Bloke's 180g - It was bound to happen...

[Bloke]

Well, with the exception of a few touch-ups, the rooms are painted!




The tank is offically in place! Of course I have to trim it out, but I never thought I would get this far this quick!


As you can see I chose not to put plywood under the tank allowing for complete access to plumbing, etc. Also, as you can see in this photo, I ran joists under the center bracing for the tank for added support before putting the tank in place.

[aquawolf]

Congrats, you are moving a whole lot faster than I ever expected to see as well!

[Bloke]

Well, I grabbed some extra PVC from the garage and started to make some pillars/towers for the rock. I first saw this when I went to visit with Paul Whitby out of OKC. His tank was the October 2007 TOTM on Reef Central: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-10/totm/index.php

I REALLY liked his aquascaping and asked him how he managed to get such height out of his rock. The logic was extremely simple. He drilled holes in his rock then slid each rock randomly onto 3/4" PVC and made towers.


At first, I was unsure of what this might look like unless you had LOTS of rock and LARGE pieces. So, I been trying to collect larger pieces of base rock to add to my existing live rock. I have a ton of holes to drill, but I managed to get through about 5 rocks before I had to replace the bit.

Here is an idea of what I will be doing. I will buy some more PVC and make more towers, but for now I had enough to make four.

[Bloke]

Alright, let's see if I can explain this. I am going to run the two center inputs to the Reeflo Dart and return them through the Oceans Motions 4-way which will run through the two 1" side returns and the 1" bulkheads directly above the original inputs. This will force the water current to be constantly shifting from one side of the tank to the other.



The two outer inputs will feed a Reeflo Snapper which will return through the two 1" bulkheads at the top of the tank in the corners and the two 1" returns drilled in the center of the back. Each of the four returns from the Snapper should be pushing around 600gph.

[Bloke]

Well, I worked for a few hours on the plumbing this evening. I managed to get the majority of the intake lines for the closed loops ran as well as elbows on the 1" bulkheads. I did buy 8 ball valves for these return lines, but I think they'll be wide open for the most part.


Naturally, adding elbows to bulkheads was not my major accomplishment. My pride for the evening was to get the Dart and OM4 plumbed into the system. The pump will pull from the two outer 1-1/2" bulkheads and return water to alternating sides via the OM4.


As you can see, I used two true union ball valves for the pump. The same will be done for the Snapper. I plan to use flex PVC for these lines. Lowe's charges about $2.10 per foot of the stuff and I bought 25'. That should be enough to run the four lines for the OM4 as well as use a little bit for the Durso drain lines.

[aquawolf]

Where did all of your pictures go? Maybe it is just my system, but I don't see them anymore at all.

[Bloke]

OK - today was a looooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnng day! I woke up about 8:30 and got to work on the tank. There were several stops during the day, but for the most part, I worked on this tank until about 9:00 pm.

First thing I had to do was get the thing plumbed. I thought for a few seconds about whether or not to install 8 ball valves, but I decided to go ahead and fix them in. I did decide against unions on each of the return lines. Being that there are 4 true-union ball vales on the pumps, additional unions would only up the cost of plumbing by about $60 and can easily be installed later if need be. I have unions on the other tanks and NEVER have used them.


Before adding water, I also had to get the second CL pump plumbed in. This required another trip to Lowe's. I think I am on first name basis with the guy in plumbing now. But they are both plumbed in and together these bad boys will be pushing a little over 6000gph. As you can see I used hard plumbing except for under the tank where I used 1" flex PVC. Works like a charm!


Now there is more to this picture than initially meets the eye. This is 70lbs of base rock drilled and installed on 5 PVC pillars (one is hiding over there on the far right). Drilling each of these rocks takes more time than you might think. Dry base rock is tough to drill through - live rock is MUCH easier and softer! Plus, some of these rocks are wider than the drill bit so they had to be drilled from both sides. YUCK!

[Bloke]

Oh yeah! Time for water!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bQBUvjY16o

<...looking for leaks...>

[Bloke]

The first job this morning was to get the return pump plumbed in. I placed it under the tank with enough room for the Gen-X PCX-55 to sit next to it which will run the MR-2 Skimmer.


OK - here is the tangled mess of heaven. This is the completed plumbing job. Both closed loops, the return lines and the drain line all plumbed in. Tightening the bulkheads at the bottom of the tank was a b*&^th!


The clouds have subsided - not bad after 125lbs of substrate. The tank is still filling wil RO/DI water. I put in a bucket of Reef Crystals (160g) and am allowing the pumps to get this thing mixed up. I'll get the rest of the water params in check after I get the sump running.


As for aquascaping - I will drill the majority of the larger pieces of rock that I have and stack them on each pillar. I will have some melon sized pices of rock that I will lay on the substrate at the base of each tower. It'll all come together and then I am going to take a loooooooonnnnng nap.

[aquawolf]

Wow, that is some plumbing job. Glad to see it finally being filled, you have made a lot of progress in a pretty short time frame overall.

[Bloke]

OK - the reflectors (Lumenbright), the Loc-Line, and the pocket-door tracking will all be here Friday. So I started the lighting rack tonight. It will hang directly above where it is sitting within pocket-door tracking allowing for it to slide back out of the way when accessing the tank.



Naturally, a reflector will rest along 3/4" angle iron over each third of the tank. I have been reading a lot about the differences between the Lumenarcs and the Lumenbright reflectors and have to carefully consider the height of the reflectors from the water line.

The Lumenbright reflectors have more facets and therefore send more light directly down versus the Lumenarcs with less facets which tend to cover a larger area. Therefore, since each bay of the tank is a 2x2 area, I need to make certain that I hang the light rack high enough to flood the area rather than spot the column directly under the bulb. That 2x4 you see on the right running parallel with the top of the tank sits 12" above the water line. That might be a good starting point, but I need to get the reflectors here to see how deep inside the reflector the bulb sits. Bogey positioned her bulbs 9" above the water line, but she is using Lumenarcs... not Lumenbright reflectors. I may need to position my bulbs even with the 2x4 which would put my reflectors a little cloer to the water line. I have read that some people suggest making the distance between the bulb and the water as far as 14" to get adequate spread. That seems high to me. Thoughts?

Thinking...measuring, thinking some more.

[kwdelre]

Man this is an awesome thread! I love it! I am about to start my 180 gal build so this is pumping me up!

[Bloke]

Thanks for the compliments!

OK - I started the lighting last night. I finished the lower portion of the lighting rack measuring out to have a reflector over each bay of the tank.



The reflectors came with bare lead wires so I just bought 3 light duty extension cords (16g waire) to use as quick-disconnects.



Today I will get the ballasts wired in and get the tracks for the lighting installed. I should have the MH lighting complete before the days end. I will still need to install the T5 HO lighting over the weekend as well as get the sump filled and running.
Electricity and water... YEE HAW!

[Bloke]

Alright, pay no attention to the wires. I will dress them up later after I get everything functioning. On that note, I did finally get the light rack built, the tracking installed, and the three 250w MH lights hung.



Also, the sump is still a little shallow so there are a lot of bubbles in the sump. As a result, the return line is sucking in those bubbles making the tank look cloudy due to micro-bubbles. All will be fine after the installation of filter socks and the water levels rises.



I still have 4x54w T5 HO and Advance ballasts to install onto this light rack.
On a side note, my gravity & temperature have leveled out and my pH and dKH have fallen into range. I may catch a fish and toss him into this tank tomorrow along with some rock from the other 2 tanks!

[Bloke]

Figured I would post another 3am shot here.
Spent the better part of this evening taking a lot of rock out of the 90g and drilling it. Live rock drills MUCH faster than base rock and if you don't slow down a little but, it will crumble right in your hands while drilling. My mother asked, "Are you gonna leave that white pipe in there?" I said, "Yes" and she gave me a nasty look. I don't think she realized that you will not see the PVC after the rock is in place.
Anyway, there is still rock in the 90g awaiting my attention and I have not yet touched the 36g tank upstairs. However, I think things are coming together. Naturally, I will move stuff around a little and get it looking better when it's all inside the 180g, but this gives a better idea for what the pillars/columns/towers of rock will look like:



Oh, I tossed in 3 Yellow Tangs today. Big, bright, and fairly inexpensive fish that are easy to replace. I know most people toss in damsels to kick start their cycle, but... WHY? I don't want to have to catch 10 damsels to get them out. Tangs poop quite a bit (ammonia) and if these guys live, YEAH! I don't expect much of a cycle in that 200 lbs of LR from established tanks is going in this system. There is enough bacteria on this rock to handle the bioload, but I'll watch the water params since the almost all of the rock has coral attached to it.