460 Gallons with a 360° VIEW! Big Tank & Full Filtration Room!

All right, reef keepers. The transition of continuing to see tank after tank that is just [music] immense sizes is continuing on and today we're hanging out and we're looking at a beautiful system in a beautiful home. We've got Brian still with us and we're going to talk about this tank right here. Let's go ahead get right into it though. Brian, talk us through what's the size of this tank and how how big are we talking? So this tank is 72x 48x 36 about 540 gallons. And then what convinced you to get into saltwater reef keeping right so I mean at this point a lot of people are probably going to be curious right how come you chose to go with such a big tank and how did we get to this point that you wanted a system like [music] this? Yeah. So, it's not my first tank. Um, but I'd always wanted one. Didn't really have the right time, right space. Uh, right after COVID, I'd moved uh my office into the living room of my old house. And I'd been a diver for 15 or 20 years. I'm a scuba photographer, also do a lot of that. And I'd always wanted a tank. Um, and finally, we had the space and the time to do it. Um, and so I had met Brian. I had been to his uh his [music] uh store number of times, really been impressed with what I was seeing. And so Brian and I uh worked out a plan to do a 200 220 in the old house um which we had for three years or so. Um and then when we decided to move uh here, there used to be when we the previous homeowner had a giant double-sided fireplace here, almost exactly the same footprint. Uh and uh my wife didn't want a double-sided fireplace, thought we'd never use it. And a friend of mine who knew that we had a tank said, "You should put a tank there." And uh we thought that was a great idea. And uh we learned a lot about uh construction projects as we had to put in steel to reinforce and everything else, but [music] really excited to do it and really excited to go big. Um you know, I'm always been very excited about the uh the the fish and the inverts. Um I've gotten much more interested in coral [music] and actually um I just did a coral restoration uh certification uh with Patty uh on one of my last dive trips. So I've gotten much more interested in the coral. Um Brian has been a very patient uh teacher. One of my favorite things, you know, in European reefing, a lot of that situations, the tank becomes a centerpiece in the home. For us here in the States, normally we just kind of throw it wherever, put a bunch of blue light over it and grow some crazy corals, but here it's an amazing centerpiece to the home. Ultimately, that was the goal for you though when we were setting this one up. Yeah, absolutely. We love the idea that it could be a 360. Um, [music] and anyone who walks into the house immediately comes over here, uh, gravitates to it. Young, old, friends, acquaintances, uh, workmen, everybody comes over to see [music] the tank. And there's always something interesting to look at. We are also crazy when it comes to our aquariums, right? And you went out of your way to do many things to make sure that this tank would work [music] in this home. Let's kind of talk about some of the process when it came to the construction beforehand to be able to get this tank in the right place and have [music] everything set up because obviously this isn't a light tank and it's on another floor above another floor below us. Let's talk through that kind of process of how you got to here. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I knew water was heavy. [music] Um, so that's about 4,500 lb of water uh plus the stand plus the uh the enclosure. So, you know, maybe you're talking about 6,000 lb maybe something like that. [music] Um, it's a big room, so it's a long throw underneath. So, even though there are beams underneath, um, it's it's too long to support that kind of weight. [music] So, we hired a structural engineer and an architect to design the plan. [music] Um, it's big process. Took much longer than I thought, but very, very happy with the result. And you were talking about the transition period. You know, you had that 220 set [music] up. There was a period in time when this tank wasn't really rolling yet. We still had that 220 running here in this home. Yeah, that's right. So Brian and his team moved the 220 from our old house [music] uh which was an effort. It was down a steep flight of stairs down a very steep driveway [music] um and uh brought it all over here, set it up downstairs uh and maintained it for 3 or 4 months while we were getting this tank ready to go um and then had to move it again to move all the stuff up here and and obviously add to it. Some some of this rock came [music] from the uh from the old tank, but most of it is new. when um a bunch of the coral came over and some of the fish came over, but a lot of it's been new since we've been uh been here. We know that with Top Shelf Aquatics, the installs, the moving of tanks, it's not an easy process. So, big shout out to you guys over at Reef being able to make this happen. Something I think we take for granted when it comes to fish tanks [music] is the amount of panels we get to view, right? Most of the time you have a panel on the back you're losing. In a peninsula, you're kind of losing that overflow section. This, in my opinion, is like the epitome of what you want in a reef tank because you get all the different viewing panels and it's basically a new reef in every different section [music] that you look from. Let's start talking about some of the livestock we've gone with this tank. We've got a group of tangs, it seems like. We'll talk about our fish and kind of why you chose the fish. Interesting. We talked about it off camera. There was some inspiration that came with it as well. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of these fish I've seen while diving. Um, we just added a couple of mandarins. uh you know a number of the other fish the tangs of [music] course I've seen in Hawaii although these are biotas uh and uh you know I've seen other tile fish not the arinis that we have and plenty of trigger fish as that one swims by chromises all over the place lots of them in the Caribbean uh so [music] uh it's been great to be able to bring that into the house and uh to watch them I also really love the inverts uh actually the their behaviors are really interesting watching them pick over stuff and crawl stuff and climb all over the tank we We have several uh urchins, some tuxedos, a pin cushion, and a pencil. We have um banded coral shrimp. We have uh pipe fish, which is I guess not an invert, but uh which [music] is really cool to watch swim around, and I've seen most of those things while diving. I see banded coral shrimp all the time. It's really great to have that here every day. Absolutely. The inspiration you get when you're out there diving, I used to be a diver [music] myself, so I get a ton of inspiration as well for my tank. I think a big misconception that people have with pipe fish is that they're lowflow fish. They need to kind of be hanging out, no flow, be able to pick around on the rocks. This is a great example of how you have a really juiced up flow tank. We'll talk about it later on when it comes to the equipment that's making this tank kind of pump. But that pipe fish is just cruising around the whole time. I think that is a true misconception for people. Yeah, I really thought that too. I was worried that it wouldn't be able to fight the flow. I was worried they wouldn't be able to find uh you know food, but it's uh cruises around the tank all the time. Um also I was worried that it would just hide um and there's lots of good hiding spots, [music] but um it's usually out swimming around having a good old time. Something I love. You've created this book basically [music] to either showcase with your wife, people that come over and visit to be able to know what they're looking at, what you're talking about. It was amazing to see. We're talking about the corals now. The toad stool. I'm a big fan of toad stools and it's hilarious. You show me the photo and it's this tiny little frag [music] and now that's this huge monstrosity of a colony. Something that's really cool with the space of the tank. You allow these [music] corals to really grow in sheer size. Let's talk about some of the corals we've chosen and why we're going with it. It looks like mainly kind of a mixed reef [music] though at this point. It it really is. I I had thought a little bit about trying to keep it to one kind of um uh environmental area or another like a Caribbean tank or Pacific tank, but there's just so much cool stuff all around the world that you want to really have access to it. [music] Um you know, the the torches and the other uh ones that are large and flowing have one kind of look. [music] Um the acros have a totally different look. Um the Monty's um especially the ones that grow and also the ones that plate uh are really cool. Um, so you know, the colors, the textures, just they're weird. And when people come in to see the tank who don't know much about coral, they think they're plants or something, um, or maybe even plastic, um, that can't imagine that these are real living, uh, things, [music] um, you know, symbiotic living things. And so, um, it's been great to show a whole bunch of other people who've never seen anything like this what coral is and what coral can be. Totally. It's like a whole new world for people when they get to see reef tanks. They're honestly a little sticker shock when they get [music] to see it. It's kind of that shock and awe. There's certain corals in the hobby that sometimes become invasive. I know for us, we constantly have to tell people and kind of not steer them away, but there's pulsing zenia, right? It's one of those corals that brings everyone into the hobby. People love it. Let's talk about how you kind [music] of work through and deal with some of the more aggressive corals. Like we have that big group of GSP in the back. How are you guys kind of working to make sure that it doesn't take over the system? Yeah. So, anytime you have a soft coral or something that is going to go crazy, we always try and section it off or just put it in in almost like a little island by itself. And the nice thing about GSP or star polyps is you can let it grow into a mat and you can just peel it away and [music] within a week it's going to look like nothing ever happened to it. So, we'll section it off and just make sure never to let that hit the rock because once that hits the rock, it's going from there. And you could try covering it with epoxy or Aasia [music] X or Calc, anything like that, and it's just going to bounce right back. So, the key is just never let that hit the rock, just like Zenia. But the difference with Star Pops and Zenia, as you know, is the Zen is going to just let loose and it'll wind up where you don't want it to go. One thing that I thought was interesting too was, you know, looking at the overflow. Sometimes overflows can be kind of cumbersome when they're smack in the middle of a tank. They kind of take away from the eye of seeing the system. I like how you've developed the scape around the overflow and kind of building it into the structure, making it a part of the scape. And also, with the sheer amount of corals, now we're kind of covering it up as well. I really like how you guys ended up planning out this scape on this one. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of doing the artificial overflow covers. [music] So, we just tried to build the rock around it. And over time, as the acros and other SPS start taking off, it's really going to disguise the overflow just like you said in the in that first year to two year, it's really going to start taking off and it's going to cover that up. Just more space for more coral line to grow in the end, right? Absolutely. I think I forgot to ask you, how long has this tank been up and running now at this point in the age of the system? Since a year ago, Thanksgiving. So, about a year and a half. Wow. So, some really obviously you brought in some corals from the last system that kind of showcases some of the bigger colonies, but we've been actively adding more things into the tank at this point. Oh, yeah. Tons of stuff. Um, I think every part of it come from Brian's farm. [music] So, um, it's been great to be able to have that kind of quality and, you know, know that the stuff's [music] going to be safe and, uh, not have any parasites or anything on it. And uh we continued adding. We added some stuff just this week and some of the stuff's uh older, but uh it's been it's been a it's a really fun to pick out new corals. There's a lot of uh landscape [music] to cover, so there's a lot of opportunities to grow some cool stuff. And as you said before, there's the room for some of it to get pretty big. Oh, I mean, one of my favorite things to do is shop, right? And with a space like Reef Co, it's nice to be able to go in and do some really cool shopping. Brian, [music] let's talk a little bit about the maintenance, right? So you guys are maintaining this system. Yes, we do maintain it. And then what's the maintenance schedule that we have going on for this tank? And obviously it's a big one, so there's probably a lot of maintenance that [music] goes into it. Yeah, we actually manage to get by with once a week. Um, and we come, we do 20% water change on it. Uh, usually just trying to get any detritus off of the rocks if anything has settled. Uh, cleaning the sand, changing the filter socks. As I told you before, uh, I'm I'm still a big fan of filter socks. protein skimmer, carbon, GFO, just keeping it kind of simple and almost [music] old school approach, but it works and it works for for years. So, [music] uh, that's basically what we're doing. Same thing here, just like I showed you on the other system. Brian, let's talk about some of the equipment. We'll end up making our way downstairs, and you guys are going to really like that section. Let's talk about what we have equipment wise up top with the lights, and then we'll work our way inside the tank. So on this tank, we were able to get away with just using six XR30s, which is nice. Uh the way that the rock is laid out and overflow in the center, we're actually getting really good light all the way down to the bottom. And even in the corners where we have loss or monty's, we're getting actually great growth and great coloration. And we're not even utilizing any bars or anything like that. And then in terms of flow, we were able to just put gyers on the overflow up top. And what was nice about that is we didn't have to drop down in any of the corners and have any additional flow like tonsies or anything like that kind of taking away. I wanted to try and keep it as close to the overflow as possible and not distract from the aquarium. And then down lower, we were able to submerge Nuros all the way to the bottom to kind of get good flow down there, too. Down the road, we may have to utilize flow in the in the corners, too. But for now, everything is doing really well with the Gyrus and Heroes. [music] We've talked about it in pretty much almost all the tank tours. I think flow is one of those things that people overlook. They think about lighting first. They think about their filtration. I think flow is honestly one of those key points to a reef tank to really [music] make it work. People don't understand how much flow all these corals and fish are getting out in the wild. And with a system like this, it's unique in all [music] the different sides, the sheer amount of rockscape and corals as these corals develop. It's one of those things. Do you have to kind of go back in revisit the flow and retanker things around? Yeah. So, like you said, the flow is super important. And having the flow almost behind the the rocks makes it a little bit challenging. You have the the nice thing about the gyus is you're able to kind of position and control the left [music] and the right side and maybe angle one closer to the rocks, one a little bit forward. And if you look throughout the tank, you'll see we're getting decent flow on all of the corals. And what we do when we're going around and servicing the tank is we'll blow off the rocks and make sure nothing is settling. And that kind [music] of helps us gauge if we're getting enough flow throughout the aquarium. And then we can adjust and go from there. With the gyus, as you know, the most important thing is you have to take those blades out, clean them off because when they're running 100% versus 2 months later, you know, it might be a difference of 100 to maybe 50%. So when you clean them and you put them back on, you see the flow is just ripping and and you're like, "Oh, wow. I might have need