S.Reef 280 Gallon SPS Build

[S.Reef]

Here is the rundown. I am up at school for another 3 months and with a light class schedule I have quite a lot of time on my hands to plan this out.

First off I am only 20 years old so when I come home Ill be living with the parents. This really isnt an issue because I have the entire finished basement as my room, they stay out of my space and I should have enough money to purchase a house in the next 3-4 years.

When planning this system I had to overcome a few problems. The first being that my basement doorway and stairway down is at an odd angle. The biggest aquarium that will clear the door way and make it down the stairs is 72" by 30" by 30". So thats what I decided on*SUNSMILE*

The aquarium is 280 gallons. It is currently being made by Tenecor Acrylic. I have sold quite a lot of these and have never had an issue with any of them. They also have great customer service. I decided on a black background and two overflows in the back with 1.5" drains and 1" returns. The aquarium just got ordered and will take 4-5 weeks to complete...it will stay in the back of the aquarium store until I get home.

The second problem I had was the aquarium stand. Again the doorway is an issue so I will be building the stand and canopy down in the basement. A family friend who does custom woodwork will be skinning the stand for me as well as trimming it and putting doors on it. The skin of the stand will be able to come off so when I move out all I will need to do is build a new basic stand at the new place.

Filtration:

I ordered a standard 75 gallon glass aquarium from a local distributer. This will be my sump/refugium for the display aquarium. Space is an issue so everything needs to fit underneath the stand. The sump will have a refugium section to one side and an area for a large skimmer. It will be drilled to accommodate an external return pump.

The return pump I decided on is a Reeflo Dart rated at 3600gph...an Aqua UV sterilizer will be run off the pump as well. I have always had goodluck with UV sterilizers and with the high fishload Im doing its good to prevent disease outbreaks.

Skimmer: After a lot of debate I have decided on a Reef Octopus Extreme 300 skimmer. I didnt want to pay a grand but wanted a quality design. the skimmer utilizes the same pumps as the bubble kings and is very energy efficient.

Calcium Reactor: I am debating right now between a Geo reactor and a dual octopus reactor. I have used geos in the past and they are very high quality. I am not really picky so when the time comes illl just pick one. I will be using Korralin media which is very high quality.

Lighting: Because this tank will primarily be SPS I need a lot of light. I am doing four 400 watt Mogal based halides by Sunlight Supply. I am leaning towards the 12k reeflux bulbs. I will also have 2-4 60" HO T5 lights for supplemental lighting.

Water Motion is another important aspect of SPS aquariums. I will be using a Tunze Wavebox along with 3-4 Tunze Streams.

That is basically it in a nutshell any suggestions will be appreciated

 

[Cichlid-Man]

Awesome, i love big SPS tanks. And the Tunze's should be awesome, that natural wave action.

How is the basement as far as Temp and Temp control. 4 MH's is gonna be hot, not worried about the tank so much as i am for you in the room lol. My 250w single MH makes me hot.

Definitely going to be paying attention to this one.

 

[TRe]

sounds good! cant wait to see it all come together... unfortunatly i never did see mine come together! :/

 

[Chris_A]

Over all sounds like a nice build. Really too bad about the stand though... Maybe, the guy building it could try and make it "modular" (for lack of a better term) so you could still remove the whole thing later.

One question though... did you take into account the height of the overflow with use of the wavebox when ordering the tank? Admittedly, I've only seen video's but I'm guessing the over all water level should be down a few inches from the top of the tank. LOL, last thing you'd want is it to splash over the edge . Would be good for regular water changes though... Hmmmm. *SUPERSMIL

I guess the other thing is what type of UV? I'm guessing you'll be teeing off the return line? I can't imagine how large of a unit would be needed to effectively handle 3600 GPH strait through .

Just as a thought... Why not use the dart for a closed loop, a nice and small return (say something rated about the same as the skimmer input) and plumb your drain directly into the skimmer? Probably would need a bubble trap before the skimmer unless you went with a Herbie or something similar.

