Bill's 150

[wmboots]

Well I've been asked enough times to post pics and do a build thread. I won't do so much a build thread but I will post some pics of the tank in stages going in.

First thing I had to do was lay tile over the 100+ year old pine floor, hated covering up this beautiful heart pine but I pretty much ruined a good section of it with the 90 gallon tank I had setup for so many years with no protection and we all know accidents do happen when water is involved.

After that I have a couple pics of the stand and empty tank in place
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[wmboots]

my son came over Friday afternoon and between the 2 of us we came up with a way to get the sump in the stand



finally a couple of my electricians were able to get to my house to help get the tank from the shop into the house

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[wmboots]

my son said he was caught up on his calls so he stayed and helped with the plumbing. It was a quick throw together but I'm satisfied with it but after running the tank I already have changes I'm going to make. Primarily the return pump will be put outside. The wall behind the tank is an outside wall so I will be building a dog house or some sort of outbuilding and plumbing the closed loop to the outside.
Also I'm wondering if I should have put the Tee splitting the supply coming from the overflow to the sump and refugium after the main shutoff valve. I'm not getting much flow to the refugium even with the refugium valve completely open. I find I have to valve down the main sump pipe to get much flow to the sump end.

Edit: Finally its time to add water and work with the aquascaping as much as I can. One thing I will tell anybody is I'm not artistic at all.
It is amazing how much more rock a 150 gallon tank will hold versus a 90 gallon tank.
I used nearly all the rock I had in the 90 plus around 30lbs of Marco Rock I had. I still have a few fairly nice size pieces of Marco Rock but can't figure out how to work it into the tank.

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[wmboots]

in case anyone is interested this change over is being done in such a hurry I took down only the pictures and certificates necessary to move the tank and stand in place.
I called that wall my wall of shame those are pictures and certificates of all my diving instructor certifications, commendations for resucitating a drowning victim and pictures I've taken or have been taken of me diving.

The lights are temporary but a 6 lamp T5 fixture will do the job while I retrofit the canopy for 8-10 T5 lamps.
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[rdnelson]

Looking good. I like the rock scape. The void on the center right is a nice touch. Glad to see you are back up and running.

 

[wmboots]

I can't win!!!!!
working with tank and notice the digital coralife thermometer is reading 69.9 degrees but my hand says it doesn't feel that cold. I grab another heater out of my mixing tank. Stick my hand in the tank about 30 minutes later and just about picked mysef up from the floor the shock was so bad. Interesting the GFI recept did not trip (maybe its time for ARC FAULT) unplug the heater tank is still alive unplug everything one at time finally unplug mag 12 return pump and no more tingle. Checked GFI recepts with tester and they don't trip and notice tester display lights have something strange going on with them too. Killed power checked recepts everything is wired correctly (of course I wired them up) Turn power back on test GFI with tester and they trip now. Plug mag 12 in and no tingle so I plug everything else in except heater no tingle. Seems GFI locked up with a two prong heater malfunctioning. During all this hand in the water time I'm realizing this water is much warmer than the 69.9 displayed on thermometer. I pulled thermometer out of mixing tank and my hand was right water temp is 84. Now I wonder how many fish I cooked in the temporary tank I had everything in this past week as I kept 2 heaters in tank trying to keep water at 76-78 degrees which I figure was more like 95 degrees based on the reading I was getting on the coralife thermometer today.

 

[rdnelson]

Oh man. At least you found it before you lost anything else. Look at it this way, you 150 is going have every possible thing that could go wrong eliminated because it has already gone wrong. In this case the phrase "My tank is smoking" is not a good thing.

 

[wmboots]

The GFI recept not tripping and appearing to have malfunctioned puzzles me. These aren't an off brand product I'm using, I'm going to check to see if this is a flaw in GFCI technology. I would think a curling iron would be essentially the same thing as the heaters we use. Is there an issue with purely resistance loads and GFI receptacles I haven't heard about?

 

[rdnelson]

I don't know as much about GFI technology as I should but..... From what I understand, it monitors the current flow through the line, grounded conductor and equipment ground conductor. If any current in excess of 5 mili-amps is seen on the equipment ground it should trip. But in your case, there is not equipment ground. But, since it also monitors the line and the grounded conductor, it should have tripped if it saw a difference of more than 5 mili-amps. If there was enough current flow that you felt it there should have been a drop of at least 5 mili-amps in the grounded conductor from the line conductor.

