700 Gallon Tank Update

F

FaithWarren

Someone (you know who you are) emailed me asking how the tank was doing and said that I only post when something seems to have gone fantastically wrong. Well I thought I might post some pics and give everyone an update. For those that have never seen the tank (your loss) and know nothing about it (again your loss) I will go over the details to bring you up to speed.

Three years ago (wow has it been that long?) we decided to start a reef tank... Haa haa haa I ain't going that far back, you want details that far back you gonna have to post them. (Did Mark mention I am the designated MAS biotch???)

The tank is 1,090 gallons total. Every 4-6 weeks we do a 200 gallon water change. It has six 400 watt halides 3 20K blues 3 14K whites. The viewable part of the tank is 700 gallons it is 10 feet of starfire glass with a 3 foot side that is also starfire and viewable. We put a 135 gallon tank full of feather caulerpa up to the right that barely overflows into the 700's system that I plan on making a seahorse habitat at some point (years from now when all you aee are copeopods swimming around and can barely make out the sea grass).

There are three 250 gallon sumps, but they are not full to the top... They are filled with caulerpa of varying types, live rock and sand. There is a 1.5 HP chiller on the system, an Octopus controller, X-10 modules to turn stuff on and off for feeding etc... Calcium Reacotrs, Kalk Reactors, T5 Skimmers, even some cannister filters (that run empty but give us the option to put baskets with phosban or charcoal should the need arise).

The system evaporates 35 gallons of water a day, and costs me on average an extra $300 on my electric bill... Not to mention the making of 200 gallons of RO/DI water for the semi monthly water changes. The RO/DI discharges the waste water intot he yards so myplants and lawn sure are pretty too...

The inhabitants of the tank are various types of anthias now, as I got rid of the Vlamingi Tangs donating them to Fish Gallery during the last crash. Fish Gallery has agreed to never sell them. So you can go visit the whales any time you like.

I wanted a reef with lots of corals so the large tangs had to go, so now I have lots (did I say LOTS) of anthias of varied kinds some are unidentified. But mostly lyretail, dispar, pictilis, pink, and squampinnis. Midas blennies, mandarins, rose anemones (anyone want her babies), their host clownfish, I mean I could go on, and on, and on.

You can go to my website http://www.wildreef.com or even http://www.dctwoodcraft.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=290 to see the woodwork Dan Turner did on the tank. Wonderful carpenter with the most patience I have ever seen (there were days my husband was like, you said WHAT to him???) he is a great guy and builds awesome stands and does great woodwork. (Plugs go out for ya there Dan.)

Tank is doing great. I had to devise a way to keep the anthias in, they were jumping out, and now that I have that they do great. I hope to get a group buy together with a friend of mine soon and get some wrasses, seeing as how he has patiently waited for 6-7 months while I got his moolah. It just always seems I don't got mine...

So anyway I stole these pics from Dans site, so the goofy guy smiling is guess who? Dan Turner carpenter extraordinaire!

1.jpg
alt="">
2.jpg
alt="">
3.jpg
alt="">
4.jpg
alt="">
 
Hey that looks great. And with that in a room, I'd imagine HDTV would be boring. You could stare at that for an eternity. Great job.
 
Faith, last time we saw it, you had just gotten all the rock in. That has been a while back, and I am sure a few thousand dollars ago! Things look awesome! Keep us posted on the progress. I am so jealous.
 
Hey Faith ,
looks great
Sorry you had to give up your Tangs
Looks a bit different than the concrete block/ frp panels nightmare
The woodwork and room looks finished, very nice
Keep us updated
I know Dan , he is a wonderful and honest Person
Ken
 
Wow... that looks Great. Fantastic woodwork to make it part of the house. Who needs TV when you have a nice big tank to look at.
 
Yeah that little bitty tank to the right is a 135 gallon refugium, I plan on putting seahorses in. It overflows very slowly into the main 700 gallon reef and feeds the anthias a nice supply of copeopods (Spelling???). The anthias swim in the water coulumn all day right in front of that tube waiting for pods to come out.

There are three other sumps below the tank full of caulerpa too, they are 250 gallons each but filled to like 150 gallon mark. When the tank stops overflowing they fill to like 5" from the top.

I have the overflow go into an enclosed rubbermaid in one of the fuges full of live rock and NO LIGHT, it is my sponge filter area, then the skimmer skims off the system while the water flows through the next sump filled with grape, razor, feather, and ogo, liverock and other various sponges, then it goes to the next tank filled with caulerpa a mix as well of the three types, then it is pumped back through the Ocean's Motion, and the 135 fuge back into the tank. Somewhere in the mix is the chiller pulling from that last 'fuge. There are also two closed loop systems on the tank with that black flexible hosing snaking all through the rock to create flow without using powerheads. We have two Hammerheads throttled back by about half doing the closed loops, and have been debating combing those two pumps since we aren't utilizing them all.