Chris

 

[S.Reef]

Due to the heat I will be utilizing at least four 4" fans...we will see how that goes. I can always add more and worse comes to worse get a chiller. I wont be using the halides really until I start getting corals which I dont plan on for the first months of the tank being set up. It will give me some time to see what temps the tank will operate at.

Chris, yea the stand situation sucks...the basic stand will just be built out of 2x4s so it wont be hard to make a new one when i move out. The wave boxes are programmable so you can adjust the intake of water an thus the waves. The tank also has a large acrylic lip so im not too worried about the water splashing out. The return pump will have a separate line to the UV...T'd off the main line. it will also have a ball valve to control flow. I am going with an Aqua 40 watt UV. I did think about closed loops but I dont really want to drill holes in the tank...the skimmer is an insump skimmer and doesnt utilize feed pumps. Keep the comments coming

 

[S.Reef]

heres a pic of how i am going to build the sump. the center section will be drilled for the return pump

 

[strout]

Take alot of pics along the way, this will be interesting to watch.

 

[Lotus]

Sounds like a great project.

I know that one of my biggest problems with the tank is that it's too deep for me to reach the bottom without standing on a step ladder and putting my arm all the way into the tank up to the armpit (I know, it probably looks as ridiculous as it sounds). It's a real pain to scrape coraline near the bottom of the front of the tank. I hope you'll be able to reach

I think with the lights, you may eventually have to work out some kind of exhaust system for the heat. Chillers tend to kick a lot of heat back into the room, which can sort of defeat the purpose if that in turn makes the tank hotter.

 

[TRe]

heres my thoughts on yur plans... first i think the dart is too much for a return. im actually a fan of slower water movment flowing throught the sump/fuge for better filtration, next on the uv sterilizer remember your also killing off alot of benificial stuff and in this case i think the bad out weighs the good IMO anyways also i was kinda leary about building the stand out of 2x4's remember its guna be supporting a couple thousand pounds! instead i had someone who was building my stand out of steel. i had the skin already and the last step was the steel stand which finances/life never let me get to... you'll with out a doubt need a chiller with 4x400w mh's and even with a chiller it will be hard to keep the temps down..... i hate to sound negative about your plans and to each his own but im still excited to see everything come together. with a similar build all planned out on my half (310g) ive already gone over alot of this so this is just my 2 cents

 

[S.Reef]

Sounds like a great project.

I know that one of my biggest problems with the tank is that it's too deep for me to reach the bottom without standing on a step ladder and putting my arm all the way into the tank up to the armpit (I know, it probably looks as ridiculous as it sounds). It's a real pain to scrape coraline near the bottom of the front of the tank. I hope you'll be able to reach

I think with the lights, you may eventually have to work out some kind of exhaust system for the heat. Chillers tend to kick a lot of heat back into the room, which can sort of defeat the purpose if that in turn makes the tank hotter.

Yea Ive had a 30" tank before its no fun but I know what im getting into. the extra 6" of height looks soo much better imo

 

[S.Reef]

heres my thoughts on yur plans... first i think the dart is too much for a return. im actually a fan of slower water movment flowing throught the sump/fuge for better filtration, next on the uv sterilizer remember your also killing off alot of benificial stuff and in this case i think the bad out weighs the good IMO anyways also i was kinda leary about building the stand out of 2x4's remember its guna be supporting a couple thousand pounds! instead i had someone who was building my stand out of steel. i had the skin already and the last step was the steel stand which finances/life never let me get to... you'll with out a doubt need a chiller with 4x400w mh's and even with a chiller it will be hard to keep the temps down..... i hate to sound negative about your plans and to each his own but im still excited to see everything come together. with a similar build all planned out on my half (310g) ive already gone over alot of this so this is just my 2 cents

The refugium is going to be on the side of the sump...umm its kinda hard to explain but it wont be getting all that water flowing through it, Im with you about having too much flow in the refugium. Ill try and find a diagram to help show what im doing. With regards to the UV, I am doing a lot of fish in the tank and I want to keep the risk of disease to a minimum. In the past Ive had great success with UVs so ill always have one on my system.

