Mike's 360G Dream Tank, Dream Box Build

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#1
A member on RC asked me to come here and make a build thread. I hope you guys enjoy the read and time I put into building this tank. This will be a direct copy and paste from RC.



Hey guys,

Figure it's time to start a build thread as the tank delivery date is nearing. Some history, been in the hobby about 8 years. Last tank was a 240G peninsula. Long story short, had the 240G setup for three years before we decided to move. Left behind the tank as a show piece for the next owners as I wanted out of the hobby. That was back in July of 2016, come December, I had the itch again. We were now closer to all the good fish stores so I put in a order for a new tank.



Now onto the new build,
Tank: 8x3x2, low iron, Euro brace top & bottom
Stand, 10x3x3, front glass doors, apex panel on one side
2x ATI Hybrid PM
4x MP40QD
2x Tunze 6255
New Apex
KHG Alkalinity Monitor
RE Deluxe 250
RE ATO reservoir
RE Dosing containers
RE Dream Box 8D
RE RD3 230w Return pump
RE RD3 80w reactor pumps
RE 5L & 2.5L reactors
GHL Doser Master & Slave
BRS 150 GPD, booster pump, auto flush
50w Pentair Aquatics UV Sterilizer

Here some pics. I already have pretty much all the equipment except for the tank and stand. Some equipment not pictured. Still wanting to buy more toys. Probably some equipment I forgot to list.

Some pics of the Dreambox being built




Finished product






ATO Reservoir and dosing containers


 
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#2
This is a sketch up of the tank and stand



Some of the equipment that has been collecting dust waiting for the tank to arrive



KHG Alk Monitor




Some of the plumbing, I have bought a lot more



Eight bags of Tropic Eden grand select sand,some Fritz RPM salt and Bio-spira to kick start the cycle once the tank is here


Panworld pump for the mixing station



75g RODI & SW containers




300 pounds of pukani and shelf rock





That's pretty much it for now. Still waiting on some more equipment to arrive along with a shed to house the SW mixing station. More pics to come as they arrive.
 
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#3
The shed came in today so I got right to work putting it together. The delivery guys delivered the shed to the wrong house! Luckily, my neighbor was nice enough to let me know.












Seeing how much space I'll have to work with once the tanks are in.



Comes with it's own skylite :thumbsup:




Done, was pretty easy and straight forward.







Waiting for the plumbing parts to come in for the mixing station. Should be here in the next few days. Still need to purchase an EB8, PM2 and probes for the SW container. I'll also be adding a break out box. Might want to try doing automatic water changes so I'll need some float switches for the sw container. Right now I'm thinking I may use the apex DOS for the awc. I've read many people are using it with great success. One issue I'm concerned about is longevity of the DOS using it in this fashion.
 
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#4
Got a shipment today, the UV sterilizer and plumbing parts came in for the mixing station. I made two mistakes when placing the order for the plumbing. I ordered a slip x slip union instead of slip by thread for the pan world pump. I also ordered a bulk head instead of a uniseal. For some reason, I thought the top of the containers were horizontally flat, it's sitting at a slight angle. So I'll have to place another order for the two slip by thread unions and a uniseal. I'm trying to look for a used EB8 and PM2 for the shed but haven't had any luck. May just add these to the order also.

I went to work on the mixing station and got everything dry fitted. Will glue everything together when the unions and uniseal arrive.

This thing is huge!






Plumbing Parts



Cam lever, this thing is pretty cool. I'm going to have two sets of hoses, one to pump SW all the way back into the house for larger water changes when necessary and a short hose to fill up buckets with SW or RO water when. The cam lever is sort of like a quick disconnect.




Here is the mixing station dry fitted. I didn't complete the top portion, waiting for the correct parts to get here. I will have to trim some of the pipes to get the tanks to sit a little closer together before gluing. There's not much space in the shed.

 
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#6
High and low float switches for the ATO container. There's also a float valve and PMUP install. I will have an RODI line run from the shed to the ATO container. I will be installing a solenoid to automatically shut off the RODI when full. The lower switch will send me a text when the water gets low. Then I can go into the Apex and turn it on, the high switch will trip the solenoid, turn off the RODI and text me so I can manually turn a valve to shut off the line completely. The float valve will be an emergency. There will also be another emergency shut off I haven't installed yet. I'll take a pic once that is setup. I do not feel comfortable letting the Apex automatically fill the ATO container.



