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My In Wall 150 Build
Most Recent Tank shot:
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/PB142501.jpg Tank Overview: 150gallon 72" tank (i thought it was 135 until i measured it....) 60 gallon custom sump Circulation: Reeflo Dart Gold Herbie Return 3x Kora 4's Filtration: ATI Bubble Master 250 25g Refugium Npx Bio Beads Carbon/Vodka dosing Calk/Alk PM Calcium Reactor Lighting: 2x250W MH - XM 10K bulbs 4x65W PC Atinic Fish: Bariene Tang Flame Hawkfish Lyretail Anthia 4 Chromis Spotted Mandrin 2 False Perc's Blue Damsel Purple Firefish Foxface Lawnmower Blenny Coral Beauty And the build... I've planned this build for a long time, we recently bought a house and i knew when i saw the place what i wanted to do. I've seen lots of nice in wall tanks, and although it was a lot of work, I've loved it. I had a 55 gal set up, it was my first salt tank, so it became a great learning experiance. I've had that tank balanced for awhile, and everything has been going great. I decided to go for 135 gallon 6' tank. Although it's one of the smaller 6' tanks, it'll give me room to grow if a need (that's what the hobbies all about isn't it?). I'm not too good at typing things out, so this is going to be mostly pictures, which are more fun to look at anyways: Here's where we wanted the tank with paint testing going on aswell, busy house: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ild/photo3.jpg Now for the fun part of cutting a hole through the wall: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PA251380.jpg I used a waterproof coating on everything inside the "splash zone" but i'm still debating going a step furter and using greenboard or concrete wall board around everything. I was shocked taking my old tank down how little water actually got on the wall, but at the same time, while building it i might aswell spend the extra few bucks for insurance. This is where my tank setup's at today, should get finished next week sometime. Does anyone think it'd be worth insulating the wall between my sump and TV room? My pumps and everything are reletivly quiet, but silent would be nice. Any recomendations? |
i did it and its a huge improvement do it.
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FINALLY have the thing up and running in "one week" haha, wow... i wish.. so here's how it all went down:
I built my own sump with acrylic, it was a learning process, but it doesn't leak, so i guess i learned. Here's the sump being held together with tie straps: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PA061332.jpg I was given a heap of 1/2 inch acrylic for $10 one day and figured i could make a sump out of it. I did, it had some special parts though. the bottom is one solid piece, and the sides are in 2 pieces, the overflow from my refugium works as a wall between the 2 halves for the side pieces: (this also shows why you should cut straight cuts on a table saw, i had to recut this TERRIBLE cut.). If anyone needs a hand building acrylic stuff i learned all kinds of weird tricks from the guys at the place i bought weld-on from. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PA061334.jpg And here's the sump in place in the stand, with the return pump partially plumbed in. I ended up insulating the wall behind the sump, and glad i did. The tank makes next to no noise, and should be silent once i skin the stand. The back wall has vapor barior to protect the insulation... and i carried it down across the bottom of the stand, it held up well with no leaks, so in theory i could flood my stand a couple inches and it should hold water with no damage.(i do not want to test this) http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB101410.jpg And here's the tank in... it was an adventure fitting through the hallway, i could only imagine what you guys with 200+ tanks have to go through. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB101409.jpg The tank was originally with a painted background, that i scraped off. I put up a frame around the tank, it might change though since we're adding wanescoting to that room and the tank just clips the top of it, i'll have to see how it looks. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB101408.jpg And with everything in place, i filled it up, tested my plumbing for leaks. All was good, so i added salt. And anyone else doing this... test your tank with tap water, then use RO, took 3 days to fill my tank to test my plumbing and if it was leaking i probably would have lost my mind. I figured to aclimitize my old stock i could use them being in the same room to my advantage. I ran one line from my new tank to old sump, and vice versa. It was about a gallon an hour, so i let it go for a day monitoring and adjusting flows.: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB181421.jpg |
I"ll have to post some running shots another time, Lights just went out and everything's closed up for the night. BUt as for reading after 3 days:
Nitite/Amonia: <0.1(unreadable on my tests) Nitrate: 0 (I'm using the NPx beads in a TFL reactor, and an over sized skimmer that can't even pull anything right now... my old tank sat at 20-25 with the same bioload.) Phosphates: 0 Calcium:400-420 KH: 8-9 (low for having high calcium, I have a calcium reactor that should dose equal, I'll have to keep topping off KH until things balance out) PH: 8.1 (False high since i've been dosing seachem KH buffer that boosts PH, was about 7.7 before) |
So here's some running shots to show how things fit in. The tank looks pretty open, i'll add a bit more liverock, but i'm planning on going pretty heavy SPS, so i'll leave room for stuff to grow.
