MitchM tank build

[MitchM]

Well the tank finally arrived today.
There was a 2 week delay getting out of Tenecor. I was able to track it up through the border, no hassles there.
Environment Canada issued a heavy snow/ winter storm warning for our area so I tracked down the aquarium to a yard in Calgary and asked if I can come and pick it up before we have snow on the ground. We live on a steep hill.
First they said yes, then they said it would be too much trouble to empty out a 53' trailer to get to it. I told them it would be less hassle than pulling their truck out of the ditch....no go...
They ship it to Red Deer....it snows of course...now they won't deliver it until the roads are "clear"...
Next they ship it to Sundre...well, we only go to Water Valley on Fridays...o.k. it's Friday...we're on our way...Hello?..this is the shipping company...our truck broke down, we'll call you in a few days.
So it shows up today. I'm glad the temperature is 0 and not the -27 it was there for a bit.



It's just me here to do this, so I get my tractor and unload it:



In order not to put too much pressure on the sides of the tank, I cut a couple of 2 X 4's a bit wider than the tank and hold the straps off the edges of the aquarium:


...and away I go:



I wasn't totally alone..I did have an audience:



I placed it up on my table saw and unwrapped it:



The best part...not a single scratch!

Here's the feeding tube and you can see the edges rabbeted for the lexan lids I ordered:



The back 40" overflow:



Here are the intake strainers, with my iPhone on top for size comparison:


While I was waiting for the aquarium I was looking at a full size piece of plywood, trying to imagine aquascaping this thing. This is going to be a daunting task.

Mitch



.

[Delphinus]

Looks great!!!

Tank this size there should be lots of fun options for 'scaping methinks. That said, I hate aquascaping. Mostly because I'm hugely fussy, but tend to really like what others can do and really hate what I can do. I'm sure everyone feels this way about their tank to an extent but it's *really bad* in my case.

Were this my tank, I'd probably go with bommies and ravines, and bommies the size that I had originally thought of for my 280 before I put them in the tank and realized how much too big they were for my tank, which was too bad because I really liked the shapes .... but anyhow it's your tank so don't listen to me and go with whatever vision you had in mind.

[Red Coral Aquariums]

Now there's a monster tank.
Kevin

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Looks great!!!

....... but anyhow it's your tank so don't listen to me and go with whatever vision you had in mind.

Thanks Tony.

I don't actually have a vision, other than some basics.
I want a healthy diverse sandbed, and the live rock to be suspended above the sandbed with enough circulation space in order to prevent detritus buildup within the rock structure.
I have some fairly old live rock (well, old as far as closed system aquariums go) I've had some of this live rock for 10+ years.
Cooking live rock is basically keeping it in it's own system and allowing the rock to shed accumulated detritus. I would like to do that in a system that can handle the shed detritus on an ongoing basis.

In nature, coral larvae spread everywhere and successfully grow where there is sufficient food. We do it backwards in that regard - we place coral first and then try to bring food to them.
I would like to set up my system in such a way so that there are areas of food concentration that I can identify and then place coral in those spots and see if they are successful. I don't know, maybe I'm dreaming here ..

I'm going to be trying to raise and enrich some artemia first and see what happens to them in the main tank. I'll decide on my direction of the display from there.

I'll be drilling, pegging and epoxying the rock structure to begin with, hopefully I'll be able to create a couple of pockets where food will swirl and accumulate.

One thing that I haven't dealt with yet is the return water from the overflow. The overflow is built to handle 3500 gph. I will need to drill some return holes in the top bracing of the tank. I'm not sure if I should go with a lot of small return piping, or maybe just 2 large return pipes.
If anyone has some suggestions, I'm all ears.

Mitch

[untamed]

Looks great! Nice strainers. I know those work perfectly and create zero dangerous suction at their surface. Use a threaded bh so you can unscrew and replace them easily for cleaning.

If you aim a couple of the cl outputs upward slightly toward the surface, you won't have any need for Sea swirls. (I've heard that they don't run reliably for long periods...but I've not personally used them) My water surface boils from two outputs on the bottom of the tank.

You mention "a couple of Reeflo pumps"...but only have 4 holes in the back wall? Two holes for the strainers, leaves only two holes for tank inputs?

Consider using two of the top/corner holes as sump returns (over the top will prevent back draining in power failure). Use the other two top/corner holes as part of your CL's. Even though you are a bit short on holes, you could still put an OM-4way on one or both CL's. You'll just have to connect two outputs into one, but you'll still get benefit of the current mixing they can provide.

I like your idea of placing coral where the food appears to be. It is going to test your patience to wait that long to add corals!

