Our New Top Down Tank
 

Alright, so this is going to be a project thread for our new tank. We are from Brandon Manitoba and recently moved to Calgary. Before we moved, i contacted Concept and had them build us a 24"x24"x10" 25 gallon tank which will be mainly a top down tank. Before we left, we built the stand for the tank and just crossed our fingers that the tank fit! So here is the stand in progress.
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690050
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690078
and here it is all painted up
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690114
aaaaaaaaand here is that "tank" we are working with until the actual tank is up!
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690151
thats it for now! more to come tomorrow

The stand looks great! (I'm a painter myself and appreciate quality work)

I like the "custom" light mounting fixture too :wink:

Francis

Looking good! I love the ghetto "tank" LOL

thank you very much! i was pretty happy with how the stand turned out! and about the ghetto tank.... the "light rail" was the girlfriends idea! actually worked pretty good surprisingly lol.

and Kien, you cant tell me you never ran a rubbermaid as a temp tank?! haha

so we got the tank from Denny, and it looked amazing! so we just had to cross our fingers that the tank fit on the stand. Here she is, it fit!
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690265
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690337
it has a centre overflow with dual returns. We picked up some loc-line for the returns
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373690301
thats it for now! more to come soon

Slick looking little top down. Love the light hanger too! I'm going to assume you don't have kids or cats? If you do you've got more guts than me lol.

haha no kids or cats! alright so i got a couple more pictures to share.. Since we are wanting to run this tank bare bottom, and we hate the look of the glass until coraline overtakes, we decided to have the guys at concept cut us a black piece of acrylic to match the back panel for the bottom of the tank. This way, the corals will stick out more, and there will be no distracting glare off of the bottom of the tank. So once i got it home, i siliconed it in place, and here is how it looks
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373767587
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373767550
i love the way it turned out. Matched up the back panel with the bottom quite nicely

Love the black bottom dude looks clean as hell :) build looks killer def following along :) will you get er filled this week?:)

ya Denny i love the black bottom! and yep! tank should have water in it today! For now i have a bit of an update! got the plumbing done for the return. Here is the split to the 2 returns
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373864317
before i could finish the plumbing i had to pick up a sump. Because of the small foot print of the stand, it made it a bit difficult to find one to fit, but then i found one locally that worked perfectly! Its a Aqueon Proflex Model 1 sump.
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4ca18132.jpg
sooooo that allowed me to finish the plumbing. Then i had to tackle the stand for the light. Because we are renting our house, i didnt want to drill into the wall, and i didnt want the light hanger kit coming down from the 11' roof, so i had to make it a part of the stand so its all one unit. Our house has kind of an industrial feel to it so i decided to go with galvanized steel and paint it black. here is what i came up with
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373908964
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373908934
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373908899
and here it is with the Radion on it!
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373909949
thats it for now! more to come soon

Love it! I have a look down tank myself, and its my favorite one. Wondering why you went with a eurobrace? On such a shallow tank I would have thought it wouldn't be necessary?

Looking good . Nice job on the light bracket , fits in well with the brick wall behind.
painted black bottom is neet too . Im guessing your are going bare bottom then ?

wow Man that looks really good the light hanger is a great idea.

We went eurobrace because rimless on a small tank scares me. With a tank this small thats rimless, things like scrubbing the glass turns into more of a chore because you are constantly worried about throwing water out of the tank. With the eurobrace, i can have my arms in the tank and splashing around and not have to worry about splashing water out of the tank. The eurobrace is definitely NOT necessary but it was our preference to run it.
thanks! I'm happy with the industrial look of the light stand, and like you said, it fits nicely with the industrial feel of the house. The back acrylic bottom was installed because we will be running bare bottom!
Thanks!

