150 Gallon Lagoon

[HolySmoke]

The eagle has landed. I figured I would start documenting every single part of the build including a slight basement remodel.

Current FTS: (under construction)

[Reserved for Paramaters]

Current Equipment List

Tank:
Innovative Marine 150 INT
47.5" x 35.5" x 20" Approximately
APS Extruded Aluminum Stand w/ matte black finish

Controller:
Full 2016 Neptune Apex System.
I just bought a 10" Nuvision tablet for the display

Lighting:
2x ATI Straton

Flow:
Varios S6
3x MP40

Sump:
Ice Cap 36XL

Skimmer:
Reef Octopus 220 INT Elite powered by a Varios 6S

 

[HolySmoke]

Picking up the sump at FedEx Freight. I really wanted a GEO sump/rollermat and was about to pull the trigger when I found this on ebay for $275 free shipping.

I ordered two 7" High Flow Media cups to replace the socks.

 

[HolySmoke]

More Goodies Came in !

Accent wall for behind the tank

Building the stand

Finally upgraded my service/panel and had them run 2 20amp lines the whole length of my house for the tank/fishroom

Old 100 amp panel

New 200 amp panel

 

[HolySmoke]

Finished the plumbing last night and it was a couple days late because it really has that Murica feel to it. It's really a shame I am going to have to cut it all out soon and redo all of it when I move the tank to its final location, adjacent fish room.

I never planned on going with blue theme but the icecap sump didnt really give me a choice lol. Most of my equipment is red and white and I figured why not on the patriotic color scheme.

I ran out of 3/4" pipe and had to get creative with couplers and 45s to make it back to the pump so I can get her wet. I will fix that up soon though. I left a long section of pipe in the back in case I wanted to add a manifold down the line. I also ordered 2 more ball valves to replace the fluipro on the drains to match the cepex valve on return line.

Finished gluing at 2 30 am and left my RODI on over night filling the tank.

 

[Antics]

Awesome! I'm super interested in these tanks. Please keep the thread updated!

 

[HolySmoke]

Getting her wet

Scored 3 unopened boxes of HW Reefervsalt from a local reefer for $50 and I have a 200 gal bucket of tropic Marin pro reef salt on the way.

Before I went to bed. I started filling the tank and almost forgot to shim it because I was so tried. Luckily my basement floor is pretty far out and I realized quickly before I passed out.
I just had to shim the front two corners.

Woke up to this. I actually lowered the pressure on my booster pump a little because I didnt want to fill the whole thing while I was sleeping. I wanted to watch to make sure no bulkheads were dripping because they were only hand tight.

 

[HolySmoke]

Awesome! I'm super interested in these tanks. Please keep the thread updated!

Will be updating it more throughout the day. Grab some popcorn

 

[Antics]

Any updates?

 

[spscrackhead]

Dimensions are awesome. Unfortunately IM was a nightmare to deal with and pulled some sketchy stuff when I purchased my tank from them.

Will be updating it more throughout the day. Grab some popcorn

What kind of sketchy stuff? Looking at getting one of these soon.

 

[CoralDanimal]

What kind of sketchy stuff? Looking at getting one of these soon.

Bump. Also curious what issues you faced?

 

[dante411x]

Just ordered one of these from IM. Looking at threads and now I'm really curious what kind of sketchy stuff they pulled. If you don't wanna post it out in the open, could you pm me? Would be nice to know what to look out for.

 

[HairyGary]

Any updates?

 

[JumboShrimp]

So this thread kind of died in Nov., 2019, just when it was getting interesting...?

 

[HolySmoke]

@Antics @spscrackhead @demeyer2 @HairyGary @JumboShrimp



As far as my dead Build Thread LOL.
Sorry guys it has been a crazy couple months working days and working on the house at night. The basement project which was supposed to be long done by now hasn't even started yet unfortunately.

I had some problems come up with my house that were more urgent then the downstairs and tank. Good news though!!! Kitchen is finished, deck is structurally sound again, and I finally found the leak in my heating system under my slab. I will be installing the Pex tomorrow and laying the floor very soon.


The leak under the slab was causing air to get into the system and I was losing heat upstairs if I didnt purge the system every 3 days. I had no choice but to valve off the downstairs zone and it was no more than 58 degrees downstairs all winter. My two jager heaters could barely keep up and I guess the stress of them running constantly caused my 300 watt to **** the bed.

Of course I didnt catch it for 4 or 5 days and the damage was catastrophic. I had a pretty serious collection and it is pretty much all wiped out. Some corals are showing some life but it doesnt look good.
Somehow the only fish that survived was a blue hippo tang and he was swimming around like the 60 degree ammonia spiked water didn't even phase him. Most of my Acros didn't fair so well but saved some nice mushrooms and zoas atleast.

I was gonna sell everything and hang up my hat after reefing for 11 years but shockingly, my wife talked me out of it.

Ok now that my novel is complete hopefully I can upload some pictures in the near future of the basement renovation and tank full of rocks in its final location.

 

[JumboShrimp]

We hope your tank will be an all’s-well-that-ends-well story!

 

[HolySmoke]

The Pex has been installed today and I am happy to inform it was the only leak in the system. Life proof flooring and accent wall will be installed soon.

 

[HolySmoke]

Just wanted to post an update picture. Wall behind the tank is coming along and you can see a piece of the new floor that will be going in.

 

[HolySmoke]

I think it is time to revive the thread. Im just about done with all the house projects or atleast one could hope.

Not too much to report on the tank but things are moving in the right direction.

Got 3 xr 30 Blues over the tank and about 10 classic sticks from a couple local reefers.

Tomorrow the plan is to completely finish the deck, set up the DOS right into the 4 gallon Buckets of ESV and try and keep the AlK more steady through out the day. The basement is slowly shaping up but not enough to share pictures. Im pretty happy with how the deck turned out though.

 

[HolySmoke]

I decided to post one picture of my messy tank for all the people that think the G5 radion is too Blue.

These are all cell phone pictures with galaxy s10+

 

[HolySmoke]

Just thought I would share an updated shot of the deck. I still gotta cut the posts and finish some punch list stuff but finally it is safe enough that the basement project can commence.

The design choices added a lot of work to this deck but I am pretty pleased with the finished product.

Updated shot of the tank before I scrape the glass, siphon detritus and change out about 35 gallons. ALK consumption is growing daily and its almost time to fire up the DIY avast Calcium Rx.
Thanks @Caravanshaka for the DIY help and he even sent me a small piece of clear PVC. Nice guy.

I just left House of Fins and was blown away by the fish/livestock selection. The whole store was lit by AP700 except for one acro tank lit by a ATI fixture. Prices were very high but the rent, employees, and amount of high end equipment in there it is to be expected. Spoke to the owner Rob and he was a very nice guy.

Unfortunately only left with some Oysterfeast, PE mysis, and another RMS track so I can spread my Radions out even more to completely blanket both sides of the acros. Definitely not the cheapest lighting setup and I could have gotten away with 4 or 5 xr15s on my tank but I ve seen T5/MH growth and Im hoping to get 85% of that with nice color. Im very hopeful with the growth tips and Alk consumption thus far.