When you installed it, did you use a GFI tester and activate the trip button? Or did you use a standard receptacle tester? I have seen a lot of them bad from the factory.

 

[wmboots]

oh yea it was tested with GFI tester and worked perfectly, that's why this malfunction is so puzzling.

 

[dan30097]

For a second there I thought one of your interest was "shooting my family" hehe

 

[wmboots]

still tweeking things, messing with aqua scape (wish I was more artistic), messing with closed loop and sump return pump.
Poor clowns and melanarus wrasse were hiding behind a rock at far end of tank from overflow and sand was constantly shifting and mounding up in areas while bare glass was revealed in others. Thought it was closed loop system and was going to dial it down but turned out it was the mag 12 return pump that was moving at least twice as much water as the little giant pump on the closed loop. I ended up turning the valve on the return pipe over 1/2 closed and closing the 1" feed line from overflow a little bit more. Now the fish are happy to swim around the whole tank instead of hanging out in an area out of the WIND.
Still have issues with water moving thru the 3/4" line to the refugium end of sump, do I need to put the T after the main drain shutoff? the way I have it plumbed in is about 6" of 1" pipe out of bulkhead to a 1"x1"x3/4 T then a short piece of 1" pipe to shutoff and then another piece of 1" into the skimmer section. From the T going to the refugium end I have about 6" of 3/4" pipe to a shutoff, on to a union and then about 2' or so to a 90 degree turn into refugium section. I have to leave the 3/4" valve fully open and 1" valve nearly 1/2 closed to get any kind of flow into the refugium.
Any thoughts, suggestions or opinions on this setup, I didn't think it would make a difference where I set the main line shutoff but maybe I'm thinking wrong

 

[wmboots]

here is a pic of the plumbing I described above

also a pic of the new rock work, I still have 3 good sized pieces of Marco rock as well as a 5 gallon bucket full of I will call it live rock I pulled out of the old tank.
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[rdnelson]

When I built my sump I found a few different opinions on plumbing the fuge. One side said use return water before it hits the skimmer compartment because the nutrients help feed the macro-algae. Others say, come off the return line so you are not filling your fuge up with crap. I choose the latter. Off of my return pump I have a short section of pipe and ten a tee. The line from the tee to the fuge has a ball valve so I can control the flow in fuge but the line from the tee to the display has a valve that is left wide open.

Edit: I like the rockscape (as long as the two top rocks on the left are good and secure).

 

[wmboots]

Rock is pretty soliit won't fall from something incidental.

 

[wmboots]

went to Rich's house today to pickup a few frags so now I can have something to watch grow out. Thanks Rich for the frags and one thing it is nice knowing there are some corals that are making the tank swap after all. One of the benefits of getting your tanks DNA out to other club members. Hopefully in about 6 months I will have enough growth that I can help someone else with a startup tank or tank crash.

 

[rdnelson]

All the thanks go to you Bill. You set me up when I was just beginning to crawl and everything you gave me is growing like weeds and looks great. The least I could do was give some of it back. The other stuff was all going crazy in my tank anyway and things were starting to get crowded.

 

[bruce 1]

Send me your number again. Next time I am commingle down that way I will bring you some frags to you Bill. Most of what I got from you I lost. But I have some I can give you.c

 

[wmboots]

pieces I picked up from Rich on sunday seemed to be doing well. Just checked candy canes and the few sps I got and all are extending after lights go off so I know they are feeding. The hammer coral is doing well and the favia I got at the frag swap looks good.
Wish I could find a head or two of the frogspawn I fragged out for my clowns, they were hosting in the huge frogspawn I had. I really don't want to get an anemome as I got tired of the one I had moving around my 90 and stinging sps and softs that it would settle next too. Maybe it won't be much of a problem with a 150 but still have reservations. I really want to get a good reef mix of sps, lps and softs for the best colors and just to remind me of the reefs I feel in love with diving all over the carribean.

 

[shanepike]

You're welcome to this hammer (on the far right, 2 big heads + 2 babies) and this frogspawn (far left, 2 med heads + 1 baby) if you want them. I'm in south Forsyth county.

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