New 220 Gallon Tank

basa_bbc

Premium Member
Its been 9 years with a 90 Gallon Reef tank, time to move ahead and get a 220 puppy setup. Got good price on Tank / Stand / Canopy .. pics and details coming up soon ... Let the Journey Begin ...
 
Here are some of the details for the tank : Tank / stand / sump is being delivered by tomorrow - however when i looked at the existing sump, looks like it was damaged. Decided to build my own sump - there are some good options from trigger / melven (locally), but wanted to keep budget low, since moving ahead i still need to make lot of investment on the tank ...Sump design is simple - skimmer section , Refugium and Return section - Below is the plumbing that i am looking towardsBelow is what it cost me to build a Sump with Refugium ($206) :View attachment 75001. Went and got a used Glass 1/4" inch 80 gallon aquarium from Craiglist - $1502. Went to Lewis and got 1/4" acrylic clear cast sheet cut according to my specification for the Baffle - 4 baffle in total - $523. Got Silicone to glue - $44. Did some DIY cutting on the Refugium wall to include some teeths so that water flows down gently than falling down in the sump from a height5. Walla - my sump is ready - wait for 24 hrs / do a leak test and getting ready for the tank move tomorrow. 
 
Got the tank.. Did the plumbing.. Yet to get canopy and couple more radions. But below is what the progress is. View attachment 7507 after running it for couple of hours, i am seeing the baffle holding the refugium is bulging in due to water pressure. Not sure if its due to pasting acrylic baffle on a glass aquarium .. hoping that it does not give out. Will check tomorrow morning. Has anybody had issues on the baffle .. if so apart from drying out the sump, are there any other option to reseal the baffle back...
 
sorry guys.. with all the travel that i have been doing on the business side, updating the thread completely went off the mind. Good news is tank is progressing well. Will share the updates with lot of pics shortly...
 
over the past couple of months, phosphate was erratic between 0.5 to 0.9. Decided to bring up the refugium to full use. Got some chaeto month back and also ordered the below lights.View attachment 8058Phosphate has come down, but man does these light help, the chaeto is growing crazy.Below is the link to the light if interestedhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MCHOHS0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Also setup ATO and reservoir. For now basic setup done under the tank. here is what it looks likeView attachment 8059 Also ordered new return pumps. The old ones were making lot of noise and the tank is in living room and MANNNNNN is it quite now... Cant hear the humming sound et all or the water sound. Fine tuned Reef Tank .. Money well spent. With this pump, i can also control the Flow return and the Fish and corals are liking the additional water movement in the tank.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075L8GR69/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
REalized over the past month, that the lights that i got with the tank were not sufficient for the corals to grow. There were lot of black spots in the tank. I had 2 AI Vegas. Decided to upgrade to 3 Radions XR30W.I was planning to mount this under my canopy, there were some good options from boschrexroth, but when i checked with the distributor on the size that i wanted it ran me couple of hundreds for the order and mail order to be shipped(fun Fact, The local distributor apparently is in AZ). I coudnt wait for that long ....Necessity is the mother of all inventions (as some say :) ), another opportunity for DIY. Went to Lowes and got the parts that i needed for my design (BTW my design was to build a rail system so that i can move around the Radions, but still have enough space for air to circulate between radions and the inside of canopy.).Got the required parts for $42 and built the beauty below, installed it in canopy and below is how it looks.View attachment 8060Once i turned on the light.. Man these lights are a thing of beauty, the corals are absolutely loving it.. Right now running at 45% intensity..
 
Also sorted out the RO/DI unit, moved it from under a sink closet and organized it in my laundry room. Next step is to build the mixing station (still working a convincing reason to tell my wife on why i need to build stand and add more plumbing and couple of bigger containers in the already small laundry room, once i have the reason, next post will have updates on the mixing station setup).View attachment 8064BTW had to build a custom Plumbing adapter for the cold outlet the Y swivel adapter to ensure i have enough redundancies in case of water failure and also the Y swivel Adapter was not fitting directly with the laundury cold outlet for some reason..View attachment 8066 
 
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