Beginner's 240 Gallon Reef Tank Build

[cdklos]

Hello all! I am new to the hobby and decided to start a reef tank in November of 2017. I bought a bunch of used stuff and only ended up using the sump, tank, stand and the light box, although I modified all of them extensively.

I sanded and stained the stand because the wood seemed to absorb moisture pretty well and the new stain was sealed so water just beads off of it. Also, I installed an acrylic base in the bottom of the stand that everything sits in. That way if I have a "flood" I've got some back up before it destroys the hard wood floors the tank is sitting on.

The tank had glass over flows, but no covers. I designed new over flow covers in CAD and had a plasitc manufacturer in Austin, Tx CNC the covers out of black acrylic. They would not bend them so I ran the covers through a 120 tooth blade on the table saw that was set really low so I could bend them. Set them on my tool box and heated it up with a heat gun till they just fell over. T-square and some water they they set up at a perfect 90 degree angle.

Cut my holes for my return pluming with a regular wood hole saw. Went right through very smooth! It took 6 people to get the tank up there!

Installed the sump and began the plumbing...

I used gate valves because I wanted a full siphon tank, I can control the siphon with the gate valves and the tank is 100% silent. I ran one pipe up just below the level of the tank, just in case one of the siphon lines gets clogged or a snail, the tall pipe will allow the tank to still drain without overflowing, and if I'm home, I will hear it. I tested it all out and it will carry the volume of water needed to keep from overflowing.

I added some sponge in there to quite the water flowing over the top down.

Filled with water and fixed leaks. Yes, I know, there were a few leaks. Not too big of a deal, but leaks none the less. All fixed and held water nicely for a week. Ahh, before I added water, I aquascaped the tank! I began by soaking all the dry rock in tubs filled with RO/DI and 1 gallon of bleach each. I let them soak with power heads for 24 hours. Then I emptied the bleach water out and rinsed them with RO/DI for a week, changing the water 1x a day. Then they sat in the sun drying for about 2 weeks.

Let the aquascaping begin, on the next post...cause it wont let me upload any more pictures..

 

[cdklos]

At some point between the plumbing and the aquascape, I installed the Apex and all the electronics.

At this point I added some live rock from River City Aquatics in Austin, and let the tank begin to cycle. About 2 weeks in, everything was looking good, a fellow reefer told me to go ahead and add some fish. I was anxious to add them and my patients was gone so I went ahead and added them. This is against my better judgement looking back on it, all the fish have survived and never had any issues, but if they had of had issues that would have sucked. I guess with a 240 there is some roof for errors. Also, the live rock was really well seeded and I added about 20 lbs. of it from different tanks, I think that added to the success of the fish. While the tank was cycling I worked on the lights. I knew I didn't want lights up during the cycle because I didn't want to deal with a bunch of algae. I added the lights the same day as I added the 2nd batch of fish, a couple weeks after the cycle was finished, that way the fish could help control any algae break out from the lights. So far, this has seemed to work. I wasn't really happy with the light box it was about 14 inches deep and seemed really big. I put it on my table saw and cut it almost in half. The box looks much more proportional to the tank.

Also, there were no studs in the ceiling to hang the box from. I got a 4 inch hole saw and cut holes in the ceiling and added ceiling fan mounts to hold the weight of the box. Its a 2 story house, so I couldn't do anything in the attic, but it wasn't too difficult either.

 

[cdklos]

And finally the tank is done, for the most part...

 

[themcfreak]

Nice tank! Looking good. Your neighbor here in Austin!

Have you tested what might happen if there were to be a power failure? I may have missed something, but I don't see any check valves on your return lines, and they seem to be located very low in the tank compared to most builds. I could very well be missing something, but it looks like if the power were to go out, a significant amount of water would siphon down into your sump from the display. I would test it, and make sure that the sump wouldn't overflow if the lights go out, just to be safe.