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Whiskey's 300 Gallon Glass Cages Dream Reef build

11K views 170 replies 6 participants last post by  Wiskey 
#1 ·
I know I've made mention a time or two recently that I was interested in setting up a dream reef, the kind of reef that I've wanted ever since the early 2000's but I've never been able to do for one reason or another. Something in the neighborhood of 300 gallons that I can have for 20 years and really grow SPS out to full showstopping colony size while still having room here and there for the newest frag (if I keep things trimmed well enough that is).

Well! I wasn't in any real rush because my 135 growing along well, but I was pricing various vendors, checking facebook, and going through large build threads around the size I'm looking at searching for ideas, and I came across a fantastic build by Hydrored which was right up my alley. I got to the end of the thread, and he said that he's moving, and this tank size doesn't work well in the new house, so he's building something better for the house and it's for sale. Turns out he's only 3 hours away by car, and I couldn't be happier!!! I'm picking it up in a few weeks, but in the meantime here are the details:

Glass Cages 300 Gallon, 7 foot long, 33 inches wide, and 25 inches tall. It is all starfire glass (even the eurobrace) and it is trimness on the top. The seams are armored, where they put plastic over the silicone so they can't get damaged. It has a shadow box Ghost overflow which doesn't take up excessive in tank space, and it's drilled for 3 1.5" drains, and 2 3/4" returns. The tank really is a gem, it's been kept in immaculate condition, and it is absolutely Dream Reef material.

The Stand is Extruded Aluminum, with all high end stainless hardware, and the aluminum is strong enough that it only needs one center support over the 7 foot span. The stand is also easy to break down and reassemble, like an erector set. Right now the underside is open, but it comes with little button clips to attach wooden panels. At first I was going to make drawers and doors, which I might still do, but the clips are cool enough that I could make shaker style doors and just pop them on and off. I'm undecided for now. I haven't used a stand like this before, but I'm really intrigued, it has allot of benefit, strong, doesn't corrode, doesn't warp, light,... I'll let you know more once I take it apart and put it back together.

And!! I'm lucky enough to have the sump coming along with it!! Honestly I wouldn't have gone this nice if I wasn't getting it used. This picture is from the Manufacturer's website, and mine has a couple different holes, but it's more or less the same. This Sump is 5 foot, by 2 foot, by 16 inches. That should be plenty! For the first time in a very long time I'm actually considering not doing a refugium. My 25 doesn't have one and I've had less trouble keeping Po4 and NO3 in balance in that tank. I have room in this sump if I need it, but I think I'm going to start without and see.
Rectangle Gadget Gas Machine Office equipment


Finally, there is the coral! There are countless amazing pieces in this collection, but that's the thing I'm most nervous about moving. It's only 3 hours, and I've taken individual corals much, much further, but never this much coral at one time. I have a good plan in place, and I've already setup a holding 100G stock tank to get them right in water when they arrive, but we will have more on that later.

For now I want to close off the first post with pictures of my current reef that will be merged into the new tank, this is the 135 cube that I've been running for the last 2 ish years.
Front:
Water Purple Natural environment Plant Organism


Sides:
Water Nature Purple Underwater Organism


Water Vertebrate Blue Plant Natural environment


Thanks for following along! And I'll have updates on the coral move plan soon!
Whiskey
 
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#45 ·
On the canopy project, I really, really want to be working on doors for it to see the big parts coming together. In reality though, what I really need is a box that I can set on the tank and hold the lights. So I'm doing the immensely boring task of plaining and doing the ruff sanding on the box so that I can get ready for the inner pieces that will be the supports, and the light hanger. Then I have a very troubling piece of crown trim. I have trouble finding the part, but it's critical for making it match my kitchen, so it's a little sketchy, but I'll make it on the table saw.

Now to the exciting news!! I went over to Hydrored's house and picked up all the corals out of the 300 to bring them back ahead of the actual tank move. We decided on this because it would mean that the corals would ride in a heated car, and that I'd have more time to focus on making the coral happy ahead of getting the actual tank in place and all the work that will be involved in that. I was super nervous about moving this many amazing pieces, something like this never goes exactly as planned, but overall I think this was the right choice because the temp was perfect for the whole drive. I did end up getting a damage to the tips of things from riding around in the cooler, but that's not bad at all. Thank you for all the help Hydrored!!!! And of course all the amazing coral! I will be back with pictures later, but it's a challenge with the Stock Tank and getting any quality shots.

