New to the board - pics of my tank

[oliver]

I have been living in the Rio Grande Valley for 7 years, the last 4 in Brownsville. I started my tank about 3 years ago, but it accidentally drained about 18 months ago due to a stupid mistake on my part - not only did everything die, but I also put 500g of salt water onto my brand new $40,000 mahogoney floor. Since then, I have been slowly re-stocking and it is now just about full. Tank is 66"L X 46"W X 36"T (400+ gallons) with 100g sump and 20g refugium. 4X400W halides with 6X55W PC's. Lots of flow by alternating 4 Iwaki 55RLT's, each with its own plumbing circuit which is built around and under about 1000lbs of live rock. Also have a Tunze 6110 and a couple of other power heads. There are about 250 corals (SPS, LPS, soft, polyps, etc) and 40 fish with 2 clams (gigas and derasa)

Here are some pictures.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to get a good shot of the whole tank, since I get alot of reflections from the outside. I will post a few pics of some of the individual stuff later.

http://oamd.com/aquarium/east-view-08-09-03-wb.jpg


http://oamd.com/aquarium/west-view-08-09-03-wb.jpg


http://oamd.com/aquarium/north-view-08-09-03-wb.jpg


http://oamd.com/aquarium/crosshatch-wb.jpg

[TexasState]

Nice! I found me some new wallpaper for my computer. LOL

[Henry]

Hey Oliver awesome looking tank and corals.

[Creative210]

Very cool. Thanks for posting this.

[Jimnorris]

What a treat!
Thanks for sharing!
Jim

[R.Allard]

AWSOME TANK...im green :roll2:
do you have any pics of your refuge and also your plumbing is it
coming through the bottom of the tank in random places??
im askin becausewhen i build my garage/office im putting a 250 or 300 show in the wall and am just looking at ideas now the foundation will be poured i the spring and i want all or most of the plumbing in the floor .
im thinking of running 2 small pool pumps one for a 75 gal sump and the other for a circulation they are rated at 5000 gph each i figure the second one i could put on a timer at 20minute incraments for the wave affect.
any other ideas would be great.
lighting i think ill go with 2/400w MH iwasakis 65k and 4/250w MH 20k XM bulbs
im putting the main cost tank/lighting/pumps etc into the cost of the loan for the office, (so i can take it off my taxes) hey its my relaxation center yea yea thats it.....
itll have a 8x6 room behind the tank for all the pumps,crap,etc..
thanks R.

[R.Allard]

P.S. do your triggers bother your coral??
R.

[witecap4u]

Alas,

Someone else with a clown tang. How long have you had him, and how big is he. Does he do well with the trigger?

cs

[oliver]

Ok - will try to answer some questions. Firstly, witecap4u, the clown tang has been in the tank for about 1 year. He does get in some nasty moods once in a while ("he" must be a "she" - sorry ladies, but if the shoe fits?) He tends to chase the vlamingi tang or the trigger around for a few minutes, but eventually stops. He usually does not pick on any fish smaller than him.

R.Allard - the crosshatch trigger has never touched a coral or another fish, but does bite me on occasion - and draws blood. As far as your plumbing questions go, I will try to address most of them and show you some more pictures. There are no holes in the bottem of my tank other than the 2 1" drains behind the overflow - in retrospect, I would have gone to at least 1 1/2" or bigger - I would highly consider this in your tank.

Here is a picture of the tank in the room.

http://www.oamd.com/aquarium/in-room-view.jpg

There are three sides visible and the tank kind of forms a divider between my game room and the kitchen - house is very open concept. I have a self designed, custom stainless hood, which is hinged at the back and connected to a winch in the back room. I can also remove the side panels easily with wing nuts, so that I do not need to winch the thing up every time I want to feed the tank or do minor coral arrangement.

There are 4 main plumbing circuits, each driven by an Iwaki 55RLT. One of them is always on and first goes through my 3/4 hp chiller and then runs into the hood and down through a bulkhead fitting in the top brace to a 1" pipe that feeds a system of pipes (with multiple small holes drilled) which are under the sand an rock. These pipes provide a solid base for the rock and also allow cool water to seep up from below. It also aerates some of the sand which is in the direct viscinity of the holes. The next two circuits run again, into the hood and down through bulkhead fittings on either side of the tank. They then descend, giving off 1 jet on the way down, and then travel under the sand, parallel to the walls of the tank. At the midpoint of their travels, another jet is fed via a T in the pipe. The pipe ends at the far end of the tank (closest to you in the picture) and gives off a final jet. The last circuit is hooked to a 1" sea swirl at the back of the tank. The three latter circuits are switched on alternately in 3 hour blocks. (ie Right side X 3hrs, sea swirl X 3hrs, left side X 3hrs, sea swirl x 3 hrs etc. Here is a pic of the back wall.

http://www.oamd.com/aquarium/back-wall-plumbing.jpg

Here are some pics of the equipment room - also 6' X 8', but absolutely full at this time. Excuse the distortion, but I had to use an ultrawide angle lens to get the picture.

http://www.oamd.com/aquarium/equip-room1-wb.jpg

http://www.oamd.com/aquarium/equip-room2-wb.jpg

As you can see - I am not a clean freak when it comes to plumbing and wiring. Hope this helps when you design your new system.

Oliver

[adaminaustin]

Wow. :confused:
Great job Oliver!

[fx300]

I use to think there were no nice tanks in my area; boy was I wrong! Great looking tank hope to see it some day.

Fabian

[bprewit]

Amazing tank! Im not sure what to be more impressed with the tank or the fact that somebody has a $40,000 floor!

[Sherri]

Absolutely outstanding Oliver.

Sherri

[bozack]

OH my gosh, beautiful tank. That whole darn room is amazing. It just made my blueprint for my next house

[Yano]

:confused: sooo many wires :confused:

[R.Allard]

thanks that helped.