300 Gallon New Reef Tank Build

MichaelsReef · Mar 10, 2017

I made the connections coming from the wall which go to my equipment closet. 1" inlet returns through a 3/4" pipe. I went with a flex hose because I thought it would be near impossible to line up the tank exactly with the plumbing. I think it worked out pretty well.

MichaelsReef · Mar 10, 2017

It took 3 days to fully fill up the tank...bu it is finally up and running. I had a few small leaks in the equipment closest which I was not able to test until the tank was filled. 2 of them were at the house barb fittings. I had to tighten one of the hose clamps as tight as possible. I found that really strange. I went with black 3/4" flex pipe. It is connected to 3 other hose barbs with no problems. For some reason, the one going to the UV sterilizer was slightly leaking. I also had to cut out a small section of pipe. I think I am finally done with all the plumbing. I am having a problem with 2 out of the 4 HQI ballasts. One was arching inside the box and making an electrocution sound. Dave, from Hamilton technologies is replacing right away. I shut the lights down for a few days. When I finally got around to firing up the other 3, after 30 minutes, one of the other ballasts was humming really loudly. The other 2 are virtually silent. I think I might have a 2nd busted ballast.

reefaddict82 · Mar 10, 2017

Wow! What an amazing set up!

MichaelsReef · Mar 11, 2017

reefaddict82 said:
Wow! What an amazing set up!

Thanks a lot....I really appreciate it. The way I have this one setup, it is going to be so much easier to maintain then my 180.

joro · Mar 13, 2017

Great setup and love the stand/canopy, looks very nice! Following!

MichaelsReef · Mar 17, 2017

My tank is now fully up and running. The equipment room is finished minus the Calcium reactor and Carbon reactor I will be switching over from my 180 gallon. All the Apex outlets have been configured. I have one leak detector in the equipment room, if triggered, will shut off the appropriate pump. I also have 2 leak detectors behind the main display. I love the way this room came out. Instead of having to work in a tight space underneath my display, I'll have the Calcium reactor, GFO reactor, Chiller, (4) HQI ballasts for my Halides, ATO container and my RODI filter all in one closet. Well worth the cost of a 3rd pump. The beauty of this setup, is that my RODI feeds directly into my ATO container, which has a float. So I will never have to worry about filling the ATO container. This is a great feature and one less thing I will have to worry about when I am away. I already had a drain in this closest for my house's back flow preventer. The manifold has a valve going directly to that drain. So my water changes will basically be turning 2 valves. The 3/4" pipe goes to my garage which is on the right side of that wall. This is where my saltwater will come from and is nothing more than a valve turn away.

MichaelsReef · Mar 17, 2017

Here is the underneath view of the lighting in my canopy which consists of (4) 20k 250 watt Radiums, (4) HO T5 Bulbs and (1) Reefbrite Blue Led. I have to say, I love the lighting choice I made for this tank. I started this hobby with LED's and although I did like them very much, I am falling in love with the Radiums. The brightness of them is incredible. I ran (4) hydra 52's on my 180 and after a 2 years, added T5 supplementation which made a huge difference. When the radiums are on, you can't tell when the T5's are on at all. They are a very crisp white, even though the picture taken with my Iphone looks blue.

MichaelsReef · Mar 17, 2017

Here is the under display view. My frag tank, which is plumbed off the pump which feeds the equipment room, overflows into my refugium, along with my tank overflows. The refugium then flows into (2) 7" filter socks, then the skimmer chamber followed by the pump chamber. The Reef Octopus 220 Elite and the (3) Echotech M1 pumps were a fantastic buy. They run virtually silent and I love the controllability of the pumps.

azreeftank · Mar 17, 2017

MichaelsReef said:
Here is the underneath view of the lighting in my canopy which consists of (4) 20k 250 watt Radiums, (4) HO T5 Bulbs and (1) Reefbrite Blue Led. I have to say, I love the lighting choice I made for this tank. I started this hobby with LED's and although I did like them very much, I am falling in love with the Radiums. The brightness of them is incredible. I ran (4) hydra 52's on my 180 and after a 2 years, added T5 supplementation which made a huge difference. When the radiums are on, you can't tell when the T5's are on at all. They are a very crisp white, even though the picture taken with my Iphone looks blue.

Wow Love your tank and setup it's going to look amazing when your all done. The FTS is very impressive that stand and campy are stunning. Can I ask about the Reefbrite blue LED. How well does it light up the tank if you shut all other lights off? I am looking to get a 48" Blue to get that bright pop when my other bulbs go off. Is one of these bulbs enough to do that in your tank? Do they penetrate the whole tank good? Thanks and I will be following your thread along for updates!

MichaelsReef · Mar 17, 2017

azreeftank said:
Wow Love your tank and setup it's going to look amazing when your all done. The FTS is very impressive that stand and campy are stunning. Can I ask about the Reefbrite blue LED. How well does it light up the tank if you shut all other lights off? I am looking to get a 48" Blue to get that bright pop when my other bulbs go off. Is one of these bulbs enough to do that in your tank? Do they penetrate the whole tank good? Thanks and I will be following your thread along for updates!

I do not have any corals in the tank yet, but the reefbrite seems like plenty of light. I am used to the Royal and Cree blue's from the Hydra 52's,which are insanely bright. The reefbrite seems almost just as good. They have reflectors in them, so the (1) 72" on my 8' tank covers plenty. Plus the mount enables you to angle them. Well worth the investment.

MichaelsReef · Jun 1, 2017

I have not posted an update in a while. I was first dealing with a bad diatom and hair algae outbreak. Since, I had already started moving corals into the tank, I could not do a total blackout. I reduced my lighting period from 10 hours to 5 hours a day for 3-4 weeks. I also reduced feedings to every other day. I performed several water changes per week while replacing carbon and gfo weekly.

MichaelsReef · Jun 1, 2017

Roughly 4 weeks later, all the algae is gone. The next step in the cycle process was a little bed of red slime algae, but it is small and already going away. I have been going nuts purchasing corals from Unique corals as I cannot help myself. The equipment room came out better than expected. My water changes takes 5 minutes and consists of the turning of 3 valves.

roberthu526 · Jun 18, 2017

Great Great Build! Thank you for sharing! I am going to be watching this tread for a long time as I am in the planning stage of an exact the same tank!
Quick question: how much flow are you getting from the Vectra M1? Are you running it at the highest speed? I am debating between M1 and L1. I worry the M1 would lose too much flow over the head loss but I also don't want to pay the extra if I don't have to get the L1. Thanks.

MichaelsReef · Jun 19, 2017

I don't have a flow meter, so I do not know the exact flow rate that I am getting. However, it is pretty easy to figure out with one of the online calculators. Given the 5' of head pressure minus a couple of elbows and 45's, I am probably getting around 1600-1800 per M1. I considered running (1) M1 to my equipment closet and (1) L1 to my 4 returns to the display, but I wanted the redundancy in case one fails. I spared no expense with this tank and saw no reason to not go the extra mile and build in redundancy. I am also running (4) Tunze Power heads in my display, so I have plenty of flow. Even though I did a lot of things right in my old tanks, I still lost colonies when they were otherwise healthy. I really think it had to do with flow, which is very underrated as most people are concerned with PAR and nutrient levels. That is why I did not stack up my rocks against the back wall of my aquarium. I wanted water movement throughout the whole tank. I have (2) power heads pointed behind the rock work, so the backs of all my corals get flow as well.