1000 gallon reef build pics

[Evan Jamison]

As some here may know, I work at a smaller public aquarium and I love my job. I get paid to work with all sorts of life, and the past year I have had a lot of opportunities to build some new exhibits in our ever-expanding facility. I wanted to share some pics of some of the fun projects I've headed up in the past year. Hopefully there are some fish-heads here that can appreciate this.

In June of 08 I was lucky enough to plan and build our new reef exhibit, a 1000 gallon main display, and 4 smaller exhibit tanks, each about 25 gallons. I have kept coral in holding tanks for years, but never built a tank from the ground up, so I felt a little overwhelmed, but very excited!

We ordered 1600 lbs of live rock, mostly aquacultured and branching Tongan which I cured for about 2 months pre-build. Plenty to be selective while building the structure.




During this time we also acquired many coral frags from other public aquariums, and a few from wholesalers.




After months of planning the new exhibit with a great group of people, we moved the 4 year old 180 gallon soft coral exhibit out, all electrical and tank stands started to go in.
Here's the old reef after being moved, and many nice pieces of live rock and coral pilfered for the new tank.


The stretch of the back side of the wall dedicated to the new exhibit.


Stands and sumps


in place


We had a relatively generous budget compared to some previous exhibits, and didn't have to use many old pieces of equipment other than 2, 70 gallon rubbermaid troughs, and one 250 gallon holding tub for sumps. Here's a pic of some equipment waiting for the tank, and a short list of some things we used:


3, 3x250 watt 10,000 K halide/2x160 watt actinic VHO hamilton light fixtures
2, ASM G5 protien skimmers
2, dual-chamber octopus calcium reactors w/pH controller
2 oceans-motions 4-way wave makers
1, 3 HP dolphin 11,500 GPH pump for the main exhibit
2 Gen-X pumps for the smaller tanks.
JBJ arctica 24,000 BTU chiller
240 watt AQUA UV unit
We used all schedule 80 bulkheads, and true-union ball-valves

enough sand for a 6" bed, I think it was about 1500 lbs (lots and lots of sand washing, probably the lest fun part of this whole build)


We were still waiting on the custom 8'x4'x4' 1000 gallon tank to arrive (never trust a tank builder to make a deadline.....). 9 days before the exhibit opening it showed up, about a month late.

3 days of plumbing later (forgot the camera on those days ...) this is what we had.

"Reef janitors" and "Camouflage" exhibit tanks, calcium reactors, and left sump


"Symbiosis", and "Making a home" exhibit tanks, chiller, and right sumps. All sumps were connected with a 2" cross-connect line to keep levels even.


The main pump runs through a few things before it feeds the tank, the UV, a custom DIY 4" granular ferric oxide up-flow reactor, the chiller, the 2 4-way wave makers, and a thief line to reduce back-pressure if needed.


The first fill, NO LEAKS!


We used a 2-part epoxy, Z-spar to build the live rock structure. This stuff is amazing, and a lot of fun to work with. Another aquarist and I spent about 12 hours one day, and 4 hours the next day carefully choosing and epoxying the reef wall together.

Shot from the back side. You can see the dark green Z-spar on the back side of all points of contact between rocks. Almost none is visible from the exhibit side, and coralline algae grows over it readily.


From the exhibit side


Getting closer to opening, only 3 days away now!


I spent another long day in the now mostly full tank placing coral, again with Z-spar. Mostly stony up top with plenty of room to grow out, mostly 'shrooms, leathers and zooanthids down below.

Ready to dive?


Fish went in the next day, and had two days to settle in before the unveiling. Here was the exhibit the day before opening.
Main tank


"Camouflage" tank before the background was on, can you find the frogfish?


There he is!


"Making a home" and "Symbiosis" (clownfish and anemones) exhibit tanks.


There is also a 3-D cutaway model of a stony coral polyp, and a video loop on the side wall.


Overall, I was very happy with how things turned out given the short time that we had to actually put it all together. I registered a blip of a spike in NH3 and NO2 on our Hach DR/2500 spectrophotometer in the first couple days it was up, never got over 0.05 and 0.02 respectively. A few more coral pieces have been added since the first build, including a 22" plate of M. capricornius that is over 30" across with about a dozen tiers now, and the stony coral growth has been amazing in many species, especially the Montipora, Acropora, and Seriotopora. Writing this out makes me want to go take some updated photos!

Not bad for my first reef tank This project could not have come together without an amazing husbandry and exhibits staff however.

Thanks for looking!!

-Evan

[Blizzarddude]

WOW! Thats amazing, I wish I had the time and dedication for such a work of art. Great job.

[pitbulls4me]

Wow it looks great! Really nice looking!

[python.princess]

That's an awesome end result! How long did you work on setting that up? Looks like a job well done!

BTW- I don't envy you the sand washing job! Haha!

[Alice]

I didn't realize so much pre work goes into setting up a large tank. Thanks for the education!

The end results are amazing

[Lucas339]

great build up! no leaks!!! thats unherd of!! great choice of equipment!

i was under the impression that leathers and sps cannot be kept in the same tank together.

[Wh00h0069]

Wow, very cool. Grats on finishing it.

[Spaniard]

Wow, now I know why you were so busy all the time! That looks like a lot of work; must be nice to take a step back and see it finally done. Good work.

[blackcrystal22]

Wow! I'd love to see more exhibits you guys have worked on at that aquarium. Super cool.

[Kysenia]

Wow Truely amazing!