Peter used Chingchai's build as a model for his thread and the build itself. Chingchai documented it very well with amazing drawings and the thread always kept a professional tone, no trolls, and he answered every question and greeting. Nursing the build thread along is as much work as the tank itself, but it's great to share the experience and have the creative input of a large group... even if they aren't all Canadians :)

Peter & I will be at MACNA. I can probably be tracked down from the reefs.com booth as it will be my base.

I found the thread when it was about 20 pages in and Peter had been working on the tank for about 9 months. The original project manager was in over his head and Peter needed some additional help completing the project.

Long story short, we scrapped just about everything he had, save the tank, stand, UV sterilizers and the live rock.

I started in July of last year and it has been a great ride. I currently maintain the tank and spend about three days a week on site, often more just shooting the **** with Peter.

I sort of recall a Bentley in his garage ;)

It's a spider sponge from Australia. It is non-photosynthetic and we have had three of them for about three months now and they appear to be doing well. It's a sponge with a symbiotic/commensal colonial polyp growing on it. We don't target feed due to the shear size of the tank, but we feed 0-150 micron powdered coral foods via an Eheim feeder located in the sump, just above the return intake. The pump delivers food four times a day and we are planning on expanding this system to include frozen foods as well. They are considered to be very difficult to keep, but large tanks harbour a lot of zooplankton that comes out at night.

Peter assures me that they are taking him out of that house in a wooden box, so it's til death do they part :)

He has two, each of them as expensive as the whole tank build. His next door neighbour has a 300 gallon reef tank from Big Al's and a bigger car collection, nice neighbourhood :) I park my Impala out front to keep it real :)

LOL yeah. His skimmer probably costs as much as my car. If I had the money, my setup Would be just as ridiculous, maybe even more. I have my eyes on a cylinder that goes all the way up to the second floor.....

I am still young, one day hehe

Mr. Wilson,

Where did you purchase the water storage tanks? Looking for a few myself.

Thanks,
Dave

WOW is right!! I have always enjoyed looking through your setups on the "other Canadian board". Incredible work!

Thanks for sharing.

Wow, this build is one of my favorites on RC. The detail, not only to design and construction, but also to documenting has been outstanding!

A couple of questions - What problems have you run into now that the system is up and running? How do you control pest algae and fish disease in the main tank? What problems have you noticed with the fish community? What's the maintainance like on this system (you mentioned you're there 3 days a week - any others helping out)?

Kelly

Been following this on RC since the beginning of the project. Thx for posting here for others to drool over too!

Mr Wilson,

what substrate is there in the main tank, and how thick,

it seems very course and as far as my understanding goes' thy always say course material will trap a lot of debris.-- what's the background on this ?

I also se there is a DSB in the refugium what's the grade there

thanks

Cool, I was born Oakville :mrgreen:

I have to say that is an amazing set up, if I ever had the money I'd definately want something just like that :thumb: Thank-you for sharing :biggrin:

I remember thinking when he first started this build that it seemed crazy to have no budget restraints and still limit yourself to 3 feet across. You guys have done an amazing job though it looks fantastic!

I recall reading that Peter was sourcing premium stuff and not really starting with frags so it's hard to tell how growth has been. Have you seen a lot of growth under the Orpheks?

LMAO:mrgreen:

Thank you for creating this thread. I've followed the thread on RC, but as you suggest - it is very large. I'm especially looking forward to your commentary of the ReefTech lighting system.

You mentioned on RC that you were planning a book. Is this still in the works?

I'll be traveling to Toronto in October. I can PM you the dates. If there is any chance of chatting with you and Peter, it would be the highlight of my trip.

- Brad

I love the look of this tank. It's a good thing it's a private tank, if this tank were somewhere publicly accessible in my own city for example, I'd no longer feel the need to have a tank of my own. :)

Very enviable setup..

I skimmed through this whole thread again and I didnt see it anywhere.....what are the dimensions on this bad boy?

I noticed in the picture of beneath the tank that it looks like there was a small concrete "footing" for the cross braces on the stand? .....looks like its starting to crumble if thats what Im seeing???

