Cali Kid Corals

King's Landing Aquarium

Sounds really great!
About that new circuit you are going to run.
You might think about a few of them or a big one that could run a sub panel.
I like having a few circuits like, one for lights, one for pumps and one for heaters.
That way one failure won't take out the whole system.
With a large system you might want 2 circuits for pumps.
I like to have a battery back up also.
Mine is set up with two golf cart batteries to run a return pump for about 8 hours.
I also have the vortech battery back up and would recommend them at a minimum.
 
JAR: I will tell the electrician about the sub panel, I think that is what Jim did also and is a great idea to shut down portion of the system for maintenance. I am currently running a car battery with trickle charger for 2 of the vortechs and the return, would it be better to have them each on smaller batteries individually?

Gimmito: ChingChai uses miracle mud and swears by it, it seems like it is either viewed as snake oil or amazing. What are your thoughts?

Houser: The thought I had is using the skylights for the mangroves, with any need for supplemental lighting coming from light leakage in the fish room. Think that will be enough light from the sky light? I would love to be able to have planters around the house with mangroves growing in them, plumbed in with rigid tubing for slow turnover, almost like having the vacuum ports that are run through walls but for fish tanks! :)

I figure at my age, I only have a few more years to get this all in place before I have a significant other, and the last one did not approve of ungodly amounts of fish things everywhere. Note to self, no matter how quickly you move that last coral before getting into bed, it will never be quick enough :-X
 
Parker,

I thought about using Miracle Mud, but it is insanely expensive and needs to be changed out annually. I ultimately went with Russ's advice at GCE and went with the CaribSea Eco-Complete and had no regrets.

If anybody has been to Parker's other pad knows 2 things:

1. He was in this hobby head long with all those tanks in a townhouse.

2. He must be single.

Only advice I can give is get that "dream tank" while you can. :D

Are you going glass or acrylic by the way ?
 
I grew my mangroves for a few years with almost no light at all. They certainly didn't "grow". But they lived and slowly grew.
I'm just thinking of passive lighting to avoid your enormous electrical bill forthcoming.

Are you aware yet of WAF?

First thing I did when I bought my house was to install a subpanel into my garage. Twin 30A feeds. Love it!
 
If I recall correctly, we are running a 100A to a sub panel and may break it down further. If that's not enough, not really sure what I am going to do. I off the cuff estimated 6000 watts at peak for the entire system, what do you guys think?

WAF? Wife acceptance factor? If so, thank god for being single. I have a good 5 years before the wife factor, I broke up with my ex of 5+ years last November. So, relationships are on the back burner, work is on the front, and fish tanks in the oven! All kidding aside, this is something to throw myself at with the house, a healthy use of an unhealthy obsession.
 
Glass vs acrylic is the great debate right now. I think it might have to be acrylic in earthquake country, needs a little flex for medium earthquakes. Nothing can prevent catastrophic failure in a big earthquake.

Jim, I think you are right. There are alternatives that are cheaper and nearly as effective. It is interesting to read about lab tests on the mud, so much silica.
 
My thinking is if Miracle Mud is so great...why isn't everybody using it ? Might make for a interesting segment in "The Skeptical Reefkeeper" series. ;)
I've read that Nineball on RC has his Profilux controller mist his mangroves once a day. I've also read that mangroves take up iron and that occasional supplementing is needed.
 
I am going to be using a setup from a friend that grows orchids to mist the mangrove daily. I have read the mangroves need more iron and mag to be healthy, wonder if it might be better to have a doser set to low that feeds into the container holding the mangroves. It would keep certain elements higher only in that container, sort of like some of the NPS systems fed into a large system. That might be courting Murphy too much though...
 
The more I am looking at larger systems and flow, the more I think a Carlson surge device is going to be the best way to go. Does anyone have any experience with these?
 
Wow, congrats on the house and on the great build.
I work in Redwood City, so I would be anxious to either helping out or seeing this in person once it's up and running. I don't think I can ever get to this size of the tank (not to mention the WAF).

I don't think you would have any problem in selling the AI Sol. Like what everyone has echoed, I would be interested in getting some.
Do you have any design/sketch as of this point?
Also, all of the electrical for this tank will be on a seperate breakers, right? Probably more than one for safety/backup purposes.
 
I am going up to the house this afternoon, so I will be taking some pics. We installed a new box next to the fish room that is 100 amp, I had all the outlets moved to about 5 feet off the ground, and two in the roof. As far as the AIs, I currently have 16 units (7 whites & 9 blues) which I am going to distribute four to a fish only tank (300dd current tank), 3 on a quarantine tank (150 Oceanic current tank), and four on a frag tank (240 unused tank). I want to use as many parts from the existing systems and storage as possible, and have not finalized the whole system. I will let everyone know what is available as we start to dial in exactly what is going where.
 
This is the laundry room, the fish room is on the other side of the wall. We are going to put 2 water towers (fresh & salt) with spouts in the room. Gravity fed auto top off and water changes.

The right corner is where the 300dd is going as a fish only tank. This room is about 930 sqft.

Where you see the hole in the wall will be where the tank will end up. The goal is to create the feeling like you are walking down a hallway with the fish tank along one side. The dream is 14x5, and I can build up the canopy to block off portion of the room. I am planning of having a large corner couch run the entire length of the tank, with the entertainment system in the corner.

New panel for the fish room only. I had them put this in the master bedroom closet which is right next to the fish room.

This is the fish room, the double doors lead to the living room. This room many years ago was a laundry room, so there is already a drain and water lines. I am mapping out the layout of the sump and satellite tanks to see where I could put a sink. We are putting a drain in the center of the room. Does anyone here have a septic system? Wondering about flushing saltwater into the system.

More of the fish room with the outlets moved to about five feet off the ground.

Again, the fish room.


Judging from some of the things I have heard from the contractor and subs, plus seen with my own eyes, it is a good thing I was planning on upgrading the electrical. Between bare wires and wiring pinched by metal sheeting, it was fire hazard waiting to happen. The addition (roughly 1000 sqft) had most of the electricity run to it on a glorified extension cord...
 
I must admit: that is a lot of AI's (*_*);;
Then again, it helps reduce the electricity cost compared to using T5s/Metal halides.

Awesome pics on the progress. Thanks for sharing.
It's a good think you are upgrading the electrical pieces. It's always easy to do things the right way before installing the tank
 
Yeah, I wanted all the major construction finished before I moved in. My PG&E bill was $850 before I switched to LED, now it runs just under $400, so I pay for one about every 3.5 weeks. :)
 
Sweet project !!
I love it when I see refugiums the size of my main tank, which I already though was really big.

I assume a nice vent is there since it was a laundry room.
Otherwise needed.

As far as a motor to lift the big canopy, if you go with LEDs, you might want to consider a really low profile look.
I have only about 3" above the top of the tank, and did it in sections, so you just lift up a smaller section by hand.
Given how big the larger aquariums look already, I really like not having a big bulky canopy above it.

For a giant tank like that, you might consider the semi-rimless like Gimmito and I have, where the top rim is steel.
A lot better access that way, and still good strength.

Regarding controllers: My paranoia is always if relays get stuck "on".
(Either from power surge welding relay, or controller hang)
For temperature : Use heaters with their own control as well, and set that a bit above normal.
For top-off, as redundancy, consider a simple float valve above the normal sump water level, with a diverter.
For CO2, have dual PH controllers, with the non-apex one set higher. (Like a heater)

Flow will be an interesting problem. You might want to consider building the tank with a good gyre in mind.
For example, a bit more square, perhaps diagonal overflows on the back.
I even remember seeing a tank with a fake back. The powerheads were behind that, so the gyre
looped through that, then through the main tank.

