Starting ~800 Gallon Custom Reef Tank Build

[ravi197699]

thank you Vio, when tank is cycled i will reach out to you for frags

 

[Air breather]

Hi Rav, love to stop by to see you progress. Inspired by you equipment built.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Great job Ravi, took your time and planned it well, can't wait to see it finished

 

[ravi197699]

Thank you Andy, hope fully it will be filled tomorrow, if all goes as planned then it will fire up my RO system tonight..

 

[ravi197699]

hello MR,Happy Saturday, I got some more goodies, these are 3D printed brackets for heater controller, Reef link, Neptune Apex Display Holder and 2 magnetic probe holders that will hold 8 probes all together, these got delivered today and guess what I am mounting these tomorrow...

 

[ravi197699]

Hello MR, Happy Monday and finally my tank is wet... I am done with final touches in the tank and I started filling the tank with RO water, It was very exciting moment for me and at the same time I am nervous, So I ran the RO for 4 hours and I was able to till the tank 12 - 14 inches high, I took measurement tape and measured the height of the water and all 4 corners, front side, back side measured at same height which is good thing and I turned the RO off around 830 last night, I don't like to leave Ro on while sleeping due to its high pressure and I like to supervise to make sure all the connections are secured and intact and it gave time for tank with 14 inches of water to settle on the stand as well. Woke up in the morning and checked around and checked the floor and so far so good.. I am impressed with RO System I have and I am sure you have seen same comment in the past from me as well, output out of the membrane is 0.003 and output out of DI filter is 000, I could not be happier with these readings. My wife is off today so I told her to turn the RO on and there are only 2 steps, Turn feed ball valve on and turn on the switch to RO and that is about it so that she can turn it off when tank is full or for any other reason.. I am expecting tank to be full or close to full by end of the day tonight. here are some of the pictures of the tank and my track for lights is finished and I am able to move the light rack completely away form the tank..

 

[Reefinny]

Nice Ravi.. good luck!

 

[ravi197699]

Thank you Mike, It should be filled by the time I get home, so excited..

 

[Czynot]

WOW. I would like to know what is your electric bill cost next few months.

 

[ravi197699]

not sure but i will definitely post the dollar amount in this thread...

 

[ravi197699]

Good morning MR, I got my peristaltic pump and I bought Watson Marlow 505U, This pump lab grade and has digital control panel, I am going to use this pump for my calcium reactor and I will be pushing water through reactor with this pump, I turned this pump on yesterday and it is dead silent and pump head is solid, I am happy with this pump, I can control the speed for the pump in increments of 1 and lowest speed is very very slow moving head, this will give me an option to fine tune the drip rate out of my reactor... I will post pictures when I install this pump... here is the picture of the actual pump..

 

[editour2]

Looking good man.....can't wait to see some fish and coral in there !!!!
Frank

 

[ravi197699]

hoping to place order for live stock next week, I will start with chromis different kind

 

[Panonhas]

Looking amazing Ravi. Great equipment also. Haven?t seen a shot of the tank filled and the lights on. Looking forward to that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ravi197699]

Good morning MR, Happy Wednesday, Tank is full and I fired up the L1 and I must tell you that pump has no sound at all even if I run at full speed, plenty of water comes down the drains and after testing my 3 drains if they can handle water drain from overflow if I run the L1 at full power and they 2 drain run full and 3 rd drain which is emergency drain which has very little water coming out, which means that i have plenty of room if I have to run the L1 at full power, so I dialed it down to 4 dots on the driver and still have good amount of turn over, I might dial in down even more because I want to give enough time for rock to process water in tank and in sump, I will see and play with the flow as it matures, drain pipes are quiet since I adjusted the gate valves which are right above filter socks and closed them to the point where I see no bubbles in both clear 1.5" pvc that comes out from the tank that assures me that pipe is full of water and it will have no splash till it comes out below the gate valve and i am going to make and add silencer pipes under the gate valves so that splashing water is quietly enters in sump, however I will have to remove those silencer pipes anytime I want to add filter socks to polish the water.. we will see how that goes that is my Saturday project. This week my goal is to bring hardwire internet cable to sunroom to program and install my Apex Classic, and then program my 3 EB8's outlets for each equipment, 2 lab grade ph probes and 1 ORP lab grade probe getting delivered today, I might have to buy extension cables but we will see if PH and ORP has enough length to reach tank as well as calcium reactor, I add salt in the sump last night 2.5 boxes of Fritz Pro Red Box and salinity this morning was 1.022 so I added 1/2 bag again and I will check when I get back home tonight, Water cleared up in the morning and did not feel like that I added salt last night and it dissolves pretty quick as well, after turning the L1 on and after mixing display tank water to sump water temperature starting dropping which was expected and lowest it dropped was 65 deg and I noticed that my hot water circulation pump kicked on and this morning temperature was 77 deg that was good test as well and only sound I heard at night was water splashing in filter socks after gate valves in sump... other that this sound it is dead silent. here are some of the pictures I took this morning....

