ZenMan's 700 gallon resurrection from the dead.

[ZenMan]

My tank crashed 4 years ago after some personal issues. I took it down but always wanted to bring it back. I started getting new equipment over a year ago but life kept getting in the way. Plus the tank needed some serious work. I purchased the tank new locally six years ago, but the manufacturer used steel euro bracing that was supposed to be powder coated. Well it was a poor job and the bracing started to rust big time after having it up only six months. Took me about a week to scrape and grind all the rust and peeling paint off. I wish I could have pulled the bracing off and had it sand blasted and re-powdercoated, but it was really stuck in place. So once I got to bare metal I used Marine Goop (a two part epoxy) and then covered that with a white marine grade paint. Hopefully it will last this time.

Tank is 1.25" acrylic. 10' x 3' x 3'. It is a three sided viewable room divider. The overflow is on one side. My rock work is Marco rock that I mortared together with hydraulic cement.

For flow I have six Ecotech MP60s on one side. I can vary the combination of pumps that are on to vary the flow pattern in the tank. I will probably pick up two Maxspect Gyre XF180s when they become available.

For lighting I have four Ecotech Radion XR30W Pros (Gen 2), a Hamilton Cebu Sun fixture with 4 x 400W 14K Hamilton Bulbs and 8 Actinic Blue T5s. I can vary when each light is on giving really any lighting effect I want over the tank.

For filtration, I went bare bottom this time, as I want a lot of flow in the tank and last time I had the tank up the sand would be blasted everywhere and bury my chalices. Plus toward the end I had a nitrate problem, and I think the sand ended up as a nitrate sink. So no sand this time, and so far no regrets, the detritus is very easy to spot and siphon out. In the sump I added two blocks of MarinePure to give me more surface area for bacteria to populate since I don't have sand for them. I'm also using my old Reeflo 250. Still works great after all these years.

For Calc and Alk maintenance I am using a Calcium reactor with peristaltic pump and aquariumplants.com CO2 regulator.

 

[ZenMan]

More pictures.



This is a picture of a titanium heat exchanger that I will plumb into the house hot water. Rather than have 1200W of heat in my sump, I will have this heat exchanger that can use the house's natural gas water heater to keep the tank at 80F.

 

[Chris_W]

How did you do the bungees on the MP60's?


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[TheRealChrisBrown]

It's hard to get a grasp on how large that tank is, even with the pictures! 10x3x3 is enormous! If you get 2 of the gyre's how are you going to mount them? On one wall like your mp60's, or on opposing walls, on a wavemaker timer or something? Awesome rock work, keep us posted as it starts to fill in!

 

[Balz3352]

Wow. Im jealous.... Seriously jealous!!

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

With the heat exchanger, is that something you can control via Apex or something? How do you prevent it from running too hot, or kicking it on when water gets too cold?

 

[Balz3352]

Seriously we need some more details!! Filtration sump room.. How its cinnected to heater.. Etc.

 

[ZenMan]

How did you do the bungees on the MP60's?

Tank is acrylic, so I took some acrylic rod and cut 1.5" standoffs and glued them to the tank. One below the MP60 to hold the weight and two on either side of the MP60. I drilled a small hole in each rod on the sides of the MP60 so that I could stick the hook from the bungee into the hole I drilled.

If you get 2 of the gyre's how are you going to mount them?

Don't know yet. Not sure if the magnet mounts on the Maxspect Gyre XF180s will work with 1.25" acrylic. May have to rig something up. But from what I have seen of the gyre's I love the flow they create so definitely want to try some out!

With the heat exchanger, is that something you can control via Apex or something? How do you prevent it from running too hot, or kicking it on when water gets too cold?

Yes, I will use my Apex to control. When tank gets too cold, an outlet on the Apex will turn on a circulating pump. Hot water will circulate through the heat exchanger in the sump until desired temp is reached, then outlet turns circulating pump off.

 

[Andrew_bram]

They make an upgraded magnet for the gyre

 

[asn-naso]

The rock work looks awesome. And you are correct. You needed substantial sized corals to look like tiny frags in your tank.

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

My tank crashed 4 years ago after some personal issues. I took it down but always wanted to bring it back. I started getting new equipment over a year ago but life kept getting in the way. Plus the tank needed some serious work. I purchased the tank new locally six years ago, but the manufacturer used steel euro bracing that was supposed to be powder coated. Well it was a poor job and the bracing started to rust big time after having it up only six months. Took me about a week to scrape and grind all the rust and peeling paint off. I wish I could have pulled the bracing off and had it sand blasted and re-powdercoated, but it was really stuck in place. So once I got to bare metal I used Marine Goop (a two part epoxy) and then covered that with a white marine grade paint. Hopefully it will last this time.

