miles405 | 58 Gallon Tank

[miles405]

Now that or second kid has arrived and things have settled on the home front I am finally upgrading from my 24 gallon nano cube! The future tank will be mostly sps, but will have other corals and the rose anemone.

I have made arrangements to buy Durwin's Oceanic Ultimate 58 gallon tank. At some point soon I will make it by to get the tank.

In the meantime I have been preparing. I plan to order some plumbing supplies and equipment from Bulk Reef Supply and through Ocean Treasures.

This weekend I made the sump and have started to test it for leaks. The sump is 26x14x16 with the center intended to be a refugium Below are some pictures of the sump and the my current tank.

Current planned equipment list: (items in bold have been purchased or I have agreed to purchase)
58 gallon Oceanic Ultimate Tank 36.5x18.5x21
2- 250 watt mh icecap ballast with pfo pendants
2- 36" Sunlight Supply Tek T5 with antic bulbs
Auto Top from autotopoff.com with aqualifter pump
Red Sea Wavemaker to run 2 Koralia pumps (not looked a size yet)
Mag drive 7 return pump

Protein Skimmer (Still somewhat of a debate-suggestions appreciated)
Super Reef Octopus SRO-1000
Reef Octopus Extreme 160
Bubble Magus nac-6 or nacC7
Vertex in-100

I am also looking at a media reactor from bulk reef supply. They say you can run GFO and carbon in 1 unit. Do you want to run both continuously? My current tank has carbon full-time. My test always come back negative for phosphate, so I have not looked into running gfo.

My future tank will have NO XENIA!. All attempts to control it have only made it spread more. After I have transfered everything, I will have a ton of it to give away.

Thanks for looking
Nick
Current Tank

Sump Material

Sump

Attached files /attachments/sites/default/files/DSC_0888_4.JPG

 

[miles405]

Leak test went well. I had to patch 1 area, but not it is water tight.

I am looking at getting the bulk reef supply media reactor. Is it ok to tee off the return pump to the reactor, or should I use the maxi jet?

Nick

 

[99sf]

Wow, I am impressed that you built your own sump from scratch! Where did you find the design for your sump? You will have enough lights in your new system to sustain the most light-intensive organisms.

 

[miles405]

The sump was my own design, but I think it is like a lot of other simple ones. I spent a good amount of time on melvsreef site. It has a lot of information about layout and construction. It was pretty easy to do the big clamps were key.
I am pretty sure I will have enough light with the duel 250 metal halides. I took a quick glance at mark's article as tank of the month. I think it said he was using 250s on his tank with vhos.

 

[A_Lee]

Pictures don't work

 

[miles405]

Good news- I have the tank and stand.
Bad news- the sump does not fit in the stand.

I bought a Tech 70 stand because for the deal I got, it has the largest openings. This gives me more room for the equipment and room to slide the sump in. Problem is that I did not realize that this stand has support post on the back side that stick out 3" inside the stand. Now my sump does not fit.

I have to find a way to remove these supports. Since the top board rest directly on the back panel, I do not think these post are supporting the tank. I think they are there to keep the stand rigid to prevent any twisting. My plan is to remove the original post, install 1"x6" boards on the backside with a notch for a 1"x4" that connects the back panel to the front post. Please see the attached images. Do you think this will be a suitable modifcation?
Stand As Purchased

Modified Supports

I was looking at just moving the original post closer to the sides, but not sure it the increase in span between the posts is a concern.
Original Supports Moved

Thanks for looking
Nick

 

[miles405]

Thanks

Hopefully the pictures show up now

 

[xcaret]

I think you can run a horizontal all the way on the back that sits on the reinforcements
1x4's and horizontal sitting on those

Good news- I have the tank and stand.
Bad news- the sump does not fit in the stand.

I bought a Tech 70 stand because for the deal I got, it has the largest openings. This gives me more room for the equipment and room to slide the sump in. Problem is that I did not realize that this stand has support post on the back side that stick out 3" inside the stand. Now my sump does not fit.

I have to find a way to remove these supports. Since the top board rest directly on the back panel, I do not think these post are supporting the tank. I think they are there to keep the stand rigid to prevent any twisting. My plan is to remove the original post, install 1"x6" boards on the backside with a notch for a 1"x4" that connects the back panel to the front post. Please see the attached images. Do you think this will be a suitable modifcation?
Stand As Purchased

Modified Supports

I was looking at just moving the original post closer to the sides, but not sure it the increase in span between the posts is a concern.
Original Supports Moved


Thanks for looking
Nick

 

[miles405]

It has been a little while.

I called Oceanic about the stand and got a call back from someone at Central Aquatic. He said that it is OK to remove the 2 support post as they were not originally in the stand design, but added later to make the stand a little more rigid. He said that I should be good with the supports I added.

With the stand done I moved the old tank to make room for the new one. Plumbing has been completed. I am debating about changing to tank bypass from daylighting in the first chamber to daylighting in the last to allow some control over the flow through the refugium.
I got 65lbs of Key Largo Macro Rock from Neptune. I always have liked the side view of tanks better than the front view. With this in mind I have attempted to arranged the rocks with 2 caverns that narrow to the back. Also sloping the sand up to the back as others have discuss to help create a forced perspective. The tank size was limiting, but I am happy with the look.

Here is the sump. It is a mess, still have to organize. Still very cloudy from the sand added today. I ended up getting a SWC 160 Skimmer.

The other day my wife and I saw that iphone commercial where they talk about turning off the house lights from the phone. While talking about how that works I mentioned that you can get controllers that can do that for a aquarium. My wife said I should get that since I have put so much work (money) into my tank. What? I am sure that idea will pass.

 

[miles405]

It has been a long time since I updated.

The tank is doing well. Had some trouble we my anemone moving around. It has settled on the backside of the rocks. Thats fine with me. It is not stinging anything and the clowns are happy.

Most of the coral have been growing really well. Most are still awaiting better placement. Now that everything is stable and the old tank is down I will start to move them to permanent locations.

 

[zepplock]

I like the aquascaping.