That skimmer was triple the value of my car :)

They came with the place. Shipping cost is a problem with large storage tanks, so you are limited to local sources. I find farm supply businesses to be the most reasonable. Try TSC if they have it out your way.

We had bad algae plagues for the first three months, just about everything. A variety of snails and royal conchs did the trick. I also used Kent Tech M magnesium.

We haven't had any fish disease issues to speak of, other than a few one-offs. We lost all of our elegant corals to a common bacterial infection/plague. We will wait awhile before trying any more.

No climate control problems or leaks. We have had some flatworms in the mangrove wall, but killed them off with flat worm exit (Levamisole). We also had a montipora with nudibranchs, and a zoanthid with zoanthid snails, but physical removal was enough.

Cleaning the acrylic isn't my favourite job, but someone has to do it. Rinsing the filter bags and water test rank closely behind. I'm really good at looking at the tank though, and I have no problem talking about what I'm going to do next :)

We started off with a mixed grade and scraped the small stuff we had initially. The fine stuff gets swept up into the cleaning magnets too easily. The surge in flow moves some sand around, so we add course (grape size) aragonite where the sand tends to shift.

I like course substrate because it turns pink with coraline algae and provides good tunneling for gobies and jawfish. It also provides better homes for zooplankton. Fine sand simply cannot support large colonies of copepods and amphipods.

We used regular fine sand in the refugium because it was more for bacteria and we needed to use it somewhere. I like the look of mixed sand with shells. The regular stuff is too homogenous and looks like cat litter :)

Actually, frags are premium, we have been buying maricultured pieces from tangerine to grapefruit size. They come in washed out and we do what we can to colour them up.

Don't even bring up the 3' across thing :) It drives us all crazy that it isn't 4-5'. That ship had sailed before I came on the scene, and Chingchai had warner him too... well, next tank :)

Growth has been really good, especially in the past month. A colour improvement was the main difference we saw. I will dig through my pics and try to find some before and after with dates, but give me some time. The staghorns are the fastest growing, with montipora & millipora not far behind.

You never know, the tank may still be there when it's your turn to retire and move back to Oakville :)

By all means, we enjoy sharing the tank with friends. No time for books now, but I'm writing at least :)

Try skimming the RC thread :) It's 16' long on the long side, and 8' long on the "short" side x 36" wide x 30" high. If it was a public display, I would have gone 36" high for impact, but the aquascaping and coral placing would suffer.

No crumbling, the cement was just packed by hand and not formed. The tank wasn't properly leveled, so it is off in all corners. As a result, the overflow at th elong end does most of the draining (70%). I intend to raise the lower overflow teeth with a strip of acrylic... some day. The teeth are too big as well. I think ATM designed it like their usual fish only tanks.

Yes, I certainly don't need my own tank now.

I am in utter AWE!!! Words cannot even begin to describe the beauty of this tank and the build! This tank is a reefer's dream come true! One day...............one day..............Excuse me I have to go buy some Lottery Tix now. Mr. Wilson thank you for sharing this and inspiring us reef-addicts.

The Mangrove filtration is KILLER!

Jaw Dropping !

Hi Shawn, are you working on other big tanks?



Paul

At the rate I'm going I'll never be able to afford to retire :lol: Although that would be the dream :mrgreen:

I plan to sell my wrasse. I'll find a way!

If you were to package your Exquisite wrasse in some Elegant wrappings you could probably get a good buck for it at Christmas. Or go the poor man's route: a Flasher; with a few Ornate piercings will surely attract a Fairy. :mrgreen:

O.M.G.!!!!

There has to be an award or something for that haha! Also I'm sorry Shawn for the wrasse jacked thread.

Have you guys taken video of the tank?

Selling your wrasse wont be enough :)

Absolutely stunning, you've done an amazing job!

:crazyeye::crazyeye::crazyeye::crazyeye::crazyeye:

:jaw::jaw::jaw::jaw::jaw::jaw:


very well done sir :tea:

Impressive :thumb:

:lol: