FutureInterest
05-13-2008, 4:43 PM
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-FTS.jpg
Full Tank Shot
Introduction
Well, it’s an honor to be featured as this month’s tank of the month at ARC! I was assured my tank was worthy of the title but from my perspective there are many, many improvements I still plan to make…
To get started, I’ve been in the hobby for about 3 years, or approximately the amount of time my youngest son has been alive. The two go hand in hand, since at some deep psychological level I had an innate need to take charge of something whilst everything around me seemed to be so chaotic and out of my control (at least that was the doctor’s explanation…). I had had a few freshwater tanks leading up to my first nano reef (a 7 gallon mixed reef), and had become progressively obsessed with the underwater worlds I could create, but had pretty much written off saltwater tanks due to all those intimidating words like “alkalinity” and “protein skimmer.”
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-TrueUndataActinicsBig-1.jpg
Montipora Undata under actinics
It was a picture I came across online of a 7 gallon minibow packed with corals that finally convinced me I had to give it a try. So I took the plunge and bought pretty much the same setup from Sammy at Aquabuys and set out to recreate the tank I had seen online. I was instantly hooked. Fast forwarding a bit, my obsession grew into compulsion and after moving into a 110g mixed reef tank and logging thousands of hours online and at fish stores consuming as much information as I could cram into my head, I had to give it a rest for a bit and regroup.
About two years ago, we moved into an old house in Macon, GA for my wife’s new job. It was she who actually broached the subject of getting a new fish tank for the house. I was afraid to even get caught looking at a Drs. Foster and Smith catalogue so you can imagine it was a pleasant surprise… The one stipulation was that I not spend every waking hour of every day doing something to the tank, and I guess that was fair enough.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-TopDownMilliBig.jpg
Green/Yellow Milli seen from top-down
Based on that criterion, I began planning a tank with automation and simplicity as the central theme: simple but elegant softies and lps, cheap and cool running lights, no chiller, cheap skimmer, bucketless water changes, automated lighting, pH, and calcium control, etc. Looking back at all that makes me laugh pretty hard!
Starting the tank
A lil section on what went into putting the tank together.
I spent literally six months planning out the tank. There was only one place in the house with the needed space and nearby water source, and a conventional rectangular tank was going to be too obtrusive with the volume of water I wanted. This made the project complicated from the get go, since along with irregular shaped tanks come custom built stands and canopies. I figured since I’m a DIY kind of guy, I would just figure out how to make it work. The other complicating factor was a lack of a “tank room,” which meant that everything had to be crammed under the stand.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-GSP.jpg http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-RightTank1.jpg
Green star polyps Female Watanabe angel
That’s where Google SketchUp came into play. I downloaded the free application and started drafting designs, cramming hypothetical equipment into every square inch underneath the tank. I calculated that I would need a taller than normal stand to accommodate the all the gear—you see, even though I was building a simple, hands-off system, I was planning for the future, and figured in a closed loop system with an OM 4-way and Dart pump, a sump system with a refugium, an oversized skimmer and calcium reactor, media reactors, and an expandable electrical switchboard to run it all.
For the tank, I special ordered a corner pentagon, thinking I would get the most usable space for the 200g+ volume I wanted to achieve. The tank is 30” tall, with two 48” back sides forming the corner, a 46” front viewing panel, and two 14” side panels (the viewing panels are made from a single, 72” bent piece of ½” acrylic). One thing that I knew I wanted was front-to-back depth, as some of the most amazingly aquascaped tanks (think OregonReef) have that in common. With my tank, I have about 3 ½ ft. to work with from the center of the front panel to the back corner, and it has allowed me to be very creative with my aquascaping. The sump is an MRC reef sump that holds about 40 gallons when full, and has it’s own 10g refugium attached.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-FTSActinics.jpg
FTS with Actinics
One thing about having such depth though, is that I created an access problem getting to the back corner. I couldn’t figure out how I was going to hang the lights in the canopy while leaving the option of getting all the way back into the tank. After being stumped for a while I ran across a tank on RC that had used a linear actuator to pull the canopy straight upwards off the tank along a set of heavy duty drawer slides. A light bulb went off and I got to work figuring out how to make that work on my tank. The design I came up with incorporated two 400lbs actuators with a 30” stroke fixed to the stand pushing the canopy upwards instead of pulling from above. The actuators sit behind the tank and push the canopy 2ft off the tank along 4 custom slides that are firmly planted to the stand behind the tank. This way, the entire system is actually free-standing and could theoretically be moved to another location without much customization.
I also built the stand and canopy myself, since I could not get a contractor to do it for a price I could afford. The end result is a sturdy but ugly design awaiting the finish carpentry that I still haven’t gotten around to… (hence the shame of showing the full system pictures!). Since I only have basic hand tools, I am eagerly awaiting the completion of a friend’s 1000 sq ft wood shop to finish the job.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-LeftTank.jpg http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-RightTank.jpg
As seen from Left and Right corners respectively.
Luckily, since my house was built 120 years ago when there were still old growth trees around, the floor did not need reinforcing. I’d say that the 14”X10” solid beam running directly under the tank and the 12”X2 ½” floor joists are sufficient support. The only tinkering I had to do related to the floor was to add shims to the stand since my floor will never be perfectly level. Or even close to level…
The only other built-in feature that I can think of is an emergency drain in the sump to prevent overflows, which directs water through some plumbing in the floor and out the side of the house, and a drain for water changes. Eventually I will build shelving in the laundry room opposite the tank to accommodate two 40g barrels of premixed saltwater for the much sought after 5 minute water change. For now, I cart the barrels in from my back porch on a dolly and pump it into the tank with a Mag 9 after draining the display down to either of two marks (40g or 80g)
Full Tank Shot
Introduction
Well, it’s an honor to be featured as this month’s tank of the month at ARC! I was assured my tank was worthy of the title but from my perspective there are many, many improvements I still plan to make…
To get started, I’ve been in the hobby for about 3 years, or approximately the amount of time my youngest son has been alive. The two go hand in hand, since at some deep psychological level I had an innate need to take charge of something whilst everything around me seemed to be so chaotic and out of my control (at least that was the doctor’s explanation…). I had had a few freshwater tanks leading up to my first nano reef (a 7 gallon mixed reef), and had become progressively obsessed with the underwater worlds I could create, but had pretty much written off saltwater tanks due to all those intimidating words like “alkalinity” and “protein skimmer.”
