High Tide Aquatics

Brian's 180G Peninsula

Schmuck-Reefer

Supporting Member
About a year in a half ago I tore down my 75 Gallon display to move to California since then I've been itching to set up a display system. In the meantime I have been housing my coral in cramped 50gallon frag system, enough is enough!

After purchasing a small townhouse earlier this year I have been debating either to re-setup my 75G display or upgrade. The choice is obvious, its time for a big tank, but its definitely going to hurt the pocketbook (especially moving from an area its 4cents a Kwh. :oops:)


I've been a little lazy starting this journal and I about2 months behind so most of the following content is me playing catch-up but as a result, I have already selected and purchased most of my equipment.

The Plan:

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The plans to place the 180G peninsula on the exterior wall sitting between the dining room and living room. Additionally, I am planning on building a small shed (Like this) on the outside of the building (in my side yard) to house 2 tanks (Saltwater and RO) 50G-100G depending on what I can find that will serve as the RO top off the reservoir and an automatic water change reservoir. I'll run some electrical conduit through the wall and seal it up so it's all up to code. (Fig1) The outside shed will also house the RO/DI system.
Fig1
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The conduit will contain 3x 3/8" tubes and 3x1/4" tubes.
3/8s: 1: Snorkel for skimmer (to pull outside air into the skimmer to improve tanks PH) 2: Waste Water from auto water changes/skimmer waste. 3: Extra
1/4s: 1: Incoming R/O Auto Top off 2: Incoming Saltwater for auto water change 3: Extra

Equipment:

Lighting: 4x AI Hydra 32HD New
-Got them on sale, I have never used AI before but didn't want to spend the money for the Radeon, no cheap out on a black box.
Skimmer: SM257 Skimz DC Internal
-Maybe oversized but got it 25% off from BRS Openbox sale.) (Unit was perfect, the box was damaged).
Controller: Apex
-Flow monitor / Probes / Auto top off / dosing pump for an auto water change.
Return: 2x Hygger 1060GPH
-I like running 2 returns for redundancy and flexibility in a power outage. The goal is to have 5x water change per hour so they will probably both run at 50% to 65% or 16.5W ea to 22W ea; planning on having 1 unit hooked up to a battery backup. So worst case scenario 1 pump can be dialed down to the minimum 30% in a power outage. Both units will be plugged individually into my apex power bar so I will know when one has failed based on the power draw.
Sump: Triton44 V2
-The first time I have bought a sump vs build one, but I wanted things to look professional. Not a fan of the 3 1inch filter sock holders, but I will apply some unorthodox plumbing to make the best of it.
Flow: 2x Maspect XF350's + ?
-Installed on the opposite end of the overflow box. Will probably install an additional 2 powerheads on each side of the overflow box depending on how much more flow I need once the tank is set up.
 
Pickup Day

Even after recruiting my father (with his pickup) and a few friends it was a tight fit. The tank fit pretty easily into my small SUV, but we had to do deploy some Mikey mouse strategies to get the stand into the truck, should have foreseen that, and taken off the hood before we left. Oh well, it made it.

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Here it is after having to take the door off to get it inside my townhouse. I also decided to flip the living room around because I could get the image of 10-20 gallons of saltwater sloshing on my couch after an earthquake. This actually works better in terms of room layout since I am now planning on installing some windows into my side yard on each side of the tv.

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Leveling a tank on your own during COVID day.

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My concrete slab floor was surprisingly off resulting in 1 corner of the tank needing to be raised about 1/2 inch. Was able to get it to within 1/8 on an inch difference on the long side with some scrap 2x4's and a car jack. Used 3inch square 1/8" thick bolts as my shims where the posts are located along with 10 composite shims along the bottom to add more support.

Also can see where I plan to install a long skinner window between the tank and tv, hopefully, will not be an issue for the tank since is not on a south-facing wall, but I am willing to tall some sort of outside shade or put a tint on the window if the direct sun is too much.
 
Adding an "Electrical panel"

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I decided to fill in one of my door areas to create an "electrical panel" to create an area to put my Apex and all the other electronics.
 