High and low float switches for the sump. One of the float switch bracket broke so I'll have to fix that. I may switch to the Neptune ATK once that becomes available. I can't get the image to flip correctly. :(



Float valve for the ATO line going into the sump.



Probes installed.



LED lights for the stand




LED lights installed in the stand


Magnetic switches installed on every right door to turn automatically turn on the LED lights in the stand,sump,ato container and dosing containers.



Apex panel nearly complete. Waiting to finish the plumbing and MP40 driver holders to arrive before mounting to the panel. I left a space open between the WXM module and breakout box for the FMM module I plan to get in the future. I'll begin programming the Apex in Fusion.

 
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#7


Was able to hide a lot of the cords. I'll have to buy some cord raceways to mount to the back of the apex panel. Once I mount the four mp40s, two tunzes 6255 and vortech battery back up, I'll have a ton more cords and power adapters I need to manage.



Installed a light, the RODI unit, booster pump, pressure switch and auto flush in the shed. Waiting on a EB8 and PM2 to arrive. What do you guys do with the probes in the SW container? Do you just let it dangle at the bottom of the tank? I plan to install a temp probe and salinity probe. Waiting on more RO lines to come in so I can run lines from the intake to the RODI unit and the RO waste line to the drains. BRS shipping department has been seeing my name pretty often, LOL. I will also run an RO line into the house to the ATO container.





Some non reef related news. I got word that the exhaust I've been waiting weeks for will be arriving Tuesday!!! :dance: The month of May is turning out to be a great month, getting a lot of new toys. Not so great on the wallet, there's a big burning hole in it. :spin2:
 
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#8
Been a little busy but was able to get some stuff done. I am hoping to get the tank wet by the end of the week.


I wasn't planning on building a base for the shed but it being made out of plastic and the floor it's resting on has a slope to a drain, it was flexing like crazy. Quick trip to Home Depot and we have a base.




I have quite a few extension cords behind the tank because a lot of the cords wasn't long enough to reach the 8-9 ft to the Apex panel so I bought these. It's made out of silicone and creates a water tight seal between the two cords. These are used for outdoor application.





This outlet sits directly behind the tank and right under a return line. I wasn't comfortable leaving it as is so I installed a outdoor weather proof outlet.



KHG and leak dectector in place. The leak detector will cut off the RODI water supply to the ATO container if it senses a leak. I will have a solenoid in place to shut off the water when the high level float switch gets triggered. If the solenoid is stuck on, the float valve should cut off the water. If the float valve fails, this leak detector is my last line of defense to prevent a flood.



Here is what the Apex panel looks like.



Here is what the back of the Apex panel looks like. A good majority of the cords hidden away. I hate cords and it was a task hiding all the cords that comes with having a large tank.



I played around with the rocks and this was the scape I came up with. My last tank, I went with three pillars and minimal rock. I'm a fish guys first and all the fishes in my previous 240G had literally no where to sleep. The smaller fishes were able to fit into some of the small crevices but my larger tangs had no where to sleep. There also wasn't much space for corals. So the focus this time around was to make a lot of caves, crevices for the larger fish to sleep and more space for tons of SPS corals.

 
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#9
Neptune ATK came in today.





I had to re-orientate the optical eyes and float valve so it can better fit in my sump. The wires for the optical eyes were just long enough so I can it over to the Apex panel where the FMM is located. Ideally, I would like to have enough slack so that the wires can run along the floor and out of sight until it reach the FMM but it's currently shooting straight across the back of the sump and the space between the dosing containers and Apex panel has two wires in the air. Not ideal but I don't want to cut into the wires to extend it.




A box full of socks. It wasn't easy finding socks that fit the Dreambox.

 
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#10
99% of the plumbing done, just need to glue the drains and plumbing is done. Rock is in the tank and sand will go in tomorrow after the drains are done. I have to remove the overflow box to finish up the drains so I don't want to be stepping in sand. Once that is done, will do a leak test with RODI water. I'm currently making water now in the shed, I can store 150 gallons of water. If all goes well, I'll add salt to the sump to bring the salinity up and get the cycle going.

 
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#11
We have water!




The water making saga to be continued.



I love this cam lever, wish I found out about it in my previous builds. Makes storing or changing out the hose much easier. Getting all the water out of the hose is much easier when you can quickly discount it from the plumbing.