Very nice tank! I always liked the idea of top-down tanks. Concept did a great job of the tank and I really like the idea of the black acrylic bottom, fits very well with the overall look. Excited to see what it evolves into.

thanks a lot! i have always wanted to do a nice shallow tank so here was my chance. And i would have to agree, the guys at Concept did an amazing job on the tank.
So, we picked up a Mag 7 for the return (i know they are not the quietest but i have had a Mag 18 running on my 120 gallon for 9 years and have NEVER had an issue with it), so we went that route for the reliability. We also snagged a phosban reactor, so im hoping to have some pictures up a bit later!

alright, so here is the sump how it was originally. We are going to run skimmerless for a little bit until we find out if we are going to keep this sump or not. Anyway, here it is
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1373910383
and here it is now
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374006073
im hoping the small centre section will serve as a fuge, but for now, all we have in there is the chatoe

looks good man I have always love my Mag pumps people hate them. Bt I have been using them since 2001 and with no problems

Your going to want the surface water as smooth as possible for your look down. You may need to put a valve on your return pipe and throttle it down so that the water hitting the surface causes as little turbulence as possible.

Look just to the left of the phosban reactor... Already have a valve on the return!

aaaaannnnnnndddddd here is a sneak peek of whats in it!
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374033006
hopefully you all like!

Or turn off pumps and powerheads as I do when I stare into tank.

Tank looks awesome. Also have a look down and buy-far my favorite

thanks Titus99! Well, i emptied out their temp home and transferred the coral over to the tank. We are waiting on rock, and the powerhead is getting swapped out for an MP10 shortly, but here it is!
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374094341

Looks really nice, i like your build!

honestly with a small system it's easy enough to do waterchanges and not run a skimmer, I don't know what your stock plans are for coral but I'd say if its mostly softies and Lps then definately they would explode going skimmerless. Post more pics!

Beautiful tank!

I've been running my Deep Sea waterfall tank for a year now skimmer less. it's mosly anemones, ricordea, acans and zoas and so far ( knock on wood) its the best running tank ive ever had!

Thanks! Our stock plans are zoos/palys, acans, and a couple sps pieces here and there. Im thinking with the fuge, it will help a lot. Not to mention i dont mind doing weekly water changes.
Here are a few more pictures! Sorry they aren't the greatest quality but you get the idea!
Side view
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374340775
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374340796
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374340831
miami vices
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374340895
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374341093
thats it for now!

Finally got a few lbs of rock in the tank. Here it is. This is likely only going to be set up like this for a few days as we are getting more rock soon!
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1374854648

how do you like living in Calgary alot better I bet

Yea I like it a lot better. Can get waaaay better stuff out here and not have to order every little thing I need!

Nice tank Erik, got some sweet pieces there!

Lol thanks man! Thanks again for the frags. The sunset Monty looks killer under the Radion!

Very nice looking tank.

I'm looking at getting a new tank built, Can I ask who Denny is? and how do I get ahold of him? And where in calgary do you get your corals?

That would be me:) just send me a pm and i can help you out for a custom tank:)

Yep that is Denny!^
I highly recommend their work. Very happy with the quality of the tank

Alright so here it is! We have a total of 18lbs in the tank for now, and i think that is the way its going to sit for a few months. Here is a fts
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1375144846
Left side
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2665d371.jpg
Right side
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1375144795
Im hoping to post some top downs tomorrow!

Nice! No fish plans?

I hope to pick up some designer clowns, but other than that I'm not sure what we are going to do. Would love to put a wrasse in there but I have no desire to obstruct the view of our top down tank with a lid! Any suggestions?

Got a few top downs! Let me know what everyone thinks! And any input for fish would be appreciated
Full tank
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...pse3a1f8fa.jpg
Left side
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...ps37770acb.jpg
Right side
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...ps35bb9151.jpg
and the branch across
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1375222718
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1375222757

This tank is coming along nice, I like the top down shots....

Great selection in corals aswell, it will look stunning once the stuff fills in. Keep up the good work!

Very nice, got to love the zoas keep it up!!

I'm liking your new setup :smile:

What are your plans for the frag tiles etc ?

Thanks a lot!
Thanks! i have always been a big zoanthid and paly fan.
Our plans are to let everything grow down over the plugs and on to the rocks. What i usually do is let the zoas or palys grow onto the rock, then eventually, cut the old frag plug out. That way my frags are established and FULL of polyps!