Tank is 1.25" acrylic. 10' x 3' x 3'. It is a three sided viewable room divider. The overflow is on one side. My rock work is Marco rock that I mortared together with hydraulic cement.

For flow I have six Ecotech MP60s on one side. I can vary the combination of pumps that are on to vary the flow pattern in the tank. I will probably pick up two Maxspect Gyre XF180s when they become available.

For lighting I have four Ecotech Radion XR30W Pros (Gen 2), a Hamilton Cebu Sun fixture with 4 x 400W 14K Hamilton Bulbs and 8 Actinic Blue T5s. I can vary when each light is on giving really any lighting effect I want over the tank.

For filtration, I went bare bottom this time, as I want a lot of flow in the tank and last time I had the tank up the sand would be blasted everywhere and bury my chalices. Plus toward the end I had a nitrate problem, and I think the sand ended up as a nitrate sink. So no sand this time, and so far no regrets, the detritus is very easy to spot and siphon out. In the sump I added two blocks of MarinePure to give me more surface area for bacteria to populate since I don't have sand for them. I'm also using my old Reeflo 250. Still works great after all these years.

For Calc and Alk maintenance I am using a Calcium reactor with peristaltic pump and aquariumplants.com CO2 regulator.

I pm'd you about some frags. Not sure the mp feature is working. Give me a call or text. 970 three nine six 1145. Mike


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[SynDen]

Ooo I like the heat exchanger idea, I might have to try something like that on mine. Would love to see more of that and how its hooked up.

 

[ZenMan]

So here is a six month update. Haven't plumbed in my heat exchanger yet. Should get on that as the heater is on more and more each day as the temps get cooler in the basement.

Note to self on future tank builds, don't buy any SPS frags and or colonies until coralline algae is spreading across tank.

I have had a busy six months. Over the summer I had a massive cyano outbreak. I had 1/2" layers of some sort of gelatinous goo that coated everything and smothered all the coral I had at the time. After siphoning and scrubbing all my rock work for a month and dosing a homemade NoPOx recipe I got past that. Rock was clean and I felt good about the tank and went all in again on a new round of acros. Two weeks later I had a massive hair algae outbreak. Each week I was literally pulling a basketball size portion of hair algae off all my rock. All through the summer my Nitrates were less than 2.5PPM and my Phosphates around 0.08PPM. I tried adding more NoPOx to further reduce the Nitrates and Phosphates to get the hair algae to die. I reduced my photo period by 50%. But it was a losing battle, between stripping all the nutrients from the water column and the corals getting smothered by the hair algae, I pretty most lost all my acros, and some of it was pretty awesome stuff from Dr.DiSilicate. I was cursing myself for getting back into the hobby!

After I felt I had nothing to lose, I used Algaefix to kill the hair algae. I was surprised with how well it worked and I didn't lose any inverts like many had on ReefCentral. If I had a do-over, I would have dosed AlgaeFix as soon as the hair algae outbreak started and maybe some of my acros would have made it.

So now I'm on my third major SPS introduction. Hoping things are stable enough now that I won't have a new crash. I do have massive amounts of coralline algae growing everywhere that I didn't have over the summer, so maybe now the tank is finally good.

I'm dosing 30ml of homemade NoPOx (Vodka and Vinegar mixture) daily, plus I'm dosing 25ml of Potassium Nitrate. Yes, I am adding Nitrate to my tank. I think the Marco rock I reused from my previous tank has a lot of phosphates in it. Even dosing NoPOx, I could get my Nitrates down to 0.2PPM, but my Phosphates wanted to stay at 0.1PPM. This caused everything in the tank to take on a brownish hue. By dosing Nitrate I am still able to keep my Nitrates at 0.2PPM, but it also allows the bacteria to consume phosphate such that it is now

 

[ZenMan]

With Halides On.

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

Sorry to hear about the coral. I lost some stuff in my move but the bases are starting to grow out again. I'm sure we can work out another pack in a few months time. Your rockscape looks great! I'm sure it's hard to get anything to change in that large a volume of water.


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[Bluedini]

That is some stellar rock work! Love the design and detail!

 

[opakapaka]

Looking good.

 

[MartinsReef]

Man I can't wait to build my new house so I can have a big tank again! Great job!