 
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#12
So I have some good news and bad news. I'll start with the good. I got up this morning (more like noon) and filled up the tank full along with the sump. Ran the tank and checked for leaks, a couple minor leaks from the unions which I took care of right away. I fired up the skimmer and it started producing a good foam right away even with the pump on the lowest setting and pipe wide open. The water is a nasty yellow/green and stinks. The pukani rock is dirrrrrtay. I checked the ammonia and got a good solid green reading via API test. I threw in 5 bottles of bio-spira and I was on cloud 9. Today was the day the cycle begins!


 
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#13
Now on to the bad news.












I know some of the pics are hard to see. The tank was full and running for a full day. Around 10pm while working on the tank, I noticed some bubbles in the eurobrace silicone which I did not remember seeing before. This made me check all the silicone. The silicone on the eurobrace that runs 8ft from side to side of the tank started separating from the side panes. The right side front and rear eurobrace had a couple bubbles in them. When I went to inspect the left side, the eurobrace completely separated from the side panes. Needless to say, this made me extremely nervous and thankfully, I had the builders cell. I sent him a text with pictures and he told me to partially drain the tank and he will come over tomorrow morning to inspect. Hopefully he can fix it with the tank in place, otherwise he will have to take the tank back to his shop.

I went from cloud 9 to rock bottom in a day. I just dumped in a box and half of fritz rpm salt, 5 bottles of bio-spira. That's a lot of money down the drain literally. Not to mention all the wasted rodi and rodi waste water down the drain. The rodi also burned thru half a canister of DI resin. I'm so bummed, this build has officially come to a screeching halt. There are still some little things I can do in the shed and under the tank but the tank itself will not be filled for another 3-4 weeks. Apparently that is how long the silicone needs to fully cure and the eurobrace was freshly put in place before tank delivery.
 
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#14
While the tank sits partially empty, I went on to work on some things in the shed. The shed is about 45 ft away from the tank so I had to order two 30 ft aquabus extension cables. This means the aquabus connection will be sitting outside. There is a lot of moisture in the air here at night living so close to the beach so I ghetto rigged this weather proof box out of tupperware for the aquabus connection. Dremeled the corners to fit the cable and then caulked it to seal it off.

I also pinned all the rodi lines to the house for a cleaner look. I installed a pmup into the RODI tank along with a float switch to shut off the pmup and text me when the water is low. Also installed a magnetic switch to have the lights turn on when I open the right door of the shed. The left door has pins on the top and bottom to lock down the door and I would always have to undo the pins to get the door open and then turn on the lights. It was a hassle.

Under the tank, I installed a neptune solenoid to cut off water from the RODI PMUP. I forgot to take a pic of that. I'll update this thread after the builder sees what he can do about the eurobracing.






 
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#15
Today after the builder left, I completely drained the tank. I need to wait 3-4 weeks for the adhesive to cure. No point in leaving the tank partially filled as the water was getting more foul everyday. The builder will come back to clean up all the adhesive once it dries a little bit making it easier to clean up.

On Sunday, I tested the water and it read 1ppm of ammonia, that is when I tossed in five bottles of bio-spira. I drained the tank but left water in the sump. I have the skimmer, reactor pump and return pump running so water does not get stagnate. The return pump is just running through the UV sterilizer. I tested the sump water and it had a reading of .50ppm ammonia and 20ppm nitrate, little cycle happening in the sump? I threw in several pieces of pukani rock into the sump.

So I have a GHL doser 2 master and slave. I read that the doser can do 1L/hr. I am thinking about using the slave which has four pumps to do my AWC instead of buying a neptune DOS. I already have a line running from the SW container back into the house. I just need to run a line out to the drain for SW out and calibrate the doser. Anyone use the GHL doser for AWC?







 
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#16
Update Mike! Can't wait to see how the build is progressing
The tank has been in limbo since the eurobracing fiasco. Builder came by Friday to clean up the silicone. He suggested I wait until 7/14 to fill the tank back up so it will be two more weeks. I've kept my sump running with some rocks in it to cure since I drained the tank about 4 weeks ago. I did get some things done while waiting, didn't bother to update since it is just some minor things.

I bought a Bubble Magus doser bracket to mount my GHL Doser.



I had to cut out a notch so the GHL doser would fit.




Mounted behind the Apex panel.



I hung the two ATI PM Hybrid lights. They're heavy!!




