davelin315's 300 Gallon In Wall Reef Tank

[fab]

On your other note... about the lights and the UV shield...

 

Why wouldn't you use the shield? UV is not eye-safe. It could play havoc with anyone who looks into the bulb when it is on. Plus if you work underneath the lights you risk skin problems that could lead to other serious complications down the road.

 

The problem is you don't realize it is doing severe damage that takes a while to manifest. Then it's way too late. I doubt even a good pair of UV protection sunglasses would be adequate to protect you from those bulbs.

 

Is there something I am missing here? It seems patently obvious that you should use the UV filter shield for personal safety, particularly if there are kids around. That said, maybe there is something about the bulb construction I don't understand that makes it eye-safe.

 

fab

[dhogan]

 

On another note, got my bulbs today. I'm running Helios 400W 20,000K SE bulbs on a 400W PFO HQI ballast through Lumenarc 3 reflectors. Question of the day is: do I use the UV shield for these or do I skip the shield? I am not sure where I will be mounting these yet and the amount of salt spray and creep I will be getting so the question is really whether these bulbs put out too much UV or if they're OK to use without.

 

From Hellolights.com

Frequently Asked Question

 

Do I need to use a glass/acrylic (UV) shield with metal halide bulbs?

 

A Metal halide bulb will produce a large amount of UV light. The outer envelope of single ended MH bulbs acts as a UV shield; blocking out harmful UV-B's and UV-C's. As long as the outer envelope is not broken, damaging UV rays will not reach your tank. Although a shield is not required, it can be helpful in preventing water from splashing on to the bulb and breaking the outer envelope.

 

Most double ended (HQI) lamps do not have the protective outer envelope mentioned above so these lamps do require glass (UV) shield.

Edited July 27, 2007 by dhogan

[davelin315]

That's what I thought to begin with but then I was reading something on the Solaris LEDs and they were talking about how there is UV radiation from MH bulbs blah blah blah and they don't have it. I knew that double ended required the shields but was starting to doubt my information on single ended bulbs as well.

[fab]

dhogan,

 

Thanks, good post. I was missing that information. So the construction of a Single Ended MH bulb has a built-in UV Filter to protect against exposure and the shield is not a UV filter. It is just a mechanical protection for splash.

 

But with the double ended bulbs the shield is the UV Filter. That's valuable information.

 

I've seen folks with MH lights elevated so the lights are clearly visible and have worried about the UV exposure. I hope everyone will take this information and be very careful when using the double ended bulbs. The damage can be severe.

 

fab

[davelin315]

Finally got around to testing out the new bulbs and they all fired up so the next logical step was to set them up over my 6" deep frag tray instead of the dual 96W PC strip light...

 

WOW! These are fantastic lights! I was a little nervous that I was getting 20,000K bulbs as they can be so blue, but the rumors that these are not as blue as others are incredibly accurate! These are very crisp in color and look better than a lot of 10,000K bulbs IMO. Not only that, but everything is fluorescing in there with the blue. I was thinking of getting some actinics in order to supplement, but now the only reason I would have any supplementation is simply for dusk to dawn. I have this light suspended about 18" above the surface of the water (maybe 2') and they are simply fantastic.

 

I'll snap some pictures later of this, but I'm on my way to the emergency vet to deliver a baby bunny we took from a cat in our yard.

 

WOW! I simply cannot believe how awesome these lights are! And the coverage from a single Lumenarc III is outstanding! It's not only covering the tray, but the floor around the tray. Just amazing coloration! Even some softies and an sps that I thought was completely browned out were fluorescing under this light. The one drawback is that the royal gramma is now blue instead of purple, but the red stripe under his eye is glowing and looks awesome! The Pacific Blue tangs are also glowing, it's like they've gone nuclear reactor. Can't wait to get all three hooked up over my tank and see how it looks!

[Grav]

What 20k bulbs are they?

 

Sorry I may have missed this info in another post.

[davelin315]

This lighting is awesome, I'm really pleased and am curious as to how it looks after a couple of weeks with burn-in and also how it will look when I get my tank up and running. I did a partial fill today, about 6", to see if it will even out and I'll leave it that way for a few days to see what happens. If it doesn't even out, I'll take the next step (please please please even out!).

 

Anyway, here are some pictures with the new lighting. Things that had looked pretty decent under PCs are really eye-popping now. No photoshop involved here, this is what they look like, only better in person. Everything is also top-down, so I'd be curious what it looks like through the tank wall!

 

Shots of the system from above.

 

 

 

Pacific Blue Tangs

 

 

 

Clowns and Green Bubble Tip from Mike Ling (mling) - Mike, they started to host the other day!

 

 

Assorted Zoanthids (some from school tanks after being de-aiptasiad, they may still color up beyond this)

 

 

 

These were chocolate brown until I moved them over 10 minutes before photographing them. Now they are beginning to appear to be a little red, we'll see what develops.

 

Blenny - not sure what kind but he looks awesome in this lighting and his colors are really starting to take off with better feeding habits by me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Royal Gramma - it sure does like to pose for the camera!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open brain

 

 

Real Neon Green Candy Cane

 

 

Mushrooms

 

 

 

Tiny Frag of Frogspawn that I found under a rock in the school tank, trying to rehab it and get it back to where it was with better lighting.

