Enders Mid Life Crisis Build
- Thread starter enderg60
- Start date
Monday evening I cleaned everything up to make a nice clear path in.
This Room is about to get a whole lot smaller.
The next day the mess came back, along with something BIG.
The unveiling!
ITS FINALLY HERE!
Now the fun part of connecting everything! Its fun because I dont have to do it this time.
This Room is about to get a whole lot smaller.
The next day the mess came back, along with something BIG.
The unveiling!
ITS FINALLY HERE!
Now the fun part of connecting everything! Its fun because I dont have to do it this time.
Water water everywhere, now lets go find the drips.
So the equipment is in, and things are getting connected. Looks like we are in for a few more weeks of piping and tweaks to get it perfect and running but we are well on the way.
Fishies still waiting in QT but at least they can see their new home now!
The Calcium shelf is coming to life.
Filler up!
Alright its full, Lets test things out. Everything is functioning well, found some stuff that needed tightening. Two pumps need to be replaced but she runs! Next up is testing the chiller and gas heater piping. Only found one issue, I over tightened a union.
ALL GOOD, Lets give it the GAS! Low flame to start.
Starting temps. (inlet to heater on the right, outlet on the left)
After a bit it got WAY to hot.
Something was up. Temps should not get that high. Turns out there was air trapped in the heat exchanger and I needed to up the flow to blow it out. Now we have more reasonable temps.
Turned the gas up a bit and then set the temp from 75 to 78 and an hour later it was done.
Now I get to see my new favorite view. My huge ass frag tank poking its head out of the door way.
We are getting close and even the Roller mat knows whats coming.
Nearly there!
So the equipment is in, and things are getting connected. Looks like we are in for a few more weeks of piping and tweaks to get it perfect and running but we are well on the way.
Fishies still waiting in QT but at least they can see their new home now!
The Calcium shelf is coming to life.
Filler up!
Alright its full, Lets test things out. Everything is functioning well, found some stuff that needed tightening. Two pumps need to be replaced but she runs! Next up is testing the chiller and gas heater piping. Only found one issue, I over tightened a union.
ALL GOOD, Lets give it the GAS! Low flame to start.
Starting temps. (inlet to heater on the right, outlet on the left)
After a bit it got WAY to hot.
Something was up. Temps should not get that high. Turns out there was air trapped in the heat exchanger and I needed to up the flow to blow it out. Now we have more reasonable temps.
Turned the gas up a bit and then set the temp from 75 to 78 and an hour later it was done.
Now I get to see my new favorite view. My huge ass frag tank poking its head out of the door way.
We are getting close and even the Roller mat knows whats coming.
Nearly there!
your build is just insane... just mind blowing the commitment and how thought out it is. kudos to you!!
anything in particular outside of it being local that made you pull the trigger on the MRC equipment?
Not to much. I shoved an 800w heater in there, got the wave box working and the 0-10v for the XHO's is done. As of now, nothing much else until it gets fully connected to the new hotness.
90% of everything I DIYed for the past 20+ years was copying something from MRC. When I worked at Cap Bay the owner would happily snatch up second hand MRC equipment. Everything was simply well made. I was up close and personal with a lot of it and would go home and make stuff based on what I saw.
The huge pyramid skimmer with a dart pump at the start of this thread. My frankenstein's monster of a creation based on a MRC skimmer. I found a second hand orca pump and started building. I got to the venturi part and decided to email them and ask them what a cross section looked like. I was told it was a trade secret, aka a polite F off. So I just figured something out with an air pump. This must have been 12-15 years ago.
Flash back to recent times and I was trying to not build a huge ass filter roller and literally the only thing even close was a trigger sump and I didnt want that sump just for that. Then MRC pops up with an utterly massive 24" roller. I ended up contacting Jeff to see if they could customize it to fit my rubbermaid sumps. Then the tank cracked and that spiral of maddness is like 3 pages back.
I ended up touring the shop, saw some of the creations even more mad than mine and quality was still top notch. I looked up some of their other installations, for public aquariums and turtle sanctuaries. Not a bad resume'. So I figured Id let them have a go at dealing with organizing all the tubes, pipes and cables for an OCD engineer of a client.
In the mean time I have some large infrastructure stuff happening and Im mashing buttons until the computery dodads start playing nice.
OH I almost forgot. I did MATH!
Based on the time it took the water to heat up the gas heater, running as low as it can go, is equivalent to 2,635 watts of electric heat. This thing will keep the tank warm on less gas than I use to take a shower.
Based on the time it took the water to heat up the gas heater, running as low as it can go, is equivalent to 2,635 watts of electric heat. This thing will keep the tank warm on less gas than I use to take a shower.
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This is a crazy build I wish to have something like this one day when I buy a house.
I got all the LEDs started up on basic setting with the schedule I want. I'll have to tweak the colors after I get some stuff in there.
But I got some preliminary PAR readings.
Frag tank with just LEDs is 40-250 par, so perfect LPS range. Hit the halides and it jumps to 150-400, perfect SPS range.
Then I did the display. the kessils alone were getting 40-250 par. Halides alone were 40-450 par with hot spots hitting 650. With everything running the par range was 40-500 with hot spots hitting 900! Those octagonal reflectors are like canons. Thankfully the aquascape plays well with the light creating lots of varying bright and dark spots.
I also tried comparing different halide ballasts. I had an old PFO Hqi ballast, a basic M59 retrofit and a galaxy selecta watt set to 400w overdrive. I could juuuuuust barely tell a difference in color and the par readings. From similar spots under each bulb the electric ballast was last with about 550 par. M59 middle with 610 and PFO with 640. So just as expected. But along with the leds the difference doesn't really matter.
This is good news since two of my PFO ballasts sound like the are about to die so I won't feel too bad replacing them with $70 M59. The two galaxy ballasts can be backups.
But I got some preliminary PAR readings.
Frag tank with just LEDs is 40-250 par, so perfect LPS range. Hit the halides and it jumps to 150-400, perfect SPS range.
Then I did the display. the kessils alone were getting 40-250 par. Halides alone were 40-450 par with hot spots hitting 650. With everything running the par range was 40-500 with hot spots hitting 900! Those octagonal reflectors are like canons. Thankfully the aquascape plays well with the light creating lots of varying bright and dark spots.
I also tried comparing different halide ballasts. I had an old PFO Hqi ballast, a basic M59 retrofit and a galaxy selecta watt set to 400w overdrive. I could juuuuuust barely tell a difference in color and the par readings. From similar spots under each bulb the electric ballast was last with about 550 par. M59 middle with 610 and PFO with 640. So just as expected. But along with the leds the difference doesn't really matter.
This is good news since two of my PFO ballasts sound like the are about to die so I won't feel too bad replacing them with $70 M59. The two galaxy ballasts can be backups.
I arrived home to find moles of unusual size tearing up my yard.....AND my driveway!
Getting a new gas service tapped.
Thankfully they didnt need to trench my yard, they can just shove the pipe through the ground!
OH wait one more hole...
Old gas meter and electrical service (can you spot the code violation?)
New Mildly larger gas meter. Gonna need some bigger plants now.
At least they kind of fixed it when they left.
Coming In about 5 weeks. 400 amp electrical service upgrade and a 23kw natural gas generator.
Getting a new gas service tapped.
Thankfully they didnt need to trench my yard, they can just shove the pipe through the ground!
OH wait one more hole...
Old gas meter and electrical service (can you spot the code violation?)
New Mildly larger gas meter. Gonna need some bigger plants now.
At least they kind of fixed it when they left.
Coming In about 5 weeks. 400 amp electrical service upgrade and a 23kw natural gas generator.
Old gas meter and electrical service (can you spot the code violation?)
Coming In about 5 weeks. 400 amp electrical service upgrade and a 23kw natural gas generator.
Something tells me that attaching the houses main ground to the gas meter isn't the most thought out thing to do.
Glad you didn't have a lightning strike!!!
400amp!!!! Wow! Gonna go 3-pahse too???
Wow, you found one I missed! There are two other code violations lol.
Na, no 3 phase, plenty of 240 though. If we didnt have cool DC motors I would do 3 phase so I could do some VFD motor controls.
Fun side note, I had set the QT tanks to do half gallon daily water changes (each one is 60 gallons so basically 1%) Along with the addition of the filter roller the coral QT nutrient levels dropped to the point my torches got angry. I turned the AWC off for the week to see what happens. Im pretty happy with this kind of problem though!
Na, no 3 phase, plenty of 240 though. If we didnt have cool DC motors I would do 3 phase so I could do some VFD motor controls.
Fun side note, I had set the QT tanks to do half gallon daily water changes (each one is 60 gallons so basically 1%) Along with the addition of the filter roller the coral QT nutrient levels dropped to the point my torches got angry. I turned the AWC off for the week to see what happens. Im pretty happy with this kind of problem though!
I bet that red Ferrari is looking pretty good right now 
Amazingly insane build.
Amazingly insane build.
.Update time!
Got the lower system water tested, heating and cooling are working. I have most of the electronics talking to each other and I got all the apex programming done. Still have to setup the Alkatronic and mastertronic gear.
I also marked the sump to see what kind of evaporation rates im getting.
So far looks like its about 1.5-2 gallons a day. Im sure it will be more when the display is connected, but at least I have a baseline for how much Kalk I can dose.
Finally got a replacement for my broken red dragon.
Fully loaded pump panel.
And all the wires neatly tucked out of the way.
Next up I found and inventoried all the new and used Apex gear I still have laying around so I can figure out what to use. Somehow I ended up with a lot.
Got the lower system water tested, heating and cooling are working. I have most of the electronics talking to each other and I got all the apex programming done. Still have to setup the Alkatronic and mastertronic gear.
I also marked the sump to see what kind of evaporation rates im getting.
So far looks like its about 1.5-2 gallons a day. Im sure it will be more when the display is connected, but at least I have a baseline for how much Kalk I can dose.
Finally got a replacement for my broken red dragon.
Fully loaded pump panel.
And all the wires neatly tucked out of the way.
Next up I found and inventoried all the new and used Apex gear I still have laying around so I can figure out what to use. Somehow I ended up with a lot.
It's been a fun few days with the guys from SEA. They have indulged my OCD to the fullest. In order to make the piping nice and pretty they went and redid the pipes under the stairs to match the new layout. Shout out to professor X for getting deeper in the closet than anyone I've seen!
Look at that, a custom pipe bracket and even more access space to the land under the stairs.
New system is now fully connected to the wall.
And a 1
2
3
And done!
Of course a pump leaked.
But......
Over the first hump. Now I have to make about 800 gallons of water.
Look at that, a custom pipe bracket and even more access space to the land under the stairs.
New system is now fully connected to the wall.
And a 1
2
3
And done!
Of course a pump leaked.
But......
Over the first hump. Now I have to make about 800 gallons of water.
Small update. Ive been fixing a few small leaks (mostly threaded joints) and tweaking things while the RO runs non stop.
Mostly I have been messing with the closed loops and Im happy to say that everything is working better than I thought. My intent was to not have high power Jets of water, but a high volume steady current. Both of the display closed loops produce a nice rolling Gyre throughout the whole tank. The close loop on the frag tank is just nutty right now. I told Jeff I wanted to spin the water around like a washing machine....And well...It works.
Granted this is two 3200 GPH pumps at full power and there is no rock work in the tank...but man its fun to watch the vortex develop.
I also turned on the UV's to make sure I can control the temps while is on (all 540w of it) and noticed seem to be housing a Disney villain in my sump.
Got a few minor pipe and wiring changes to make under the stand, and Im at 470/800 gallons of water made but Im hoping to have salt in it this weekend!
Mostly I have been messing with the closed loops and Im happy to say that everything is working better than I thought. My intent was to not have high power Jets of water, but a high volume steady current. Both of the display closed loops produce a nice rolling Gyre throughout the whole tank. The close loop on the frag tank is just nutty right now. I told Jeff I wanted to spin the water around like a washing machine....And well...It works.
Granted this is two 3200 GPH pumps at full power and there is no rock work in the tank...but man its fun to watch the vortex develop.
I also turned on the UV's to make sure I can control the temps while is on (all 540w of it) and noticed seem to be housing a Disney villain in my sump.
Got a few minor pipe and wiring changes to make under the stand, and Im at 470/800 gallons of water made but Im hoping to have salt in it this weekend!
just wondering... what is the power consumption of all that?