Water changes are neat and easy. We have a series of valves we turn and the water is redirected to flow down the driveway while we refill with a fresh 200 gallons. We have figured out how low to get the sumps to do an exact 200 gallon water change. We remove a little more than half the water from them while the tank is off, and the under tank fudges are full.

There is a closet to the left of the tank, and a walkway we built behind, so you can stand behind the tank and arrange corals and do whatever you like. I personally think this is the best view in the house.

The area enclosed with the tank is vented through the roof with a turbine that is on a motor and spins when the temperature reaches a certain number (ask James what the number is).

The area under the 135 is entirely dry and houses the Aqua Controller, laptop, and dosing devices. It is our "Brain Center".

Did I mention we park our Harley Davidson's in that room??? James and I recently became fanatical Harley riders, he got a Fat Boy and I got a V-Rod. We let the bikes cool then roll them into the room at night. LOL.

Any other questions???

I wouldn't mind if someone (I a take bad pix) could come take pictures and I could write an article about the tank, and maybe do a review. The tank looks incredible since those pix where Dan is standing in front of it. The corals are thriving and I have added alot, even some small frags I got at MAS of acros are totally taking off in the tank. It seems like the less attention I pay to the tank and the more water changes I do the better the tank does.

The only point of contention in our hose seems to be who feeds those ravenous anthias every night. I did it last night! It's YOUR turn!

We feed Omega One Flake food that I buy by the bucket and it lasts about a year. I might supplement with frozen or live enriched brine on occassion but basically if the anthias don't figure out how to eat flake I don't really think they are destined to be in my tank. So far it works I would say i have about 20-25 anthias. they are kinda shy at times, but when they all come out it is a breathtaking site (If you can see them through all the flake food).
 
What a wonderful update. Thanks for sharing. If you like, at some point I could come over and take pictures. Or if you want, we could even do a podcast interview perhaps for others to learn from.
 
Sure Mark come take pix, I am bad at taking pix... My camera is not as nice as yours nor do I have the patience. PS I broke the acrylic light box by accident and could use another, hint hint....

As for RC, they banned me some time back thinking I was a store, long after I had quit wholesaleing fish and was trying to post stuff about my 700 gallon tank project. I can't curse enough about what a big group of idiots I think the mods are over there. I plead my case and got very bad attitudes from them. So I refuse to go to their site nor buy from anyone they endorse. I probably know more about husbandry, water chemistry, corals etc than a lot of yahoos they have giving advice on that board, and got banned. So they can go suck an egg. (Sorry about the attitude - so don't flame me for hating RC, I know alot of you guys think they are like gods or something, but no one is perfect, especially all those jerks that banned me.)

I can be a bit harsh, and that comes alot from posting on boards and having weird responses in the past where people basically name called and tried to start something with me, so I take a defensive attitude. It's not that I think I know everything, I just know what I have been thru and tried, even failed at. With this hobby not everyone is 100% right all the time nor is every answer 100% all the information you need. They might leave out 1% of the info and BANG your tank crashes.

What advice I will give is:

1.) Look really hard for that 1% of information that is missing in that so called "experts" answer.

2.) Don't take anything as gospel, either, no answer is ever going to be "the 100%" cure all.

3.) Then, when in doubt, do water changes. Only good clean fresh saltwater can bring your tank back to stable, there is no shotgun anything you can put in there to "Fix" it, but clean saltwater. then figure out what went wrong. (I know that sounds like I am saying water changes are a fix it, but they aren't the problem is stilll there, bu doing massive water changes in an extreme case to save your tank, you are not "fixing" it, but band-aiding the problem. The band-aid will fall off and you still have a problem, so figure it out, but save what you can, by doing those water changes when things go terribly wrong.)

4.) Please do regular water changes, I know there are those out there that say they haven't changed their water in years, but c'mon man, even if you add all the elements in manually you will never achieve that perfect mix that those nice peeps at the salt companies have spent millions trying to get right. - Some more right than others, but that is another problem)
 
Hey Faith your tank is great! That 125g to the side looks like its a 10g next to the main tank!!! LOL! What a lot of us maybe would like to see now is the behind the sceen plubming!??Got any pics of the backstage setup.
 
So pretty boring at work today...Decided to dig around on here and WOW!!!! This is just an amazing tank and carpentry!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top