to do this one or two weeks sooner." And then did you guys end up building the scape in tank or was this something you kind of worked on on like a you know a piece of plywood and back in the shop and kind of got an idea of what you were doing or was this all done on site here locally? Yeah, so we actually really love using real reef rock and they make these mega arches. So, we're able to use some of the mega arches or ext [music] extra extra large arches towards the bottom and then build up using some of the extra-large rock. And then the the real challenge with this tank was bringing the 220 into this [music] tank. So, anytime that you you're moving a tank, it's a balance of kind of spreading around [music] the existing coral and rock and making it look natural and not just have a bunch of big pieces jammed in there like all in one spot. So, that was the real challenge with the rock. We we didn't have any opportunity to build [snorts] something outside the tank and put it in because when this tank was getting filled, we're basically adding another 250 gall from the existing tank. So, it's like we're doing a huge water change kind of. And, you know, you got to keep all that stuff alive, too. So, we got to keep the water warm, the new water warm, put all the rock in, and you know, all new sand, everything like that, all in one shot, pretty much. Well, I know the gear heads are about to get really excited because we're going to make our way downstairs. The life support of a tank. It's the heartbeat of the system. Let's go ahead and make our way down there and let's check in and see what's going on with the sump space. Sounds good. All right, Brian. We are down here in the life support room. There is one thing that I really love whenever you have the ability to set up a sump space down in its own room all by itself is really nice. Getting it away from underneath the tank. [music] Let's go ahead and walk through the sump itself, the size, and then we'll kind of go through all the different uh pieces of equipment we have on the system. [music] Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Uh, anytime you have remote plumbing is just it's the best because [music] it keeps everything clean and dry and quiet upstairs. And as you could see down here, while yes, we do have a room, we do have everything else. We have the gas in here, the um [music] the heat for the house. So, is it's a little tight in here, but we made it work. We're able to get everything exactly where we need it. So, we're utilizing a 60-in sump again with the filter socks. I am a fan of that, so I keep sticking with that. Regal skimmer. Um, [music] and again, we're we're big fans of the optical sensor. We're going to get an alert if something's going on. It's going to shut it off, and that's just going to make it so it's not bubbling up all over our electronics and everything right there. Uh, these Reef Octopus reactors have been amazing. They don't use any sponges. is they're super easy to clean. They have multiple unions on them and and just ball valves right at the top. So, super clean and easy to work with. And then the best pumps that you could get, as you know, anytime you're pumping up and 20 ft [music] for DC pumps, there's not many options. So, we're utilizing two of the Abyiz uh A400's, and they're operating at about 40% or so. Uh, one of them is going through this lifeguard uh, [music] 120 W UV and then the other one just goes straight up. One of them powers the reactors as well. I love to see more Hydros. You guys really believe in the hydro systems and so we've got multiple different pieces of the Hydros collection. Something that I think is ultimately so cool about them is every piece is its own controller and it just kind of [music] continues to grow the collective. Let's kind of talk through the different pieces of Hydros that we're using to on the tank. Yeah. So, [music] I'm a big fan of the X4. It's nice how it comes with the XP8. You get those eight outlets right off the bat. So, I know there's other ones like the Launch and things like that that people also like, but I still stick with the X4. I think it's the [music] best one to go with. Initially, when we first started this system, the Minnow was the only dosing pump. Since then, the Blenny has come out. So, now we have [music] six dosing heads, which has been really nice. Um, and like you said, it's great how you can just continue to add on to that collective. And one really cool thing is that if you wanted to start with just the MinnA or the Blenny, you could start with that and it has these sense ports and [music] um other ports that you can you can add on. You could be getting temperature readings, leak alerts, things like that with only starting with a dosing pump. So, it's a pretty cool feature. But my favorite thing is that if one of them loses Wi-Fi connection, the other one will carry that connection and then pick it back up. So there's no resetting it or anything. It you you I've never actually have lost Wi-Fi connection with a Hydros to the point where we had to reset it or power cycle it, which has been great. We had the two dosing pumps. We've now moved on to six. What are we actively dosing into the tank? We didn't talk about that upstairs. Yeah. So, we're utilizing ESV for two-part uh tropic for trace elements and then um the vitamin C. Uh we do a small amount of that and we noticed that it actually has a great impact on the zuanthods. You [music] just get really nice fat polyps on it. And we were actually struggling with the zuanthods and a while back we experimented with it and we noticed that it