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB211434.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB211435.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB211438.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB211439.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB211440.jpg |
Looks good very clean job.
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I LOVE IN WALL TANKS!!!
You make me want to cut a hole in my wall:twised: |
Very nice!
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I'm a fan of in wall aquariums as well. I wouldn't do it any other way. Good job and I love the details.
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Thanks all
I should also add a big thanks to everyone who helped set this up. Nearly everything in this tank was bought from Canreef members. Met a bunch of nice people and learned a lot from all of you. I'll have to post a few more pics now after raiding Reeferrob's tank(thanks again). and also trading off my split anenome for a few more frags(thanks wayne). Funny story about the BTA. Well, not so funny, but a story none the less. Mine split a little while ago but i didn't want to deal with selling it since i was setting up a new tank, and didn't know what direction i wanted to go with it. I ended up deciding that i'll part with one, and see about the other, if it moves i'll get rid of it too so that it doesn't take a walk through SPS one day. Well... it took a walk... and found a powerhead :( There was pretty much nothing left of it. I Ran carbon pretty heavy for a few days, and skimmer was going crazy with the nastiest smelling skimmate i've ever smelled. But looks like everything's fine now, no other losses. |
Here's some more running shots now that everything's settled down:
Full tank shot with my son doing what he does best: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC081503.jpg Random Coral Shots: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC081501.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC081498.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC081497.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC081490.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB301478.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB301476.jpg And Finally, My Sea Cucumber, had him/her/it for awhile, but a decent shot: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PB301485.jpg |
I originally had 2x250W bulbs, one XM 10K and one XM 15K, and wanted to see the differance in growth, and general happiness on the corals. Specifically SPS since my LPS can always get moved away from the light. The SPS was doing great all over the tank, so i figured i'd try both 15K bulbs and see how they work. I like the look better. Lots of people have asked if the XM10K's look "yellow" I have a lot of atinic light, but i would definitly say that it's not yellow, it's white, a very bright white.
So with the 2 15K bulbs in for about a week now i notice significant polyp extension in my SPS. Perhaps my tank too about the same time to get the refurgium back running and rock to seed correctly. But I can see a large differance in the polyps. I"ll try the 10K again in a couple months just to see if it was the light that changed it, but as for now i'm happy, and so are my corals. The 15K's have half the PAR rating as the 10K's, my corals might not have been placed right for their lighting needs, but as with everything i've learned about reefkeeping, I'll take my time and see. I"ll post some pictures to show, if Santa brings me a macro lense i'll hopefully have some good ones after Christmas. I've been taking pictures from about the same placement about once a week since I've got set up, it's been great to look at to see growth and how everytyings been doing. |
I got a few new things for xmas, it was great! My wife got me a Bariene Tang, it's a very good looking fish. It will out grow my tank in 2-3 years, so that means i get another tank upgrade soon aswell :D. With some new corals and stuff i figured i should re-Aquascaped my tank... again again. I like the look much better now, the islands provide good focal points, and make the tank easy to view from both sides. I took some pics's today of all the new additions, and the reworked old ones:
Here's a new acan i bought, and also a large base off a SPS i got on some live rock(also covered in Ric's). I originally thought it had completly died, but it's now got polups everywhere, and starting to gain back some color. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC281653.jpg My Blue Arco, thig this is loving the 10K bulbs, more and more color everyday: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC281654.jpg Another Liverock with some SPS base's that are now growing arms: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC281655.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC281656.jpg Zoo garden: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC281657.jpg Softy corner http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/PC281658.jpg |
Your tank looks really good
I would love to have a in-wall tank like yours, but I just don't have the right space in our current house |
So.. i woke up this morning and saw that my sump was low. No biggie since i don't leave my RO unit on, i just turn it on to top off the tank. The sump was lower than normal, made me look around a bit. And i noticed a wet patch on the floor :( . So, found that one of my seals where leaking on mt DT. This normally would be VERY bad.. .well it still is. Makes me worry about the rest. This one is somewhat "easy" to fix. I turned my return flow WAY down, and pulled out my overflow tube. This dropped the water level in my overflow to about 1" from the bottom of the tank. lots of room to work. The leak is at the top, but i've sealed nearly the whole thing. I put an extra wide bead overtop of what was there, lots of glass to bond onto, so should be good. This tank had a rim put on it to protect from spashing, which was a good idea. The silicone was cut about 1" down in each corner to seal this on. This is the part that leaked. I've resealed every corner since my water levels nice and low. Hopefully no more salt creep or leaks :S.
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I'll post some growth pics later on, SPS has been growing GREAT. I'm very impressed. MY issue recently has been the blue's on my SPS aren't popping like i want, so i'm thinking of going up to a 15K or even 20K bulb. I've been doing a lot of research about PAR ratings, etc. I've found that PAR is not a good measure for what we do. PAR is based on light between 400-700nm wavelengths, which is fine, however different color coral's use different amount inside of those wavelengths. So having a light that's high PAR doesn't mean that you are giving the CORRECT light to the corals, it just means that you could be giving a lot of one wavelength (like my XM10K's).Example Here. Also the methods of measuring the PAR are not always perfect Explained Here. So overall, I'm going to cut my PAR in half, and hopefully have better results. Sanjay's sight shows the full graph of PPFD, i'll look into that and see if i can find something more balanced.
I'm also looking at building an Arduino controller over the next while, hope to monitor EVERYTHING in my tank, and be under $200. I want.. Light timer ATO Return Pump Skimmer power and flow detection(for if it doesn't start up, it's usually 50/50 after power outage) PHx2(Tank and CaRx) CaRx CO2 control, and possibly drip rate control if i can find a flow valve cheap enough) Salinity Auto Water Change (super saturated method and using tank salinity, drain 5gal every 4 days) 3 x light measurements(bulb replacement) Room temp, Room humidity Thinking about a Herbie Control based on 2 float switches, i keep mesing with my gate valve, might aswell have it automated. Auto Feeder (this might not happen for the under $200, can't find a cheap way to do it YET) and i have a large AC unit that i'm going to use for tank cooling and dehumidifying, so i want to tap into that and control functions. And of course, all this logged and available online, maybe throw in a webcam too for online goodies? |
Some more Pics since i got my new rock.
here's the eco-reefer rock order, 50lbs. I was very impressed with the order, nice sized rocks(includes the chunk in the sump): http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1051680.jpg My Pocci in atinic lights: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ild/Pocci2.jpg More pocci(I think this is a pocci, not 100%) http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151702.jpg The clown, slowly recovering from hosting in zoo's for a couple years, black spots almost gone: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151708.jpg The hawkfish, keeping watch as usual http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151713.jpg My anthia, Hard to capture the color's of this fish, it's amazing, orangish/yellow glow: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151715.jpg Spotted Mandrin: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151729.jpg And my Bariene Tang, this fish has color changing abilities, when it gets spooked it's nearly white. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151739.jpg And a Full Tank shot: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...d/P1151782.jpg My camera seems to pick up the specs in my tank really well, i don't notice them looking at it, maybe they're micro bubbles and the camera catches the reflection better. Odd, but might make the tank look better if i find a wy to get rid of them. |
Great looking tank.
I love in wall setup. Must say very clean job. |
that's it where is the current picture of the tank come on lets see what is going on. I have an extra 250 ballast and mogul and lumenarc reflector if you wanna buy it
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Wow tank is looking great Mike!
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nice build, but I do have one question... where did your cold air returns go? did you build new ones in a different area? I am assuming you didn't get a permit to build it other wise toy wouldn't have been able to just block them off as it looks like you did in your picture.
asside from that, end result looks nice, I wish I had a place that would work for an inwall myself. Steve |
The cold air was not an original install, so it was apperently not needed. I was happy about this, and also happy i opened up the wall before bringing in anyone to look at it, since this would have made it a lot harder to re-route. I'm not sure why it was added, but seemed to be added only a couple of years ago since the wood that was added seemed near-new.
I have the cold air returns beside the tank now, so they just got moved, not taken out completely, they still feed right into the furnace return the same as the old 1 did. I'll have to update some photo's since things have changed a lot since my last picture, mostly ina good way :S. |
So it's been awhile since an update, been very busy with a 2 year old and a 1 year old in the house. Being busy has taken it's toll on the tank too, everything's doing well, just can't give it the time I'd like right now, so some minor issues around. I've been battling some apasia and hair algae, seems to be under control, just not 0 the way i'd like it.
