150g designs

[abromby]

I am interested in building my own salt water aquarium......(150g acrylic or glass?). Does anyone have any comprehensive schematics for the tank and sump pump, I could use? I am starting from scratch and would like to do it properly with protein skimmer and w/e else is needed. I would like it to have coral as well as fish.
thanks.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Firstly, Welcome to Canreef!

Second, do you have a budget in mind? It might be cheaper to buy a tank, or have it made by one of the local shops.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I was about to buy the acrylic to build a tank a few months ago about 150G actually and it was going to be WAY more expensive than just buying one from a shop. Acrylic sheets alone (decent quality ones that you can use for tanks) were about $350-400 for a 4x8 sheet. I basically was looking at over $1200 alone for the acrylic. Not really worth it IMO. Im not sure about glass but it gets really expensive when you need thick glass. The shallower (height) the tank is, the thinner the glass you can use though.

Hope that helps in some way but unless your going over 220G, I would just buy one from a retail store or look used. That is unless this needs to be custom for some reason???

[Richard_Dicosimo]

decent brand new tank will run you from 200-400$ for 100gal i would say depending where you get it. i just had a custom made tank from golds aquarium in Calgary it was a 70 gal for 350$... granted that is a custom tank, which is a bit more expensive. you should deffinatley talk to Albert or Denis from golds they will set you up for a very reasonable price and in my experience thier knowledge on all things aquarium is second to none in Calgary!
heater will set you back anywhere from 50-150$ depending how many you get and quality.
skimmer if you get a decent one probably at least 300$
lights for a decent set at least 200$ probably way more if you get a good set from the start which you should do because if you are serious about this hobby you will just end up upgrading in the future.
if you go with a sump the cost of a sump this can be done cheap.
if you go with sump you will need a return pump that will cost at least 100 for an ok one.
then you will need live rock at golds the cheapest rick can be bought for the low low price of 5$ a lb and thats DEFFINATELY the best price in town.

you can DIY some of this stuff like the skimmer and lights but depending what you do it isnt always best and usually ends up costing just as much.

just a heads up

but Talk to Albert he is the man!

[abromby]

thanks for all the information folks, good stuff. I agree, the acrylic is probably outside of my budget, so glass it is. I'll just need a small crane to lift it into place. I sure could use a link to where there are good diagrams of how the tank and sump tank are connected and how they are installed with all the components.

thanks again all.

[Doug]

Welcome to Canreef


I have moved, with help & an appliance mover, tanks up to 180g with no problems.

If nobody posts any links, I will find some later. In the time being, you could try the search feature here and our reference library.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Check out melevsreef.com for lots of great information.

[abromby]

thanks Drew....Absolutely awesome.....I had run into this site some time ago, but lost it....it is exactly what I was looking for. Onwards.......
much appreciated.

[kwirky]

I got the glass for my 120g cut at bow valley and assembled it myself. the experience of dealing with bow valley wasn't perfect, very long delays.

But I found bow valley's glass was WAY cheaper than getting glass from anywhere else. The glass for my 120g was all 12mm which is not typically that thick for the sides of a tank that size. It cost me about $320 for the glass, and $10 a hole for it to be drilled. The eurobracing cost me about $15 cut. I assembled it with the help of a friend to hold things steady without any problems.

If you're looking at tank design for a 150g tank, maybe a 3'x3'x28" 157g tank. That can then be lit by a single 400W MH light in a lumenarc III reflector. Plus the glass isn't a crazy height so the sides can be 12mm glass. The bottom would be 16mm. A tubular steel stand would be recommended with cross-beams on the upper part of the stand to support the tank.

You'd then have a sweet sweet 3'x3' space for a sump and other equipment.

Plus a tank with those kind of dimensions give you depth, front to back, in your tank to aquascape. That's my own "dream" tank anyways that I'll have at some point down the road.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Remember though if you want to keep tangs and some of the more "active fish", a 3'x3' tank would not work. They will go nuts if they can only swim 3' before having to turn around.