Now to the thing I'm struggling with right now. When I added the stock tank to my system I got a tiny bit of tip burn in my main display on the coral in the highest light spot. I have that coral also in lower light and that one was perfectly fine. I tested nutrients and found that they had dropped way down, I attribute that to adding 100 extra gallons of brand new water to a 150 gallon ish system. I fed extra to get my nutrients back, the burn has stopped, and no further corals were affected.

Then when I added all the new coral I triggered a Dino Outbreak. I have seen this once before, when I added my frag tank to the system. It stuck around for a little while, then disappeared. I suspect that all of this is simply related to the fact that I keep messing with things, but I don't love the Dino, that is for sure. I really want to keep these beautiful new corals as healthy as possible of course. The Dino is concentrated in the Stock tank, and the Frag tank. The main tank is almost completely unaffected. It seems to love the egg crate.

Here's what I'm doing to correct the issue:
-Basting the slime off regularly, with a filter sock on the tank drain, changing that filter sock regularly.
-Raised the temp from 77ish where I normally run, to 80ish. I hear Dino hates that.
-I have my nutrients back in a better range. Phosphate is 0.08 and Nitrate is about 6. I would like that Phosphate to be a little higher actually, but I'm just going to let it come around on it's own with Reef Roids.
-Finally I'm trying to keep things as stable as possible. I know that messing with everything is what caused this, hopefully I can get it back in it's rhythm again pretty quickly.

If you have any other advice I would love to hear it!
Whiskey
 
#48 ·
Okay,.. let's be honest. I really should be working on my canopy, but I really love the corals, and I keep looking at them anyway, so I decided to snap some quick pics for everyone.

The Dino's are loosing ground which is great to see! The battle isn't won yet, but we are on a great path. Many of these corals are very hard to photograph because of the stock tank, overhead light, flow, etc,.. so there are some that were not seeing here, but these are some I could get pictures of.

I really love these Goni's! (Ignore the glass, I'm working hard on the new canopy lol)
Plant Natural environment Purple Underwater Organism


Flower Purple Petal Plant Pink


Purple Underwater Plant Organism Coral fungus


Underwater Purple Petal Marine biology Coastal and oceanic landforms


Water Purple Underwater Organism Marine biology


Blue Purple Violet Marine biology Coral


More to come. I think there is a limit on number per post.
Whiskey
 
#53 ·
I’m working hard tonight to try and meet the deadline with this canopy! The weather helped me out a ton today! But my Wagner Air Sprayer didn’t. I got through about a half quart of paint before it started belching smoke and the motor failed. I’m not impressed, I didn’t even use it that much. I was in a spot so I ran to Harbor Freight and got an Airless Sprayer. I must say I’m super impressed! It lays the paint down much better, and wastes much less. It’s a pain to clean, but worth it! Hopefully it lasts.

Wood Table Rectangle Gas Font
 
#57 ·
It's time to shift gears a little bit at this point, up until now the thread has been about getting ready for the move, but I pickup the moving truck tomorrow and drive down to get the tank on Wednesday, and the install will be Thursday, so tonight I will be making sure I have everything I need and going over my plans. I bought half a lowes plumbing section yesterday hoping that I can reduce trips to the store as I convert the sump from under the tank, to in the fish room.

Lighting:
The tank is coming with a light bar made of extruded aluminum, it's built really well, and will hang from the inside of the canopy. I use AI Hydra lights so I typically target having them at about 14 inches up for the ideal spread and reduction of hotspots. I will also have T5 lighting, and I typically try to mount them a little lower at 8-10 inches, but most importantly high enough that it doesn't interfere with the light spread of the Hydras. Currently I plan to have 6 Hydra 32's (they are about 90W each) and 4 54W T5 bulbs, with 4 39W T5 bulbs. The reason the T5's are different lengths is the tank is 7 feet, so that's one 3 foot with one 4 foot bulb, 4 strips of T5's running end to end.

I'm not sure if it will be enough PAR honestly, so I'm going to set it up and test. Light spread is my biggest goal, but I may need to add additional hydras.

