Starting ~800 Gallon Custom Reef Tank Build

[ravi197699]

Hello reefers happy Tuesday, build has been progressing slowly, a lot is happening behind the scenes, my friend built me cabinet to mount equipment, I will be able to hide power supplies and wires and mount my drivers neatly on the door and brackets for power bricks and drivers are in already and, I painted the cabinet and installed cooling fans that will help push the heat out of the cabinet to cool down the power bricks, I worked on building the manifold to connect my reactors and protein skimmer and other items that will run on 1 pump. I am using 1" threaded gate valves, I have 6 gate vales that will be mounted, I have will be left with couple of the ones that will be free that can be used to run anything that may decide to add in near future, here are the pictures of the cabinet and manifold.. more pictures to come as I make progress ....

 

[ravi197699]

installed mp60's and gyre

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hello reefers Happy Monday, It was busy Sunday for me and I made great progress installing brackets for drivers and brackets for power supplies that I ordered from vender on ebay, finish works takes a lot of time but I am happy with the outcome, I need to make extension cables for gyre and jebao pp15 pumps, once I am done then I will be able to start working on filling the tank with RO water, here are some of the pictures the progress...​

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[3450500]

awesome!!!!!!!

 

[editour2]

Nice and neat....love it !!!

 

[ravi197699]

thank you, I am spending more time now and it will make my life easier later...

 

[ravi197699]

Hello Reefers, as shown in the pictures above that I have already installed MP60's and my Gyre XF280 across from MP60 and since am running the wires in J channels which are mounted on the wall to make it neat and clean, Mp60 wires are short and not reaching the drivers, So I decided to make extension cables for MP60's, I was able to reach out fellow reefer on RC and he gave me the list of part numbers there are total 6 parts required for this project, 1. Molex mini fit jr Male, 2. Molex mini fit jr Female, 10 pin Molex Male connector, 10 pin Molex Female Connector, 10 conductor 22 AWG wire and Molex crimping tool, I was able to find all the parts from Digi Key and they are cheap, I bought enough wire roll and connectors and mini fit jr pins enough for my project and I make 4 8 foot extension cables, Process is easy, female pins go in male molex connector and each color of the wire should end up on same pin on both ends of the connectors and you will have your self extension cables, it took me 1 hr to put all 4 extension cables, here are some of the pictures of the part numbers and crimping pictures which is the hardest part but once you crimp 1 or 2 pints you will get more efficient.. here are the pictures....

 

[ravi197699]

Hello Happy Monday, I made some progress with diy extension cables for gyres and tucking away the cables out of sight in J channels, connected Vectra L1 and connected all MP 60 pumps, I was able to mount ACP Power back up unit, this thing is heavy and took little effort to lift to put it on shelf.

 

[pecan2phat]

So Ravi,
Any idea what this magnificent build is going to cost you when you are up and running?

 

[editour2]

Warren....do you mean electricity costs to run the system OR total cost for all equipment in the build?

 

[ravi197699]

not sure about the cost but it is not cheap for sure, Sunroom was built for this tank and that set me back 25k, stand by generator 10k, tank 15k no to mention cost of stand, rack pumps etc it is not cheap hobby for sure

 

[Reefinny]

I like how you have the power block holders. Well done. I will be borrowing that idea for sure.

 

[ravi197699]

Sure Mike, let me know I will give you name of the vendor..

 

[Reefinny]

Thanks - Just going to use your design I will build it. But thank you!

 

[ravi197699]

oh ok, please text me your design as well, are you going to use 3d printer ?

 

[Reef Trends]

Mike I need some if you are going to make a few.

 

[Reefinny]

I didnt realize they were 3d printed. Looked like wood in the picture.

 

[ravi197699]

these are 3d printed and they are white to it looks good and neat on white painted wood..

 

[ravi197699]

Hello guys so my 350 gallon sump is filled all the way and I have turned on close loop pump for my sump that powers my sea swirls that pushes water to the front of the sump which was the idea, I wanted to have all the detritus push on the front so that I can be syphon out of the system and as you guys can see the pictures it is doing its job and water is moving so well that I can see the swirls on the surface when water hits the side and front wall of the sump, I have plumbed my nitrate reactor that holds ton of ceramic media, I have installed 1.5 inch drain and I call that Skimmer and reactors drain, nitrate reactor and my cheato reactor and my skimmer will be draining via this 1.5" drain, I have installed 3 of 1.5" "T" and using reducers to connect drains from my reactors. cheato and nitrate reactor will have very low water flow through the reactors so that tank water can reactor to bacteria in the reactor and cheato has enough time to process tank water to remove nutrients, My electrician came Sunday and installed 20 amp circuit which is dedicated circuit to run the tank, these 6 outlets are controlled by 20 amp GFI and 20 amp breaker, all the outlet boxes are grounded and mounted high on top away from water, He installed 1 switch and socket for bulb because I found that it was not bright enough on that side when I was working on plumbing so that is solved as well, I have manifold build that will run my reactors and feed my protein skimmer, it has 6 outlets but I will be using only 3 for now, I was able to tuck in my calcium reactor that I bought from fellow reefer and it is commercial size reef octopus calcium reactor, size is 26 inches high x 12 inch diameter and it is driven by reeflow dart pump. this thing is monster and I will be using DaStaCo pro media which I got in the mail and it is 5 gallon bucket of pure lab grade 99% Alk and Calcium at 6.0 ph in reactor, I will be rinsing the media and fill up the reactor with this media, I have cole parmer pump that will be using to pull water from sump through the reactor, speed of cole parmer peristaltic pump is controlled with solid state driver and I am using #24 tubing for this pump, it is old fashioned pump which is dc motor and I have upgraded the head with Masterflex Easy load. I will be uploading the pictures later this week when I connect the pump and fire up the calcium reactor without co2. just want to make sure there are no leaks. here are some of the pictures of sump, sea swirls etc.

 

[ravi197699]

Hello MR, Happy Monday! as things are getting to finish line for the most part, I was able to install my cheato algae reactor, I bought this in the past and I decided to use this for this purpose due to size and it is light weight and clear body for lights to be able to mount on the outside, I plumbed my calcium reactor and rinsed DaStaCo Pro media and 50 lbs of media did not fill the reactor all the way, I am going to leave it to this level since this media burns very slowly. I turned the pump on and filled the reactor with water and as of right now it is running and no leaks so far and I am not hoping for 1, I checked again this morning and it looked fine, simple reactor but built well. I added some more ceramic media in my sump, I will leave it there and let is seed with bacteria and I will utilize these ceramic tubes to start my fish holding system and frag tank. fish holding system and coral frag system will be stand alone systems with independent filtration. more pictures to come...

 

[vio]

Super nice.