Think about alternative heating!!
You might want to install a big gas hot water heater in that fish room. (With isolated loop)
Or, you can get really fancy and put a solar heater on the roof.
Heating something like that with electricity would really add up.
 
gimmito said:
My thinking is if Miracle Mud is so great...why isn't everybody using it ? ....
Click to expand...
Reminds me a lot of the turf-scrubber issues. (Which IMO, is a possible option for a giant tank)

This "miracle" is something that is way over-hyped for what it really does, then fails those raised expectations.
It seems like a reasonable way to generate a bit of extra anaerobic zone for denitrification,
add a nice habitat for certain silt/mud loving critters, and add trace elements.
But not beyond that. It is no miracle.
Plus the brand name one is way over-priced.
 
Congrats Parker! Can't wait to see what the final setup gonna look like.

I didn't have time to scan over the entire thread but just in case it was missed, make sure you plan for the following at the tank's location:

- Drainage line direct to the sewage line (not just outside the house. It's illegal in most area to dump waste water into the street drainage system). I usually use 2" pipe. Great for water change!
- Cold water line nearby the RO/DI unit.
- Dedicate breaker circuits for main pump, heater, and other misc. equipment.
- Exhaust/ventillation system for the sump/refugium area as well as the canopy area.
- Ethernet (if you want to be fancy)

I think that's all I have for a 1 min write up...lol. Good luck man.
 
Looks good. That's going to be an awesome system!

Two issues to consider. First, I'm not sure having the subpanel in a closet is legal. In my area (Santa Rosa) panels have to have unrestricted access. Not a big deal if you aren't getting inspected. ;) Second, are you on septic? You might have problems with all the water you are going to be putting in the system.

Good luck and keep posting pictures!
 
Gomer: I am going to have generator on the dedicated sub-panel, they put in the hookups for it. Now I just need to start looking for one and where I should locate it. There is a lot of unused space that I can access, but need to make sure ventilation is good.

Rygh: Because I am using the fish tank to create a hallway, I am not too concerned about how tall the tank is going to be. I don't think there is anyway to make it look smaller. Also, I am in the process of debating a surge tank and if possible would have the tank in the fish room with plumbing run through the canopy. If I do not do that, I am going to have the canopy hang over the edge of the tank at least 5 inches to put pumps in the tank that are not directly visible. What you have is what I did on my current system, mounted my AI's on 3 pieces of peg board, makes it much easier to take out and you can fine tune the location of the lights. As for controllers, I like tech but need fail safes. When the systems are actually being put in place, I will be posting all the options and will be looking for suggestions. I currently do not have my heaters connected to a controller, but set the controller to alert me if there are problems. The top off is going to be gravity fed on a float valve, and use the break out box to setup float switches for notifications. I am not sure what to do about heating, in my current system it is more an issue of too hot then not enough. With that water volume, I want to see how the system behaves before I start going crazy buying things. The amount of light should help a little, haven't decided on a final solution to exhaust the canopy, original vent idea is a no go for multiple reasons. I thought about an ATS, with the goal of having limited to no mechanical filtration, I think it might actually help. Just not decided about the effects on SPS, and whether having a 300g fuge with 240g seagrass tank will be enough.

Robert: Got you covered! Thanks for taking a look and you will be seeing me quite a bit in about a year. It will take me that long to save up for everything I want in your shop!

The exhaust fan that we are installing is typically used on warehouses. We went big on the vent because the ac I am installing is going to pressurize the house in the great room (where the tanks are located), and if there is a serious amount of draw in the fish room it in theory (damn you murphy!!!) should pull in a decent amount of cool air. The exhaust fan is going to be hooked up to a controller that will kick it on basis temperature and/or humidity. Also have a simple on/auto switch. I will take some pics and get the model this afternoon.

I will see if I can get some decent video of the house this afternoon and post it. The pics really don't give the scale.
 
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