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-TrueUndataActinicsBig-1.jpg
Montipora Undata under actinics
It was a picture I came across online of a 7 gallon minibow packed with corals that finally convinced me I had to give it a try. So I took the plunge and bought pretty much the same setup from Sammy at Aquabuys and set out to recreate the tank I had seen online. I was instantly hooked. Fast forwarding a bit, my obsession grew into compulsion and after moving into a 110g mixed reef tank and logging thousands of hours online and at fish stores consuming as much information as I could cram into my head, I had to give it a rest for a bit and regroup.
About two years ago, we moved into an old house in Macon, GA for my wife’s new job. It was she who actually broached the subject of getting a new fish tank for the house. I was afraid to even get caught looking at a Drs. Foster and Smith catalogue so you can imagine it was a pleasant surprise… The one stipulation was that I not spend every waking hour of every day doing something to the tank, and I guess that was fair enough.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-TopDownMilliBig.jpg
Green/Yellow Milli seen from top-down
Based on that criterion, I began planning a tank with automation and simplicity as the central theme: simple but elegant softies and lps, cheap and cool running lights, no chiller, cheap skimmer, bucketless water changes, automated lighting, pH, and calcium control, etc. Looking back at all that makes me laugh pretty hard!
Starting the tank
A lil section on what went into putting the tank together.
I spent literally six months planning out the tank. There was only one place in the house with the needed space and nearby water source, and a conventional rectangular tank was going to be too obtrusive with the volume of water I wanted. This made the project complicated from the get go, since along with irregular shaped tanks come custom built stands and canopies. I figured since I’m a DIY kind of guy, I would just figure out how to make it work. The other complicating factor was a lack of a “tank room,” which meant that everything had to be crammed under the stand.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-GSP.jpg http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-RightTank1.jpg
Green star polyps Female Watanabe angel
That’s where Google SketchUp came into play. I downloaded the free application and started drafting designs, cramming hypothetical equipment into every square inch underneath the tank. I calculated that I would need a taller than normal stand to accommodate the all the gear—you see, even though I was building a simple, hands-off system, I was planning for the future, and figured in a closed loop system with an OM 4-way and Dart pump, a sump system with a refugium, an oversized skimmer and calcium reactor, media reactors, and an expandable electrical switchboard to run it all.
For the tank, I special ordered a corner pentagon, thinking I would get the most usable space for the 200g+ volume I wanted to achieve. The tank is 30” tall, with two 48” back sides forming the corner, a 46” front viewing panel, and two 14” side panels (the viewing panels are made from a single, 72” bent piece of ½” acrylic). One thing that I knew I wanted was front-to-back depth, as some of the most amazingly aquascaped tanks (think OregonReef) have that in common. With my tank, I have about 3 ½ ft. to work with from the center of the front panel to the back corner, and it has allowed me to be very creative with my aquascaping. The sump is an MRC reef sump that holds about 40 gallons when full, and has it’s own 10g refugium attached.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-FTSActinics.jpg
FTS with Actinics
One thing about having such depth though, is that I created an access problem getting to the back corner. I couldn’t figure out how I was going to hang the lights in the canopy while leaving the option of getting all the way back into the tank. After being stumped for a while I ran across a tank on RC that had used a linear actuator to pull the canopy straight upwards off the tank along a set of heavy duty drawer slides. A light bulb went off and I got to work figuring out how to make that work on my tank. The design I came up with incorporated two 400lbs actuators with a 30” stroke fixed to the stand pushing the canopy upwards instead of pulling from above. The actuators sit behind the tank and push the canopy 2ft off the tank along 4 custom slides that are firmly planted to the stand behind the tank. This way, the entire system is actually free-standing and could theoretically be moved to another location without much customization.
I also built the stand and canopy myself, since I could not get a contractor to do it for a price I could afford. The end result is a sturdy but ugly design awaiting the finish carpentry that I still haven’t gotten around to… (hence the shame of showing the full system pictures!). Since I only have basic hand tools, I am eagerly awaiting the completion of a friend’s 1000 sq ft wood shop to finish the job.
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-LeftTank.jpg http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc204/FutureInterest/Jesse-RightTank.jpg
As seen from Left and Right corners respectively.
Luckily, since my house was built 120 years ago when there were still old growth trees around, the floor did not need reinforcing. I’d say that the 14”X10” solid beam running directly under the tank and the 12”X2 ½” floor joists are sufficient support. The only tinkering I had to do related to the floor was to add shims to the stand since my floor will never be perfectly level. Or even close to level…
The only other built-in feature that I can think of is an emergency drain in the sump to prevent overflows, which directs water through some plumbing in the floor and out the side of the house, and a drain for water changes. Eventually I will build shelving in the laundry room opposite the tank to accommodate two 40g barrels of premixed saltwater for the much sought after 5 minute water change. For now, I cart the barrels in from my back porch on a dolly and pump it into the tank with a Mag 9 after draining the display down to either of two marks (40g or 80g)