Enders Mid Life Crisis Build

[enderg60]

Its been a long wait but here we go. Stats!

Display:
330g Miracles Tank and stand. 84x30x30, Stand 45" tall.
3x 400w Halide
8x A360x Kessil
2x 72" Reefbrite XHO
2x Red dragon speedy 3 closed loop
1x Abyzz A200 return

Frag tank:
320g MRC tank 96x48x16
3x 400w Halides
4x Illumagic blaze x 90
4x Vectra L2 return, closed loop and equipment.

Sump:
Custom made MRC Bio-Sump 54x40x24
6x 80w UV built into sump
Infiniti Fleece Roller.
50g Bio media
35g Fuge

Equipment:
Apex controller
MRC Pro 2 Skimmer
MRC CR6 Calcium Reactor
MRC NR-3 Kalk Reactor
2x MRC FMC-620 media reactors.
Carbon Doser
Kamora FX-STP dosers
kamoer x2sr AWC
Alkatronic
Dosetronic
Mastertronic

Quarantine:
Fish QT - 75g Tank, 15g sump
Coral QT - 75g Tank, 15g sump
Apex Control
2x Dos for AWC
2x Black box LED

Fish Room:
Part of my shop/garage/hobby room renovation.
5x 25 amp dedicated circuits
Industrial size dehumidifier
Exhaust fan
Sink
Work desk
Storage

So lets begin. Tank delivered and in place. Put a nice hole in the wall through to the closet under the stairs to allow rear access.

And the start of what will become MILES of PVC.

And we are down to the basement.

Picked up two used 48x48x16 tanks to use for frags and grow out. Also picked up about 250lbs of dry rock, and thats about 300lbs of rock from my old tank(not even all of it)

And so began the process of pressure washing, bleaching, acid dipping and rinsing oh so much rock.

Setup temporary housing for all my fish and corals from the move.

Stands and QT system put in place.

We beefed up the beams under the tank and added some support columns, also drywall...so much drywall.

More to come....

 

[Rainblood]

It may be cheaper to just buy a red Ferrari

 

[scuba steve]

Love your pump selection. Curious to see what you're going to do with all that large diameter pvc

 

[enderg60]

It may be cheaper to just buy a red Ferrari

It would have been before the car market went uttery nuts!

So around this point in the build is where major setback #1 happens. Its utter chaos as we try to renovate the house, we have a 1.5 year old and a new born. My temporary system has a few hiccups I wasnt able to catch in time and by the end of it all I lost 98% of my corals and all my fish.

Originally the new system was going to be running by the time we moved in, and before my daughter was born. She turns 3 next week.....


So heres the next part. Totally gutting the garage and future fish room, and prep for floor #1.

Framing going up, wiring being done and floor #1 down.

About this time the carpet guys doing the rest of the basement decided that the fish room needed carpet. When trying to pull up the pad they glued down my epoxy floor came up with it. So First guy did a crap job on the epoxy but now I have to redo it anyway. The carpet guys decided to have a friend come redo the floor. They ground it down and stained it.

So here we see drywall going up with floor #2 it was a nice dark grey stain....until I realized if you left water on it for more than 15 minutes it would dissolve the stain. They actually put a water soluble stain on my garage and fish room floor. Joy.

Painting done

Floor #3!

Shelves and molding done. Time to start filling it.

 

[Adam]

And I thought I had a big project on my hands!
Boy do I know about the delays. I'm constantly getting ribbing from @Rainblood & @scottw for having the biggest FOWLR in the club.

I only have one recommendation as it looks like you've covered all the bases.
When I started on my setup I got a 60 breeder thinking it would be a good idea to use as a QT. Well, it's not. Unless you're going to do a bunch at one time and that's not the best of ideas either. My recommendation is to QT the fish in cheap 10 & 20 gallon tanks. It costs much less to dose them, is much easier to do 100% water changes and store in a closet when you're done. Use the 2nd 75 with a sump for post QT observation. This will allow you to make sure nothing bad gets into the display or frag systems and also a place to put fish that turn out to be not the best of decisions later on and plan to sell.

I lied, one more recommendation. Think about putting a mini split HVAC system somewhere in your fish room. It's on my to do list before next summer. They have a dehumidify setting the won't add heat to your basement. I have between 625 & 675 gallons of 77~78 degree heated water in my fish room, with a surface area of roughly 75sf. Then the display in another room down there with over 500 gallons and 32sf. I'm running two dehumidifiers and the heat hasn't come on in the basement yet this year. Actually, I have to turn on the AC when we're working in the fish room because I start sweating.

Oh. And whatever you think your electric bill will be, add another hundred or two per month. I'm really thinking hard about solar!!!

 

[scottw]

Boy do I know about the delays. I'm constantly getting ribbing from @Rainblood & @scottw for having the biggest FOWLR in the club.

You mean FOWLR/SPONGE tank.

 

[enderg60]

Ive been doing this for 25 years and Im an engineer. I know full well what to expect and have planned for it! My last tank had a gas heater for that exact reason. Right now this is basically just catch up of the last 2 years. Check the first post again for the QT setup, picks of that will be coming up soon.

 

[scottw]

Ive been doing this for 25 years and Im an engineer. I know full well what to expect and have planned for it! My last tank had a gas heater for that exact reason. Right now this is basically just catch up of the last 2 years. Check the first post again for the QT setup, picks of that will be coming up soon.

I dont think @Adam saw that other post and if I stumbled upon this post I would have posted the same response he did, I guess it is b/c you are dragging it out. I am thinking a final photo posted up top, then slow play it would have made it easier for people to know this is a labor of 2 years of love.

 

[enderg60]

But....I dont have a final pic yet....its STILL not done! Gata love delays. Im dragging it out because Im trying to find and upload the pics for each part between work, working on the tank stuff, inlaws coming into town and the girly spawns birthday party. Ill be posting it all over the next few days as I can. This will be a story of many many pictures and an emotional roller coaster.

 

[scottw]

But....I dont have a final pic yet....its STILL not done! Gata love delays. Im dragging it out because Im trying to find and upload the pics for each part between work, working on the tank stuff, inlaws coming into town and the girly spawns birthday party. Ill be posting it all over the next few days as I can. This will be a story of many many pictures and an emotional roller coaster.

I can't imagine the delays, COVID times, family, etc. we are all excited to see where you are at to this point

 

[enderg60]

Here is a few examples of the planning....

And here is the fun one, Wiring and power. Zoom in to the lower left for the max power draw of the system (FYI it went up)

 

[Adam]

Ive been doing this for 25 years and Im an engineer. I know full well what to expect and have planned for it! My last tank had a gas heater for that exact reason. Right now this is basically just catch up of the last 2 years. Check the first post again for the QT setup, picks of that will be coming up soon.

I got the feeling you were further along than you've made it in the posts but just did't know how far along.

I wish we had natural gas at the house, we're all electric. So, I have heaters... 1700 watts on the display, 600w, soon to be 900w, on the frag system. Plus all of the smaller tanks heaters.
Glad I ran 5 20a circuits and 3 15a circuits just for the fish room and display. But I don't think I have enough to run more than a couple 250w halides in the fish room because of where I put the outlets. I did run a single 20a for the lights over the display though. That'll give me the option if I ever decide to go old school, it'll handle 4 400w with some head room.
All this power is also why I am giving solar some serious thought.

I think I used the same coating in my garage and I love it. The cost was just too much for the basement but I wish I'd have done it anyway. Can't wait to see your updates in the days to come!

 

[chemaholic]

Those two square tanks look very familiar.

 

[enderg60]

The sump for my old setup was in my unheated basement. I was running two 1000w heaters nearly non stop in winter. I got a small instant gas heater and ran a pex loop in the sump. Gas bill went up $1, power bill went down $80.

Those two square tanks look very familiar.

 

[enderg60]

PIPES!

It all starts with a sketch.

And its off we go

Now things are getting serious!

TIME TO PAINT (this was a stupid, stupid idea. Just spend the money on grey pipe), anyway...onward!

 

[enderg60]

And thats all the tank and closed loop piping done. Now lets get the sumps and return pumps going!

And just like that we have a running display tank! Now lets pipe the frag tanks!

And now a brief intermission while some other topics are brought up to speed.

 

[Rainblood]

What happened here?

 

[Trizzino]

What happened here?

View attachment 68911

That plumbing looks awesome. Don’t mind @Rainblood. He’s our resident negative Nancy.
Looks like it’s needed room from the the stand to be able to unscrew the unions.

 

[enderg60]

What happened here?

View attachment 68911

I have a perfectly reasonable explanation, Those stupid BRS dual reactors use that 1/2" pex tube, its not the easiest thing to get where you want it to go. Thus that part needed a stupid angle to make sure you could remove the tube without destroying your fingers. If you look to the right of it you will see the corresponding valve which is also at a stupid angle. It offends my OCD but I just kept saying "its under the stand, you wont see it, it will make things easier"

 

[enderg60]

Todays entry will be the QT systems. In the long long ago Petco had a sale on 75 tanks from their fish displays, so I got two. They were scratched to hell but they were oceanic tanks so yay. I made a simple wood stand and the filter was bio balls and a tupperware sump.

Now those tanks sit on a nice metal stand, I got two new 15 g tanks for sumps so lets get going.

Originally planned to be a single system with 3x 10g tanks for 3 part under the stand with the sump, became two seperate systems and now I need a place for the dosing containers/tanks. But thats a problem for later now.

My favorite part piping stuff so I dont have to do crap later. Check valves and, valve for the carbon or UV, and valves for fresh and new saltwater for each tank.

Everything painted and ready to mount under the stand.

Less fun part. Apex and wiring. Made a panel.

Now for wiring I wanted everything to be easily unplugged, but I also wanted to hide all the wiring in conduit. I also wanted to mount the Apex stuff kind of far away cord length wise. So the solution was extension cords. Here is the wiring harness for the QT systems.

Panel mounted and wiring getting shoved in conduit.

IT WORKS! I have a fish tank again! Sort of....

LIGHTS!

So now I have a 2 QT systems. Stuff will be in here for no less than 60 days so we need a UV and both need dosing. So lets make more stuff and shove it in a corner that wasnt ment for stuff.

There we go, that fits.

Wired and plumbed for easy refills.

And cycling! The last remnants of my old tank and my first new fish. A flame hawk. Because its hardy and I hate damsels.

So now I have a QT system and I need some fish hotels. No problem, I have tons of PVC laying around. I remembered I would be getting some larger tangs so I figured Id use a heat gun to flatten some 3" pipe into tang shapes, glued a bunch together and bam, fish condos.....that look like the scream mask....great....

Not only do they look weird, I forgot I got 3" FOAM CORE pipe. SOOOO they float around like ghosts....son of a....

Some hot glue and suction cups later and we have the systems up and running and ready for new critters because soon my big tank will be running! I also added a filter roller because this is new tech to me and I wanted to try it out(they rock!)

Chromis doing chromis things.

A stop to a frag meet.

A few stops to members houses and Nemos and Im everything is on schedule to go in right when the tank gets going.

Current issues, I dont need dosing for the fish QT and the valve for the return pumps didnt leave clearance for the roller. So after this batch goes to the new system I will be adding some lifts to this stand.

Coming up next. WOOD.