My 300G Built-in Reef - UPDATE - Tear down thread

[Anonymous]

Ditto, Ditto, Ditto!!!

The PVC jacket on the wire would resist the salt water better than the galvanized metal conduit/boxes. You are asking for a BIG mess in two years or so.

I second the need for the unfortunately expensive GFCI breakers. Or you could re-wire all those boxes to be individual GFCI outlets (yech!) You can wire GFCI's in series, and that protects you just fine, but if one goes out all the others in series do too.

I HATE raining on peoples DIY projects since DIY is near and dear to my own heart, but electricity is nothing to fool with.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/25/jambor ... index.html

Great project and that work looks plenty neat to me!

 

[Anonymous]

The PVC jacket on the wire would resist the salt water better than the galvanized metal conduit/boxes. You are asking for a BIG mess in two years or so.

I really am not planning to douse the cable with saltwater (or fresh).

But none to fear. If these outlets or cables do start rusting, I'll redo it. Hell, I love my fish tank, but I aint going to get killed by it (well, if I can help it anyways )

Louey

 

[mike90]

awesome work Louey. you just raised the value of your home too! lol :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

If I ever sell this house the ad will look something like this...

300G reef for sale. House included. :lol:

I can promise you that I am never going to move this tank.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

The bottom of my tank has a 3" wide glass border all the way around the tank. I guess the manufacturer thinks everyone is going to fill the bottom with sand or gravel or something. This presented me with a problem in getting my starboard in and laying flat. I needed something to fill in the center sections so that it was at the same elevation is the borders. In other words, I needed a completely flat bottom. After a few calls I realize that 3/8 starboard is the cheapest thing available locally. So I measured the opening and bought a 75-3/4" by 22-7/8" piece of white starboard to lay in there. I had them rip it in half so that I could fit it through the openings in between the eurobracing. I put a bead of silicon around the outside perimeter of each board so that water doesn't seap in and turn nasty.

The two pictures show what I am talking about. These pictures make it look like the starboard is higher than the glass, but it is not. It's dead nuts flush.

The weights are to keep if flat until the silicon dries.

This weekend I'll start glueing sand to the 1/2" starboard pieces what will go across the entire lenght of the tank (thanks to Comatose's thread).

Louey

 

[GSchiemer]

God, I hate this "Starboard" trend. :roll:

How thick is the bottom glass in that tank? You'd have to drop a 20 lb rock from 3 stories into a dry tank in order to crack that bottom glass.

No one will convince me that "Starboard" isn't a complete waste of time and money. And it's ugly to boot!

 

[Anonymous]

The bottom glass is 1" thick. But I am not doing the starboard to protect the glass from falling rocks. I am putting it in to have something to glue some sand too. I am venturing away from the DSB. The flow in this tank would never allow for a DSB anyways. My 75G fuge will have a DSB that is 5 years old.

DSB vs. bare bottom is a debate in itself. But I am convinced that DSB's create maintenance because of the nasties they contain and that will great flow and skimming, an SPS tank can be maintained better without one. Or we shall see. In fact I may yank the DSB from the fuge after a while just to see the effects...

I do agree that plain old starboard is ugly. Check out Comatose's 180 in this thread. I think his looks pretty good for BB.

Louey

 

[m-fine]

There is quite a range between bare and deep sand you know

How about a thin layer of larger pice gravel or crushed rock? Say .5 to 1.0 centimeters an inch deep or maybe even barely a single layer. It will siphon just as easy as BB or starboard and look better too!

m-fine

P.s. Is that a nano reef in the picture behind you tank?

 

[Jolieve]

It does look like a nano, m-fine. What size tank is that Louey? 20 high?

J.

 

[Anonymous]

Nah, it's a 300 wide, nano.

There all nano's you know.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

m-fine wote:

How about a thin layer of larger pice gravel or crushed rock? Say .5 to 1.0 centimeters an inch deep or maybe even barely a single layer. It will siphon just as easy as BB or starboard and look better too!

Looks better is a matter of opinion. And I disagree with your opinion .

Crushed coral would require some vacuuming to keep clean. I don't particularly like the looks of crushed coral either.

Nothing looks better than a DSB IMO. As for looks alone, there really is no substitute.

This tank is going to be a high flow bare bottom tank with starboard covered in glued down reef sand. That's is a done deal. That's not to say that a few years from now I may go another way. But for now, that's what it's going to be.

Louey

 

[m-fine]

We can't necessarily change your mind but we can pester you anyway

Seriously what size is the old tank in the back there?

m-fine

 

[Anonymous]

Pester away. I enjoy it.

That's my 5 year old 75G reef that will eventully be tied into this system and it will become the fuge. The fish and the Gigas clam will be moved to the reef along with a few of my corals. The rest will be busted up, fragged out, and traded at the LFS. The tank is being overtaken by mushrooms and polyps that some poor unsuspecting noob will pay handsomely for at the LFS. :twisted: Hey, I NEED store credits. I have probably already dropped over $9000 in this tank and as you can see it's still empty. Doh!


Louey

 

[m-fine]

I never bought a mushroom, but one hitched its way in a few years back and now I am trying my best to eradicate them. Aptaisia are wimps compared to my green stiped mushrooms! One fought back yesterday and squirted me in the eye, MAN did that burn, and half my face was numb for a few hours! Learn from my mistake and wear eye protection when you frag yours, Especially if you try to pull them off the rocks.

Hey wait a minute, Maybe I can tell my wife we need a new 300 gallon tank to get rid of the mushrooms safely. What did you say it cost? Only $900, thats not too bad

m-fine

 

[LA-Lawman]

Great set-up... here is a tid-bit of infor regarding GFCI breakers and elect ballasts.

Ice-cap told me that you can run halide MH ballsts no problem on a GFCI breaker. but as soon as you plug a Electric VHO ballast. you will blow the breaker. i am not an electrition. but i had this problem and had to ditch my gfci breaker and wire in GFCI outlets. maybe a load percentage before trip..... i dunno

you might want to call icecap and check with them....

hth

 

[Anonymous]

I ran an IceCap 660 that drove 4-110 watt VHO's for 5 years that were plugged into a GFI receptacle. The GFI never tripped once. In fact, my whole 75G reef system was fed from that one outlet.

I would think large pumps might trip a GFI. I'm a little concerned that these Iwaki 100's may do it. We'll see.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Not a receptacle Louey, a breaker and i would really like to hear more about this since I may have to go that way in the future....

 

[Anonymous]

What do you want to know ckcowlto? I have not used any GFCI breakers on my reef, but I don't think they work any different from the GFCI receptacle as far as when it will or wont trip.

Louey

 

[LA-Lawman]

Hi Louey,

I thought for some reason you ran breakers.... Icecap told me that you can only run 70% of the load on a GFCI BREAKER as opposed to a receptacle. and that MH/VHO ballasts run at a different frequency as compared to mag ballasts. so the combination of them on one GFCI breaker is gonna trip your system. If you run each light individualy on a recpetacle the standard breaker trips at 85% load......


so if you have tons of room in the panel and tons of bucks..... use a gfci breaker. if not use a receptacle....

 

[Anonymous]

My 4-400 watt lamps is 1600 watts total. That is only 80% of a 20 amp breakers capacity. You are not supposed to put more than an 80% continous load on any breaker. Continuous being any load that normally is on for 3 hours at a time, which my lights certainly will be. So my circuit is fully loaded.

The beauty of having a panel right next to the panel is if I need to add a new circuit, I can do it in a matter of minutes.

Louey