travisc's ultimate new-to-the-hobby newbie build. Dig it!
 

Hello everyone! This is my 1st saltwater reef tank. I have had cichlid tanks for years but now I'm fulfilling a life long dream and building a 800 gallon tank in my basement. I have met so many helpful and encouraging people thus far.Jim who has shared his knowledge and his spare time helping me build and assemble everything to date. David and Denis at golds aquarium who have been very helpful and given me great deals on the equipment! The same with the guys at concept! I still have lots to do before its running but here are my progression pictures. Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated!

Welcome to Canreef. Looking forward to following your build!
Feel free to ask any questions!

Thanks! Im having trouble uploading my pictures...says a security token was missing..

Look forward to the build. Welcome to the site.

I use photobucket to upload pictures. Works really well

If you just signed up recently, your account my be pending review. Brad (Aquattro) will be able to do that soon, as he's probably dreaming about Moorish Idols right now. :lol:

Get a photobucket or Flickr! account and upload photos to there. Then copy the BB code and paste here using the 'insert image' icon.

Thanks for the tip!http:// <a href="http://s12.photobuc...psmvi6lqd7.jpg[/IMG]

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Looks awesome!

Wait a minute.. Did you say that this is your *first* saltwater tank?!?! I call shenanigans !!

P.S. Welcome to Canreef and the salty side of the hobby :-)

Lol thanks! This is honestly my 1st salt water tank. Decided to go big or go home. The plumbing is thanks to Jim's experience and the sump from the guys at concept

Definitely awesome guys to have as guides on your reefing journey. You'll pretty much eliminate all the noobie mistakes :-). It's kinda like using performance enhancing drugs really. Shenanigans !! :lol:

I saw that little tank on the first page and I was kike "Oh it's a typo, he meant 80 gallons." Then I saw the mofo on this second page! You might be the craziest newbie ever! Buy the best skimmer you can afford! Looks great in that wall.

Thanks Myka! I have an ATI power cone 250

It's wet! No leaks!

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405 pounds of Fiji live rock thanks to Eli! Now to see if I can make it look the same in the tank....[IMG]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...pseidzf7hj.jpg[/IMG]

wow.

That pic with the HUUUUUGE tank and the one single plug in the single outlet made me lol.

I really like the idea of having a display that you cannot access from the front.

way less tempting to adjust anything that way...

It was a pleasure meeting you.
Shortly I will have a video of the rock scape for you to put it all back together like a simple puzzle..:biggrin:

What are the dimensions of you tank? The wall the tank is in, is it finished with a polished tile or something else? Looks sharp!

Sorry, I didn't see the pic of the skimmer on my first tour through your thread...I was using my phone, and didn't see that pic.

Great skimmer, but not near big enough for your tank! I'm not sure why someone would recommend that skimmer to you. If I were you, I would really reconsider your skimmer choice, for something bigger and more suited to the 800+ gallons of water you're going to have. IMO, the skimmer is THE most important factor in designing a marine tank. Do some research to see what's available to you - giant skimmers can be hard to track down. Don't get me wrong, that skimmer is a nice skimmer, but it's half the size you need.

No way, not gonna happen! :lol: You'll learn that if you move even two pieces of rock, they won't go back together the same way. I'm sure you'll make something awesome though!

I've been told that it is big enough. ... but we did design the sump to be large enough to hold a larger bubble king...

I'll step in a bit here as I'm helping Travis set up his tank. Travis had already purchased his skimmer before I stepped in to give him a hand. Myka I agree on paper the. ati cone seems a little on the small side but I think it will be ok. Spec wise it is a 12" dia body with a nearly 10" neck and the pump has nearly as much air draw as the big red dragon pump. The only needle wheel skimmer the is any bigger is the supermarine 250. I think with Travis's goals for the tank it should suffice with a decent waterchange regime. Just in case it ends up needing an upgrade I made sure to build the sump large enough to fit the big bubble king.

Coming along nicely ! So when would you like me to move this build thread to the Tank Journals forum and rename your thread title for you? :lol:

I'm sorry Kien. If that is where the post should be and renamed, by all means move it. Just let everyone know where it is to be able to view it and vote it tank of the month... :lol:

Just because he already bought it, doesn't mean it should suffice. If you sell it now while it's still BNIB, you can get the best price, and move to a better suited skimmer. :)

Even if you do a quick search on Reef Central (simply because that's the largest audience to draw from), you will easily see that most people are running this skimmer on tanks in the 250-300 gallon range. There are no threads with people running the skimmer on tanks over 400 gallons which is a far cry from the 800-gallon system Travis has. Protein skimmer manufacturers never underrate their skimmers, if anything they overrate their skimmers.

Here is a review by Jake Adams (one of thee skimmer gurus), and he recommends to use it on tanks 400 gallons and less. Keep in mind he was paid to do the review. http://reefbuilders.com/2013/08/15/a...ly-affordable/

Bubble King doesn't stop at the Supermarin 250. They go WAY beyond that - using needlewheels. I think the Supermarin 300 or the DeLuxe 400 would be better choices. Even the Supermarin 250 is under-sized for an 800-gallon system.

Check out the Bubble King website. http://royalexclusiv.net

To put it in perspective, one of my clients has a 375-gallon display with another 50 gallons of volume in the sump, and we have a Supermarin 300 on it - the model with two pumps, a RD3 Speedy and a 1500. The tank is lightly stocked and heavily fed and the skimmer is a good fit. I do weekly 15% water changes.

