allenjj

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Starting a new thread on the BEAST rebuild. For those of you not familiar with the tank that I call the BEAST, it is a 450 gallon tank that is 8 foot long, 30 inches wide and 36 inches deep with overflows at each end. The tank sits on the outside wall of my dining room, so when filled it is visible from the dining and living room. The tank is connected to a sump in the basement which is 125 gallons. Above the sump was a 40 gallon long glass tank divided up for a fuge. As part of the rebuild, I had a custom made acryllic fuge built that is 1/2 inch thick to better support the drain lines from it to the sump. The system is powered by a dolphin diamond aqua sea 9250 pump which runs into a 2 different 2 inch diameter by 4 foot long manifolds providing flow for all the equipment. The equipment includes a 4 foot tall dual tube updraft protein skimmer, a carbon reactor, a gfo reactor, and a calcium reactor. Additionally I added a bubble magnus dosing system.

The entire system is managed by an Apex (Neptuensystems) with multiple temperature probes, 2 Ph probes (one for monitoring Ph and one for running the calcium reactor), 1 conductivity probe (to measure salinity), 1 ORP probe (which I find is a great monitor for overall tank health), several variable speed controller (to control variable speeds and wave motion on 4 tunze pumps), and a number of power bars to control heaters, pumps, etc. Lighting for the main tank is 4 ecotech radion pros.

Water is provided to the tank by a 6 stage RO/DI system rated for 150 gallons per day, along with 2 - 65 gallon holding tanks (one for RO/DI water and one for salt water). I am probably going to add at least one more holding tank so that I have more RO/DI water in reserve. The holding tanks use a pump in the tanks for water motion and to stir salt when mixing. Water changes are simple with activation of a drain from the sump and then water from the holding tank.

Due to a series of mishaps while I was away and I had a caretaker looking after the tank, the caretaker accidentally set off a series of chain reactions that were eventually unrecoverable. Although I lost all of my livestock, I learned a number of things with the previous build that I can improve on with this build. In the previous build I needed to move live rock, corals and fish rapidly from the holding tanks to the main display, so with the rock no longer alive, I can take my time and aquascape more efficiently making room for lots of specimens. Today was major progress after removing approximately 800 lbs of formerly live rock from the tank, and almost 1000 lbs of sand. I have now completed a series of washes of the sand with a little washed in each batch multiple times, draining the water, then ultimately storing the mostly washed sand in 50 gallon rubbermaid trash cans. I now have 3 30 gallon totes filled with rock cooking, and another 250 gallon horse trough filled with rock waiting to cook. My plan is once the rock is cooked to lay it all out in the dining and living room so that I can select the exact right pieces to build the two islands that I want in the display perfectly. Once the islands are built, I will slowly add the sand a little at a time with salt water in the tank to finish processing any remaining biological debris left in the rock and sand. Then I will drain the tank, adding live rock to seed the islands and start the nitrate process for real.

My immediate next step is to route the bulkhead holes on the right side of the tank to replace the schedule 40 bulkheads with heavier duty schedule 80 builkheads (the left side was previously done due to the schedule 40 bulkheads starting to fail). Will post some pics soon to show the holding tanks and progress.
 
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allenjj

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Cleaning and preparing rocks

I have 3 30 gallon tubs now with heaters and pumps to circulate cooking the rock. The 100 gallon rubbermaid pond is full of rock yet to be processed.
 

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gpscuba

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Wow sounds like a terrible mishap tremendous undertaking. Look forward to the update good luck on your rebuilt. I'm getting ready to start an upgrade to a 50 gallon tank from a 15 gallon nano not as big as a jump but we have to start somewhere ;)
 

allenjj

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Upgrades

Any upgrade or rebuild or any kind has lots of planning, excitement and possibilities. One nice thing about bigger tanks is the more water, the more stable the parameters typically.
 

allenjj

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The rubbermade tank

I believe I got that from Tractor Supply, but if you google it I would think you may find a number of vendors that can order it. I would fill it with water for cycling, but the weight of the rock alone I am worried about sitting in dining room not in the tank area, which is heavily reinforced.

where can i get a rubber maid 100 gallon like that?
 

allenjj

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Well the tank is coming along slowly as most good things in this hobby do. It has been running since August and I have recently started slowly restocking. I am excited to have the few fish and corals back in the house and enjoy viewing the tank every day. I am looking forward to the next frag exchange to find some replacements for what was lost. I will try to share some new pics of the progress soon.
 

allenjj

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Most of the rock is recycled from the earlier version of this tank and its predecessors. Probably a lot from Florida and Figi as I recall. All cooked now several times and seeded with live Florida rock. I have the sump filled with rock for biological filtration in addition to the rock in the display. Since my protein skimmer is external and the fuge is separate from the sump, the primary purpose of the sump is biological filtration.
 

allenjj

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Skimmer

Im using an down-draft MTC skimmer that is now quite old, but works like a champ for such a large tank. It has two 6 inch tubes that are 40 inches tall with skimmate collection cups at the top. It uses an Ikawai pump for circulation and air injection. The only problem I ever have with it, is that occassionally I will need to turn the pump off and restart it so that the air injection maximizes. I keep looking at the large capacity skimmers and see no reason to switch at this point. The pump does draw some electricity, but for larger skimmers, they often will use 3 smaller pumps actually drawing more current.
 
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allenjj

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Skimmer

Here are a couple of pics of the skimmer in action. Sorry for the lighting as I have the one light directly overhead creating some glare. Its on my list to move for several reasons but just not gotten around to it yet.
 

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allenjj

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Albany, NY
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New Pics

I really have to practice my skills at getting good quality pics of the tank and its inhabitants. That said, here are a few of the current build out.
 

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allenjj

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More pics

A few more pics. I promise next time i will set the ecotech lighting to get a better picture quality.
 

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