Bluefools Pit of Money...er.....300 gallon tank build thread.

Well, I also have heard the rumors of the tahitian black being magnetic. As a solid hard core nerd, I just happen to have a few items about the house that generate large magnetic fields. And.....nothing. Trust me, I started out as a physics major, but didn't speak enough Chinese to get through the Iowa State TA's. Of course, I suspect it has a higher rockwell hardness that agronite sand, And you are going to get bits in between sometimes, likely from static charges. We'll find out if I am right, since I'm getting the mondo magnet cleaner, and the Wife has stated it will be black sand. Besides, I already have a few hundred pounds of it. If in a few months, pictures of that monster are foggy, we'll all know I made a bad choice.

But you see....that Wife that said black sand? Tonight we had a few folks over for beer. We moved furniture about the sun room and talked about where the tank would go. It was then that she said:"Well, if we dump one couch, the pool table will fit here, and no pool balls will hit the fish tank." Pool table? First I had heard of it.

I am so (*&%(*^#$@#%(* happy I could pee.

Oh yeah, I am a networking engineer. Think routers and switches and firewalls and servers and email servers and.....well, Nerd stuff. At the start of my career I fixed paper punch card machines and teletypes. Before I retired I was fixing fiber optic switches with gigabit capacity with monsterous back planes. Microsoft is the Devil. Just thought you should know.

Oh, and I have a 400 watt MH with reflector and ballast, mogul base, that I can put over that 12" that ice cap won't cover. So, that side of the tank, up high, is the I want my MH crowd. I think I can get multiple light zones, and place corals appropriately, and have a ton of variety. I figure that sand layer is ricordia territory, and the *second* sand layer, thanks to a smoking awesome bit of plate coral I got on a club buy from BRS, will be just a bit under that 400 MH. Clam lagoon in the sky anyone?

 

Oh, I betcha you either are not married or haven't been long.
Let this old fart teach you a magic trick.
I buy the icecap.  It does not work out too well, and the tank gets ugly with the extra lighting I pile on top.  The $1,000 light goes into a corner, while 4 MH spotlights appear over the tank.  I place the $1,000 light next to my wifes hobby chair, as that is the closest wall space.
I leave the fixture there.  After all, I don't need it now. A couple of weeks will pass.
My Wife will have a bad day.  She will gaze at the light and loudly ask:"Didn't you pay like a grand for that?  Isn't there something you could do with that so it isn't next to my chair?"
I shall say: "Well, it didn't work out on the main display.  It not worth all that much used, given what I paid for it.  I guess I could use it to set up a tank for those Damsels you like, and we could put some of that purple stalky stuff you like in it."  She will ask:"Would that be expensive?"
I will say:"Well, not really.  The pricey bit is the light, and we've got that right there."
She will command me: "Do it."  She will then leave, feeling much better now that she has "Told Me."  She is happy.  I'm setting up another tank.  I am happy.
And I will have another 120 reef tank, that I was ordered to set up.....for her.
Don't they teach you kids anything *useful* anymore?  Oh sure, Calculus....but how to make your Wife happy while you get what you want?  Trust me.  You can look up the area under a curve pretty easy.

 

Yeah?  Wanna sell 'em real cheap?  I could help finance your 400...or....I have a 400 watt ballast and reflector, and trade plus some cash from my end...

 

Hmm....well, if beaten in the head long enough with a bat, I gain a clue (sometimes). It sure seems the popular thought is to go big MH early. I want some t-5's for dusk to dawn, and with natural sunlight as well...and led moonlights of course. Sure, the moon is huge right out those windows, but I like the idea of sitting in a laz-y-boy at night and watching my tank. With beer.

I'll start looking at lighting choices again today. I like the idea of switchable ballasts, but I'm not that familiar with that company. Any one have some experiance they would like to share? I also kind of liked the just put two 1000 watters over it and be happy. I'm a bit worried with that much energy going into the tank, heat will start to be an issue. I've thought about putting a ground cooling loop in, but plumbing it to a place where the tank will look good may be tricky. One drawback of a concrete slab is that running plumbing through it is a real &(*%(*&!

Oh, as I tried to deliver kiss like 5 last night, she said: "You've had too much beer. I want to play Facebook games." She then handed me a bottle of Vodka and turned her machine on. Now that's love! She also mumbled something about GIRS members needing to get out more, and meet real girls.....

And she often reads over my shoulder. I waited until I found one with a sense of humor...or unending patience...they may be the same thing.

 

Hmmm.....kay....

It looks like if I want it all in one fixture, and I up the MH to 400's, I can't seem to find anyone but Hamilton that makes such a fixture. Most of the integrated folks stop at 250. I know squat about Hamilton. Can anyone comment what they think of them?

Just using pendants and individual ballasts would be pretty easy, and there are a ton of folks making such things. I could probably do a t-5 strip on the back with led's in it, and MH in the front....24" wide gives me a lot of choices.

I kind of want it all in one fixture, because while it is coming with a hood, I'm not a real fan of them. They make maintenance a pain, and are basically hot hats for tanks. I could use it, sure, but if I can avoid it I will.

Oh, and I want a 48" fixture, even tho the tank is 60". 48" t-5 bulbs are easy to find, 60" ones....not so much.

 

*cough* *cough*

I let this one get a little dusty while cash built up.

Today, the Typhoon water filter from Air, Water and Ice got here. I haven't played with it much yet, the sun room is sort of overflowing with packing material. I'm going to fire it up tomorrow and play chemistry lab testing water.

And, the decision on the lights happened. This was a toughie. I did get the Icecap fixture, 2 t-5's and 2 led rows, and 2 250watt MH, in large part because this tank will get a lot of daylight. It is also wide enough I can fit another entire fixture, say 8 t-5's on it if it gets clear I'm too lite, or a few high wattage MH pendants if needed.

The corals will also be up high in the aquascape, positioned under the MH, so we'll see how things go. In the end, Aquacave was offering free lamps with the fixture, and with the RC 5% off, it fit the budget.

Octopus skimmer and double chamber CA reactor, tank, regulator hoses, and media are in as well. Crap that was a lot of money for some heavy duty acrylic cylinders. The pumps are fairly nice tho.

Oh yeah, the two mag 18's for returns are here too. 2 Tunze controllable power heads, refractometer, water test kit. Mag 10 cleaner (OWIE!!).

How in the hell did I go over budget and I don't have the tank yet???

Oh yeah, most of this stuff came from Aquacave. The boxes were all beaten to hell by my friendly UPS friends. Aquacave had packed them in a way that would have made it through a nuclear war, and as a result not one item was damaged. Nice work in the packing department guys.

I here long term rice diets are good for you. How does one afford corals???

 

Ha!

Thought I had disapeared, eh? I had some minor foot surgery that kept me away from the keyboard, but I'm back!

Lots of stuff has happened. The big shipment of parts came in: Calc reactor, Skimmer, Return pumps, lights, controller, test kit, refractometer, powerheads......and I am offically way, way over budget.
The tank isn't here and I'm so far off budget we're gonna stick to a one car family a bit longer...

But! I have set up the QT tank, played with all the test kits and read all the instructions....and got 3 Yellow Tailed Damsels this weekend: offically my first saltwater fish *sniff*. They are busy cycling the
QT tank so I can load it up with goodies from Spring Fest.

The tank and stand are due in tomorrow or the next day. Each pallet weighs 450 pounds.

I'll post some pics when the tank shows of the whole mess.