As far as the tank goes, Redundancy is key. I've been in this hobby a long time, and I've lost tanks to some pretty dumb stuff, so I try and double up on gear as much as I can.
Return: Planning 2 Jeabo Pumps, return rate of about 4x tank volume per hour. It will be monitored with flow monitors and alarms in the Apex. I use a Jebo and Iwaki now, but the Iwaki won't work on the new tank design.
Flow: Planning for 2 Gyree 4000, 2 Tunze 6105's, returns, and tune from there. I will probably end up with allot more.
Skimmer: Will use a Reef Octopus 170 INT and a Reef Octopus 200 INT, both run the DC Varios pumps, one is 6" the other is 8", between the two of them they are pretty over rated so I will probably start with just one until I get my BioLoad a little higher.
Alk/CA: I use Kalk on a Mixer at 6100 ML per day, about a gallon and a half. I also have the 8" dual chamber RO CA reactor fed by a parasitotic pump.

It's going to be an exciting few days!!! Then after the tank gets put in, things will shift to building out all the underside Cabinetry and cleaning up the fish room with the equipment wall and everything. That should take a less manic, and more calculated pace.

I'm open to any suggestions on gear, moving tanks, or life in general. Especially, what do you think about that light?

Whiskey
 
#59 ·
On the light all you can do is set it up and test.
Have you used gyres before? If not I think you will like them.
I have used Gyree pumps, in fact I have 1 in my Frag Tank, and one in my main tank. I really like them, and I'm excited to try out two with the new Hydros Wave Engine I picked up on black Friday. I'm just hoping that the 3/4" glass will work with the magnets they have. I know 1/2 inch will, because that's what they are on now.

Whiskey
 
#60 ·
So,.. I have really heartbreaking news. While I was unloading the tank it became damaged and is unusable. Joe at Glass Cages has been absolutely fantastic, I recommend doing business with him to anyone. We talked about the damage, and what my options are, and when it comes down to it, this is 300 gallons of water in my house, the damage is significant and in the area of the tank that takes the most pressure.

I took a couple days to stabilize the situation, mull over my options, and decide on a path forward. I considered many different directions, this stand is super nice, it's not size adjustable, and it's expensive, so moving forward with the exact same tank size is the most reasonable and cost effective option. Plus, it's what I want anyway. I'm going to have a chat with Joe on Thursday to kick off the project and finalize plans. The cost is a kick in the gut of course, but at the end of the day I can't see upgrading to something bigger than 300 before retirement, so this will be in my house at least 20 years. That's pretty good return on investment, and it's a compelling reason to get what I want and budget in other areas.

The new tank will take time to build of course, so this build thread is going to shift gears a little bit. Of primary importance is keeping all these nice corals healthy while I'm waiting on the new system. In order to do that most effectively I've moved most of the Acros out of the stock tank, and into my main tank. It has never been so full, and managing growth is going to be a thing for sure. This tank is much better for keeping them long term though because you really can't see how they are doing in the stock tank due to it's opaque sides. I would love to shut down the stock tank entirely, and I'm super close to being able to do that, but we will see.

The next step will be putting the new sump on my current system. This will allow me to run the plumbing through the walls, connect the CA reactor, Kalk, Dosing pumps, returns, switch over to the new RE return, and get all this done and ready to connect to the new tank ahead of time. This will make the day of cutover much less stressful.

Finally to prepare for the new tank's arrival, I can do a little more detail work to the canopy, finish the light bar, mount the light bar inside the canopy, and paint and mount the doors, and basically have everything polished to drop right on the tank come cutover day.

It's a little bit of a left turn on the build here, but progress ahead we will!
Whiskey
 
#62 ·
One side panel, it got a chip about half the glass deep that went up about 4 inches, plus it's not clean so it could easily turn into a crack. The problem is that everything overlaps it, the seams are armored so you can't see the silicone on the inside, and pulling the panel out is hugely labor intensive, along with risky. By the time a company does something like that, the labor costs get close to the cost of a new tank. Plus, since you have to get such a perfectly clean surface to bond the silicone properly, I don't trust just anyone to have a go at it. 300 gallons of water is allot of pressure.

Whiskey
 
#70 ·
I agree with all the other sentiments of THAT SUCKS Whiskey......BUT, .......'there he goes, the bright side of the cloud guy'.....When your NEW tank is all set up, and the soreness in your wallet begins to fade.....You my Friend have a brand spanking new tank with ZERO WORRIES! Your 'DREAM TANK'! (y) But still......THAT SUCKS!
Hack
Man that is a kick in the gut. Sorry to hear Whiskey. The new tank founds fantastic though!
Yeah,.. it's super lame. Especially since the tank that broke was in such perfect shape. But! Nothing I can do about it now. I'll be doing some things different when the replacement arrives though, let me tell you.

