Truely shallow reef tank build
 

Well now that my 8' tank is gone, time to start on a new tank

I put in an order for a new tank from concept aquatics

Going with a very shallow peninsula tank with a large footprint (72x30x12)

It will be a reef/frag hybrid system

Started building the stand today, might finish it down the road when I'm not so lazy....

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psbe8a7880.jpg

2 coats marine primer
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps17313c54.jpg

3 coats semigloss black
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psb5e5e41b.jpg

Just need to do all the woodwork (at least the parts that need to get done before the tank goes on...)

Front section of the stand will be closed in on the sides with shelving for electronics, and a bit of storage with a door on the front

Sides will have 2 doors per side with those fancy soft closing cabinet hinges but I might just get doors made to match the color of my kitchen (I don't like doing edging on doors... Or anything)


Back will be open

:popcorn:

This one I'm actually gonna finish haha

Got some equipment showing up on the weekend

vertex omega 150
Second vertex rx-u 1.5
2 speedwave pumps

When's the tank to be done?

What king of frag/ hybrid setup. Is it divided to have build in frag tank

Tank should theoretically arrive tomorrow

Basically ill have 1/3 of the tank with colonies and then the whole floor of the tank will eventually be frags

Getting closer... Tank arrives at oceanic corals tomorrow morning and i pick up all my new vertex omega, vertex rxu reactor, and 2 speedwave pumps from oceanic on Friday

For livestock I'll I have planned so far is:

Achilles tang
Bariene tang
Purple tang
Coris wrasse

And whatever else my wife wants...

Tank arrived


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps27c0ba51.jpg

:pop2:

x2


:pop2::pop2::pop2:

Receiving a new tank before you go to work makes for a really long work day....

Only 7hrs left until I get to go home and unload it

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psb5e8f819.jpg

Stand temporarily in place, lots of rearranging to do and I still have to do a section of the woodwork on the stand before I can put the tank on.

I'm gonna ditch the projector screen and paint a section of the wall beside the tank for the screen

Lots of drywall work to be done. still have to run my top off line and water change lines through the wall from the garage to the tank. Previous owners destroyed the walls when they moved out and I've been procrastinating a lot as far as fixing them)


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psaf6f8289.jpg

Another teaser shot of the tank
I'm going to start on the acrylic on Saturday when my new plastic cutting end mills show up but ill be drilling and plumbing the tank Friday.

For plumbing I'm going with 2 1-1/2 drains (herbie) and 2 locline returns through the coast to coast powered by a speedwave dc pump (the bigger one)

Not gonna miss this one. :popcorn:

LOOKING GOOD Tyler, you got lots of people watching the progress on the build.
Including me :popcorn:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psfeca2206.jpg

Drilled some holes this morning and cut and painted some wood to start the cabinet section of the stand. Painting the inside of the cabinet white.

Didn't get much done over the weekend, I was planning on having water in it but forgot to buy some stuff and didn't wanna make a trip into town for a couple fittings

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps9c9e85c0.jpg

Acrylic all cut and siliconed in

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps7fd41bff.jpg

Tank on stand with top and bottom of cabinet installed

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps31e064b1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps8b08774b.jpg
Returns plumbed

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psff2eaa82.jpg

Reactors ready to go in

Returns will be powered by the largest speedwave and reactors by a small one

looking good man! that footprint is pretty cool, and the overflow on the end makes a very slick clean look. nice job so far. Keep the updates coming!

Progress has been slow as I've had a busy few weeks... Managed to pick up a 75g for a sump, finished plumbing the drains and filled it with water


Also discovered that my floor is a half inch out of level over 4'

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps9445fea4.jpg

Coming along nicely! Keep up the great work and keep em pictures coming.

The build is coming along nicely, what lights are you planning on running on this set up?

what is in the left reactor

hydroton

for now and possibly long term depending on growth i get out of it and temperature, im going with a 72" 3x 250w halide w/ 2 t5ho but i will only be running 2 of the halides. if i dont have any heat problems i ill probably stick with the halides but the other 2 options are a arduino build (already have all the parts except the actual leds) or a vertex illumina 260

Did some work on the tank this morning.

Speedwave is hooked up with temporary lines, dry rock placed randomly in a pile, salinity at 1021

Hopefully on the weekend ill get more of the stand finished so I can organize all the cords, get the reactors online, mount the controllers for the speedwaves, give my coralife my fixture some much needed tlc, and add some sand.


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps384f9de5.jpg

Plans for my lighting have changed a bit (wife doesn't like the coralife, says its to bulky) so I'm going to hang 2 250w 20 000k de pendants over the tank and some 3w blue diy pendants for moonlights. Reactors are online and I pick up my vertex omega from oceanic on Friday.

Still haven't made any progress otherwise except for the tank is now officially cycling.

As bad of an idea it may be, I do not plan on using a qt tank for fish as the only 3 fish I care about putting in the tank are an Achilles, a bariene, and a purple tang and I've found they don't handle qt all that well, I'm just going to be picky about where they come from.

Tank is completed its cycle as far as i can tell...

Installed my new vertex omega 150 and love it, apparently I had some excess nutrients as it pulled close to 3gal in 2 days

And it's quiet



Started on the light

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps10445898.jpg

First coat done, now for some sanding and a few more coats. Hoping I bought enough paint as high temp paint isn't cheap :(

Your tank makes me want to build a new tank...and it's only been a year for me...augh my poor wallet :frown:

Tbh IMO it's kind of an eye sore right now... Gotta get some doors built

So I've been slacking on finishing the stand but I have added some livestock...

Fragged all the zoa and paly colonies in my nano and transferred them to the tank and added a Red Sea sailfin, a maculiceps tang and a bariene tang

Tank looks awesome so far. Did you get the lights hung yet? are you going to leave it open in the top or build in a cabinet?

Still haven't finished the lights, for now I'm just running 2 250w de 20000k pendants

No canopy going with an open top

The bariene and maculiceps tang have been coming out alot more now and are both eating although they're both still skittish while I'm near the tank

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps36dc4541.jpg

Tomorrow I'm going to do a water change and siphon all the gravel out that was on some rock I had in there temporarily