 

[ravi197699]

Hello MR Gm and Happy Monday!, I got my apex all ready, set up, hooked up and mounted on the cabinet, I am able to control through Apex Fusion, It took little bit of time setting it up due to it has been in storage for more than a year, I got my lab grade duble junction Ph Probes (Milwaukee Instruments) and ORP probe also from Milwaukee Instruments, Calibrated the probes they are mounted in the sump probe holder, I am waiting for BNC extension cables I ordered they are arriving today and I will be able to connect Ph Probe for Tank and Ph Probe for Calcium Reactor to Apex and start dosing Co2 to the tank, I worked on my DIY Protein Skimmer that I built 3 years back, I upgraded the design to run this with 1/5" venturi that will be powered by Dolphin Amp master that does 6500 gallon/ hour, in theory it should work but I will fire it up this weekend and see how it goes, I will post the pictures and outcome of how it works, last design worked flawless but we will see how it goes, I installed shelf for Watson Marlow and it is sitting in right above my Vectra L1, Usually other reefers push through the reactor with peristaltic pump, but I am pulling with mine and it seems to work better for me, I can control the drip rate to 1 drop per second or lower, I am very happy with this, I bought WIFI Outlet Strip, It is made by TPlink Kasa, It has 6 outlets and 4 USB ports, I installed this right above the peristaltic pump and I have my calcium reactor pump and peristaltic pump hooked up to the outlet, This outlet has timer, alarm, and shows wattage used by the outlet, It comes handy if you want to do water changes and set up time to turn the pump on or off , it can do plenty of stuff, tank lights are programmed and turned on and they are working fine, I will play with intensity as tank matures and I add corals, I will borrow par meter from BRS and see where these lights stand when it comes to par, I installed 3 EB8's in my cabinet and hardwired the apex so that internet connection is solid, I will be adding UPC power back up and my Verizon router will be connected to the power back up, If we have surge or power outage, internet will stay consistent and won't interrupt the signal to apex and apex is connected to UPC power as well, this week I will connect my Ozone generator that will sit right above the protein skimmer and it will be controlled by PM1 module, here are some of the pictures

 

[ravi197699]

Hello MR Gm and Happy Monday, I see some algae bloom on rocks and base of the rock, I am assuming it is part of the cycle?? Lights are coming on and off on set schedule and few fishes are in the tank, I added gallon of nitrifying bacteria, pumps are on and water is moving well.
it was very busy Saturday and Sunday. I had to paint my garage from corner to corner due to my gas boiler went bad and it was producing black smoke, finally got it done and wife is happy, I was able to work on hooking up 1/4" guest fitting on nitrate reactor for carbon dosing to keep bacteria live and added 1/4" guest fitting to chaeto reactor to seed my calcium reactor effluent which will help grow cheato (in theory) due to effluent being rich with co2. I drilled hole in drain pipe which is master drain, my skimmer, nitrate reactor, cheato reactor are sharing this drain pipe, I drilled hole and used my 1/2" tap kit to make threads and I used 3/8" guest fitting to connect the output of my diy large kalkwasser reactor. I stole the idea from o2manyfish using red hat asco 3 way solenoid valve. he is controlling the valve via apex. programming will be fallback off, set off , if phtank < 8.50 then on, if phtank > 8.50 then off. so 3
way solenoid will be open or close based on programming by bypassing the kalk or going through the kalk . I have turned on my skimmer this Saturday, I wanted to check to see if there are any leaks and it ran all Saturday night and Sunday all day and after minor tweakes it started to settle down, after it builds slime coat it should run smooth, I will be dosing ozone through ozone input and controlling the redox via apex and probe. still waiting to decide if I am going to use only 1 container to use as ATO, ran wire for my float switches that will connect to my breakout box, I will be running RO tubes and install my RO system on 1 place and it will be controlled with red hat asco solenoids, I will be able to turn on the feed water and turn on my ro water remotely and from home and it will be connected to apex outlet as well in case if water bucket fills up and I forget to turn it off. I will document with pictures when I start that project.

 

[ohana888]

awesome build...so the cycling has begun!

 

[ravi197699]

cycling has begun already, as of right now it is going to algae cycle...

 

[ravi197699]

Hello MR, little update on few of the items, I had to take the skimmer apart and I am going to change the design of the skimmer to make it simple and reduce the height, height as of now is 6.5 feet high, wife did not like that sitting in sunroom so I will cut the height down to 4.5 feet high including collecting cup, Collection cup it self is 18" x 6" in height. I will post pictures of the new design when I put it together, I am waiting for all the parts, pump, needle wheel impeller etc. more to come on that part, at the same time I order some 3d printed parts for auto top off, float valve holder, reefbreeders remote control holder, Milwaukee salinity meter holder etc, I will be working this weekend to plump my ATO and find permanent place for my ro system, I will decide if I am going use 30 gallon containers and place them in closet outside the house or inside the sunroom, Wife is not too happy about that either, unless I am able to hide this in the cabinet that I am going to use for frag tank. time will tell which route I am going to go with, I bought 2 bottle holder and this is 3d printed as well, I will be using VOSS 850ml water bottle and I will use those bottles for vinegar for nitrate reactor and second bottle with for phosphates remover that will go directly into the skimmer, I will post pictures when I mount those on the wall . here are the pictures of the parts I received...