500 Gallon Fish to Reef Aquarium Makover

[doug64]

We will be posting a series of pics of the tank remodel we did for one of our service customers so that ya'll can see what we are capable of doing. let me know what you think








This customer had a nice fish only tank,but really wanted to upgrade to a reef, these pictures are of what the tank looked like drained, and the start of the tear down

[pstroh]

Sounds like fun. One heck of tank too!

[denhay14]

Was a pretty cool tank. Looks like one big job for you guys.

[doug64]

Next Step







We had to completely removed the tank because the old frame work (metal,wood}was rusting out. We made a new metal stand and had it powder coated, Plumbing starts! This tank has 4 3,000 gph pumps closed loop 2 sumps and a 3,000 gph return pump

[doug64]

We really wanted to focus on flow rate and lighting on this tank. Flowrate is at 15,000 gph and the lighting system has 12- 400watt mh( 20kand 14k Hamilton) and 8- 96watt pc (03 and 71k Hamilton). The closed loops and return pumps are by Aqua-flo and Waterways Skimmer is Aqua Euro , Calcium reactor: Aqua Euro Chiller: 2-1hp Oceanic , UV- 80 watt Aqua Ultraviolet , Ozone-JED engineering controllers are Milwaukee. That is the equipment list . Reef structure was combo of different types of live rock, dead base rock, arragocrete foamed in with black foam by Innovative Ponds. The service rep in the tank is Todd or reef artist. More to come next week!!!

[asting]

very impressive indeed!
I love the design that went into this and I also love that the wall hides everything (although maintenance is a pain I'm sure).

[doug64]

Luckly we designed it to be easy to maintain. All the service tech has to do is raise the lights, and remove the side panels which are attached magnetically. This allows for decently easy maintenance but the closets on both sides made it even easier because we were capable of storing much of the large equipment here.

[doug64]

[doug64]

This is a look at the tank starting to get outside finish work done, also the 2 equipment closets ,4 heavy duty 24hr timers we also had 2 sub panels installed in one closet Uv,Ozone and the 2 chillers in the other, both closets were heavily ventilated. __________________

[asting]

wow, very impressive. It looks os clean and professional when sealed off.

[doug64]

i know people were interested in the close loop and such so when i went there this week i took some more pictures so you could see how intricate the plumbing of this system was. i also took pics of the chillers, pumps, skimmers, and everything else under the tank that makes it run so smooth



this is the lighting system and wench system that raises and lowers it. there are 12 400 watt mh and 8 96 watt actinic pc's. the winch makes it easy for me to get in and out of the tank when putting new specimens in

[doug64]

(ignore how amazingly skinny i am in this last picture... i've put on some decent weight since then)

I had to actually get into the aquarium to place the specimens due to the sheer size of the tank. the depth made it difficult to appropriately place the animals without damaging them. Tongs were out of the question, so the only option was to go snorkeling in the tank lol.

[doug64]

[doug64]

[doug64]

These are the pictures of the tank after most of the corals have been added. as you can see many of them have grown in quite nicely. the bazooka joe as well as the cyphastrea's and many of the favites are growing amazingly. We have had very little loss in this tank which is great do to the massive amount of specimens we have added. i personally like the aussie scully garden lol. let me know if you have any other questions. thanks for checking it out i will be adding pics from time to time to exhibit the growth as well as new specimens (stay tuned for the 300 gallon bar build we are starting next!)

[asting]

Very awesome build!
I'd love to work in the cubicle next to that (or looks like a library).
What is the orange white striped coral?