Max's "almost a cube" tank
 

Hey everyone, this thread will be about my 50g tank.

I guess I'll start of with a bit of history, and how I got into this hobby. You can skip this part, it might get a bit boring ahah. I've always had fish tanks since I was little, but the addiction to salt began about 4 years ago. At the time I was working a a petstore with one of the members on here. One day he told me he had a salt water tank and to me that sounded pretty awesome. I started doing some research, and about 6 months later I had my first salt water tank. It was a simple 10 gallon with some zoas, acans, hammer, and a two clowns. The 10g didn't last very long, because after 3 months I realized I needed to go bigger. So I upgraded to a 29g, which I had running for about 2 years. Then I had to move to a new house, which is how this tank started.

Tank and Project info:

The tanks was build in May of 2009, I had it sitting at the new place since then. During the summer, the stand was build and painted. That was about it, I was working some mad hours, so not that much got done. In September school started again, and I was doing some little things here and there just to keep this moving. Everything was officially finished during the winter break, and it is now up and running.

Specs:

Tank: 24x24x20 50g with an external overflow (Herbie)
Sump:25x19x12 25g with 3 sections
Lighting: LumenBright 250w DE pendant running on a Lumatek ballast. I'll be using a Phoenix 14k bulb.
Skimmer: Vertex IN100 Gen.2
Flow: Vortech MP20 + QO 4000 return (I have some doubts about this pump, but we'll see how it goes for now)
Misc: TLF Reactor (for carbon, etc), ReefKeeper Lite

Enough talking, here are a few not so great pictures:

This is the skeleton of the stand, and the sump. I used 1.5" square tubing for the stand.... I know it is a little overboard haha.
http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1263867562

http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1263868080

Up on the stand.

http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1263868020

http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1263868116

The panels are painted in New Vogue Silver Metallic. This is the same color Honda uses for their cars. So if you drive a silver Honda, it might look familiar to you haha. They are also held in place by 4 Neodymium magnets on each panel.

I'll have a few more pictures up later this week.

Criticism, comments and questions are always welcomed.

Thanks for looking everyone.

Max

4 out of 5 stars! You can have that 5th star when you paint that strip of pink foam running around the tank/stand :-) hehe

looks really nice actually, what are your plans for the tank?

that tank and stand looks awesome. where did ya get the tank from?

Nice lookin tank!! Can't wait to see it all filled up.

Agreed.....tank and stand look "killer"

Thanks for all the kind comments.

Hahaha I knew someone would mention that. Actually the pink is gone, these pictures were taken a few weeks ago during the test fitment of everything. It will all be silver in the next set of pictures.

As for plans, I would like to try out some SPS. My last tanks were mostly softies with a few LPS here and there. I don't want to clutter the display with a bunch of rock, so I was thinking of doing a few islands. A big one for the SPS and a little baby one to the side for the zoas and all the other good stuff.

The tank was build by Elite. I build the sump myself, it was a bit scary but not as bad as I tought it would be. Turned out alright for my first DIY sump.

Nice tank, very clean. lol once you mentioned the color it did look a tad bit familiar

what are you in school for?

Thank you. I was hoping someone would recognize it...didn't want to look like a fool haha. I can now polish, wax and clay bar my stand :lol:

I am studying geophysics, here at the UofC.

I'll have a few more pictures up on Thursday.

lol clay bar your stand. but could you take some shots of how you assembled your skinning. i'm just about to go mine (should have done it from the start) and i really like how yours turned out

i agree tank and stand are gonna be sweet when its done. Currently trying to skin my stand but work keeps getting in the way. Booo work