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180G Office Paradise (2 Years Old!)


JDigital

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Hey everyone! I'm back.... with a tank! I kind of got out of the hobby a few years ago when me and my old roommate at the time basically got evicted from the house we were living in by the landlord (who was his MOM!.. Anyone who knows her, knows she's a bit psycho). That put me in a bind as I had just setup at 110G 6ft Shallow tank and it was only about 2-3 months old. The 2 places I lived in after that (including where I live now) did/will not allow me to have a tank, so I've been sidelined from the reef world, although I have peeked in on the forums I use to frequent hourly, but basically disappeared for awhile. That being said I wasn't a huge poster here on Nano-reef so my "glorious" return is probably not that exciting! :lol:

Anyways, on with this new chapter in my reefing life!

About 2.5 months ago, the owner of the company I work for moved back from Texas to Canada, and with him, he brought his 180G fish tank that he had. Not wanting to start another tank he left it at the office, where it has been sitting looking rather pathetic, while I tried to persuade and convince my manager to setup a Salty tank.

I finally got approval a few weeks ago to go ahead with a saltwater build so the updates and photos to follow are my progress over the past little bit.

The tank I have to work with is a 180G tank with the dimensions 60x24x29. This puppy needed to be drilled though as it was not reef ready.

Here is what I started with...

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So far what I had planned for this build was the following, some of the equipment has changed since though:

- 150lbs of Dry "Live" Rock (seeded with 20ish pounds live rock)
- 2x 250W MH
- 40"x19"x16" sump tank seperated into 3 sections
- Bubble Magus NAC7 Skimmer
- Mag drive 1800 Supreme Return Pump
- Korallia Powerheads
- 4 Stage RO/DI
- Dual Corner Herbie Style Overflow

More to follow in the next post....

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So first up on the list of things to buy was a sump tank.

 

I went with a 40"x19x16, with a slightly different than usual baffle setup, mostly with the way it channels the water through the sump. The theory behind it is to make the water travel a distance to allow for any bubbles to rise up before getting to the return section. I have yet to see if it works, but looking forward to it..

 

Couple photos.

 

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Once that was ordered I moved on to browsing the Buy/Sell section on my "local" reef forum, and found a set of Lumen Bright Pendents, 2 Brand new XM 20K bulbs, and 2 250W Coral Vue Dimmable Ballasts for $250 bucks.. Unfortunately they were a province over from me but I arrange shipping with the seller and had them about a week later. :)

 

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More updates to come tomorrow after I have had some sleep... Although I will be staying at the office late tomorrow to work on the tank some... Just might be able to get this thing wet tomorrow.. *fingers crossed* :)

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So a few days after getting the sump I went back to concept aquatics picked up a huge haul of stuff for the tank.

 

RO duties will be left in the "hands" of this beauty.

 

Puratek 4 Stage RO/DI w/ Pressure Pump (100GPD)

 

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I went with a Water Blaster HY-7000 for my return pump. This will feed my return and my skimmer.

 

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80lbs of Aragamax Grade Sand

 

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Coralife Salt. Enough for 300G worth of water. Should be enough to get me going and do a water change or two.. (apologies for it being upside down :P )

 

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Refractometer and Plumbing..

 

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Main things I wanted to get done when I came into the office 2 weeks ago.

 

- Silicone in my overflows

- Drill the holes for the overflows and returns

- Plumb the tank

- Position the sump and stand where I want them.

 

I got 2 out of the 4 done, mainly because I got my overflows made to the wrong height and had to leave the the office to get them corrected. I got them made to 28" (30" tank Trim to Trim), unfortunately that left me with 0.5" to the lip of the tank from the top of the overflow, a risk I didn't want to tank. Thankfully Roger and concepts was able to correct this for me today. Still time consuming but I'm in a training class next week, so not sure how much time I will have to work on the tank and really just wanted the overflows done.

 

I did in the end get the overflows installed and the tank drilled. The sump is in position.

 

Plumbing the tank I put on hold as I'm debating about adding a blue or black backing to the tank, and the plumbing would just get in the way. I could just let it encrust with coraline I suppose.. Gonna sleep on it this weekend.

 

Not a great pic as it was with my iphone, but this was basically how it sat when I left the office tonight (minus the frogger tape and dirty glass).

 

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Last week I was in a training seminar for work, but swung by the office a few times during the evenings to get the plumbing done as well as spray painted the back pane of glass and finished applying the arcylic overflow panels.

 

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After doing some research and talking with a few people I decided to make a change to my original equipment list and changed my skimmer choice.

 

I picked up the Skimz SM202 to handle the skimming duties. I think it is a much better choice for this size tank than the Bubble Magus. Very impressed with the build quality of this thing too. Thankfully it JUST barely fits in my sump.

 

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Also picked up 150ish #'s of Dry Macro rock that Concept Aquatics just got in.. I gotta say, 150lbs of dry rock seems like a lot.. I did a mock up of an aquascape, and I still have a 1 FULL box (out of 4 @ 40ish lbs each) of rock after words.. And I don't even have the live rock yet to seed it. I may just have to keep the extra box of dry rock for myself for the 62G I bought. We'll see, I should be able to play around with the aquascape this weekend.

 

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As of now you are pretty much up to date with where the build is at so far... I will be sticking around tonight after work to finish up the the light racks so I can start filling the tank tomorrow/this weekend.

 

 

 

Here is a photo of the 62G tank I bought for myself, although I need to find a new place to live before I can set it up as my current land lord does not want a tank in the house.

 

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Wow.. no love for tank at the office? :happy:

 

 

Tuesday I got around to welding up my light racks using 1"x1" steel tubing. Sealed up all the ends to prevent salt creep and corrosion and finally finished with a few coats of black paint to tie them into the color scheme of the tank.