[MitchM]

Thanks!
Actually all 4 holes along the back are the intakes and the four holes in the top bracing are for 1" Seaswirls. I'll have 2 Reeflo Superdart gold pumps each having 2 intakes and supplying two seaswirls. I've had seaswirls before and I liked them.
I also like the seaswirls in that they will keep mainly the top level water moving. I'll get maybe a Vortech or two for the mid water movement.
I would like just a slow but constant movement across the sand bed.

Mitch

[MitchM]

...continued from the
Bidirectional flow thread


(****Post from Kevin at Red Coral)


There are 4 holes drilled in the top brace to accommodate 4 seaswirls,

****1.5" bulkheads

which were to be fed by the 4 holes drilled in the lower bottom back of the tank.

**** I can't tell the size of these holes I would hope they are for 2" Bulkheads

My original sump return was to be determined and because the tank is acrylic I have the ability to reasonable modify it.

**** You can modify as acrylic is easy to drill but with such an incredible tank (do you want to?)

What I would like to do is use only the front two top holes for the seaswirls and drop a couple supply pipes originating from the sump down the back two top holes.

**** seaswirls are an option.

The two supply pipes would alternate the flow, clockwise or counter clockwise in 5 hours one direction with a 1 hour rest followed by 5 hours in the opposite direction, 1 hour rest. Repeat.

**** I personally do not recommend creating the directional flow from your supply lines from your sump..This is where your heaters, filtering etc. are located and do you want to shut that down for an hour every 5 hours. Your directional flow pattern is also where it could become problematic. Do you really want or need to create this flow supply from the sump?


The top zone would be kept moving through the closed loop full time.
I have 1 reeflo dart supergold for the closed loop and 1 reeflo dart supergold for the sump return.

Depending on the results of the final setup, I was leaving open the option of adding the MP60's. The price of them is giving me a lot of incentive to minimize how many (if any) I put in there.

**** If the 4 closed loop holes in the lower back are 2" bulkheads you could then add another dart gold and use 2 of these each to supply a pump and each return would be to one side of the tank. You could pipe in whatever flow and to what areas you wanted. Then with timers you could create your directional flow at the 5/ 1/ 5 timing.

****Kevin

[MitchM]

Hi Kevin,

The holes in the top are 2 1/4", the holes in the back are 2 1/2".

That's a good point about the heaters. I wonder how much heat the tank would lose? I heard that acrylic had some insulating properties, plus I'll also be using lids on the tank.
I'm not too concerned about the temporary loss of filtering at this point. I don't want a heavily stocked tank. The tank feedings could occur near the end of the rest cycle.

If I went with your last setup suggestion, I would still need to drill a couple of holes for the sump return, wouldn't I?

[mr.wilson]

Sorry, if I'm making an already confusing discussion, even more so, but I have a few questions about your design. There are four holes in the top for the (now two) Seaswirls, but the plumbing is coming up from within the tank?

The Supergold Darts only have 12' head before shut-off so I assume you have 1.5" plumbing all the way up, and you aren't going more than 6' up. That 4300 GPH quickly turns into 2200GPH with 6' of head, a ball valve, check valve, and a few elbows. If the two Seaswirls are on a closed loop they will also have more headloss than your proposed tidal system. How many effluent lines will you have on your closed loop? I assume you are dropping down to 1" at the Seaswirls. You may only have 1500GPH on your closed loop by the time you finish up.

You may want to consider a pressure rated sump return pump like a Blueline or Iwaki 100 for the two Seaswirls and use four 1.5" effluent lines (reduced to 1" at the tank) for each of the two Superdart closed loops.

One of the benefits of an OM unit over solenoids (other than cost and noise), is that the OM will allow some passive flow through the closed line(s). This is beneficial considering that these lines will be off for 5 hours and will become anaerobic. Also keep in mind that you may have some air in the lines as they fire back up again. The bubbles aren't a big problem for corals or fish, but they do make a mess of your lighting (salt spray). The Om unit will not allow air into the line when it is cycled "off". The OM has a soft on/off cycle so you don't dislodge biofilms from your plumbing every time it changes path/direction, as you would with an abrupt cycle.

I'm leery of turning pumps on and off on frequent cycles, especially pumps that are not magnetically coupled such as the Sequence line. I find with these pumps, particularly as sump returns, perform and sound differently as the impeller settles in varying positions. If you set it and forget it, these pumps are reliable. Pumps with a soft on/off are another story.

Are you using the check valve as an air intake or to physically stop water flow (back siphon)? Is it a swing, ball or wye style check valve?

I'm not sure if you will achieve your tidal sequence if you are just using one pump to go through the cycle.

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by untamed

....

I like your idea of placing coral where the food appears to be. It is going to test your patience to wait that long to add corals!

The longer I think about it, the less I want to put in this tank. I want to be sure that whatever I put in there, I want to be able to feed enough.
I'm in no rush to stock it.