Our 12ft - 4000Ltr Dream Build

[Amphibian]

You probably need a bigger skimmer ,
A bubble king 650 mod version..

Looking great so far Ken .
Great effort and no doubt will grow into a spectacular setup.

Looking forward to your updates.

[Synodontis]

Another great update. Gotta be one of the biggest DIY led builds ever, surely?

Not sure Sam, but gotta be close, I'm so OVER soldering!

Can't believe how much that skimmer is pumping out, like that's crazy?!

that's like 6 litres of stinky gunk......
Crazy talk

that's an insane amount of gunk to match the size of that skimmer cup. insane lighting system too!

I don't want to imaging how much all that gunk would have smelled

Definitely lots of gunk & lots of smell! I'm going to plumb the cup into a drain, but it will be a manual drain when I want, not open full time.
As for the smell, I'm thinking it might be time to run some carbon hahaha.

You probably need a bigger skimmer ,
A bubble king 650 mod version..

Looking great so far Ken .
Great effort and no doubt will grow into a spectacular setup.

Looking forward to your updates.

Thanks Nic, but I'm really not ready for that second mortgage just yet. Might do the RD3 upgrade to this one down the road.
We will be happy if the build comes out the other end looking like it does in my head

Again not a huge week of getting things done lol. The worst is over & been on the go for a bit so I've eased up a little. (or a lot, depends on how you think) I started putting a few corals in the tank during the week. Nothing flash as it's a bugger working off the ladder lol, but wanted to start & get an idea where bits are going. I've always found it easier to drop a couple of pieces in & then work off them for placement & colour spread. I still don't take a decent pic lol, but these came out kinda OK. All the lights are on in the pics so the colors are pretty close to what you'd see standing in front of the tank.

A little worried about these guys. The one on the left has browned out & 1 piece has RTN'd. The bit on the right seems to have held some colour but isn't looking the best.




The birds nest & piece behind it seem to be doing well. Hopefully that continues!
The white looking piece top right isn't bleached lol, it's a strange colour only picked up last Thursday night from Deer Park. The guy's that seen it will know the piece.


The top right is a Feugio acro we got from Deer Park a few weeks ago. Was worried about this bit during the change over but it's doing well & improving everyday since being mounted.


Really, what's a tank without Chalice lol. Only 2 pieces have made it in to the tank so far. The top one came from Reeflections one Thursday night a few years ago.




Really liking this piece at the moment. No idea what it is or where we got it from. I think it has coloured up this way while in the sump. If anyone knows what it is please let us know. Pic is as good as I can get lol, it has a dark purple fading to blue base with green tips, long dark (red?) polyp, looks cool.


Let's play "Where's Moo?"


I've placed the clam in a small cup structure in the rock. Since then it has turned itself around & attached his foot in a place where we can still see him. Very happy with that.


The big red plating Monti on the right is the piece that was starting to grow up the weir in the old tank. Picked this up at Bunarong aquarium 3 maybe 4 years ago. Glad it held colour during the move.


Would anyone have an idea what this piece is? A few people think it is a really nice piece but unsure what it is. Me, I have no idea, don't really go in for names as I always forget lol. Under whites it is a bronze/yellow colour, under blues it's dare I say it, gold colour. I had to trim a little GHA off before being mounted & where it's starting to grow back over, it has a bright yellow growth ring.


There are a couple of pieces I'm watching daily as they seem OK, holding colour but no polyp extension at all so far. Only have a pic of one piece tho, but you might get the idea.


That's about it for the coral pics. Haven't done anymore in the tank for a few days. Did get one of the lights going above the tank, made a huge difference to the look of the tank. I still need to sort out the LDD boards / box as I've changed a few things since building it. For the moment the lights hooked up to the old ELN drivers & only 4 channels are wired up. This was before I started mounting the corals lol. There's 183 Cree LED's over that side of the tank now. Only just finished soldering up the next panel tonight. Still have to attach a few lens that got knocked off & to the new LED's I've added in the center panel. Hopefully mate Dave will be able to slip over tomorrow night & help me hang it. Then I really need to get the LDD's sorted out.


Not sure if I've put this up yet. Started mounting the PDU's & STC1000 heater controllers. Not sure what else is going under this loot but something will turn up that I "need" Surprising but 2 500w titanium heaters are doing a good job keeping everything warm. One in the sump & one hidden behind the rocks in the DT. I wasn't sure how they would go but since we only had 1 500w in the 10ft, it was going to be close.


Very very remiss of me again.
The day we brought the tank home, mate sparky Matt also came over to help. At one point he walked in with a very large piece of metal lol. Now the need to go looking for a UPS has been removed from the equation! Mr. Matt drops a rack mount APC Smart UPS 3000Va on one of the trolley's! That's about 2700w of backup power I've downloaded all 3 programs for it but as yet have not fired the beast up yet as I need to get a couple of cords to go in the back of it. once the tank is running & all the corals have been mounted I'll move back to this job. So a huge thanks sparky Matt!


