dallasgoldswain
Active member
Well the time has come to move to the big leagues, I am all grown up and thought time for a large tank in my house until my fish room etc. is ready.
It’s going to be 2500x1000x600, water at 550mm in 12mm fully braced, to support a full wave if needed, or a surge.
The tank will be partitioned into 3 tanks, all sharing the same water, allowing me to keep anything my heart desires without having to worry about corals, tank mates and environments.
The left partition will be low flow environment for sea horses, pipe fish and razor fish, with some macro algae’s and soft corals.
The right partition will be for the fish I want but are not reef friendly, or just too boisterous.
The centre partition, 1600x1000x600, will be my SPS reef tank; this will be where the magic will happen. For flow there will be 2 x vortech MP40’s and a MP60. For lighting I am using 2 Orphek DIF100 XP V2 to light the reef which will be somewhere in the region of 1000x600. Now why the Orphek unit, well I have against paying the crazy retail prices of LED units, and after seeing the reviews of them and doing some research, Orphek seem leaps ahead, as the reef grows I will add more and progress as the last thing I want is to make this unaffordable.
I plan to be quite selective with the SPS, hoping to get tabling acropora’s , and all the other lovlies we see overseas… "hint hint"
I about 400kg of Kenyan LR for the scaping, and Fiji seafloor and Fiji pink for substrate in 2 of the partitions, with the low flow having black araga-live and mineral mud section, well maybe…
The stand I will be making from 50mm x 50mm 2mm steel clad in 18mm shutter ply, coated on the outside with black fibre paint, and the inside in white. The goal is to have everything hidden in and around the stand with no wires or piping visible.
Now the sump, well this is where I want to keep it simple, my skimmers ( SRO 3000INT and SRO XP5000 Ext) , Orca Bio-Cubes in my custom Smart Bomb (3L), Fluidized GFH, Kalk Reactor, GAC and a Cleartides Pressurised Ozone reactor and all the rest of my LR I wont use. Heating will be 2 x 300w Jager heaters. I will use a Haelia 500A chiller for the hot days, the heaters and chiller will be controller by a thermostat for added safety. Here in South Africa we have the perfect winters, avg 15-20deg and summers 20-35deg but my house is well cooled.
I will have a small 800x600x300 coral acclimation tank where I will house all new corals for a week until I decide where to place them, I will have a fish acclimation tank as well, as once in the tank will be next to impossible to catch. Not sure if I will use a boyu TL-550 for this or make a small cube.
Lighting for the frag tank will be Reef Inmates 2 x 24w stealth units with a 3rd over the fish QT tank.
For the return I am using a Waveline DC pump rated at 10 000L and 5m head, this will supply my custom intank returns
for my overflows i am using what we call here a skinny overflow and return, basically its a 400x200mm x 30mm overflow with a return built in, its silent, failsafe and doesnt take up real estate, i have been using this in all the tank i build.
This build signifies various goals for me in reefing, and plays a lot in experimentation as I have a few ideas and ideas for the new year
Thanks again for reading…
More to follow…
It’s going to be 2500x1000x600, water at 550mm in 12mm fully braced, to support a full wave if needed, or a surge.
The tank will be partitioned into 3 tanks, all sharing the same water, allowing me to keep anything my heart desires without having to worry about corals, tank mates and environments.
The left partition will be low flow environment for sea horses, pipe fish and razor fish, with some macro algae’s and soft corals.
The right partition will be for the fish I want but are not reef friendly, or just too boisterous.
The centre partition, 1600x1000x600, will be my SPS reef tank; this will be where the magic will happen. For flow there will be 2 x vortech MP40’s and a MP60. For lighting I am using 2 Orphek DIF100 XP V2 to light the reef which will be somewhere in the region of 1000x600. Now why the Orphek unit, well I have against paying the crazy retail prices of LED units, and after seeing the reviews of them and doing some research, Orphek seem leaps ahead, as the reef grows I will add more and progress as the last thing I want is to make this unaffordable.
I plan to be quite selective with the SPS, hoping to get tabling acropora’s , and all the other lovlies we see overseas… "hint hint"
I about 400kg of Kenyan LR for the scaping, and Fiji seafloor and Fiji pink for substrate in 2 of the partitions, with the low flow having black araga-live and mineral mud section, well maybe…
The stand I will be making from 50mm x 50mm 2mm steel clad in 18mm shutter ply, coated on the outside with black fibre paint, and the inside in white. The goal is to have everything hidden in and around the stand with no wires or piping visible.
Now the sump, well this is where I want to keep it simple, my skimmers ( SRO 3000INT and SRO XP5000 Ext) , Orca Bio-Cubes in my custom Smart Bomb (3L), Fluidized GFH, Kalk Reactor, GAC and a Cleartides Pressurised Ozone reactor and all the rest of my LR I wont use. Heating will be 2 x 300w Jager heaters. I will use a Haelia 500A chiller for the hot days, the heaters and chiller will be controller by a thermostat for added safety. Here in South Africa we have the perfect winters, avg 15-20deg and summers 20-35deg but my house is well cooled.
I will have a small 800x600x300 coral acclimation tank where I will house all new corals for a week until I decide where to place them, I will have a fish acclimation tank as well, as once in the tank will be next to impossible to catch. Not sure if I will use a boyu TL-550 for this or make a small cube.
Lighting for the frag tank will be Reef Inmates 2 x 24w stealth units with a 3rd over the fish QT tank.
For the return I am using a Waveline DC pump rated at 10 000L and 5m head, this will supply my custom intank returns
for my overflows i am using what we call here a skinny overflow and return, basically its a 400x200mm x 30mm overflow with a return built in, its silent, failsafe and doesnt take up real estate, i have been using this in all the tank i build.
This build signifies various goals for me in reefing, and plays a lot in experimentation as I have a few ideas and ideas for the new year
Thanks again for reading…
More to follow…
Last edited:
we have lots here :thumbsup:
