My 400 g build

Ok, I'll get this forum started.

First, here is a link to my build thread on RC.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=630143

The tank measures 7' long by 3' tall by 2.5' deep. I started this project way back in '05. The system has been set up in some form or fashion since then so it's going on 6 years in my hands. I won't repeat all that I've done as it's all listed in my build thread. But I will highlight some of my issues and things I've done.

First off, I like to keep this simple. It just makes life easier. So I don't run all of the fancy gizmos that everyone else seems to like.

I started with some big jacuzzi pumps for my closed loops as they came with the system. I replaced them with Sequence pumps as they were quiter and drew less electricity. I don't like the look of powerheads and such in my tank. However, with that said, in an effort to make my tank more electrical friendly, I am in the process of replacing my two sequence Closed Loop pumps with 10 Korillia 1400 pumps. This will do two things. One it will give me more flow in the tank and more spots of flow source. And the biggest is it will lower my electrical consumption from 600W to 60W.

Another issue I had with the system was the use of GFCI outlets. I have three dedicated 20 amp circuits for my system. I had installed GFCI outlets in the area of the tank for my electrical equipment. I had a major issue when my GFCI for my pumps had tripped and i woke up to dead silence. I lost a lot of my prize fish during that incident. I have now removed the GFCI outlets and instead installed GFCI breakers in my electrical pannel. They do cost more, but it would have probably saved me the loss of ten beautiful fish costing several thousand dollars. The issue with the GFCI outlets was salt corrision which shorted out the circuit and caused the failure. This would not have happened with the GFCI breakers.

One of the other things I have done is to replace my MH lights with solar light tubes. I have recently completed this work and am now waiting to see the results other than in my lower electrical bill. My corals have browned out which I have found out will happen. So now I'm waiting for them to color back up. I will probably wind up suplimenting them with some PAR 38 LED lights. But they won't use near as much electricity as my 800W of MH lights did.

If you have any questions about running a big tank, ask away.

that skimmer is crazy! Very nice!

dwolson2 wrote:that skimmer is crazy! Very nice!

Wana buy the skimmer?

Clownfish,
As for the solar tubes and light. There is a bit of a yellow tinge to them. Or to be more presise, no blue in the light. It looks a lot more natural and what you would see when diving on the reef in say 30 feet of clear water or so.

Of course, between water changes, it does get a bit more yellow.

However, I do like the color as it is more natural and more of what I remember snorkleing in Pago Pago or diving in Thialand. and the shimmer lines are unbeleiveable. There is no other light that can replicate the natural shimmer line sof the sun.

At present, my corals have browne dout. But I do see some color starting to come back in the new growth on my orange Monti cap. Time will tell how it all works out.

I am still looking at adding in some PAR 38 LED lights. I just don't know if I want to go all blue or with something around a 12K bulb. My current thought is to actually place the bulbs inside of the solar tubes. This, I hope, will accomplish two things. One to add in some blue to the sun light as it travels down the tubes. And two, to intensify the light from the bulbs when there is no sunlight.

Hope that answers your questions.

orphek is going to be sponsors for us, so you may want to hit them up

Hopefully their prices come down as they are almost twice the price of otehr PAR38 bulbs that are out there. either that or I'm just looking in the wrong places.

But I've heard good things about them.

Sounds very neat. Do you have any pics of the actual solar tubes? Or how you have them set up?

Look at the last few pages in my build thread on RC. I documented it all there.

To combat the browning out from the solar tubes, check on theatrical lighting tint sheets. You could get a sheet and put it over the end of the sola tube... It'll reduce the intensity, but increase the color temp...

http://www.stagelightingstore.com/Stage-Lighting-Store/Gel-Color-Filters/

Thanks, I'll look into some once I'm done with my upgrades if I need to.

So I got all of my stuff ordered and shipped in while I was out of town.
400G of salt
10 Korilia 1400's
Red Sea wave master pro
3 PAR 38 LED bulbs in 20K.

Now I just ned the time at home to finish the work.
I did get started some on it. I did a waterchange with what water I had left that was mixed up. While the tank was partially empty, I began installing the 1400's. I wound up putting 4 on each end in each corner for a total of 8 in the tank right now. I've got them hooked up to the wavemaster, 2 per circuit. They move a lot of water yet are nice a quiet. They seem to work great on the wavemaker.

I also removed one of my skimmers and slowed down my return pump so that there is less water moving thru the sump. I'm down to about 1200GPH thru my sump now with the skimmer running at 900 GPH.

As I'm watching how things are working, I'm devising my final install plan for all of the 1400's. But for now, I'm content on how they are set up until I can tear the tank down.

I've shut off the 2 C/L pumps other than 2 15 min periods just to circulate the water in the pipes and it dosen't become stangnant untill I can remove them. But for now, I should see a dramitic decrease in my electric bill, hopefully around $100 a month.

Well so far, things seem to be going Ok with the new pumps.

On the down side, I've lost several fish, including my Majestic Angel that I've had for several years. Not sure what happened. But I lost him, my pair of lemon peel angels, my Coral beauty angel, my Ebilli angel, and three of my clowns. So now I'm down to 4 fish. I'll be waithing until after I tear down the tank for the complete rebuild before I add anything else to it. I just hope my Pink Tail Trigger survives. So far, so good.

On another note, I started playing with my new PAR 38, 20K, LED bulbs. I wound up buying some lamp hardware and mounted them inside of the solar light tubes, about 6" from the top of the tube near the celing. They seem to be working Ok inside the tubes. My thought was that it would mix in with the sunlight during the day and that at night, the reflective tubes would help increase the light output.

So far, I like the looks. During the day, you can tell that the LED's are on as it adds in a bit of the blue to the sun light. Also you can tell it in the color of the corals.

Later at night, when the sun starts going down, you can see the blue light more prominint. One thing i did notice is that the light from the LED's does not completely mix together. There are 3 Blue and 2 white LED's in each bulb. But down in the tank, you can see a white spot from the white LED's. I'll have to maybe play with the tube lenght some and see if that might change this. But for now, here are some pictures i took with my phone.

Mid day sun, no LED's


Mid day sun w/ LED's

With LED's




without LED's

Night time w/ just LED's. It dosen't really look that blue, it's the camara.





You can see the white spot i was talking of in this pic.





My 2 RBTA's.

Those lights definitely make a difference

Well wife got the electric bill the other day. After only about 2 weeks of the new pumps and lights, the bill has dropped about 60 bucks. Well see the real savings next month when I suspect at least another 40 dollar drop in the bill. That will get me from the 500 dollar a month electric down to at least 150 dollas a month electric bill.

do you mean you a savings of $150 a month or your bill will be down to $150 a month? Anyhow, thats a huge drop! I'm trying to bring down my bill below $100 during the summer...don't know how much will I save by switching from 8 x 39 watt T5 to (3) Radion LED units.

I'll be down to at the maximum of $150 a month. That's a $350.00 drop from where I was a few years ago running the 400W MH, two big C/L pumps, The big skimmer, and a 72G bowfront with 150W MH.

Getting rid of the 72G droped about $100. The rest has been going with the solar tubes and my new pumps along with throtteling back my return pump and going to a single skimmer and mag 9.

OK, I did some work this weekend. Sorry, no pictures yet.

I completely emptied the tank. I took out all of my rock and scrubed it some to get rid of the bubble alge that I saw along with the accumilation of dirt and grime in the rocks.

I removed all of my external plumbing and pumps and then plugged all of the holes. It might not look as pretty as it did before though as now I have a few white plugs in the tank but at least the monster pumps are gone.

I've put in a total of 10 Korallia evolution 1400 pumps. Each one flows 1500 GPH. I have them hooked up to a read sea controller. I have 4 circutis programed into the system in a random reef mode. The 4 circuits are: 1)three pumps on the left end placed top, middle, bottom. 2) same as 1 but on the right end. 3) two pumps on left side of center overflow mid bottom and mid top. 4) same as 3 but on right side of the center overflow.

The system is set up so that when I hit the feeding button, only the pumps on #2 will be on. This keeps the frozen food I feed from going down the overflow into the sump and will give the fish time to eat.

As I posted before, I put in the PAR 38 20K LED's inside the tubes. These seem to be working out great. I've noticed that my Branching Hammer has opened up more now with this light. Time will tell as I began to add more corals to the tank how well this light set up will work.

As for my electric bill, it has dropped another 30 bucks. I don't think it will go much lower. I'm still going to replace my return pump and get a new skimmer but I don't forsee the bill droping much if any. Best I would think if it does drop would be $20. max. But at least for now, my bill has dropped from a high of $500 a month to $170, so I'm very happy.

I'll be posting up some freebes from my tear down so take a look there if you need anything.

I'll get some pictures once the tank has cleared up and is looking better. I'm having a problem with 2 pumps that keep droping into the sand and making a sand storm. Got a fix for it so no big deal.

I guess SCE made enough money from u now. Next step is solar panels?

Nope.

At this point, electrcity would cost me more per KWh going solar than it does from SCE. I checked into it last year. That's why I did what I did. Less money investment from me and about the same results.

After talking with 3 different solar companies, one of them finally told me that Solar was really only benificial money wise for those who continusaly run up in the tier 4 and 5 range which is where I WAS at. Tier 3 level cost is about the same either way. Now that I'm down in the tier 2 level, it's cheapier to stay with SCE.

OK, I've got a couple of corals in the tank now as a test to see how things go. Got Zoa, LPS, and SPS. So we'll wait and see if things go good with all the changes.

PICS!?

Here's the deal on IO salt.

http://ventura.craigslist.org/for/3004143096.html

OK here's some picturs. It's had to get a good picture of teh difference with the lights but I was actually standing in front of the tank one day at high noon with full sun when the LED's came on. You could tell the difference when they did come on.

I got a Pink Birds nest colonie that's not so pink. But the pylops were extended greatly when I was looking at it the otehr day. So it's doing good. Now if it will just color up.



Full tank shot. This time, I drilled some holes in the rocks and used plastic clothes hanges to lock them in. Now when my trigger digs the sand out from under them, they don't fall.



A green slimer frag.



That's about all of the good pictures I got. I've alos got a few Zoa's, a superman monti and of course my branching hammer is still doing good. Now I'll just have to wait and see how they grow while I'm back in Portland.

Looks good, I love the rock work too. What rock hangers did you use to stabilize the R
rock?

Nice corals, where did you get them? haha. Btw, the rockscape looks better than last time I've seen it.

Sandman,
I bought some cheap plastic clothes hangers at Big lot,s. They were like $2.00 for a pack of ten black ones. I just cut them into the lenghts I needed. I used a masonary drill bit, stacked the rocks a little at a time like I wanted, drilled a hole as deep as I could thru teh rocks and put in a cut peiece of hanger. On the lower rocks, I made sure that it went all the way down into the sand and went thru a couple of rocks so that it was all locked together. So far it's working as my trigger has dug out some sand already to make his home.

The corals I found in some old decrepited tank that some guy let get overgrown with purple stuff. I stole what i could while he wasn't looking. So far, they are doing good. The Zoa's are wide open but not a lot of color. The green slimer looks good when the LED's coem on and looks liek it's already growing. Funny part is I lost it in the sump. I thought you had given me one but I couldn't find it. I wa sgoing to call you but when I cleand out my sump, I sucked it up into the Vaccum cleaner and found it when I was draing out the vac. Put it in the tank and it's doing good.

I wanted to keep the rock work open so that WHEN I get some corals in there, they have room to grow in. That and I'm thinking of getting another Majestic Angel and a Moorish Idol to replace the one's I lost and so need room for them to swim around.

Well I've had some test corals in the tank now for about a month. Nothing has died. The few that were not browned out still have their color. Not sure if they have grown much, but at least they are still alive.

I'll be putting in my grow out contest frags today and will post up pictures. I've also picked up a nice yellow scroll coral ( Tubinaria) from my visits to Portland and have placed it in the tank. One thing I did notice that I have'nt noticed in the past is that the tubinaira poylops extend at night.

I've also noticed that my solar tube extensions I put on cause soem spot lighting. With the bright sun we've had this weekend, I could really tell it and could see teh "cone of light" beaming down into the tank. So I went and cut 6" off of the extension to see if teh light will spread out more. I'll know more today when I get home. Down side is that while doing this, one of my LED PAR 38 bulbs did not come back on, so I've got to get it replaced. It's only about 2 months old of use.

While out running around on Saturday, the Wife and I stopped in at Tat's in T.O. We found a beautiful Blonde Naso tang for sale there. The Wife fell in love with him. He's about 8 or 9 inches long plus 3 inch streamers. I tried to make a deal with them but no joy on that day. It was a trade in from one of their customers and Chuey was the one who had to make the deal. Well the wife kept bugging me and so yeaterday we went back to try again. I was able to make a deal on him and brought him home yesterday. He looks awsome in the tank and is hanging out with my Pink Tail Trigger. He's bigger than the trigger which make shim the new big guy in the tank. He seems to have settled in quickliy and is not pacing the tank like he was at the store. Here's a couple of quick pics I took last night with my phone. I'll try and get some better ones when I take some of the new corals. One thing I did notice on him is that with all of teh sun light I have on the tank, his colors are super bright when the sun hits them. Almost like some one plugs him in and turns on the lights. He looks awsome like that.

That's a pretty fish

Glad to see that fish go to a great home I always hated seeing that guy in their tank he looked like he needed a nice big home

He hasn't eaten yet. But he's been hanging close to my pink tail. When I fed the tank yesterday, of course the hog pink tail was all up in the food munching away. The Naso was right up there with him in the food but I didn't see him eat. Hopefully soon he'll start eating.

Do you know how long they had him at Tat's?

Here's another pic I took last night.

OK, I took a drive today and went to this place to get some salt.

http://www.rainbowaquariumandpond.com/

That's teh place Nike posted that puts sale stuff up on craigs list. Well let's just say i was impressed. Lot's of corals. lot's of fish. Everything from small SW fish to Giantiac, I'm talking a French Angel that is like 2 feet long.

Anyways, I got my salt and a new friend. Wife saw him and I had lost my last one so we picked up a new buddy and brought him home. He's about 5" long or more. Price was better than Tat's. And they have 30% off for the 4th. I'll definatly be going back. Nice bunch of guys as well. It's about 50 miles from Oxnard. Near the 118 and 405.

Haha, they got you for the cheap salt and ended buying more stuff! Nice, I have to pass by that place when I'm in the area.

Leave your wallet at home, or be prepared to spend some money.

Crusty Old Shellback wrote:He hasn't eaten yet. But he's been hanging close to my pink tail. When I fed the tank yesterday, of course the hog pink tail was all up in the food munching away. The Naso was right up there with him in the food but I didn't see him eat. Hopefully soon he'll start eating.

Do you know how long they had him at Tat's?

Here's another pic I took last night.

Not 100% sure but I would say less than a month

Thanks. He's starting to eat now. They said they had him eating frozen food's, brine, mysis, etc but he didn't touch them in my tank. I got some larger Spectrum pellets yesterday and he's now eating them. Now if I can get all of my fish back on pellets, it'd make life easier. I've been spoiling them with frozen for some time and now they aren't that interested in teh pellets.

Well wouldn't you know it, I'm away in Portland and the wife took off for a little trip. When she got home yesterday, she found the tank partially empty and water on the floor.

I got Mike to stop by the house and help out. It looks like something happened to my return pump and it stoped pumping. Mike said it's humming so eitehr it got clogged with something or it seized up. I'll know more when I get home and tear into it.

So with the return pump not pumping, the water drained down to it's normal level. No big deal right? Well it wasn't. But being off for several days, it seems that my overlow box is not completely sealed from the tank and so water was slowley leaking into the overflow. And of course from there it just drains down into the sump, even though I have a durso stand pipe.

So the water filled the sump and then drained out onto the floor. So now the floor is soaked once again and will have to be removed.

I got Mike to pump out the sump so at least if anymore water drains, the sump can hold it. The bad part is I do not fly home till Friday evening. Mike is headed out of town on Friday. So all I can hope for is that whatever water continues to drain, it dosen't overflow the sump.

Right now the tank is skimmerless. I still have water circulation in the tank so I should be Ok for a few more days.Fish are still alive but are hiding.

Thanks Mike for the help, I owe you one. Or two. I'll post more about it once I get home and assess the situation. Now I have to go find new flooring and install it. Not something I was looking forward to doing. I also want to figure out how to seal off the bottom of the stand better so water dosen't get under the floor again. Wife is not too happy with having to deal with the tank with me being gone. BUT she said I still can't get rid of it.

Crusty, the question is, are the flow pumps enough for the fish until you get back? Does the water need to be airated (doesn't the overflow provide air to water)? I always wonder if my battery backup for my MP40s will help during a long blackout but I guess you'll find out on friday.

Could you put a tank contrroller on it so if this happens next time you get an email

Stinks that your return pump stopped. Could you plumb in a drain below or around your sump, so if it overflows, it just goes into the drain as opposed to the flooring? Kind of like the things for washers?

I hope they are. The wife had to unplug another set of them as it was making noise. But there are still 6 evolution 1400's running on the tank so thats about 8400 GPM flow. She said the fish were coming out some last night. We'll see what happens. At least this time I don't have as many fish as I did last time.

If I remove the sump, I could put something in. But then I'd have to tear everything down. The sump is about 90G and I had to slide the stand in over it when I put everything in. I'm going to look at putting is some kind of silicone barrier or something of the like around the inside of the frame. I had put some silicone in when I built it but I guess it wasn't enough. The concrete foundation that it sits on is slanted a bit away from the house. I poured self leveling concrete on the rest of the room but just didn't do it under the tank. But I did level my stand. remeber this room used to be nothing more than a concrete paito on the back of the house.

What would a tank controller have done? Send me an Email while I'm in Portland that my tank is leaking? Then I could call the wife down in Escondido to tell her to expect water in the room when she gets home in a few days?

no, as the water level raised too high, the controller could have notified you of a high water level so you could have had mike over there getting the pump on before it leaked all over

So I'de need another sensor on the sump set at the level of the water when the return pump is off?

But Mike dosen't have a key to my house.

I talked to the wife this morning. Sump as just a little bit of wate rit it so it should be OK. The Blue tang I got from you is faded as he's stressed/scared. My Pink tail is laying in the rocks, Blonde naso is out swimming, and Majestic looks like it has Ich on one side and hiding.

Not much I can do from here. Sad part is, I just went thru a crisis about 3 years ago and lost 10 of my prized fish. Now I may be going thur it again, except this time I'm not even home.

I'm thinking now to go with two return pumps. That way if one goes out, I'll still have some return flow and my skimmer will still be running.

The way I have mine set up is a 3 float design. Bottom float is normally closed and only opens if the water level drops too much(like ato stopped working for a day) middle float switch runs the ato, normally open, closes when the water needs to fill. The top float switch is normally closed and opens when the water level is too high. Its height is just above the return pump off. If the water had continued to flow down until that switch hit(like yours did) I would have gotten an email/text and could turn my ato off remotely, as well as dispach the wife You could add another switch that was N/C that would open when the water level went up like an inch, then in your email settings ignore it if the return pump is off.(now that I think about it I may add that to mine )

Sounds good in theory and your situation but would not have done much for me.

The overflow issue was not my ATO. It was leakage from the tank, thru the overflow box, to the sump. My overlow box runs from top to bottom in my tank. It also has 4 return ports in it that are no longer used. Also remember that this tank was homemade, but not by me. So I'm sure exactly where the water from the tank is leaking into the overflow box.

Dispatching the wife from Escondido would have been a bit hard since she rode the train down and was returning on the train.

Techonology is good, just I'm not sure how well it would have helped me in this situation. Other than to tell me I'll have a mess to clean when I get home.

Crusty Old Shellback wrote:Sounds good in theory and your situation but would not have done much for me.

The overflow issue was not my ATO. It was leakage from the tank, thru the overflow box, to the sump. My overlow box runs from top to bottom in my tank. It also has 4 return ports in it that are no longer used. Also remember that this tank was homemade, but not by me. So I'm sure exactly where the water from the tank is leaking into the overflow box.

Dispatching the wife from Escondido would have been a bit hard since she rode the train down and was returning on the train.

Techonology is good, just I'm not sure how well it would have helped me in this situation. Other than to tell me I'll have a mess to clean when I get home.

I know it wasn't from the ato, but the time it took to go from the return pump off to the top water line to overflow should have been enough for your wife to go fix it/mike ot fix it. It would really just depend on the leak size and amount of overhead on your overflow.

Well that's just it, no one was home for 4 days. I'm sure it took a few days before it overflowed.

best way to fix the issue is get a new tank!

nikecivic wrote:best way to fix the issue is get a new tank!

+1

a new BIGGER tank

He is already getting quotes on a new bigger tank.

So cool!