If you do the math, doing water changes on a tank that size, doing an extra 10% weekly to make up for the smaller skimmer, even using the cheapest salt available will still cost close to $1000/year not to mention extra RO/DI filters and the man hours to go get all that salt, mix it all up, and do that extra volume.

So why not put that money towards a bigger skimmer now and just save all the hassle of replacing it down the road? :) You can ignore my advice and those of many others if you do some research (most people do ignore advice once they've set their minds to something).

Hi Myka. Yes the outside way is tiled with a polished tile.

Since the tank is made of two 3/4 plywood the actual inside demensions and with the water not totally filling the tank is 106" × 46" × 28". Plus the sump

So, that's less than 600 gallons. What's in the sump? It looks to be about 72 x 18 x 18"?? That's another 50 gallons or so of actual water volume. So you're sitting about 650 gallons total water volume without displacement? I still think you will have trouble using that small (in relation haha) skimmer. You would never know it unless you try something better though.

Yes I'd say the total water volume in the tank full would be roughly 591 gallons. The sump is 60 × 19 × 15. So 74 gallons but it's not full and with the pump and skimmer in it would be roughly 50 gallons. Then if you count the 55 gallon refugium tank... say a total of 680 gallons of water. I also have an Eheim professional 3 1200XL (well actually 2 of them....the first guy that was helping me out told me to purchase them...) which will be installed for basically media filtration but may also filter the water and take some of the work load off the skimmer?

I tried to use a skimmer a bit bigger then that on my 400 gallons (bit larger euro reef ) everything slowly turned to a algae bomb. I upgraded to a beast of a skimmer tank is crystal clear now.by the way tank looks great in that black wall very nice start.

Why don't you sell all that stuff, and buy a bigger skimmer? Cut your losses now. A skimmer that is too small on a tank that is this big will be a really big problem. Trying to clean up that much volume after the fact will be very, very tough and expensive.

I'm being really persistent not because I want to be right, but because I really think you're making a mistake, and as a newbie I really don't want you to fail or be so frustrated that you quit. Shell out a few more bucks now, and you will have things much easier on yourself in the long run. Of all things, please don't cheap out on the skimmer. PLUS, I really want to see this tank look REALLY sweet! :D

I appreciate your concern. Would have been nice to have had all this info and help before purchasing everything. I can't blame anyone but myself for not doing my own due diligence. It's a hard pill to swallow spending $800 on the skimmer and $900 for the 2 cannister filters. Then plus even if I would be able to sell any of it (not likely anyone would want those canisters ) I'd be taking a big hit on that as well. I looked at the link you posted to the bubble King and 1900 euros. ... which would be roughly $4000 cad plus shipping. ... ouch

What about adding a 2nd ATI to the sump? Would that be a possibility? There is room for 2 plus cost effective. ...?

No, no you don't order direct from Bubble King. Here's a link for the Supermarin 300 at Reef Supplies which is a Canadian supplier and Canreef sponsor. Keep in mind the Canadian dollar has plummeted though, so the pricing ($2430) is probably not totally accurate. It's not in stock, but it could be ordered unless he's not carrying BK anymore for some reason (I see he only has one BK currently in stock). http://www.reefsupplies.ca/online-st...n-Skimmer.html If that doesn't work for you, PM me.

Where did you buy the canisters and the skimmer from? Were they special orders? Did you get them wet yet? How long ago did you buy them? Maybe you ca take them back just for a re-stocking fee? If all else fails, if you buy your new skimmer through the same place, then if they are a reputable dealer they should be willing to let you trade it back in for a re-stocking fee if it wasn't a special order. If it was a special order, you're probably hooped and would have to sell it yourself.

That's not a terrible option. You might need to modify the sump a bit so that the skimmers don't share a chamber so they aren't skimming water that the other just skimmed. I could draw you up a design...

See what you can do about taking those canisters back or selling them. They really aren't going to be much use to you and are worth more unused. Even if you sold them for $500 you could buy reactors with that money to run media and they would be way, way, way easier to work with than canisters.

Love the tank size and how low it sits, pretty sweet. :thumb:

I'd suggest rather than upgrading the skimmer now is just running it for a while and adding a second one later. Why not run two small skimmers instead of one large? Actually makes more sense in a lot of ways when you think about it. Looks like you'll need a bigger sump to fit two but I'm pretty sure you probably need a bigger sump anyway :wink:. If you loose just an inch off the main display that's 21+ gallons alone plus the extra volume from plumbing, skimmer and the other tank you're setting up. Doesn't quite add up properly in my head so be careful of that, might need check valves as a minimum.

Thanks Sphelps!

I purchased everything from Golds. They had to order in everything tho...
the skimmer has been in fresh water for 2 days as we water tested. The 2 cannister filters are new in box (well one in the box as the 2nd box was taken out with the recycling this morning. ..)

I like the idea of adding another ATI skimmer then having to try to sell everything. One of the cannister filters were opened before I received it and the tubing and hoses were removed. I called Golds to see if I could exchange it for store credit for fish since I don't need the second one and that it was opened with parts removed. He said he would check with his supplier...so I don't think taking everything back is an option