Wanting to build a 75 Gallon reef tank

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austin6965

Active member
Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Messages
44
Location
spanaway washington
Hi there,

So I am not entirely new to this hobby, been doing it for a few years with my dad so I know somewhat about reef tanks and such.

That being said I have never actually built a tank up from the ground up. We (mainly my dad) built up a 40 gallon breeder and that is what I have now but I want to get a bigger tank (running out of space).

KEEP IN MIND: I am in an upstairs room, the way the tank will set up is going the opposite direction of the trusses in the floor which are about 1ft apart of each other. I know this by looking down in the garage. The tank will also sit against a wall and meet a corner in the room.

Now lets just get to the basics, I plan on getting a 75 gallon fish tank (18Lx48Wx21H), not sure how big of a sump to run with it was thinking maybe a 20 gallon sump or just get an acrylic sump that will fit the needs of the tank. Secondly, I plan on building a stand for the tank myself. The stand right now will be 6ft long by 2 ft wide and 3 ft tall.

Yes I know that stand will be longer than the tank itself but that is to distribute the weight a bit more. There will be a 1ft hang over on either side of the tank and roughly 2in of hang in the front. The other 4in will be space behind the tank for the overflow and the return pump. If you follow then the square footage will be roughly 12 square ft.

This is one thing I can't think of myself is the max weight for each square footage for this tank. taking in consideration of the tank, sump, stand, sand, and live rock (probably 100 pounds..... if that). I am estimating it will weigh just under 900lbs. The breeder I have now is probably 600lbs or so and is going with the trusses in the floor so I don't think it will be to much of a problem for the 75 but again this is my first build.

I think that is all I have right now, if you have questions or suggestions go right ahead. Any advice will help me out a bunch. Haven't thought much of equipment right now except the lights, Ill end up getting a second one of what I Have now which has been great for the 40.
 
How tall are you? You're going to have fun reaching the sand bed. Your set up will be almost 5' tall.
By upstairs do you mean second floor? I also think you're off on weight by about 1-200lbs. IMO any sump smaller than 30g would be counterproductive.
 
I'm 6'2" I want it to be taller so you don't have to bend over to look at it. And yes the second floor and the weight is just an estimated number I'm pretty sure it will be more but it shouldn't be over 1200lbs.
 
Itll be 1000#. The sw alone will weight a lot.
+rock +sand +equipment stand tank.
Lights.

75g tank will be 48Lx18Wx21"T hths.
Wat fish or coral or anything are you intrested in? Lookinf forward to pix.
D
 
I have a 75g and I use a 40 breeder for my sump. Are you going to keep using your 40, if not you could maybe convert it into a sump. Here's what I did! I love all of the room it has!

 
Lights will be just hanging from the ceiling and I don't plan on having a hood on it just because I like the look without a hood. And right now I have a few clown fish and a wrasse in my tank with a few types of coral as well. I want to get some SPS coral but at the moment have no room in the 40.
 
Not sure what I'll do with the 40 right now considering all my livestock are in it right now but your setup looks awesome! Ive never seen the the T in the return pump plumbing before. Most I've seen are always left to right flow and such.
 
I'm looking forward to seeing your build! If you have any questions about mine, I'd be happy to answer them for you. Mine isn't the fanciest set up, yet (but it works), that's for my next build ;)!
 
I also found a nice build of a stand on another forum that I liked. I'll just have to make it longer really and probably add one more brace in the middle. It was built for the same tank as I plan on getting as well minus it is 4ft instead of 6ft long.
 
Alright so I put the stand together this morning. It's not complete but it is 95% done, only thing left are to do the two doors and then the play wood on top and underneath for the sump but for 4 hours it came a long quite nicely. I have pictures to put up but they do not want to upload for some reason. I've tried copy and paste and that didn't work either sooo. Any help ? haha
 

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Looking good there. I had that same plumbing on one of my old set ups drstratton...seemed to work fine.
D
 
So I have finished putting together the tank and it is now running. So far it's looking good but I just the the transfer yesterday night and this morning.
 
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