Current status

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The skimmers actual dimensions actually ended up slightly larger than what it had on BRS, however it still fits so I am going to roll with it.
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Red is the dimensions listed on the website, which fit nicely into my sump, the blue (the adjustment ard for the flow & the 3d printed gear at the bottom stick out past the listed dimensions creating a very tight fit indeed!

But here is the current status of the tank:

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" especially moving from an area its 4cents a Kwh. "
OUCH! Yeah that first PG&E bill is going to hurt... HARD.

Also make sure you leave ample room in your electrical panel area, it can get quite crowded in there especially if you plan on keeping any sort of other things (power bricks for lights, etc). Edit: Nevermind, apparently it's done :D
 
" especially moving from an area its 4cents a Kwh. "
OUCH! Yeah that first PG&E bill is going to hurt... HARD.

Also make sure you leave ample room in your electrical panel area, it can get quite crowded in there especially if you plan on keeping any sort of other things (power bricks for lights, etc). Edit: Nevermind, apparently it's done :D
Hopefully, I have enough room. Time will tell! :cool:


Looking good!
Who made the tank?
What’s the holes like in the overflow box?

The tank/stand is made by crystal dynamics.
4 Drilled holes in the glass, 3x1" 1x3/4"


Nice set up! Where did you buy the tank?

Bought it used from 360CoralZ in San Jose.
 
Welcome to BAR! Nice build, looks very well thought out. It’s great that it worked out to use the center beam to hang lights from!
 
I've been some progress getting the details dialed in.

Spent a couple of half-days getting the plumbing cut and cemented in place. (Always my favorite part of the build) anyway, the plumbing for the tank is mostly complete!
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I ended up implementing some non-kosher practices when it came to my main siphon in order to be able to split the flow between 2 of the filter socks. The triton sump came with 3 built-in filter sock holders, which I am not a huge fan of. However, with a ball valve/gate valve on the siphon, I can adjust each valve to break up the flow into 2 filter socks.

I also am pretty close to finishing up the electrics. I finally have most of the controls installed and in place.
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Not too shabby, you went from "*Wife*: WHAT THE HELL IS WITH ALL THIS MESS!!!" to very clean setup. I like the electrical setup, looks nice and clean. Not sure I can give the SFSU seal of approval on that return pump setup though, 2 pumps teed into one line? They might fight with each other going from the same size plumbing into the same size output
 
Looks awesome! I like the stand too. What is the stand made of?

The standard is a carbon steel frame wrapped with some trim boards for cosmetics.

Not too shabby, you went from "*Wife*: WHAT THE HELL IS WITH ALL THIS MESS!!!" to very clean setup. I like the electrical setup, looks nice and clean. Not sure I can give the SFSU seal of approval on that return pump setup though, 2 pumps teed into one line? They might fight with each other going from the same size plumbing into the same size output

Yeah, in hindsight I should have stepped pipe up to a 1inch where they meet to reduce that risk. Hopefully, it will work as intended as is :). If not, what would you think of the individual pump pipes being stepped down to 1/2? The tank came pre-drilled so I don't want to mess with the 3/4 sizing.
 
Yeah, in hindsight I should have stepped pipe up to a 1inch where they meet to reduce that risk. Hopefully, it will work as intended as is :). If not, what would you think of the individual pump pipes being stepped down to 1/2? The tank came pre-drilled so I don't want to mess with the 3/4 sizing.
Note, I am not by any means a flow dynamics professional, but no way would I step it down to 1/2" that's really too small to be using for a return pump especially on a tank that size. But that's a 3/4" line? Hard to tell from the picture.

Two solutions I would see is either replace the tee with a wye, that way the water has a preferred direction to go. Or an easier solution... just use one pump, not sure why you used two pumps as return lines instead of just one pump, other than some level of "redundancy" which I'm not a big fan of for return pumps, I mean having a spare pump sure, or having two separate pump lines sure, but running two pumps that are tied together doesn't feel like a good thing to do.
 
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