Pro AV Corp's Aquarium Divison, Reef Art Systems, custom fabricates starphire glass aquariums, custom acrylic sumps, and custom filtration components. Reef Art Systems also offers maintenance services, consulting, and engineering of marine systems. We build our systems to reflect mother nature's physical, biological and chemical parameters in order to keep the most demanding marine organisms alive. We also modify client's existing systems to make them better for sustaining life. We couple this science with state of the art technology, equipment, and custom designed furniture to deliver breath-taking results.
The Campisano job - Long Beach Island
Our current project is a 380 gallon custom starphire aquarium built into the staircase of an exclusive long beach island residency. The aquarium sits on the 1st floor viewable from the foyer, living room and kitchen. The sump and system components will reside in a room on the basement floor off the garage. As we aquire images we will update the site weekly to show the progress of this system.
The tank is 48" wide x 48" tall x 38" deep. The viewable panels facing the living room and the kitchen are 3/4" tempered starphire glass panels. The bottom, back and top of the aquarium is 1" thick cast acrylic. The glass is bonded to the acrylic using a high strength acetoxy silicone. The tank, sump and proprietary filter and lighting components were all built on site. The lighting of the system consists of 2 - 14k 400 watt icecap metal halides with 4 - 110 watt vho o3 flourescents. The ballasts and timers will be hidden in a closet behind the aquarium.
The next set of images show the vertical arrangement of the live rock in the display. 150 lbs of Tonga Kalieni, 300 lbs of Pukani and 300 lbs of Fiji ultra - all super large show piece quality rock have been used for this 380 gallon microcosm. Another 200 lbs of live rock busted into golf ball and peanut sizes pack a 60 gallon custom R.A.S. trickle box in the sump. Residing in the basement is the 90 gallon sump system with a 4 foot precision marine protein skimmer hooked up to a MDM hammerhead 1/3 hp low head series pump at 6,000 gph. The main pump is an RK2 4070 high head series 1 hp pump at 7,000 gph. A Precision Marine calcium reactor, Spectrapure ro/di & liter meter, Aqualogic temperature controllers and chiller, and R.A.S. custom acrylic sump doser & resevoir system completes the remote filtration, chemical dosing and control system. The system is completely automatic except for feeding the aquarium inhabitants and the cleaning of the front glass panels. From this point it will take the aquarium 1 month to cure the liverock of decaying organisms that did not make the shipping and transition into their new home. Once the cycle is complete we can commence with adding the corals, fish and invertebrates into the aquarium. Very exciting stuff...
The Renaissance job
This project is a custom modification of 2 - 210 gallon AGA aquarium/stand combinations for Renaissance Insurance. Both systems have been retrofited with 3 - 400 watt 10k metal halide pendants by Ice Cap, Inc. The Ice Cap ballasts and Neptune Systems control hardware are hidden within the drop ceiling. The lighting for each system will also consist of 4 - 160 watt actinic vho flourescents. Tripplite surge suppression and line conditioning protects the electronic ballasts and processors.
Both systems are automatically fed water replenishment, calcium, and an alkalinity liquid additive from a remote location. We are using Spectrapure equipment for the reverse osmosis/deionization to make pure water and Spectrapure litermeters to accurately dose ESV B-ionic to both systems. We built custom 5 gallon acrylic resevoirs for the chemicals, and retrofited a 20 gallon garbage pail to hold the pure water. At the bottom of the pail, there will be a 6" aragonite sand bed in order to raise the ph and to add back some bicarbonates to the replenishment water.
In this next set of images, you can get an idea of how much equipment goes into keeping the environment right for our precious reef inhabitants. The second image shows the ventilation system we built to vent the heat generated by the 1/3 hp Aqualogic chiller. We were unable to build the vent within the wall like we originally planned due to metal bracing. So, we stepped out the wall to accomplish the task. Two - 5" Icecap fans also remove heat generated from the lights within the canopy into this ventilation shaft. The shaft goes through the ceiling and finally out of the building. The four Hi-Tech pumps you see at the top of the tank will provide 3,000 gph of water motion at 60 watts - now that's efficient! The circulation of the Hi-Techs coupled with a Dolphin Ampmaster 3000 (which is being used to run the tank/sump system transfer, rated at 3,600 gph at 150 watts) totals 6,600 gph of water circulation at 210 watts total - great for keeping fish in motion...
Once the system is turned on and all the equipment is cooperating we can make salt water and add the live rock. The rock we choose for these 2 tanks are the Fiji ultra show peices and the Tonga Kaleini show pieces. Large pieces help build a more dynamic rock scape. There is approximately 350 lbs of rock in each aquarium and another 50 lbs busted up into golf ball size pieces within the trickle box in the sump. This will create an environment for cryptic life forms to grow and flurish. Normally most of the filter feeders that breed in the trickle box(feather dusters, sponges, tunicates, amphipods, worms) eventually make it back into the tank and keep the cycle of life replenished. A protected area like the live rock trickle box keeps hungry fish and crustaceans from decimating the populations of these organisms within the tank. 200 lbs of ESV Aragonite sand makes up the substrate for each tank. Properly positioning the powerheads and returns gives us the ability to maintain the hills and valleys in the sand to make a more natural look.
My first love
I built this 150 gallon (Tank - L,W,H - 48" X 24" X 30") Starphire aquarium back in 1998 when i got back from California. I ran the aquarium for about 7 years before breaking it down and putting it into storage for another 2 years. It now resides at Pratt Institute in the english department under the proud ownership of my good friend Randy Donowitz. It was the first aquarium i ever built and i have to say it's built like an Abrams M1 battle tank. The construction is 1/2" black poly cast acrylic, 1/2" starphire glass for the front and side panels, bonded together with acetoxy silicone rated at 750 psi, and all edges are encapsulated by a milled polar 2 by 3 construction and maple finished furniture grade 3/4" plywood. There are about 900 stainless steel screws between the tank, the canopy and the stand. The acrylic has an epoxy resin barrier protection between the acrylic and glass points close to the wood edges all around. The internal acrylic overflow is rated at 3,000 gph which ports through the bottom of the aquarium with 2 - 1 inch returns and 1 - 1-1/2 inch drain to the trickle box. Randy is using a different sump from the original system that was on the tank during the years that i had it. Here are some of the pictures of the aquarium now along with some other aquariums maintained by Randy at my old school.
The MannyFish job
This project for MannyFish involved linking 9 tanks on a 16 foot custom built shelf to a single sump system. It was originally setup to breed discus and was later converted into a Reef system.
