Starting ~800 Gallon Custom Reef Tank Build

[ravi197699]

Abyzz are awesome but pricey, for now I will have to settle with something at reasonable priced DC pump and later down the road I might upgrade the pump to Red Dragon Speedy or Abyzz...

 

[ravi197699]

Hey guys, I know it is slow progress but I am taking time to put things together and make sure that I won't regret it later, I put together my light rack where my light fixtures will be resting on and it will be on rail so that I can move it to left side to work on the tank if I need to do anything like mounting frags etc., it is not very heavy and simple rack and I will be mounting 2" x 2" anodized aluminum angle 1/8" thick that will be screwed on the inside of the rack and lights will be resting on the aluminum angle lip, light rack is 96" long and it came with 4 roller wheels and light rack will be attached to the rollers, still need to figure it out how I am going to do that, But I have little more brain storming to do on that part. Size of the rack is 52" x 84" , I made it little short so 4" on each side it is short. I did mount my room humidity and temperature controller to control the humidity in the room and I will be adding window fan that will exchange air based on the temperature of the room as well. here are some of the pictures of the progress.. getting very close to get this tank wet..

 

[ravi197699]

so... I was able to paint the light rack with three coats of white oil based paint,, now I was able to sand it down so takes are the lint off the paint to make it feel and look smooth and sanding helps a lot.. only 1 side which is bottom of the stand is left and I will paint that tonight and then start working on mounting rack for the light and then plan about how to hang light so that I can adjust the height of the rack without having any hard time, if you guys have anything to share on what I can use to hang the rack from sliding rail and able to adjust the height of the rack easily that will be awesome...

 

[ravi197699]

Gm reefers, I am looking to buy battery backup for my DC pumps ,such as Vectra L1, Ecotech mp60 etc. Which is good quality UPS battery back up that will keep up during power outages and surges...


I have been looking at this unit - is this any good??


https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Battery-Protection-OMNI1500LCDT/dp/B009TZTGWK/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1545338857&sr=8-15&keywords=upc%2Bbattery%2Bbackup%2B%26%2Bsurge%2Bprotector&th=1

 

[brooklynreefers]

Gm reefers, I am looking to buy battery backup for my DC pumps ,such as Vectra L1, Ecotech mp60 etc. Which is good quality UPS battery back up that will keep up during power outages and surges...


I have been looking at this unit - is this any good??


https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Battery-Protection-OMNI1500LCDT/dp/B009TZTGWK/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1545338857&sr=8-15&keywords=upc%2Bbattery%2Bbackup%2B%26%2Bsurge%2Bprotector&th=1

to power all the things you need powered, probably best to just go with a generator

 

[ravi197699]

I have 22kw standby generator installed already, but DC pump drivers don't do well when there is surge or shock due to power outage, that is why I want to install UPS battery back up which will keep everything going during power outage and until my generator kicks in which is more or less 60 seconds, I want pumps, apex and all to be working without any interruption..

 

[ravi197699]

Hello reefers, I got my APC power backup and surge protector, this unit is 1000VAC and 700w max 8.3 amps, I will be plugging in all my dc pumps in this unit, it has advance control on the front, I will be going to the manual to see what settings I should be using, I was able to add aluminum angles on my light rack, these angles are 2"x 2" x 1/8" thick which is pretty solid for what I am going to use it for, Light rack is wider than the fixtures, I was planning to install my lights staggered, this way I can cover front and back of the tank and won't have dead spots ( in theory). I installed the rack on the ceiling and light will be hanging on the rack with bearing rollers, i will be able to slide the light away from the tank completely, Amazon sent me 2nd rack wrong ( :-( , so waiting for replacements and I will be able to test the rack and i will post some pictures of that as well...


here are the specs from APC - APC has a tower form factor and delivers intelligent and efficient network power protection from entry level to scalable runtime. It can provide 105 minutes of use at 50W, 64 minutes of use at 100W, 34.7 minutes of use at 200W, 22.5 minutes of use at 300W, 16 minutes of use at 400W, 11.9 minutes of use at 500W, and 9.2 minutes of use at 600W.

 

[ravi197699]

Merry Christmas reefers, Little change in stand, my tank builder suggested that I should add 1 more support under going across, so i did listen to him and added 1 more metal eye beam under going across, this beam is resting on the 4x4 post that was supporting the either side of the stand, It was 400 bucks investment but it;s worth every penny, So i spent some time painting the beam, I could have painted this when it was outside but weather was not on my side so i told the installers to just for it without painting it, I was able to find place to install my titanium heat exchanger, it will be sitting on the right rear corner and it will sit on FRO grates that i bought so i moved couple of rocks and made room for this to sit, it will be under water, this will be connected to my hot water heater and hot water re circulation pump which will be connected to Apex to control the temperature. It should maintain tank temperature and keep it consistent, here are some of the pictures...