Have the standard issue GHA & diatom algae break out happening at the moment. Just keeping an eye on the numbers & hopefully it will sort itself out in the coming weeks. Still have a crap load of corals in the sump to be moved in to the DT. Once we get the next light mounted & the power sorted out that will happen. Until then everything seems to be coloring up again slowly in the sump. Most of the GHA is in the sump which I'm happy about lol. I'm trying to get all of the acro out before mounting all of the Chalice.


That's about all I can think of for now. Still lots to do, but hey, why do today what you can do tomorrow?

[sparker]

Awesome

[coral1]

wow moving along nicely

[Richo66]

Great update! Thanks for sharing!!
Can't wait to see it in person!

[Synodontis]

Anyone still reading my dribble lol.

Lighting-
Most of last week was devoted to finishing off the light. So over soldering LEDs, making harness's & running wires! Mate Dave came over Friday night & helped me hang the panel over the tank. Guy's a legend with the help he lends me Saturday was making the harness from light to power, another trip to Jaycar for more wire, then temp wired up again. I've had a rack mount box built ages ago before this build but never got around to setting it up. All planned to use this for the new lights but, there's a bloke around this side of town that is very VERY clever with wires, buttons, electronic bits & PCB's. Dean has made up his own PCB's that hold 16 LDD's & can be linked together which works out great for us as we need at least 32 channels to get all the LED's working, 36 channels would be brilliant These boards will still be powered by the big Meanwell power supplies we have. Looking forward to playing with the control's for these boards. For the time being the lights are hooked back up to 24 ELN drivers running 4 channels only. At least the ELN's are not sitting up on the lights anymore which makes things look a lot cleaner. I need to bundle the harness's together & run them in a tidy manner. At the moment there are 6 bundles of 12 wires each hanging off the lights. Not in your eye but they are there, have to clean that up, but lots to get done. Still this is enough light to get everything out of the sump & back in the DT where it belongs. Have to admit, when I turned the second panel on, it almost feels like we have a tank again having the same light the full length of the tank. I was worried about the 1ft gap between the panels, thought it might have one of those dark "wedge" looking things but it seems fine. You can see the difference between the two ends of the tank. The left side had an 4ft 4 T5 hybrid ATI above it, grew algae wonderfully!! The left side had an 4ft Aquaone 150w halide above it & didn't grow algae quite as well as the ATI. Since the panel above the left hand side has been up, the algae has started to come on with a vengeance lol, whereas the left hand side has started to recede already. Happy with how it's going at the moment, OR should I be asking & taking advise on FB about algae control in our new tank, it's doing our head in & about to throw the towel in because our tank doesn't look like Chingy's & it's been running for four weeks already!!



Dosing-
Let's dribble on about dosing! Big tanks drink chemicals like there may not be any pumped in to the tank tomorrow. This tank has different requirement's to what we were dosing in the 10ft. As would be expected you say, true, but the change with this tank has made me think, & let just say, I hate thinking, I always end up in trouble. I can't remember the amount's we were dosing in the 10ft but the biggest change has been in Magnesium. In the 10ft 1.5Ltr of Mag would last 3 months give or take? We are now dosing 800ml of Randy's per day Where is it going??!! The suggestion was thrown about that perhaps the Aquaroche rock was absorbing it? No idea, all I know I am also sick of making up Mag.
So now dosing
Mag - 800ml / day holding at 1380
Cal - 600ml / day holding at 390
Alk - 200ml / day holding at 9
Kinda strange how everything is totally opposite to the last tank, Alk was the biggest use in the 10 ft & Mag was the lowest, such is life I guess.

Reactors-
OK, the numbers are looking good enough & will stay somewhat stable enough for me to back up a few steps & get back to playing with the reactors. When I left them I had the bulk of them done, it was just a matter of fitting some bulk heads, fitting a few down tubes, working out some plumbing needs, sorting out pumps & then hooking it all up. Simple huh First off, I helped a mate with a tank move last week, he then went out & sorted a pump for us (Thanks Nick), silly bugger is lightly what I called him, but also thanked him muchly also lol. Any way, I started with where the recirc pump would be, then moved onto bulk head placement. This is one of those jobs where I look & wounder if this is the one I took to big a bite of? Can I really pull this one off lol. Find out in the end I guess. What I have setup so far is looking OK & now know what extra fittings I need to get sorted this week.

Recirc pump placement found & bulk head's fitted to two reactors. Still need to sort out the tubes that run down to the bottom of the reactors.


Bulk heads in all three reactors. The Rowa reactor on the left will not be used long term, I am looking at something a little different to the norm for Phos control, but that's a little further down the track.