 

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One issue I came to realize was that with the size of these Lumenbright Pendents, and the annoying glass brace (pictured above) it was going to be a bit MORE of a pain when it came to maintenance on this 30" deep tank. Thus I decided to make it super easy to swing these lights out of my way, freeing up the whole top of the tank for access (except for the brace).

 

Quick video of how simple it is.

 

After that was done I installed the ballasts inside the stand, setup my timers and tested the lights. I gotta clean up the cables a bit. :lol:

 

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And finally before leaving for the evening cut out and laid in my egg crate floor. I've never done this before in any of my previous tanks, but figured I would give a try with this, hoping that it provides a sold base for the rock to sit on rather that the smooth glass. We'll see how that goes tomorrow when I mock up an aquascape.

 

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As much as I wanted to get the RO/DI flowing tonight and start filling, I held off as I wasn't comfortable leaving it running all night without being able to check on it. So I will be into the office bright as early tomorrow after Formula 1 Qualifying to start getting this tank wet! :mrgreen:

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DT has a rim but the sump doesn't lol.

Looks great, I'm sure this will be exciting :happy:

 

I had no choice regarding the DT :( Would have been great if I could have had a custom DT built too... sump was a customer order though, so there is at least a bit of new glass in this build!. :P

 

 

Looks like a sick build that skimmer looks like monster lol

 

The Skimz is definitely a step up from the Bubble Magus NAC7 I was originally going to use. :happy: Looking forward to seeing how it skimz. ;)

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Tagging along :)

 

Thanks TuLIP! :)

 

Everything you have done is clean so far. Nice build.

 

 

 

iroll253 - Thanks for comment!... I think there are some area's I could have done a better job. I really wish I would have had an ATO budgeted into the system.. an Apex Controller would be nice rather than using the timer bar I currently have, but I had a specific budget to work with and so I spent that on a quality skimmer, good rock, a strong return pump, decent lighting. Essentials really. Once I start stocking SPS, I may bite the bullet and add an ATO out of my own wallet, just to help keep the salinity more stable.

 

Awesome, very nice start!

 

Thanks jball! Appreciate you swinging through my build. :)

 

Very nice, are you going to run a chiller?

 

Just curious, as part of talking your boss into it was you doing it off the clock?

 

No chiller should be needed.. We have a strong A/C system in the office building, nor does it get very hot up where I live...

 

Not so much off the clock.. as I'm on salary anyways, but I will be the one doing the maintenance as no one else in the office has much of an understanding of how to take care of it. To be honest, I don't mind spending a few extra hours around the office during the build as I thoroughly enjoy the build portion of any tank. The biggest problem I have had is that without having had a tank for almost 3 years myself, this has totally got me wanting to have a tank at home, which I'm unable to have. :P

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clean start man, you got some skills!

 

who is paying for this ? lol - looks like you have a nice budget.

 

Well this isn't my first tank... ;) I've had a 30G, 75G, 110G prior to this..

 

The company is paying for this tank, minus the extra $150 I pitched in to upgrade the skimmer to something a bit more capable. Decent budget, but we reefers could always use more! haha :lol:

 

Tagging along

 

Been checking out your build for a couple weeks now. Looks great!

 

Are you on Canreef as well? I only started posting my updates here on NR 3-4days ago.. :ninja:

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Well this isn't my first tank... ;) I've had a 30G, 75G, 110G prior to this..

 

The company is paying for this tank, minus the extra $150 I pitched in to upgrade the skimmer to something a bit more capable. Decent budget, but we reefers could always use more! haha :lol:

 

 

 

Are you on Canreef as well? I only started posting my updates here on NR 3-4days ago.. :ninja:

 

Lol oh. Well it was a busy week for me and 4 days felt like weeks. All the beers I had last night didnt help. :lol:

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Well I am back at the office today...... I gotta say, it's not so bad saying that when I'm not actually here for my 9-5 job! :lol:

 

I finished the aquascaping... and I am liking my first attempt quite a lot.. I was originally worried when I did my mock up (pictured above I think) that I was gonna have a hard time creating a good looking aquascape with such a deep tank... I've never had a tank deeper than 20" before, so this was a bit of a challenge but like I said, very happy with how it looks right now.. Lots of tunnels and passages for the fish.

 

Couple shots of the aquascape..

 

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Left side at an angle...

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Middle at an angle.... I purposely left the middle section of the rock lower due to the fact that the stupid glass bracing that I wasn't able to remove cuts my lights spread through the center of the tank.. So I will use that area for low light coral most likely.

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Right side at an angle...

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And the water is flowing!.... Slowly @ 100GPD...

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So I am in the process of filling the Display portion of my tank of which I have dual overflows.

 

My left overflow appears to be sealed tight so far.. My right one, appears to have a very slow leak.. there is about 6" of water in the display section, and about 2" in the overflow.

 

I am using a Herbie style overflow.. if my main drain height is equal to the height of lower lip on my return bulkheads, in the case of a power outage, once the water drains to the lowest lip on the return bulkheads (and the highest point on main drain)

 

Will the water level between the DT and overflow equalize at the same height or will the pressure in the DT push through the leak and Raise the water level in the overflow ABOVE that of the Display area?

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My understanding is that because there is a leak, the pressure (and thus water level) between the 2 sections will equalize.

 

This is all presuming that a power outage occurs and the Display drains to the lowest lip of the return bulkheads which is the same height as the top of my main drain in the leaky overflow, of which the overflow would drain to.. thus, same water level in each..

 

Correct???

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If it were me I would silicone it now since doing it now will require less work. Waiting till the tanks full and everything and then deciding to do it, is gonna suck.

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