 

[vio]

I can wait to see when water is IN.
Nice job.

 

[ravi197699]

Getting closer by day Vio, very soon It will be filled with water, Just taking my time to plan things right...

 

[ravi197699]

Hello reefers, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, with hep of my friend we made great progress today and we have achieved a lot, when it comes to light rack, We finished this project and rack is hung off the track and it is working as we planned it, each 2x4 has 3 rollers and total 6 rollers on each end just to distribute the weight of the rack and light and it glides much better with 3 rollers on each 2 x 4, We used steel braided wire and some hardware bought from Amazon to put together the cables that loops around the 2 wood supports, it will give me option to move the light rack from front to back since it is not screwed into one spot, Light rack has been leveled due to roof that has an angle slope on 1 end so light is 95 - 98% leveled, when i was mounting the rack on the front it was the hardest thing that i have done on this build, I should have done that before we build the tank but it is done and i am happy, this light rack will house 6 reef breeders photons v2+ 50" version and 4 full spectrum 48" light bars that will add additional punch and coloration, I have ordered mounting brackets for power supplies and drivers for pumps, no power supply or cord will be hanging and all the wires will go through proper chanel, here are some of the pictures of the work that we completed today, tomorrow i will work on plumbing the heat exchanger and complete the plumbing for my reverse osmosis system, I will upload pictures for those tomorrow..

 

[editour2]

Very Impressive....I'm guessing that the light rack is attached to the ceiling track in the middle by those 2x3 pieces of wood? So when you slide the lights out of the way the track is long enough to clear the whole top of the tank? Or are you adding a longer track in the front?


How about a picture of the whole display tank with the new lights/light rack?

 

[ravi197699]

thank you editour2, yes lights are hanging on 2x3 pieces of wood and there will be another track added on the front,and when i move the rack, i have added the rack on the back side already but my friend had to leave and this is not something i could have completed all by myself, so we finished the light rack part, it will be completely off the the tank for me to work inside the tank, today i will upload pictures of the light rack with lights mounted,

 

[ravi197699]

update

Gm reefers, I made some progress with lights and I used my new year day off to wrap up the lights project, I hung all the lights on the rack and i could not be happier with the outcome, I got my Vectra L1 pump delivered as well and it will be used as my main return pump, I got my Gyre XF 280 that will be mounted and 4 mp 60 that will be mounted on 1 end, I will upload pictures of those separately, I used full spectrum led bars in the middle of each light that will come on for 4 - 5 hrs just go give extra punch to corals during peak hour, based on configuration of the lights I don't think i would have any dead spots in the tank, I used steel rods that come with reefbreeders and cut them and layed light on the rack and power cord coming out of the light was resting on the aluminum angle and i did not light that so i cut out 2" of 2x3 and bought some white plastic wire rack clamps from Lowes and used them as spacers and i worked great, light is resting on 2x3 and it gave me little height as well and i did same with accent light bars as well and they are all sitting at same height and looks great as well, please see the pictures of the lights, feel free to make suggestions and comments, I am still waiting for vendor to give me price for 3d printed mounting brackets for all my equipment, i will be buying those for every equipment i am going to use and they will be in white color, more to come on that topic..

 

[editour2]

I guess you are running the 6 Photons front to back on your tank.....48" long light fixtures for a 60" deep tank....nice. Also running 6 fixtures at approximately 9" wide each across the 90" length of the tank with the LED full spectrum bars in the middle of each....again should be more than adequate lighting. How much is the total wattage of ALL fixtures? How high above the tank will the Photons sit? What degree lenses are on those full spectrum bars?
Looking really good..... got to get some water in the tank and get the cycle going.


Frank

 

[ravi197699]

yes editour, I am running 48" long light fixtures but tank is really 57" deep and I am running 5 full spectrum led bars which are 48" as well, photons are will be proximately 10" from water surface but I do have the option to make it lower and led bars have 90 deg lenses

 

[editour2]

Just out of curiosity, what's the total wattage of the 6 Photons and the LED bars combined?

 

[ravi197699]

Not sure yet, i will plug them all in and see what wattage they are pulling.. anything i should worry about??

 

[pecan2phat]

anything i should worry about??

Yes PSEG

 

[ravi197699]

Lol, I am counting on my solar system to keep up with demand...