Whiskey
 
#67 ·
I agree with all the other sentiments of THAT SUCKS Whiskey......BUT, .......'there he goes, the bright side of the cloud guy'.....When your NEW tank is all set up, and the soreness in your wallet begins to fade.....You my Friend have a brand spanking new tank with ZERO WORRIES! Your 'DREAM TANK'! (y) But still......THAT SUCKS!
Hack
 
#71 ·
Yeah, I remember some things about GC way back in the day that were slightly less than amazing, I have to say that the build quality of this tank I picked up is impeccable though, and the customer service has been second to none. Looking at other tanks out there, I bet the strength of this thing would hold 600 gallons without bowing.. The armored seams are a nice touch too, that's a first for me. They put tiny triangles of glass in the corners so it's impossible to nick the sealant with a blade.

Whiskey
 
#72 ·
I have some new photos! First the woodwork,.. I'm continuing on today with the build out. There is still tons of finish work to do, but at least now I know that I made the two different door sizes the proper size.
Wood Cabinetry Wood stain Hardwood Window


And!!! I have updated pictures of the tank with all the new Acros added. Not all of them moved in here, some are in the Frag Tank, but this is one packed tank now!!! I do have a couple colonies that have been with me a long time that are irritated. The blue tip slimer was stung and just keeps dying from the bottom up. I've tried fragging to stop it without success before, so this time I'm going to let it fight it out. I'm not sure what the Tort's problem is, but the exact colony right next to it is perfect. This one seems to be recovering and growing back though. I chalk this all up to the changes I've made lately adding tanks onto the system and stuff.
Purple Nature Natural environment Plant Organism


Water Blue Natural environment Plant Purple


Water Plant Purple Natural environment Underwater


Whiskey
 
#73 ·
Man,.. I had the weirdest experience over the last couple days, Thursday all day I was perfectly fine, about 9PM I completely hit a wall, and felt miserably sick, sicker than I've ever been. Like shivers, my whole body hurt, zero energy, I felt like Zombies in horror movies look! Friday I was a miserable excuse for a human, totally incapable of doing anything and I slept probably 18-20 hours, but today (Saturday) I'm feeling allot better. Not 100% for sure, but back to 70% or so. I have no idea what that was, but I'm happy it seems to be behind me. I almost never get sick, it's possible I'm just not very good at it.

Anyway; earlier in the week I was working on setting up this MasterTronic I got from Hydrored. For those that don't know it's an automatic testing solution that uses standard test kit reagents and automates the testing process. My understanding it that this thing is pretty easy to get connected right out of the box, but if you change your WiFi without changing the unit first it is extremally difficult to get it to connect to the new SSID. The biggest problem is the extremally poor documentation, and extremally difficult to find documentation. For those of you stuck in the same situation I am, here's how to change the WiFi on your MasterTronic.

If you can get it to broadcast it's SSID your life is easy, follow this simple document and move on with life:
Mastertronic Quick Guide internet re establisment.pdf (That's not my google drive BTW - For some reason FocusTronic publishes their documents that way).

The problem is that once it has connected to a wifi, it stops broadcasting that SSID and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it except to completely wipe the operating system and start over. This thing uses a Raspberry Pi as it's brain, and so it's hard drive is on a little SD card inside a hatch on the front of the unit. You can load a new operating system onto a new SD card, then you have basically a factory reset unit. The process is almost documented in this document. Follow the steps exactly, and don't forget to load that update file onto the root of the SD card before starting up. There is one thing they don't tell you, that is the sn.txt file, and it's critically important. I'll get to that in a sec:
Mastertronic-Quick Guide SD-card-V2 .pdf (Once again they choose to publish documents VIA Google Drive).

Now,.. that mentions putting the sn.txt file in the root, but says nothing else about it, and the download location doesn't have it. This had me stumped for a really long time. When I would boot my unit it would come up with serial of all 9's. Although it seemed to work, and I could get it on the WiFi, it refused to connect with my App. It probably uses the serial to link up or something. Finally I decided to take a shot in the dark, and I created a text file named sn.txt with the serial number including the "M" on the first line of the doc and nothing else, then I made a new SD Card and used that file for the sn.txt and it worked!!!!

Calibration of this thing was a challenge as well, mainly because it doesn't tell you when it's done pumping. A few times, especially with the stepper pump calibration I went to measure only to have the unit start pumping. For this reason I recommend you run an accuracy test just to see where things are at once you think you have it right.