I hadn't realized how much stuff has grown until i read through my build again and saw where stuff was at 6 months ago, I'm pretty happy about where it's at now. Anyways, the fun part, more pics: FTS: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222165.jpg So for the longest time i had a monti that was showing a bit of blue, but was facing away from the light for a long time, i aquascaped and it started to pop some colors, nice ones, i think it's a rainbow monti?: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222168.jpg Bad depth of field, but i like this pic: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222167.jpg More pics: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222166.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222161.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222160.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222158.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222157.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222148.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222147.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P6222145.jpg And an Actinic shot of mushrooms: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P5032077.jpg |
Short update, Been busy, but cleaned out the tank and staying clean. No Hair algae, changed flow up a bit, regular water changes, etc. Coral is growing VERY well, looking at some of the older pictures I've been shocked at how much everything's growing still.
Anyways, Here's a semi new FTS: http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/P8312388.jpg |
Wow! It's beautiful! Good job
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Love the inwall build. wish I could do one too
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Wow, cool build and gorgeous tank!! Great job!
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Very nice...how long did it take to scrape off all that coraline.
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Haha, te coraline was a pain. I started it with the scraper on a stick, wow.... that was slow going. Then i got the magfloat scraper attatchment. It was as easy as cleaning the glass any other day, i have no idea why i ever used a reach scraper after using this thing, i love it.
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I guess i should update, no pics, but some info about my controller i've built. I built my own Arduino controller. It has been many many many hours of programming and learning what this this thing can do. But in the end i feel that i've got a great base running and should be able to add on a lot of fun things in the future.
Right now my controller: -Reads PH and turns kalk reactor flow on/off based on what is being read. I run a calcium reactor and have been increasing the load more and more as my SPS is growing like crazy, and it has started to affect my PH. Adding kalk has helped with the swings and keeping PH around 8.0. I have both set as a drip, so if the kalk sticks on or something it won't nuke my tank. -Reads temp and turns heaters on/off. I have a heater that's been running for 10+ years flawlessly, so i've left that set at the current setpoints, but if the temp goes too low, i have a second heater turn on. If the temp gets too high I turn on my backup fan to help cool. -Text messages if the temp/PH is way off. With a link to the website so i can check up on it quickly. -Lights are controlled on by sunrise/sunset times based on GPS co-ordinates I can enter. Right now it's set for the Gold Coast, so that in the winter i can have longer days, and summer shorter to help with cooling. My actinics turn on for 1 hour, followed by my first halide which is on for 10 hours. My second halide is on for the 10 hours before sunset with one hour for actinics at the end. If the day is shorter than 12 hours, the halide are on for 9 hours, or 8 or even 7 for a few days of the year. -An LCD to display all this info, and a control menu for overriding lights/pumps, etc on/Off. Also some setpoints can be changed, but i've left most in the core program because I don't see myself changing them much. -All posts to a Google sites locked for only me to view. This is because i also have a webcam posting an image and optional stream to the website, and didn't want to have every person in the world looking through my tank at me eating chip in my boxers on the couch. haha, you can't see that, but still feels weird having it totally open :P. -I'm using Pachube.com for all the data logging. GREAT service, historical records, pretty graphs, very easy to get my data from. I was going to do this all on my computer, but now i don't have to :P. -If the power goes out the controller will still work, but obviusly the heater, etc won't. It will still log data for up to 3 hours to send after the power is restored. I also built in protection to not restart my halides for 15 min if it's only a short power out. I had my power flicker once and killed a bulb by having it try to fire for a couple hours before i noticed. So that's pretty much everything I have so far, pretty much the same i could do with a normal controller. Main reason i did this was cost(overall this cost $75), and that i also enjoy figuring stuff like this out. I've re-learned C++ programming, and learned HTML and java while making the website. As much frustration this caused at times, i sadly found it fun. Another fun part is everyting i get to add now that the base is working. I found a chip that reads color and intensity of light. For $12 I should be able calculate PAR output and log the colors, so i can see the color shift in my halides and decide when to replace them based on that. I'm also looking at adding some LED's to supliment my halides. This will be easy to control with the PWM outputs already on the arduino. I'm also looking into a DIY mag drive pump, you could call it an MP-80? I have a DC motor that should blow away anything out right now and it's reasonably quiet. So once i can steal a friends CNC for a couple days and make some plastic coated magnetic coupling pieces and mounts, i should be able to give this a shot. Hopefully without turning my fishtank into a blender. There's a video of someone doing this and blender was an understatement. If anyone's building a controller or thinking of it let me know and I can hopefully help out. Tomorrow I'll try to post some pics of my mess of wires leading up to the current masterpiece of tangled wire, and some pics of how i'm displaying the info. I should also update my tank pics. Everythings been doing great the past few months. I didn't think it was that long ago i added pictures, but it looks like stuff has grown a lot. |
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