Over the last several weeks I have been fortunate enough to have been included on a rather impressive project. This article will be presented in a multi part series beginning with this initial introduction, and will be an online chronicle to the single largest aquarium project I have ever been involved with.

And now to the guts of it all;

The Goal - To dismantle an established Marine aquarium that has been running for 22 years continuously without any previous teardown.

The filtration system was at the time a masterful piece of engineering with custom made undergravel plates controlled by an incredibly powerful closed loop circulation system, surface overflows that fed large trickle filters under the aquarium, and a massive pair of skimmers measuring 6′ tall and fed by seriously oversized industrial air pumps. The tank itself is cooled by a massive heat pump located outside the house and there is a large bank of T12 bulbs supplemented by numerous spotlights highlighting parts of the aquascape. Oh, and did I mention that the tank measures in at 10 feet x 5 feet x 5 feet (3000 US Gallons approximately)?

This tank has grown in complexity over the years with the end result being a very crowded filtration room in need of an overhaul. The limited space available in the room was being consumed by a large homemade reservoir system for brewing new saltwater (raised off the floor by a couple of feet), 2 x 90 gallon holding tanks and a 6 gallon hospital tank. On top of all that there is also a sink and freezer taking up even more valuable floor space.

Phase 1 - The teardown

The disassembly of the entire system could not happen without some serious preparation and planning for the safety of the present livestock. Providing a large enough holding area for a vast collection of fish (in the order of hundreds of specimens) was no easy task. To start a 300 gallon pond liner was set up in the garage for the larger fish, and several other aquariums (ranging from 65-90 gallons) were linked to provide an additional 240 gallons of water. Several trickle filter towers were made from readily available plastic storage shelves and filled with biomedia and fed by numerous large pumps.

Once the livestock had been removed the modifications to the actual filtration room could begin. First off a large window (corroded from years of operation next to a marine tank) was removed and replaced by a sliding patio door made from PVC instead of metal (to prevent future damage). Secondly, the large reservoir was cut into several pieces and extracted through the new door.

Next, the tank decorations were all removed and collected in a massive “bath” outdoors (the “bath” was constructed from a wooden frame lined with an EPDM pond liner. The bath was then filled with water and bleach to sterilize and clean the massive pieces of coral skeleton, artificial corals, etc.

Finally, we come to this evenings endeavor, removing 1500 pounds of crushed coral that has served as the filter media for 22 years over the undergravel plates. It was a long evening but after a few hours of scooping, lifting, dumping and vacuuming we got it done.

Here are the first couple of pictures of the project.

This first shot shows the view of the front of the aquarium from the living room. The filtration room is located behind the tank through the stained glass door. The wall that the aquarium is viewed through has just been modified to expand the windows height by about 6 inches, it’s a small increase when considering the total height but visually it has made a tremendous impact.

This next shot shows the view of the back of the tank through the newly installed door. The trickle filters are located in the sections of the stand on the left and right side. These filters measure about 2 feet by 4 feet about 18″ tall.

That concludes this chapter of the story, more updates to follow (and very soon). Starting next week we are moving forward with a lot of electrical work and start building the new lighting.

A few years ago I made a trip to Chicago and had the good fortune to spend an afternoon at the Shedd Aquarium. This was one of North Americas largest aquariums for quite some time and still has a lot to boast about. There was quite a bit to see here and was well worth the visit. If you are ever in the Chicago area I would highly recomend taking some time to explore this facility.

Well it was high time I installed a skimmer on the Biocube as there is a rather messy carnivore making it his temporary home.  We have a barred morray currently taking up refuge in this tank until the 80 gallon has been completed.  Water changes in this tank are a snap as we just use water from the reef every week or so.

This mod was simple;  cut a hole in the stock biocube lid to allow the Remora skimmer through.

Took about 45 minutes of experiementing with placement and cutting with a dremel to get it where it worked best, check it out;

And here is the view with the top closed.  I had to make a small round notch to fit around the tube for the skimmer inlet but it worked out pretty well.  Next I might try adding an overflow so I can sump this beast.

Well I had some unexpected free time today so I decided to take on one of the projects.

I’ve been planning on making a “tidal” tank to plumb in to the 135 gallon reef. We had so many spare parts laying around I set this up for free, and its living in the sump room so it doesnt have to be pretty. There were a few benefits to this setup though;

• Added water volume to the reef
• Removed rock from the sump so it can hold more water
• Easy spot to mount surge bucket for tidal surges
• Makes the sump room way more sweet (I couldn’t think of another reason and I wan’t to somehow justify its creation)

This tank is set up so it shares the sump (heater, skimmer, zeovite reactor, carbon and Phosban reactor) with the 135 gallon display tank.  The aquarium was previously being used to cook up new salt water but really didn’t see a lot of use that I couldn’t do with a simple rubbermaid. 

Now that the Profilux Network module is working again I can easily start programming my aquarium again. I also added the automatic topoff resevoir tonight so the profilux can start handling my water level.  I know I have a Rio 600 pump in one of my bins so as soon as I find it, i’ll install it as the pump for the ATO system. This should help compensate for the added evaporation from the 120 gallon and some pretty crazy surface agitation.

So here is the setup after a long day of organizing and rewiring.

Here you can see the wiring panel and the future location of the surge bucket (on the top corner of the 120 gallon once a shelf is built)

And last but not least, here is the beginning of an experiment;  The tidal tank.  Currently only has 2 very miserable Mangroves that are experiencing some osmotic shock (rapid salinity swing nearly killed them).  If they do well I will mount them in a way to “dip” the roots into the water with every wave from the surge bucket.  This is why the 120 gallon tank only has about 70-80 gallons of water in it, I needed a little headroom for varying water levels.

You can just see the bottom of the overflow piping on the left side.  There are no creatures in the tank yet so I havent installed a grate over the inlet but will be doing so in the next day or two.