New reef in the works, 225g

[Dave C]

There isn't a lot of space above the sump for a refugium light. The best I could find is a Coralife 24" Aqualight. It fits perfect, and has two 65w PC bulbs... even a fan.



The tank is now built, is curing & being water tested. I hope it will ship in a week or so. The skimmer & kalk mixer should be coming soon. The rest of the equipment will come with the tank.

Next week I plan to get most of the plumbing done. The holes are drilled on the tank and I've got the details of where they are, pictures to support it. So I should be able to get the plumbing supplies now. I figure I'll drill the plywood & styro that the tank sits on and then drill the shelf below and just drop the plumbing straight down into the sump. I'll also have to route one pipe over to the skimmer and then to the sump but the returns can come straight up to the tank as well. I want to do this now so I can figure out where I can mount the UV since it will be strapped to the underside of the shelf.

I'm also going to get the wood for the shroud for the tank stand. I'm leaning towards birch plywood. It's very smooth & flat and should look great. I want to have 3 separate doors to the stand, one for each section & two sides. The height of the wood will be 2" taller then the stand so it will cover the plywood, styro and the bottom pane of glass. It will also extend 1" beyond the back edge of the stand to keep my cat out of there. I want to make cutouts on the doors for the DJ panel, Aquatronica controller & Tunze controller. I figure if I don't I'll just be constantly removing the boards to see what's going on.