But!! Now that it's setup it's working great! Once the new sump goes in and everything I will get it in a better spot, but this will be super nice to validate my Trident once a week, and also monitor Phosphate and Nitrate. I look forward to getting more information about how various foods affect nutrient levels. I also got like a billion test kit reloads with it which is super nice!

Whiskey
 
#74 ·
The other exciting news is that I have officially ordered the tank!! Joe was great, we went through the various options on the phone, but I ended up basically getting the same tank. I had considered going with regular glass on the ends but the end view is what you see coming in the door, and the other end is where I will have one of the timelapse cameras that I use to publish coral growth videos. At the end of the day the day it was only a couple hundred dollar difference so I decided to go low iron all the way around. I was also able to completely offset that cost difference by using the overflow I already have! It's a shadow box overflow so it just connects through holes in the tank and can be removed.

I can't wait to get it!!! For now I continue to work on cabinetry and make sure I'm ready.

Whiskey
 
#78 ·
I'm continuing to work on the cabinet doors. I got the hardware mounted up:
Wood Rectangle Floor Flooring Composite material


Then I got them all broken down, sanded, and I'm about half way done with priming, but then the weather took a turn and I spray outside, so it was time to focus on something else.

So! I'm putting some thought into the lighting bar. I got a lighting bar with the tank, it's made out of 80/20 extruded aluminum which is fantastic because even though the exact design that was used before doesn't suit my lights, it's like a big erector set and you can rearrange all the pieces to suit whatever. It's the perfect platform to build on.

I'm planning to use 6 Hydra 32's (According to BRS the perfect height is 14 inches)
And I'll have 4 36W T5's and 4 54W T5 (3 foot and 4 foot to make 7 feet). There will be two rows on the front, and 2 on the back. The perfect mounting height for these is 10 inches.

For this reason I've arranged the bar to mount the Hydras above the T5's, and I will use wood pieces screwed into the T-Track to extend the T5 6 inches past the end of the bar because it's 6 feet, this will also drop them lower. This will make sense when you see it.

Then, the entire lighting bar will mount by block pullies to the horizontal supports on the canopy. I will have 6 inch liner actuators that will allow me to raise the lights to 20 inches so that I can work on the tank without hitting my head (I hate that) and then drop them down to 14 inches for the perfect light efficiency and spread. I was shocked to see how cheap these things are, $41 each for ones that can lift 330lbs. I'm using 2 for safety. They are IP54 certified for water spray as well!

Here's he partly assembled light bar. 4 of the Hydras will come from the current tank:
Automotive lighting Bumper Rectangle Automotive exterior Gas


Plus I'm 3D printing some of these little deals which are designed to hold the the Hydra 32 transformers to keep them organized, but out of the way and safe. I'm mounting them to the back of the Canopy, but close enough to the side so that I can easily grab them.
Automotive design Rectangle Wood Automotive exterior Cable


That's pretty much the update! I hope to mount some T5's after work tomorrow.
Whiskey
 
#79 ·
Hello all! It's been a bit since I updated, I got covid and it's been kicking my butt. I have made progress, but not a ton with all that going on. Here's where we are at now:
I added mounting blocks for the T5 lights onto the lighting gantry, I also mounted the 4 foot T5's and ballasts. The 3 foot ones will come off the existing tank at the time of the tank swap, you can see I have the mounting blocks and space for the ballast ready for it. I plan to connect all the T5's into one cord for easy cable management, and I bought the 12/3 wire to do it, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
Wood Bumper Automotive exterior Auto part Musical instrument accessory

Wood Rectangle Plank Font Bumper

Blue Rectangle Electric blue Tints and shades Magenta


I'm not exactly sure why, but those 4 wires at one end of the bulb need to be kept as short as possible. In my case I will not have a top on this canopy so I opted to mount them right there, but if you do trap humidity in your hood the back is a better choice.

Now that that's done, I took the entire gantry and mounted it inside the canopy shell. This is hung by 1/8 inch cables, the cables support over 300 lbs each, and the actuators support over 330 each. This should be way more than I will ever need. In the event that one of the actuators ever did have a catastrophic failure the lights can only fall about 7 inches from the highest position before the cable bars contact the pully blocks and stop it. I don't expect to ever need this safety feature, but it's good to know I have it.

All the way up:
Light Blue Rectangle Audio equipment Gas

Water Blue Fluid Liquid Gas


Down:
Blue Entertainment Electronic instrument Rectangle Gas

Blue Rectangle Gas Engineering Electric blue


Whiskey
 
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