500 gallon overhaul- Phase 1

[mmfarm]

Full disclosure: This is going to be a marathon post! I will keep things as brief as possible, and will BOLD the actual questions for convenience’s sake.

Long story short: I have had tanks my whole life and after a year of active searching for the right deal, I finally upgraded to a 500 gallon reef tank in the beginning of October. The tank was up and running for about 8 years before I brought it home. When I got it, I transported all of the water and nearly half ton of live rock in containers in an 18 wheeler I borrowed from my Grandfather. I got it home, threw the rock back into it, and filled it back up. I also re-plumbed it so that the sumps, skimmer, pumps etc are now plumbed into the closet behind the tank instead of underneath it. There was barley even a mini-cycle, and I was pleased when I did not lose a single fish (from my old 55 or from the new tank). 3 months later, I have been planning an overhaul of the tank to correct a few less-than-ideal parts of the setup. Hence this post.

The current set-up: 8x3x3 tank with 2 overflow boxes with 2 1.5” outlets each. Each box overflows to a 60 gallon sump/ settling tank (they contain “blades” which slow the water down causing it to drop its debris). The main pump is an iwaki md100rlt. The pump is rated at 2000gph at 4’ head. I routed some water from one of the overflows to an algae scrubber, and there is also a large skimmer with its own 1000gph blueline pump. There is an auto-top off (RO/DI). The tank contains over 800 lbs of live rock, and there are 3 150w mh’s in the hood.

Current stock list: 3 blue chromis, 1 hippo tang, 1 kole tang, 1 tomini tang and 1 powder blue tang. I bought two of the tangs from a guy on craigslist (trying to save $$) and when I was there, he showed me his 20” “sand shark.” I informed him that his sand shark was in fact a brown banded bamboo shark, to which he responded that I could have the shark because it was getting too big, and he was just going to release it into the ocean! I could not let that happen, so I “rescued” the shark and brought him home. He’s been doing really well, but there is not really enough room for him with all that live rock in the tank.

The problems:

• - I don’t like all that moisture in the closet. It was already a musty closet, and unless I run a fan in there which gives me ridiculous evap, it smells really bad.
• - I don’t like the noise of the pumps in the living room as it is.
• - When I put the live rock back in, I did it too quickly and I don’t think I left enough space between the rocks. There is also not enough room for the shark with all that rock.
• - At the current 6’ of head, the iwaki is already having a hard time keeping up with the overflows. If I let them run wide open, they beat the pump and start gurgling.
• - I would like to add a whitespotted bamboo, zebra eel, and a ray or two. I understand that this is a large bioload, especially since I would like to keep some corals, so I’m thinking some over-filtration is in order.
• - The new tank had ich in it. The 55 that the new tank replaced has been running for at least 4 years and since I quarantine, it’s never had ich. But a week or two after putting my old fish into the new tank, there was a minor outbreak of ich. It cleared itself up, but I still want to get rid of it.
• - There’s a bunch of other little adjustments I am going to do, such as installing a siphon break, but I won’t waste your time with those.

The plan:

• - Because of the way the house was built, the ground level of the closet overlaps with the adjacent basement (there is about 3 vertical feet of overlap). So the main point of this overhaul is to relocate the sumps, algae scrubber, and hopefully skimmer to adjacent basement.
• - I have really enjoyed the shark, and would like to get another one and maybe a ray or two. So I am going to be removing some of the live rock, and have this crazy idea to actually elevate the reef so that the shark has plenty of swimming room above the substrate. I was thinking I would use some of the larger pieces to work as pillars, and was going to use a plastic shelf to elevate the reef. I will camouflage the shelf by attaching small pieces of rock to the front of it, and will be careful to make sure the whole thing is tied down and stable with no chance of collapsing/ falling down.
• - While I’m at it, I think I may want to add a third sump to work as a refugium. I would put he removed rock in there, and chaeto. I was thinking I would have the two sumps drain into one of my unused 55gs or perhaps a stock tank, and have the pump pull from there.
• - I am considering adding ozone to the skimmer.
• - I am considering adding a controller and a CO2 reactor.
• - I am considering adding a calcium reactor.
• - I left the old 55 gallon set up, so I am going to leave all the fish in there for a few weeks to free the tank of ich.

Questions/ Concerns:

• - The equipment will be moved roughly 20-25’ horizontally, and 0-4’ vertically. The vertical range is because the easiest thing would be to put the sumps/ pump on the ground of the basement. But the obvious concern with this is all the headloss (term?) as that would make the pump a solid 10 feet below the top of the tank. On the other side of the spectrum, I could build a tall stand for the sumps and pump, and leave the skimmer in the closet and not have the elevation of the pump lowered at all. Opinions here?
• - As previously mentioned, the pump is already having a hard time keeping up, so I am thinking I should replace it with a bigger pump. Recommendations?
• - Is there any problem having the two sumps drain into a middle one and having the pump pull from there?
• - Currently, the whole tank is plumbed with 1.5” pvc. Would increasing the diameter to 2” help at all?
• - Has anyone done anything like my idea of raising the reef (wordplay unintentional but fully enjoyed)? What unintended consequences do you forsee?
• - I do not know what kind of skimmer I have. The main pump fills it from about half way up, and then the 1000gph blue line draws and returns from the bottom, and introduces air to it. How do I know if the skimmer is ozone safe?
• - What are the best valued, and best contollers? Are there any inline controllers or are they all a probe that stays in solution?
• - Do I need to figure out a place for the shark while I rid the tank of ich, or can he stay in there? Obviously wouldn’t put him in the 55 for two months.

So right now I am obviously still in the planning phase of this overhaul, but I am looking to do the prep work in the next week or so, and looking to do the replumbing by the end of the month. Any and all comments and advice is appreciated. I do have a good idea as to what the process of this overhaul will look like, and I will detail that at a later time. Thanks very much, MFKers!

 

[nonstophoops]

Holy cow that is a thorough post! I will start by saying that this sounds like quite the setup. I am jealous.

Alright some advice.

I think your going to be pushing your bio-limits a bit with this tank if you want to do corals too. The other major issue I see with keeping the sharks and rays with corals is that they are not reef safe. They will knock you corals all over the place looking for food. I don't know if you have thought about this or if you are ok with this happening, but an issue none the less. Also, keeping nitrates at 0 or very close to it will be tough to do and will be necessary if you want to keep corals. You may want/need to pick one or the other when it comes to keeping a reef tank or shark/ray tank. You get to try what you want and I hope that you can be successful. I guess I am listing more or less the concerns/problems that I foresee with your intended setup.

You are right you will need major filtration and flow for your setup. The skimmer you currently have is probably undersized for this operation. My skimmer uses a pump that runs at 1800 gph and the skimmer(aqua c ev-400) is rated for a 400 gallon, and I don't even have the biggest pump they recommend for this skimmer. I would continue to use the skimmer you have, but also get another one. Preferably bigger on the new one. You can run them both and the two different skimmers will pull different molecules from the water. This will be the basis for your over filtration plans.

Without knowing the brand and model of your skimmer, you most likely wouldn't be able to tell if it was ozone safe. If you choose to follow my recommendation above of getting another skimmer, you could implement the ozone into this new skimmer and make sure it was ozone safe and leave the other skimmer running without ozone.

Your plan for the 3 sumps should be just fine as long as the top 2 are gravity fed into the last one(return pump) via gravity. They must also have overflows/drains at least as big as the ones coming in. I would use a little extra size to make sure it all flows properly to the return pump sump. I would make these sumps as big as possible. The bigger they are the more total water volume you have leading to more stability and better water quality.

Headloss will be an issue, so make sure you buy a pump big enough to handle the duties of returning the water to that head height. Any horizontal run you have and 90 degree angles will also inhibit flow so keep that in mind as well. Honestly, I would be using 2 pumps instead of one. Both pumps should be bigger than what you are running now because the flow of this tank really needs to increase. The combined rating of the 2 should be greater than what your overflow maximum flow rate is. They should both be in(or plumbed into) the bottom sump. This will be beneficial for a couple reasons and probably more that I am not thinking about.
1. Increase in ability to disperse water back into the tank in all different directions.
2. If one pump breaks on you, you still have the other pump to run the tank while you fix the other one. Obviously you would need to have valves on your overflows to turn down the flow so that one pump could handle it.
3. You can have your overflows wide open.

Changing the overflows to 2" diameter would be very helpful with increasing flow significantly. The flow per overflow would increase from about 2100 gph to 3300 gph maximum(doesn't include any restrictions like turns and horizontal run) I think to get this tank over filtered it would be a good idea. Just remember this adds to the flow and so the pumps will need to be bigger.

I know people have done the floating reef idea, I just don't know anyone that has. It is usually to allow for more water flow underneath so no detritus accumulates and causes water problems. The problem there is that most of the time the tank is then bare bottom because you can't see under the rock anyway and flow can be high. You wouldn't be able to do this with sharks and rays because they would need the sand. I still think it can be done, but you are going to have a tough time keeping water flowing under there without creating a sandstorm. The other issue with this I see is that you would not see the creatures you were keeping very often. They would all be hiding underneath in caves you couldn't see under. That is unless you are talking about really raising where the rock starts a lot. That would probably work better as long as you get very very sturdy plastic shelving. Anesthetically also, I think it would be tough to make look good but definitely could be done with some creativity. That would also help in the issue of dead spots for waste to settle.

You do not need to move the shark from the tank to get it ich free. Sharks are pretty much immune to the parasite. You will need to leave the tank fallow for at least 6 weeks for the ich cycle to be complete and have an ich free tank.

