timers
 

A bit of progress on the lights. This photo shows the bottom of a wall shelf that holds the three dual MH ballasts and the three wall-mounted timers that control all the lights. One timer is going to do the T5's, the 2nd does 2 of the MH ballasts, and the third does the third MH ballast.

***update 04/10*** After 3 years, the timer responsible for 2 of the MH began to fail intermittantly such that it would NOT shut the lights off properly. That Intermatic (now GE) timer was not rated to handle the load of 4 x 250W MH and has since been replaced with a more industrial timer with mechanical switching.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0089.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0090.jpg

There are two dedicated electrical circuits there. One circuit has 2 x 250W MH + 6 x 54W T5....the other circuit has 4 x 250W MH only. Cool, you can almost read my labels...

Notice that three timers are synchronized...Yes, I admit I have a problem.

Salt
 

The tank is almost full of RO/DI water and I've added the salt. This is the salt that I am using. So far, I'm not happy with this salt.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0091.jpg

Before I added the salt, the tank was full of crystal clear RO/DI water. After adding the salt, the tank is murky. The water is just not clear anymore. The salt has been mixing on the closed loops for 2 days now and seems fully dissolved. Jason, are you still using this salt?

In addition, look at this pile of sand and un-disolved bits (plastic maybe?) that have settled out. That all came from the salt because it wasn't there before.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0092.jpg

Sorry to hear about your salt. Are you going to change to something else?

Your lighting looks very sleek and clean!

amazing
 

your design and planning is amazing. Nice work. how much rock are you putting in there? aquascaping that monster is going to be fun

Pretty tough to change salt now... Once I get the SpG adjusted, I'm hoping that I can filter to water clear. I'm keen to check the parameters of this salt.

I had same thing with the reef crystals I used to start up my tank last week. The filter bag was real dirty in less than 2 days. :neutral:

I'm not sure how much rock there will be. At least a few hundred pounds, but I'm prepared to leave a lot of room for coral to grow. So I expect that the tank might not look very "full" by most standards.

I'll bring in the rock very slowly. The LR is probably going to be the most expensive living thing in the tank, so I don't intend to use it to cycle my tank with!

Typical of me, I have a plan for the aquascaping that was created as soon as I had the tank dimensions. There's thought put into sightlines and all the bottom bulkheads were actually positioned specifically to the plan. The 4' depth needs to be considered as does the 6' depth (when viewed from the side)

I'm not going to show the plan yet, because I need something to talk about later....

Oooohhhhh he's keeping us in suspense. I love seeing the evolution of this bad boy as it goes.

Why can't you switch salts now? You have nothing but water in the tank right? I mean, i think it would be better to switch to something more reliable now than to kick yourself later when you actually have living things in the tank.

wow, man....WOW. what an amazing design. now hurry up and finish so we can see. :D

Are you going to post the results of your tests on the salt? Can I ask why you chose that particular brand?

Yes I'm still Very happy with the Ocean pure Salt. I continue to recommend it to all. I did switch back to Kent for a short while but found the dirt 100X worse than you have shown pictured above. With Kent I needed to scrub my water change bucket after every water change. I have gone through 3 buckets of OP and my mixing tank is still clean enough. Yes there is some sediment but nothing like Kent. Plus I have found that with OP I'm getting consistently good reading for everything. 470CA 8ALK 1400MG and with Kent I would lucky to get 320CA 4ALK 1150MG

these are just my experiences.


BTW your entire set up looks Fantastic.

J

I could, but I have made a sizeable investment into this salt...both in time and money. It's water clarity that I'm immediately concerned about. If filtration clears that up, then I'll be happy.

I will post my test results, as Jason has just done. I picked it based on good feedback from other users.

Your tank looks absolutely beautiful so far! It's obvious that you've put lots of thought into it.

I used to use Kent salt and now I use OP, and I much prefer the OP! I think your problems will be solved with filtration...at least I hope so!

As of tonight, she's full of SW and running. Heaters are bringing things up to temp.

Since I had SW for the first time, I decided to fire up that G6 skimmer and see how it works. OK, this is going to need a little work. My gate valve mod leaks unacceptably and there are a lot of microbubbles getting into the sump. I'm not immediately sure how to correct this. Possibly a collection of rock rubble between the skimmer outlet and the return pump feed might do the trick.

Should give me something to work on while I start cycling the tank.

I put about a roll of teflon tape on before I slipped the gate valve on then I have the outlet plumber with 1 1/2" to my filter bag... no bubbles here....

HTH
Dan

I like the filter bag suggestion. I tried it but it didn't seem to work....then I had a "eureka moment".

The G6 has three pumps. I found that I couldn't run all three because the water just goes right out the top of the skimmer. (I need to shorten the high of my gate valve mod) So I was running the skimmer on only 2 pumps.

The bubbles were exiting the skimmer through the pump that wasn't turned on! DOH!!! OK, so maybe it was more of a Homer Simpson moment.