If I could fit a steel stand through the door I would in a heartbeat...I really want a 36" tall stand and its physically impossible for it to fit through the doorway and make the turn down the staircase so i need to build it on sight. Wood also is a lot easier to disassemble when the tank comes down.

I kinda figured on the chiller. Ill hold off getting one until the tanks up and running. The lights will be at least 10" off the surface and ill be doing an open top/ open back canopy so im hoping that will help with ventilation, we will see.

 

[Lorna]

This sounds incredibly interesting and I am following this thread and have a question which no doubt you have probably already taken into account. This tank is going into the basement correct? What about evaporation, this is going to make for a very humid atmosphere and you need to think of some way to export the moisture with fans or some sort of dehumidifier. I know the amount of moisture my 75 and 29 put into the air and can only imagine what the amount put out by this tank will be. The other thing is that you are considering a uv filter, I have read and feel free to correct me, as Tre mentioned you are running a uv and it will no doubt kill the very food that sps corals need to thrive. I think uv filters are great on fish only but in full blown reefs with sps predominate tanks they pose more of a hinderance than a help. This is just my 2 cents worth....

Tre, you have a much more rewarding project under way....

 

[S.Reef]

Ill be honest lorna, didnt even think about evaporation lol. My basement does have a heavy duty dehumidifier, but I guess ill have to come up with some type of top off.

 

[TRe]

if it were me id go with only 3x400w mh's and just get the right reflectors and you will be more than fine... on the stand you could still go with steel but just have it built in sections that will fit through the doors and once in the basement you could than put the pieces together.... 3600gph running thru the sump is guna be very far from silent, if its flow your looking for theres other ways to go about that

 

[TRe]

btw my canopy has an open back and with 250w mh's and a huge fan blowing around in there my temps climb as high as possible without needing a chiller (82)

 

[Chris_A]

LOL, Sorry about that brain fart... Don't know why I was thinking it was a recirc skimmer lol.

I agree with TRe, there are probably better options than using the Dart as a return. Especially since you are going with a few tunze streams and the wavebox. On that note, have you looked at the Eco-tech Vortec's (sp?)? Pricey but probably worth it with a dedicated SPS tank. Plus they don't pull half the watts of a Dart. IMO, a 900 GPH return would be great. It would allow more "dwell time" for the skimmer to get it's job done and you'd still have ~3x/h turn over through the sump.

Also agree about the lighting. 3 400's with appropriate reflectors (say Lumenarc's) should be more than fine.

Gonna agree with you on the UV though. I've run a UV recirc'ed through a sump before and had no problem with cope's or amph's. I'm sure the populations could have been higher but I still saw no problem with what was there. While I don't really think it's needed, I also don't think it will hurt. Especially in this day and age where most people dose to feed their corals.

I too would look at a chiller sooner rather than later... Would really suck if you had to cut back your photoperiod while you looked for one . LOL, seems to me 400watt halides are almost sonomus (sp?) with chillers .

Chris

 

[S.Reef]

You know Chris I know a lot of people with the vortecs...the wet end has a lot of issues. I did just open an account with them so I may try a few see how I like them.

 

[TRe]

if the price isnt an issue i feel vortech is as good as it gets! with that said i dont see anything wrong with a few modded maxijets!

 

[S.Reef]

if the price isnt an issue i feel vortech is as good as it gets! with that said i dont see anything wrong with a few modded maxijets!

Modded Maxis are awesome! Used them in the past and liked them a lot...this tank is kind of a dream tank...so I am sparing no expense *SUNSMILE*

 

[1979camaro]

Hey S.Reef - just wanted to say welcome back and I look forward to seeing what you are up to. I just got my feet wet in the world of SPS a few months ago...exciting times!