Todd's Custom 135, Sump, top off, Stand and Canopy

[Todd]

So about a year ago I moved, and had a really large living room in the place I was renting. I decided that my 33g reef with no sump was really too small for the room. Despise my financial situation at being a full time amature athlete, I upgraded to a used 70g Reef with stand, canopy, MH system and sump. This was a great system, and I learnt alot using it.

After retiring as an athlete, but before starting back to school, I started to work for a local tank manufacture. After seeing all of the nice new custom tanks going out of the shop I decided that I should have one for myself.

I knew that I wanted a 6' long tank, but I really didn't want to have a large gallon-age, so I settled on a lay-down 135. The tank Dimensions are 72'L x 24'W x 18' T. Basically a short 185, as it was going to be a room divider I wanted to be able to have the extra width to aqua-scape with.

My 70g tank was tucked into a corner of the living room, and although I enjoyed it, I really needed to make time in my day to watch the tank, as it was out of the way. The new tank I wanted in a prominent position in the house where you would see it and not be able to miss it. So it went into the very center of the largest room in the house, as a room divider. This meant that you could see it when you walked in the front door, from the living room (a couch back is against one end of the stand), the kitchen, the kitchen eating area, the sun room and the dining room (although we have no dining room table).

Being a room divider created some interesting problems - ie where to put the overflows, drains and return, and how to get the cords into the canopy without them looking horrible. All of these problems were overcome by a center overflow box. This allowed me to put 4 holes into the bottom and have them all covered so they could not be seen from the outside of the tank. It also gave me 16 feet of glass free of any unsightly overflow box, return plumbing or cords.

The goals of this tank were to have it highly automated, efficient, expandable (equipment wise) and very quiet. The profilux and an Auto feeder take care of the automation. Having one pump service my skimmer and return allows it to be quiet, along with a herbie overflow. Efficiency was mainly with regards to not having things work against each other, ie heater and fans or too many lights - again accomplished by the profilux.

Here is my equipment list:

Tank: Laydown 135g Display

Sump: 45g Baffled with cheato refugium, skimmer compartment and return chamber with probe holders

Lighting: 2 x 400w MH, 2 x 54 dimmable T5 (on a profilux)

Top up: 20g Tank with maxi-jet 1200 and profilux water level sensor and float valve to connect to RO/DI when away

Return: Reeflo Snapper (2600GPH)

Drain: Herbie Style

Skimmer: Custom Bullet Style becket skimmer (Sized at 1.5)

Flow: Additional Flow provided by Tunze 6055

Additional Equipment: Profilux with dimmable ballast, LED lighting sticks in the mail, 2 x 4" Cooling fans in canopy (profilux controlled), CF Cheato lighting, 300w Heater, Auto-Feeder with Flake and Cyclopeeze.

I have no pictures of the actual building process but I took some today of the finished product.

Tank:











Sump:





Additional Equipment, top up tank, plumbing and Overflow: