George's 180g peninsula reef tank
 

Mission statement: Building a SPS dominated reef tank with some not so "reef-safe" fish.
Background: After years of keeping corals and marine fish in some "smaller" tanks, I want to get a bigger tank to do a few things that I have learned throughout the years but couldn't implement in smaller tanks. One thing is that I always want to keep some large angel fish. I understand they are not reef-safe, but with a large reef tank, I hope the damage can be spread to various pieces hence minimizing the damage to one single piece. Also after keeping corals for so many years, my passion is back to the thing that draw me to keep marine system in the first place, which is reef fish. Keeping corals in a marine system is a way to re-create a more nature system for the reef fish. I will emphasize on fish instead of corals in this tank.

below is my build progress....

Tank and Stand

Sump

Overflow - internal coast to coast

Skimmer - Reef octopus SRO-3000Int

Plumbing

Auto Top Off (ATO)

First is the main piece, the tank and the stand. I had been looking for a used tank and stand for a while before I settled on a brand new set up. First of there weren't that many (true) used peninsula tanks for sale. A few that for sale were in not that good shape. I bit the bullet and purchased a new tank and a new stand.
It is a standard Aqueon (All glass) 180g, 6'x2'x2', with mission style stand. It wasn't drilled. I had the LFS drilled 2 holes on one side for me. It is intended as a peninsula style tank (room divider), therefore I had the holes drilled on the side.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...Build/tank.jpg

This looks nice. I have a few angels in my sps dominated tank and I have been quite happy with it. I'm sure you'll be happy as well. I look forward to seeing the progress of this build.

Jealous.

Curious where you picked up the tank?

Have you looked at the deep-water angels in the Genicanthus sp.? They are more reef safe and less aggressive than some of the others. Maybe not as eye-catching as say a Regal or Majestic but some of them are quite nice. I particularly like the Bellus Angels. I have a Lamarck's in my reef and it has never touched a coral.

J&L

hehehe, Genicanthus, eh :lol: I have a pair of lamarck (both female for now, heopfully one will turn into a male) in my current tank. They both are nipping at my brain coral and my green birdsnest. So there are no true reef safe angelfish.
Yeah, I like bellus too. I plan to have a pair in my new tank. If I can find a couple healty ones to begin with. LFS had some from time to time. Not healthy at all. Some had decompression issues. Some were very thin.

thanks! I am happy. The tank is as big as I can fit into the area (room divider). Any longer it will be a wall cutting off the 2 areas. :lol:

Looking forward to seeing this tank develop. Peninsula tanks can be so amazing once they are going.

Sump
 

Picked up a used sump the other day. Dimensions are 36"(L)x18"(W)x20"(H). It comes out about 56 gallon. It is a little bit tall for my liking. I was going to get a 40g breeder. But on the plus size it holds more water in case of a drain from main tank to sump happening. It was not baffled therefore I needed to get some glass cut and glued them myself. It has 2 holes drilled and some plumbing connections but I don't plan to use an external pump therefore I will have them plugged.
I am just going to divide the sump into 3 sections, skimmer(drain, 11"L), return (10"L) and refugium (12"L). Pretty standard stuff.

masking it before the gluing.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...uild/sump1.jpg

I am just going to skip the gluing process because it doesn't require any skills. A lot of patient waiting for one baffle to dry before doing the other because they are so close to each other when doing the bubble baffles.
All three partitions are done. Bubble baffles are 9" high. Middle baffle is 1" above the bottom. 1" space between each baffles. Refugium baffle is 11" high. From left to right are skimmer section, return and refugium.
Glass is 1/4".

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...uild/sump2.jpg

Top down view


http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...uild/sump3.jpg

Lessons learned from DIY sump:
1. Get a longest tank you can get for your sump. A short tank making diving sections really challenging.
2. Probably should plan the skimmer first before the sump. A smallish skimmer section really limit the choice of skimmers.
3. Mask the hell out of the tank before applying glue. I got lazy on masking and applying a lot of glue and it shows in the pictures.

Overflow
 

I am going to do an internal coast to coast overflow. I had 2 pieces of glass cut to the length of the side of the tank. Glued them in. Fit perfectly.


http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../overflow2.jpg

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../overflow1.jpg

Looking good so far!

Skimmer
 

I am still building the plumbing. At the mean time, my skimmer arrived. It's a Reef Octopus SRO-3000I (aka RO-PS-3000I). It's rated for 300g. I spent a lot of time researching skimmer because I believe a good skimmer and one that is properly size for your tank is very important.
I heard a lot of good things about reef octopus skimmers. The pump they use on most of their skimmers, the bubble blaster pump, claims to be the first of its kind that is specifically designed for skimmer usage.
I didn't go for a cone version because of a couple reasons. 1. The cone one is insanely more epensive than the non-cone one. 2. I still don't believe that a cone can outperform a non-cone one with the same pump.
Here are some pictures of the skimmer.

It came in a nice box.
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/Skimmer1.jpg

Packaging
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer2.jpg

Skimmer cup cover. Nice logo
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer5.jpg

Bubble blaster 3000...
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer3.jpg

Assembly is easy and quick. Took me less than 10 minutes to assemble the whole thing (including 5 minutes to find out where is the screw hole for the air hose holder)
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer4.jpg

Sit in the sump nicely.
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer6.jpg

How loud do you find that bubble blaster pump?

That logo is such an orko/he-man rip lol.

It's very quiet. If you are the person that rates a pump by its noise then you will definitely love this pump.

Plumbing
 

Finally finished the plumbing. Not sure I mentioned it before but the buckhead is 1". Therefore I use all 1" pipes and fittings. Let's see some pictures...

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing7.jpg
I decided to have only 2 holes drilled because I wanted to implement a herbie style overflow. I knew all about beananimal and its variants. For simplicity and less risk of breaking the glass, I chose herbie. After filled the tank with water and ran it for a week, I am convinced that my decision was correct. Herbie is quiet and doesn't need constant tweaking like some people say. At least I don't have to tweak the valve in 2 weeks that I run it. I will post my running herbie in a later post.
Return is from the top. 2 reasons for that, 1. coast to coast overflow. 2. didn't want to risk breaking the tank by drilling an extra hole.
Talking about the C2C, it's running better than I anticipated. I will have another post later.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing2.jpg
From far to near are emergency drain, main drain and return pipe.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing3.jpg
Bottom of the pipes. Since they are on the side, I built some support structure to support them.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing4.jpg
You can see the section of the plumbing inside the stand. This picture was taken from the top trough the bottom tank glass. From left to right are return pipe, main drain and emergency drain. Main drain and return pipe are controlled by gate valves. You can also see refugium feed below those 3 pipes. For the "last mile" (last piece of a plumping section), I use spa-flex to have a more nature bend.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing5.jpg
Return pump is a eheim 1262. It's quite. The only way I can hear it is to turn off all fans and pump from my other tank in the same room. Even that, it is only a slight hum.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing6.jpg
Return is split to feed refugium section of the sump. Flow is set by a ball valve.

That is all for the plumbing. Let me know if you have any questions.

Auto Top Off (ATO)
 

My ATO has the following components: A 29 Gallon glass tank, an aqua lifter pump, a Digital Aquatics ReefKeeper Lite (RKL) and two float switches. So far it's working great.

29 Gallon glass tank
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO1.jpg

Aqua lifter pump
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO2.jpg

Double float switches.
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO3.jpg

RKL system lab
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO4.jpg

How is this tank coming along? Any updates?