 

What 20k bulbs are they?

 

Sorry I may have missed this info in another post.

 

Hey Phil, they are Helios 20,000K 400W SE bulbs on the 400W PFO HQI ballast in a Lumenarc III reflector. They are actually a little whiter than the pictures show, can't quite get the hang of that white balance. Same bulb/reflector/ballast combination that fragfarmer.com and reefermadness.us use. Now I see why I always liked how their corals looked so much - even the plain and simple corals look good under these lights!

[dschflier]

Nice to see some pictures. Where did you buy the bulbs from?

[davelin315]

Fragfarmer.com. I bought 10 of them to get a slight discount and free shipping. Now I'm set for at least a couple of years on bulbs... They ditch them after 6 months and have used them in the past for 12 hours a day for 9 months without compromising coral growth. I'm probably going to go with about 6-8 hours tops and change them out every 9-12 months depending on their color shift and light quality.

[davelin315]

OK, made a little bit more progress with organizing today. I'm going to continue working on this tonight as well. I bought a shelving system from Lowes to hold my frag trays and get them out of the way. It's the Muscle Rack Industrial Shelving Unit. It handles 1500 lbs per shelf when it's spread out evenly and since the frag trays have a criss crossed bottom with supports, it spreads the weight out evenly with none of the base hanging off of the edge.

 

This is the shelf:

 

 

I'll take a shot of it later on tonight. I'm going to move my other frag tray over as well, but may or may not do it tonight. Once I do that and decide how I'm going to deal with the stand being slightly uneven, I'll build the framing for the wall that will go around it.

[jamesbuf]

OK, made a little bit more progress with organizing today. I'm going to continue working on this tonight as well. I bought a shelving system from Lowes to hold my frag trays and get them out of the way. It's the Muscle Rack Industrial Shelving Unit. It handles 1500 lbs per shelf when it's spread out evenly and since the frag trays have a criss crossed bottom with supports, it spreads the weight out evenly with none of the base hanging off of the edge.

 

This is the shelf:

 

 

I'll take a shot of it later on tonight. I'm going to move my other frag tray over as well, but may or may not do it tonight. Once I do that and decide how I'm going to deal with the stand being slightly uneven, I'll build the framing for the wall that will go around it.

 

 

How much did that run you? I was going to buy a wrought iron stand for my 40gal breeder sump, just to bring it off the ground. Plus I figured I could put the sump on the bottom rack, and use the top maybe for a frag tank. Cheapest I could find one for was $80 at Scales big August sale, and Aquarium One quote $80 right off the bat. Hopefully that was way cheaper. Thanks.

[YBeNormal]

The stand is great but you might consider replacing the MDF with plywood or laminated pine panels if you are going to use it to hold a sump. It is possible to seal MDF but moisture will eventually seep in and it will quickly lose strength.

[davelin315]

I was thinking of replacing it but in the short term until I decide what to actually put there in its place I am going to leave it. I will replace it, though, once I get the whole thing set up. This was mainly to get the stuff out of the way and move the 150 sump out of the way.

 

The shelves cost $150 at Lowes (click the picture for the link). It's expensive, but these are also big shelves, 77" wide, 72" tall, 24" deep. They're not really pretty, but it's in the tank room, so it doesn't have to be for me.

 

One glitch with the system, since adding the light I discovered that my temperature was spiking (not because of the reading on the thermometer, for which the probe had come out of the water, but because a coral I bought from Jacob bleached. I thought it was RTN, but it still has some minor coloration in it so I'm hoping that it recovers. My temperature was climbing up to 84+ and so I popped a fan onto it and it's down to 81 after an hour of the fan, hopefully this will continue to drop down. I also contacted a buddy of mine whose chiller I had borrowed years ago to see if he would sell me his because he doesn't use it.

[davelin315]

OK, so I added a fan and it not only dropped the temperature, it plummeted it! It went from 85 degrees to 72 degrees overnight and so I added a heater onto the system and played around with the fan and it's now staying fairly steady at 75-76 degrees. Now the debate is whether or not I use the fan or I use a chiller. I have to decide whether I want to top off more water (which means more alk) or prevent all of the humidity in my home and use a chiller. I may compromise and use both to see how it works out. Increased humidity and heat in the winter would be nice to add if I duct everything into my feed for the furnace.

[davelin315]

Got all of my plumbing supplies in late last week so I'm going to make one giant shim for the stand and then plumb this thing and get it running!

[fab]

I have found a gorilla rack, simlar to your Muscle Rack, that is 77"x30"x72" tall.

 

That would give me a 30" wide, front to back dimension. I am considering putting up a stack of 3 auxilliary tanks on a rack system like this. The draw back is that these racks only hold 2000 lbs total weight, which is a total of 240 gallons of sea water. That is close to 2 tanks, each at 68"x30"x18" tall, 1/2" wall thickness, which works out to total water content of about 260 gallons. So I'm shy one more tank for what I want to do. Then again, if the third tank is low to the floor, it could be supported underneath so it doesn't use up any of 2000 lb the weight allowance.

 

If I could find an 18' version, I could use two racks to make up 36" of width and probably get the total volume capacity up to accomodate the 3rd tank outright.

 

fab

[dschflier]

I used to use the same metal rack you bought for your frag trays. Give it 6 months and the rust will make you think twice about keeping it. I junked it and am using wood now. Once the rust really sets in it isn't as easy to take down either.

[davelin315]

I used to use the same metal rack you bought for your frag trays. Give it 6 months and the rust will make you think twice about keeping it. I junked it and am using wood now. Once the rust really sets in it isn't as easy to take down either.

 

Where did it rust from? I'm surprised, they look like they are powder coated.

[dandy7200]

Where did it rust from? I'm surprised, they look like they are powder coated.

 

 

Powder coating alone would cost twice what you paid for the shelf unit.

[Charlie97L]

Powder coating alone would cost twice what you paid for the shelf unit.

 

having gotten many things powdercoated for cars and motorcycles, i can 2nd this. it is very expensive. it's probably just painted metal.

 

looking great on the progress! keep up with the pics. i love those 20K helios!

 

did you ever get the levelling issue sorted out on the stand?

Edited August 14, 2007 by Charlie97L

[davelin315]

having gotten many things powdercoated for cars and motorcycles, i can 2nd this. it is very expensive. it's probably just painted metal.

 

looking great on the progress! keep up with the pics. i love those 20K helios!

 

did you ever get the levelling issue sorted out on the stand?

 

That'll be good to know when my buddy starts his powder coating business up (of course, it might cost me more than that just to get things shipped back and forth from Chicago...).

 

I haven't leveled the stand yet, but I'm going to just cut a long shim and put it in there. That will take care of the major part of the stand that's not level and then I'll be good to go. Was actually thinking of cutting it tonight and sticking it in there so I can start on the plumbing.

[jason the filter freak]

I'd like to see more pics of this.

[dschflier]

I cant remember where it started rusting but it didn't take long before I was feeling anxious that it was getting weaker from all of the rust. Needless to say I felt much better when I tore it down and started using a wood stand.

[davelin315]

OK, had planned on doing some plumbing today but after 6 hours of grouting, I was a bit worn out. I may get a chance to do some plumbing tomorrow during the day, but I've got another bag of grout that I need to get put down... at least I'm way ahead of schedule for my 2 year plan!

 

Oh, and I will probably post some pictures of it after I rework the plumbing and connect all of the sumps and trays together.

[davelin315]

OK, finished with the grouting for the tile work that needed to be completed before I built the wall, so here's some pictures (still need to let it cure for a couple more days and then seal it, but it looks pretty nice I think) of the change to the basement and where the tank set up is at.

 

The tile in the other side of the room where the tank will not be...

 

Here's the side of the room where the tank will be. I'm not sure if it will stay in the exact place it is now or move over to the right, my wife had an idea that's growing on me to move it all the way over to the right so it's nearly at the wall and there will be a small room to view it from. This will give some additional space for the rest of the room.

 

The view from the other side of the room, where it will be mostly taken up by the tank room (there's a small area that leads to a bathroom and the pantry which would be nice with an easy chair there to view the tank).

 

Frag tray rack, probably going to try and paint it to protect against the rust that has developed on others'.

 

Looking into the "room" to be.

 

One of the lights that is temporarily over the frag tray where the fish and corals are that I have so far.

 

Bottom of the frag rack where one of the 150 gallon sumps is. This is going to be the final stage before it returns to the main tank.

 

Another view of the other side of the "room" to be. You can see the 1st place where the water will go. The rock that's filling that tub all the way up will end up in the display. The pipe on the right side is a temporary pipe going from the frag tray with my stuff in it to the main sump. Eventually this will just be plumbed directly into the tray below which will drain into the sump below that and then will go back into the return for the tank. I may end up reversing the order here and having it flow from the frag tray rack to the sump with the skimmer and then returning to the main system because of gravity, but I'm not sure of that yet.

 

The view from "outside" of the room. You won't be able to see this stuff once I get the wall in place.

 

One last shot of the room.

 

Along with adding the wall, I'm also going to add my new panel for this. I'm going with a 2 breaker panel that I'm going to install next to the existing panels. Each breaker is a 20 Amp Arc Fault Circuit Breaker. Each of these will run to 6 independent GFCI dual sockets. This will give me not only protection from water coming into contact from the lines, but should also help if something arcs by shutting the entire system down. I'm going to split the pumps, lighting, and other equipment between the two circuits and then probably run any exhaust fans or evaporation fans from the existing circuit that runs the basement. This will spread the load out and make sure I don't cause any electrical problems when the whole system is running.

 

When I decide where the tank will go exactly I will move it in place, do the plumbing, and then start filling it... should only take 5 or 6 days with the RO...

 

One last shot, a lousy one since everything in this is top down and I didn't turn any pumps off... this is the deepwater acro I gave a piece of to Phisigs79 for the SWAP program. I'll probably send off one more piece to someone so that I have some if it dies when I hook up the whole system.