engwife's 240 gallon tank build **UPDATED**

[second_decimal]

wow thats a pretty impressive build. nice pics too. thanks for sharing. how do you like your bbk skimmer? (i thought i saw one in one of your plumbing pics) also, isnt it nice to have a little room under the tank for once? i dont know why, but factory stands are always crammed.

[engwife36]

The only thing I've had time to work on is the canopy. I still need to put the trim on it. All I did is put stain on it and built the light rack. I'm still waiting on the other ballast to get sent back to me from Coralvue. It's been over a week.

[engwife36]

Here are a few pictures though.

[greenmako]

looking good!!

[lhoy]

Brad,

Canopy turned out great!!! Looking good. I assume all plumbing still working fine?

Lee

[engwife36]

Thanks all...

The plumbing is all good Lee. The tank is so quite compared to my old one. The loudest noise I here is the air coming from the Bubblemaster skimmer. I'm guessing once I get the doors on the stand I will not even here that.

[lhoy]

How is the Bubblemaster working? How is the heat output around the chiller? The more I thought about where it is, the more I was worrying about it.

Lee

[engwife36]

That Bubblemaster skimmer is a beast. I thought I was happy with the Euroreef I used to have but IMO it doesn't come close to this BM........

The chiller has only came on once. I put the lights down right on top of the water turned them up to full power (ballast is dimmable) and left it on starting at 8:00 am. The water finally reached 81 degrees at 8:15 PM and the chiller turned on. It only ran for about 15 min and brought the water back down to 78 degrees.

Now that was just a test. I will of course never leave my lights on for that long of a time. I really don't think running my lights under normal conditions and my house never being warmer that 75 degrees that my chiller will even turn on. I quess it'll be good to have just in case though. I'm very pleased with it. I was kind of worried at first with the chiller only being the size of a 10 gallon aquarium. It was pretty quite when it came on too.

[engwife36]

SO........if you've been following along in this thread you already know that one of my NEW Coralve 400w dimmable ballast did not work. I talked directly to David who is the predident and he told me he would not send out a new one until the recieve my old one. He said they have gotten ripped off in the past so this is how they do it. Fine....ok....I can understand that. So anyway the finally got it and after a week and a half (TODAY) Fedex shows up at my door with the new one. I'm thinking, finally i can get the right side of the tank lit. I open the box to find a 250w not dimmable ballast. So I called David and had to leave a message and he returned my call within 20 min. He apologized and told me to keep the 250w ballast. He told me they won't have anymore 400w dimmables for another week or two but as soon as they get the next ones made he will ship it out. I really can't complain to much, they've had great customer service. He also told me that if I didn't have a 250w bulb the 250w ballast would fire my 400w bulb. I don't think I'm going to try it though. Anyway, as soon as this weather clears up I can get this canopy trim finished and start on my stand. More to follow.................