I installed another netpune PMUP to the SW mixing container and ran a line to the sump. This will replace any tank water I remove to acclimate fish or corals. There is a solenoid on this line to shut off flow should the PMUP ever get stuck on. Also a float valve just in case they both fail. There is also a float switch in the SW container to turn off the PMUP , DOS and Panworld mixing pump when water gets low.

Got the Dos hooked up and ran a couple lines into the house and a line to the drain outside. I plan to do 1 gallon a day automatic water changes.



Here is the tank cleaned up again. Hopefully, no more eurobracing failure. Made two screen tops to keep fish from jumping out.




I have 150 gallons of RODI water in the shed ready to go. I will add salt and mix it up as the fill date gets closer.

A couple things on my want list. I'm looking at getting a ARID C30 to deal with nutrients. I've read plenty of post about pukani rock constantly leaching po4 for months to a year. I've got plenty of GFO in a 5g bucket but rather not constantly have to change out GFO. GFO is also harsh on the corals so the ARID is a toy I'm planning on picking up soon.

I've been doing a lot of research on calcium reactors and I'm thinking I might pull the trigger on a Dastaco A-3 when demand gets high. I've read nothing but good things about this reactor and it's ease of adjustment and maintenance. Turn a knob to set your alk, doesn't get any easier then that.

Question for you people who store SW on hand for weeks/months. How often do you run your mixing pump and for what duration? I use to simply leave a small powerhead in the container running 24/7 but I rather use the Panworld pump to mix instead.
 
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#17
Water is in the tank! Euro brace seams are holding. So glad to finally have water in the tank again but at the same time nervous after what happened the first go around. Tank has 348 gallons of water including sump, rocks and sand. This time I kept track of exactly how many gallons was going in the tank.





Trying to tune the skimmer.



When I drained the tank, I kept the sump going and added rocks into the sump. I got a good ammonia reading from the sump. Tested a week later and there was zero ammonia and nitrites. There was a lot of nitrates. I'll be testing the tank again for ammonia in a few days.
 
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#18
When I filled the tank, I dumped in five bottles of Bio-Spira. Next day, I went and purchased three pajama cardinals and a bristletooth tomini tang. All pretty small. Tested for ammonia and nitrites for the next several days and never got a reading. A couple days later I placed an order for seven green/blue chromis and a pair of frost bite clowns (for the wife). When I added the last chromis, it nose dived for the rocks and I haven't seen it since. Been a couple days, I've only seen six chromis at a time unless they're switching place and only six comes out at a time. I'll give it a few more days. I've been testing for ammonia and nitrites and never got a reading, not even the slightest hint of any of the two. I have to say bio-spira works great!!

I used fritz RPM salt and I have to admit, I'm kind of disappointed in the salt. My alk tested at 6.2 via hanna and salifert test kits. I had to dose 210ml of ESV over the course of a several days to bring up the alk to 8.

Calcium tested at 445
No test for magnesium yet.
No3 tested at 10
Po4 was .23ppm so I threw in some GFO a couple days ago. Tonight, tested at .08ppm with hanna ULR. Will keep an eye on po4. I thought the pukani rocks would be leaching a lot more phosphate or maybe that is a lot??

Tonight I seeded the tank with tisbe pods from algaebarn, I'd like to build a good population before adding some wrasse.






I relocated the doser to the wall. I didn't like the tubing go across from the dosing containers to the doser which was located behind the apex panel then going back across to the sump. I think this looks much better.




Had to install a fan, it's been a little warm and tank was getting up to 81 degrees. Now the tank is running at 79.5-80 with the fan.



Can anyone recommend me some gel filters to remove the blue when taking pics with an iphone?
 
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#19
Small Update

I got some filters for the phone and took some pics, I think they came out okay. Some pics of the fishes that are currently in the tank.








I drained the skimmer cup on Monday and installed this quick disconnect valve. There is two valves. I'll be hooking up a container to drain the skimmate into. I'll see how I like this route, If I get tired of emptying the container, I'll hook up my GHL doser to the skimmer cup and run a line out to the drain. I'll have the GHL doser drain out once a day.



Got this valve so I can get water from the RODI water container without having to purge the pvc pipes of salt water. I have the PMUP in the RODI container pump out rodi water.



Now getting fresh RODI water is a breeze. No need to purge the pipes of the saltwater.

 

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