I don't have much experience with controllers so I will leave that to someone else.

Other issues I see here and things that should be factored in that I don't think you have mentioned:
1. You really need to have the total water flow of this tank to be about 20 times the water volume per hour. That means 10,000 gallons. To get to this number you should increase your overflow holes to 2", thus giving you 6,600 gph. Then add some other sort of flow. My idea here would be to use the Iwaki pump(current return one) for flow instead of powerheads. You can build a framework out of pvc that both intakes water and pumps water all around the tank. Basically, the intake pipe would run into the pump located at or near the tanks edge and the outtake of the pump could have a pipe that runs around 3 sides of the tank. Then you would put pipes branching off of this pipe periodically that went down into the water at all different angles. It is a closed loop way of creating a lot of random turbulent flow within your tank. I got the idea from Anthony Calfo in The Book of Coral Propogation. So that pump would add approximately another 2,000 gph. That gets us to 8,600 gph. That should be sufficient depending on the corals you are planning to keep. You could always add a few large powerheads to the tank to create more flow afterward if you found it necessary.

2. Lighting-Sharks and rays really don't like really brightly lit conditions. A quality rockwork setup with plenty of caves would be necessary. This bright light may mean that your sharks and rays move around even less than they would otherwise during the day.

3.Refugium setup-I would not have the refuge be the last tank with the pump(s) in it. I would have it be one of the 2 higher up tanks. My thinking is one overflow running to one of the 60 gallon tanks. This would have the new bigger skimmer in it. The other 60(or 55 or whatever you have) would have the rock and chaetomorpha. Both of these tanks(skimmer and refuge tanks) would flow into the bottom 55 gallon tank via gravity. This tank would have the return pump(s) and the skimmer you currently have. It is also possible that there would be too much water flowing through the refugium tank so you could put a tee in that overflow and not have all the water flow into the refuge.

Well thats all I have to offer. I hope it helps and I wish you the best of luck on this massive project you are undertaking. Should be fun! Definitely post some pics and info on your progress.

 

[FLESHY]

Full disclosure: This is going to be a marathon post! I will keep things as brief as possible, and will BOLD the actual questions for convenience’s sake.

Long story short: I have had tanks my whole life and after a year of active searching for the right deal, I finally upgraded to a 500 gallon reef tank in the beginning of October. The tank was up and running for about 8 years before I brought it home. When I got it, I transported all of the water and nearly half ton of live rock in containers in an 18 wheeler I borrowed from my Grandfather. I got it home, threw the rock back into it, and filled it back up. I also re-plumbed it so that the sumps, skimmer, pumps etc are now plumbed into the closet behind the tank instead of underneath it. There was barley even a mini-cycle, and I was pleased when I did not lose a single fish (from my old 55 or from the new tank). 3 months later, I have been planning an overhaul of the tank to correct a few less-than-ideal parts of the setup. Hence this post.

The current set-up: 8x3x3 tank with 2 overflow boxes with 2 1.5” outlets each. Each box overflows to a 60 gallon sump/ settling tank (they contain “blades” which slow the water down causing it to drop its debris). The main pump is an iwaki md100rlt. The pump is rated at 2000gph at 4’ head. I routed some water from one of the overflows to an algae scrubber, and there is also a large skimmer with its own 1000gph blueline pump. There is an auto-top off (RO/DI). The tank contains over 800 lbs of live rock, and there are 3 150w mh’s in the hood.

Current stock list: 3 blue chromis, 1 hippo tang, 1 kole tang, 1 tomini tang and 1 powder blue tang. I bought two of the tangs from a guy on craigslist (trying to save $$) and when I was there, he showed me his 20” “sand shark.” I informed him that his sand shark was in fact a brown banded bamboo shark, to which he responded that I could have the shark because it was getting too big, and he was just going to release it into the ocean! I could not let that happen, so I “rescued” the shark and brought him home. He’s been doing really well, but there is not really enough room for him with all that live rock in the tank.

The problems:

• - I don’t like all that moisture in the closet. It was already a musty closet, and unless I run a fan in there which gives me ridiculous evap, it smells really bad.

Dehumidifier time in addition to your fan. Try to leave everything as open as possible. Having this in the closet cant be convenient I dont think. Also cover as much of your tank as possible?

• - I don’t like the noise of the pumps in the living room as it is.

Get better pumps? Possibly you need new impellars?

• - When I put the live rock back in, I did it too quickly and I don’t think I left enough space between the rocks. There is also not enough room for the shark with all that rock.

Take some out, if you still want the filtration put some in your sump, I would break it into small peices though for max surface area.

• - At the current 6’ of head, the iwaki is already having a hard time keeping up with the overflows. If I let them run wide open, they beat the pump and start gurgling.

Like I said, sounds like its time for a new pump.

• - I would like to add a whitespotted bamboo, zebra eel, and a ray or two. I understand that this is a large bioload, especially since I would like to keep some corals, so I’m thinking some over-filtration is in order.

Agreed...I would get a bigger sump for starters. Maybe a huge area for macros...a bio pellet reactor is something I am looking into to help control stuff like that, especially in the presence of corals. You can also upgrade skimmers and double up on them possibly. Purigen for chemical filtration. I would get rid of some of the fish you didnt really want. Maybe just do the sharks. Could be a stunning reef display.

• - The new tank had ich in it. The 55 that the new tank replaced has been running for at least 4 years and since I quarantine, it’s never had ich. But a week or two after putting my old fish into the new tank, there was a minor outbreak of ich. It cleared itself up, but I still want to get rid of it.

I believe that ich is dormant in almost all systems...it just takes a certain ammount of stress to rear its ugly heat. Keep the fish happy, and the h2o clean, and you shouldnt have any issues.

• - There’s a bunch of other little adjustments I am going to do, such as installing a siphon break, but I won’t waste your time with those.

The plan:

• - Because of the way the house was built, the ground level of the closet overlaps with the adjacent basement (there is about 3 vertical feet of overlap). So the main point of this overhaul is to relocate the sumps, algae scrubber, and hopefully skimmer to adjacent basement.
• - I have really enjoyed the shark, and would like to get another one and maybe a ray or two. So I am going to be removing some of the live rock, and have this crazy idea to actually elevate the reef so that the shark has plenty of swimming room above the substrate. I was thinking I would use some of the larger pieces to work as pillars, and was going to use a plastic shelf to elevate the reef. I will camouflage the shelf by attaching small pieces of rock to the front of it, and will be careful to make sure the whole thing is tied down and stable with no chance of collapsing/ falling down.
• - While I’m at it, I think I may want to add a third sump to work as a refugium. I would put he removed rock in there, and chaeto. I was thinking I would have the two sumps drain into one of my unused 55gs or perhaps a stock tank, and have the pump pull from there.
• - I am considering adding ozone to the skimmer.
• - I am considering adding a controller and a CO2 reactor.
• - I am considering adding a calcium reactor.
• - I left the old 55 gallon set up, so I am going to leave all the fish in there for a few weeks to free the tank of ich.

Questions/ Concerns:

• - The equipment will be moved roughly 20-25’ horizontally, and 0-4’ vertically. The vertical range is because the easiest thing would be to put the sumps/ pump on the ground of the basement. But the obvious concern with this is all the headloss (term?) as that would make the pump a solid 10 feet below the top of the tank. On the other side of the spectrum, I could build a tall stand for the sumps and pump, and leave the skimmer in the closet and not have the elevation of the pump lowered at all. Opinions here?
• - As previously mentioned, the pump is already having a hard time keeping up, so I am thinking I should replace it with a bigger pump. Recommendations?
• - Is there any problem having the two sumps drain into a middle one and having the pump pull from there?

No....just make sure there is no way for h2o to get trapped anywhere but in the bottom sump where your returns are.

• - Currently, the whole tank is plumbed with 1.5” pvc. Would increasing the diameter to 2” help at all?
• - Has anyone done anything like my idea of raising the reef (wordplay unintentional but fully enjoyed)? What unintended consequences do you forsee?
• - I do not know what kind of skimmer I have. The main pump fills it from about half way up, and then the 1000gph blue line draws and returns from the bottom, and introduces air to it. How do I know if the skimmer is ozone safe?

I wouldnt add ozone directly to a tank, but maybe you have looked into this more than I have. It just seems like something that is easy to overdo...lots ofpeople have issues. If I was going to do it, it would probably be a fish only.

• - What are the best valued, and best contollers? Are there any inline controllers or are they all a probe that stays in solution?

Milwaukee makes good controllers.

• - Do I need to figure out a place for the shark while I rid the tank of ich, or can he stay in there? Obviously wouldn’t put him in the 55 for two months.

So right now I am obviously still in the planning phase of this overhaul, but I am looking to do the prep work in the next week or so, and looking to do the replumbing by the end of the month. Any and all comments and advice is appreciated. I do have a good idea as to what the process of this overhaul will look like, and I will detail that at a later time. Thanks very much, MFKers!

Sorry If I overlaid anything...I just wanted to quick run through this.

I would start slow, get your rock the way you want it, get it secure...get it fully stocked...filtration in place to keep h2o in reef like parameters, then start adding coral equipment, and finally corals.

I do have some soft corals, but I am moving away from that...soon would be a good time to get one of my soft coral pred tank packs! PM me if interested.

 

[mmfarm]

Good afternoon,
I am at work but had a chance to quickly read your responses, and very much appreciate them! Thank you for the ideas and information. I will reply more in depth later tonight.

Regards,