320 gallon display with equipment shed

[cilyjr]

I live in the Central Coast of California which means we pay a ridiculously high amount for electricity. Don't want to get into all of the problems with the California government but there are many and high electricity rates are a side benefit...

I work for a large heating air conditioning and plumbing outfit in our area that employs between 10 and 12 plumbers at any given time and 8 to 10 HVAC technicians. My job here for the last year is inventory management which means I am in charge of all the purchasing and vendor relationships etc. so, I can talk to industry professionals about unique situations.

This just got me thinking about using a tankless water heater to heat the fish tank. I started a thread about it in the DIY forum and then found an individual who's been doing exactly this for well over 10 years. If this project goes forward, I will document the process here.
Here is a link to the individual that's already doing this.

Dedicated Tankless Water Heater

My plan is too use a titanium heat exchanger. I posted a picture of my plan in an earlier post. I'm going to use a DC pump to control the flow through the heat exchanger. By changing the flow, I can control the amount of heat transfer to the aquarium water. I'm sure it will take some testing...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[cilyjr]

My crappy 36 w coral life twist UV sterilizer Died. Water was getting into the quartz sleeve. It's fairly common for these units. I bought it a couple of years ago cuz I needed something quickly. Well I finally got a good 56 w aqua UV to replace it. I 3D printed the brackets because the one I bought didn't come with them.

The other big project I had been wanting to get done was to get underneath the cabinet on the tank cleaned up. Ever since install. Most of the wires were pretty much just hanging there and it was unused wasted space. I will put shelving under there in a week or 2.

 

[cilyjr]

For the first time in 15 years, I've decided to try running without a calcium reactor. This is a pretty big shift in philosophy.

I have always used a calcium reactor with kalkwasser. Last Saturday I took it off line and upped the kalkwasser reactor dosage. As the need grows I will supplement with soda ash and calcium hydroxide.

The goal is a higher pH.

 

[cilyjr]

A few months ago, I brought in an adult checker wrasse that was roughly 7 inches long.
It was quite happy and was an amazing fish. It also decided to start eating all my shrimp. I knew it was a possibility but thought unlikely. Stupid me.

I finally set up the fish trap and got it out. It took 3 days which is pretty good time in my opinion.

Took it to the store and traded it for 2 skunk cleaner shrimp.

 

[cilyjr]

I'm thinking of switching the lights for radion g6.
I have 8 hydra32hd currently and they came with the tank, which I debated when buying it. I was told by a reliable source (the guy who was taking care of the tank before I bought it) that they had about 6 months on them.

If I changed, I'd move 4 of the hydras to the frag tank and sell 4 while they were still worth something.

The hydra26 on the frag tank are from 2017 and have about 7 years on them. 1 has a broken fan ect so they will need replacement in the next year or 2.

 

[cilyjr]

It's always bothered me that the top trim on the tank was black while the stand and floating hood was white.

Also, this tank has a strange wire height where the waterline was below the black rim. I tried raising the water line with little plugs and that I had printed and put in the weir, but what would happen is the center braces would go below the water line when it would splash.

I tried using vinyl tape at the top but it looked pretty cheezy. My wife suggested wood trim.

Just used simple door trim and the same kind of tape that holds command hooks on. I'm quite pleased with the result.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Beautiful!

 

[cilyjr]

Beautiful!

Thanks. It's funny to me how something very simple really helps complete a and look.

 

[Jimbo327]

Another top brace FTW!

 

[cilyjr]

Another top brace FTW!

I am super happy with it.

 

[cilyjr]

I did some par testing, which is something I've never done. Even with eight Hydra 32s and four 4-ft t5s I was a bit surprised to see how low the numbers were.

This resulted in me really cranking up the Hydras which in turn made them really noisy.

I decided to change the lights. Especially since the hydra's are only a year and a little bit old I can sell them.

I decided to go with 6x reefi Uno 2.1 pro.
I will have to completely take down the canopy to mount them. I will use 2040 extruded aluminum rails. I'm going to use six 18 inch pieces and mount them directly to the canopy top. That way each unit will be on its own 3-ft rail. It will be adjustable but also easier to remove then the current system which has one rail for four lights.

 

[Raptor72]

I did some par testing, which is something I've never done. Even with eight Hydra 32s and four 4-ft t5s I was a bit surprised to see how low the numbers were.

This resulted in me really cranking up the Hydras which in turn made them really noisy.

I decided to change the lights. Especially since the hydra's are only a year and a little bit old I can sell them.

I decided to go with 6x reefi Uno 2.1 pro.
I will have to completely take down the canopy to mount them. I will use 2040 extruded aluminum rails. I'm going to use six 18 inch pieces and mount them directly to the canopy top. That way each unit will be on its own 3-ft rail. It will be adjustable but also easier to remove then the current system which has one rail for four lights.

Show us a top down picture when you’re done. I’m interested in the configuration. I’m also putting a canopy together.

 

[cilyjr]

I just got a message from Daniel at Reefi-labs, He's testing and shipping my lights today!

I cannot say enough about this company so far. I was trying to decide between replacing my lights with ecotech or reefi, so I reached out to reefi-labs and he got back to me very quickly, I'd say within an hour. We had a good discussion about how many lights to put over my tank, we were on agreement right from the beginning on that, and he was very helpful with solutions on how to hang the lights.

More to come when they get here.

 

[cilyjr]

The lights showed up Thursday night , but my stepdaughter is graduating from high school so I didn't get a chance to mess with them until today.

They're pretty solidly built. The shield over the LEDs is actual glass and not a piece of plastic.
Most of the lenses have multiple LEDs in them. It looks like there's somewhere around 100 LEDs. It's extremely quiet. I cranked it up to full power for a couple of minutes and I could barely hear it.

Had a bit of a snag. The screw hole for the hanging bracket was painted over on 1 of the 4 holes. At first I thought it was missing. I contacted them and they were going to send me a replacement shell, which I wasn't completely happy with. I did end up picking out the paint with a dental pic and it's working properly now. That said, it's more DIY than I want at the $3000.00 price point.

Not a deal-breaker, just making a point.

 

[cilyjr]

I am using 2040 t-bar mounted to a 2x2 wooden rail to attach the lights. I 3D printed a bracket that fits to the lights and then a bracket that fits to the the wood

Once I got all the brackets printed. Each light has a 18-in rail that it can be slid on to adjust positioning should that ever be required.

At first I was going to take the entire canopy down, that requires two people. I experimented with putting them up without. Turned out with a couple of bar clamps it was pretty easy. I threw a blanket over the top of the tank to protect it and then started untangling all the cables from the Hydra 32s.

Here they are hung and cables cleaned up

Getting them connected to Wi-Fi then grouped was buggy over a phone. When I changed to a laptop it went smoothly. The same with adjusting settings. Not a deal breaker for me, but I could see how some might. Here's a look at the UI. This is most people's complaint about the light when I was researching them.

I'm pretty happy with how the tank looks with them. I'm not one to use acclimation modes when adding new corals, but I decided that I would give them about 10 days to ramp up from 60% for this change over. Even dimmed down they look brighter than the 8 hydras. I feel it makes the tank look bigger because the back is more illuminated.

 

[cilyjr]

Man, everything is doing really great, I'm getting far better polyp extension since adding the new lights. And weirdly when all the lights are off at night. Even that extension is better.

I'm at this weird spot where there's almost nothing to do. Geez, I hope I don't mess that up by sticking my hands in too much.... I'll try to get some good pictures this evening.

 

[cilyjr]

On a side note, I brought in two wild wild acropora speciosia colonies from Malaysia. I immediately cut them up into small pieces and I have 100% survival at this point. It's been about 2 weeks. Their color looked pretty bad when they got here but they are starting to color up. One of them is giving me the pink and yellow polyps alternating. Really hoping it turns into something amazing.

 

[cilyjr]

Here are a few better pictures of the A. Speciosa.
I got 2 different colonies.

 

[cilyjr]

I'm finally tired of the ice cap k200 freezing up and not stirring.
I clean it regularly just like the directions say and yet it will bind pretty regularly. I tried getting a larger stirring bar and that worked somewhat. I even tried to changing the magnets on the stir to larger ones. Neither worked for very long. I feel like the caustic nature of kalkwasser is just not conducive to using a magnetic stirrer.
I bought in Avast Marine ka150. I bought the DIY kit and will build it myself over the weekend.

 

[cilyjr]

I am both blessed and cursed in my area. We only have one local fish store in my area. Fortunately it is an amazing store. I have been to many stores throughout the country and I have to say it is by far one of the best nicest and cleanest I have ever seen. If you are ever in the San Luis Obispo area, stop by tropics aquarium professionals.

Today I put a deposit on my last fish editions until I lose some. It is a male and female zebra swallowtail angelfish pear. I will be too excited to pick them up next Friday. As I am not running a quarantine system currently, they are holding them through their their system.