it made a big difference. And uh the homeowners uh especially Sarah Andy's [music] wife was like, "Why don't we try the the vitamin C again?" And we put that [music] in and it's been a huge difference. So, it's nice having them as partners in this aquarium and and [music] kind of bouncing ideas and it it was just nice having that have such a quick reaction. And then lastly, we're using CCM fuel, [music] which is basically um or aqua vitro fuel made by CCM. It's basically amino acids and pretty much LPS, SPS, everything. You notice just brighter colors and growth with that. One thing I wanted to hit on before we kind of wrapped up and we went back upstairs, redundancy. Something that you've kind of created in this system down here below is a lot of redundancy. Why are we doing so much redundancy on this tank? For several reasons. As Andy said, he's big into traveling, scuba diving, [music] and this isn't our house. So, we need to be really mindful and especially with the return pumps. Say it's Sunday night, uh, a holiday, whatever. I don't want to get that call where, hey, the tank is not running. And they don't want to get that call from somebody if they're traveling where it's like, hey, mom, dad, whoever's watching the tank, uh, it doesn't look like the water is moving. So, it's always really important for me to utilize two return pumps. That way, one goes down, other one's going to carry it. And then another thing that we do for redundancy as well is we have a lot of fail safes, whether it's optical sensors, float valves, or emergency drains. Like at the top of this sump, we have this inch and a half bulkhead where if for whatever reason, obviously it's sized properly, but if something crazy happens, this drain is going to drain all the way down to a drain totally unrelated to the aquarium that is going to uh prevent water on the floor. You don't you don't want to get that call when you're traveling and you're overseas or anything like that. Yeah. One thing that I think you've done a good job with and we try to do the same thing at TopShelf Aquatics is get equipment that's a little bit bigger than what [music] you actually need. Rather than running everything at 100%, making it work too hard, making it, you know, really outwork itself, [music] you kind of get something above the size you need and allow it to run at a lower percentage. It always cracks me up the fact that [music] we have four, you know, the two Abyss 400s, we're running it at only 40% and there still have so much room to be able to push even more water volume. Well, this has been awesome. I I know the gear heads are going crazy about this one, being able to check out this setup, but let's go ahead and make our way back up top and we'll wrap up. Yeah, let's do it. All right, we've gotten the chance to check out the life support of the system. I want to hear from you. You've been now reefing for coming up on four or five years now at this point. I think ultimately one of the biggest things I love to ask people is a piece of advice. You know, I've been around the reefing scene. Brian's been around the reefing scene for so long, but I think people that have recently gotten into reef keeping, there's a lot to learn from people that are new to the space because you guys are actively trying to learn how to reef on the fly. So, I want to hear from you. Jake Adams used to do it in every single tank tour asking for a piece of advice for a brand new reef keeper. What would your piece of advice be? Well, patience number one. Um, some things happen quick, but most things happen very slowly. Um, it's hard to stay patient when you're worried about something that's going on in the tank. You might see a coral that's starting to show some signs of stress or something. [music] Um, it's really hard to stay patient. Um, also, you know, the fish don't tell you what's wrong with them. So, if a fish dies, you don't exactly know why or how. [music] That can be frustrating, but it's just part of the process. Um, and you can wind up with something great and have something change, but if you're patient, you'll [music] have a chance to do more and get uh bigger. We've definitely gone through some ugly phases and uh very happy that we came out the other side and [music] it was patience uh support belief in Brian and his team and uh [music] and uh some good luck that uh that we got through it and we're very happy with where it turned out. Ultimately, I used to tell people all the time, you know, I'm sure Brian has told this to people as well, if you can get for through that first 365 days of a reef tank, you're heading in the right direction. I think it's kind of evolved now. If you can get through the first 2 years of reefke keeping, then you're headed in the right direction. I want to say [music] thank you guys so much for letting me come by, check out the system crash here in your place for a little bit of time, I probably could stay here all day and sit on the couch and watch this system. [music] This is truly a piece of art that you've been able to create. Brian, big shout out to Reef for what you guys have been able to do here. Whe whether it be the maintenance or just installing the tank in general, this is quite the endeavor. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. If you guys have any comments about or questions [music] about this system, feel free to drop them down in the comments below. If you guys have tuned in all the way [music] through, I want to say thank you very much. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell notification so you don't miss out on any future uploads.