lastlight's 225

[Tom R]

Great start.

Building the Reef on the scraps she tosses you looks like it will be top of the line. That equipment list is an impressive start.

Tom R

Originally Posted by lastlight

Well this one's going to be slow. The wife prefers me to pay the bills and keep our daughter happy so I'll build my new reef on the scraps she tosses me I guess!

Here's what I have planned:

- 225 gallon tank (72x30x24, all 1/2" except 3/4" bottom, black silicone, 3 sides starfire, eurobraced, black plexi back, enternal overflow)
- Sump (dimensions unknown right now)
- (3) 250w mh in Luminarc III's
- (4) 39w t5 supplementation
- Bubble King 250 Supermarine
- Geo 618 calcium reactor
- Geo Kalkwasser reactor
- (2) Eheim 1262 returns, each feeding a seperate manifold on top of the tank
- (2) Tunze 6101 Streams
- (1) Tunze Wavebox (This is a maybe if I feel brave)
- Profilux controller

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by 'Ol Nobodaddy

Looks good.

Do you use that fireplace a lot?

We moved into the house in Feb and haven't even turned it on to burn the nasty film off the glass yet. We rarely used our last one either so I'm safe there.

Originally Posted by digital-audiophile

Nice build! I love the picture on the wall too!

Hey thanks! Im actually selling prints of that if you're *really* interested. Man that was shameless.

Originally Posted by Tom R

Great start.

Building the Reef on the scraps she tosses you looks like it will be top of the line. That equipment list is an impressive start.

Tom R

Hey everyone starts out ambitiously! I'm sure that list will change when I realize it's going to take me 10 years to get it all together hehe. My wife is actually really excited to have a tank in the house again and she's going to disneyland after waiting her whole life so I plan to leverage that after!

[digital-audiophile]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Hey thanks! Im actually selling prints of that if you're *really* interested. Man that was shameless.

Sure I would be interested! PM me with a price if you could. I didn't know you were an artists, I'd be interedt to see some of your other work too.

[Lance]

The wave box would be very cool! Go for it!

[calkrog]

are you planning on having a removable brace in the front. thats a long stretch with a lot of weight on just a 2x4.

[lastlight]

There is a 4 foot span across that opening. I'd really LIKE to put a vertical brace there...it just makes access difficult. Any other opinions on this? I might remove those two front braces and replace them with 1 inn the center and just deal with it. With an opening that's around 30" on each side I might be able to get a sump in there later I'm not sure. I wish I had the sump to test that.

What about this idea: I trim those front two supports shorter and insert another horizontal 2x4 on top of them spanning all the way across the front. So the front would realy be 2x8. Extending this idea to span that horizontal 2x4 across the actual corners would be nice but it's all glued and would be a real chore to rip apart...

[Delphinus]

Cool stuff.

You could always double-up a 2x6 or 2x8 in behind the front beam maybe if you wanted to keep the area brace free.. I built the stand for my 280g using a 2x6 and a 2x8 doubled up to cover the span and when I had water in the tank I measured for any signs of deflection and could not find anything even after 2 months. I'm not a structural engineer though so I'm not sure if there's a better criteria.

[lastlight]

At this point I think what I will do is simply make the center opening narrower. It's a little over 4 feet wide as it is but I'm not sure why i wanted to be able to push a 4 foot sump straight in. If i make that gap say 3 feet wide instead i can still slide the sump in and I don't think a 3 foot gap would be trouble at all.

[Delphinus]

Don't really see any reason why that wouldn't work either.

[lastlight]

What do ppl here recommend for a sump? I was thinking a 75 gallon or something. That would be 1.5 feet wide and 4 long. Think i could fit that in there through a 2.5 foot opening given the stand's front to back width of 2.5 feet?

I think I need to rig a cardboard tank and test that one out lol...