All controllers mounted easy to get access to, wires still need to be tidied up.


An that's about all that's happens lately. Oh yeah, got a better pic of that coral we are not sure what it is, hopefully you know what it is & can shed some info?


TTFN

[sparker]

haha nice update Ken, could tell you were a little tired when writing this one! Not surprised by your dosing amounts, can imagine that once things settle and get growing that could jump up another one or two times that yet... Hope you like mixing up randy's!

Keen to see the final couple steps on your reactors, they have been an awesome build so far.

P.S. Love the facebook algae comment

[ssscuz]

Awesome ken!
You are getting thru it fast! Light at the end of the tunnel is near!!

[timmeh1]

An that's about all that's happens lately. Oh yeah, got a better pic of that coral we are not sure what it is, hopefully you know what it is & can shed some info?

Ken I believe its orange psammocora coral

[Synodontis]

haha nice update Ken, could tell you were a little tired when writing this one! Not surprised by your dosing amounts, can imagine that once things settle and get growing that could jump up another one or two times that yet... Hope you like mixing up randy's!
Keen to see the final couple steps on your reactors, they have been an awesome build so far.
P.S. Love the facebook algae comment

Hey Sam, I'm always tired when I get in here to do updates lol. I start when the movie starts & get tied up watching that, not typing.

Awesome ken!
You are getting thru it fast! Light at the end of the tunnel is near!!

Thanks Nathan, I'm glad you can see that light lol. Now that the bulk is "running" sorta I have slowed down some. Finding more lazy days.

Ken I believe its orange psammocora coral

Reckon your onto it Tim, thanks.

Snot a lot has changed the last couple of weeks. GHA is just starting to show signs of giving up, got a few more corals out of the sump & into the DT.
The clam has found his own little spot.


Couldn't help but grab a piece of purple monti, funny thing tho, it turned blue in the tank lol


Skimmer is really working well now, "got foam bro"


Got a new LDD board for the lights off Dean last week. So spent some time soldering LDD sockets & a few wires on to it. A few more Molex plugs & it all plugged together at last. So now the panel has 78RB, 78BL, 78CW, 78NW, 18UV & 9Cyan. 16 independently adjustable channels which is very handy




We are "Nemsitting" a large Cadbury purple Haddoni at the moment for a friend. It is for sale if anyone is interested, PM only, not in this thread for any info. He needed the room to change around the tank lol. Dropped a bag of coral sand in a corner so it would feel at home & hopefully settle down in that spot. Used a 100mm dia. pipe to get the sand in without to much mess. Worked quite well. He moved around a little but never left the sand & has attached to the base of a column now. Haven't taken a decent pic of the nem yet.


Everything down here seems to be ticking along


I'm about to play with a product for PO3 removal that has not really been used in a home aquarium situation. I'm not going to name the product here as aquariums are not their core business & unless your buying tonnes at a time..... It was developed by the CSIRO here in Aust. & is exported around the world, Germany being one of the biggest user's. I'm not sure if this is something suited for smaller sized tanks. In a static body of 4000Ltrs with a PO3 content of 0.1mg/L, 38grams of media will remove all PO3 & then be exhausted. The uptake rate decrease's as PO3 is absorbed & it will not be released back into the system if not removed when exhausted. This is no miracle cure or media 7 yes it is Lanth based, just in a pellet form which suits our requirements. There is still the chance of a small amount of lanth escaping as the pellets break down so mechanical filtration measures will be in place also. There will be a 1 micron pre-filter, filter wool at base of reactor, media, more filter wool then another 1 micron post filter before exiting back to the tank. I'm starting with 100 grams as PO3 is at 0.08 now, along with feeding & livestock waste we feel this amount is a good starting number. How long it last's for will be determined by normal Hanna egg testing. We are also using Continuum Captiv Phos W to help with Silica removal, once that is exhausted it will not be replaced.



A few pics of the corals so far that have made it into the DT, everyone likes smurfed out tanks lol



















Yes that is an Acro frag slowly being swallowed by Zoa's on the base of the tank, coloring up nicely under LED's 30' down


Really annoyed at myself with this chalice, I never noticed that this piece hand been moved back against the glass under the heater in the sump. Heater slipped down the glass & came to rest on top of this piece! No idea how long it was in this position but hope it heals over in time.


The latest addition to the Chalice collection, stand out piece at the moment.


I'll finish with this pic, something not everyone gets to see in their own tank. Just one of the many reasons we decided to go through with this build. Moo opening up the gills for cleaning, not often I get the chance to take a pic of this happening. Even better when the cleaner disappears through the gill's & comes out Moo's mouth. That has freaked a few people out.


That's about it for tonight, outta here before midnight! Don't happen much lol.