I started maintaining a reef tank at a dentist's office in town back in late 2009. This is what it looked like back then:
It was an acrylic tank, about 120 gallons. Over the course of a little over a year, I got it looking like this:
Around May of this year, near tragedy struck. I noticed a crack had developed through the bottom panel along the front edge.
I determined that it was improper stand construction. In my opinion, the cabinet maker and LFS that specified the stand should be sued, but that's another discussion!
The only thing supporting the tank was these two 2" square steel tubes, which were not cross-braced, and were just dead-ended into the laminated particle board cabinet, with a 1x4 glued and screwed to the particle board.
To make matters worse, the front tube is not level with the back tube - it's about 1/4" to 1/8" lower. To make it even worse, the cabinet section the tank sits on is laminated particle board. You can see the resulting gap in the picture of the crack above. That's nearly about a 3/16" gap under the tank. So the bottom was bowed out and the front was bowed out, which caused a fracture through the bottom panel, parallel with the plane of the inside of the front panel. As it turns out, there was a similar crack along the back seam.
I set up a temporary tank at my house and transferred everything to it. Then I started the search for a new tank. I came across Rev's thread about a tank built by Miracles in Canada, contacted them, and got the ball rolling. The tank will arrive in town near the end of September.
The new tank will be rimless, 66" L x 21" W x 24" H. The external dimensions add up to 144 gallons, but the internal actual volume of the new tank will be just short of 125 gallons (with water 1 inch from rim).
The tank will sit in a recessed wall section, so it is only viewable from the front. The front will be 3/4" Starphire, the right, back and bottom will be 5/8", and the left side will be 5/8" tempered glass with a notch for an external overflow. The external overflow will be a BeanAnimal 3-pipe system, 18" x 6", and 8" deep with 3 holes for 1.5" bulkheads. I estimate the weight of the empty tank to be 350 pounds. So the funnest part will be getting it into the recessed wall.
I am having a reputable LFS buld the stand - one of their employees has 20 years of furniture making experience, and the build is a beefed-up version of RocketEngineer's stand design. The stand will be 2x6 and 2x4 construction.
I have decided to get a Reefflo Barracuda external pump and 1.5" return plumbing so that I can max out the overflow and siphon pipe at or near 3000 GPH (including head). My plan is to not have any power heads in the DT at all. Instead, I will build a plenum return with custom nozzles. The plenum will likely only run along the back and right side of the tank (so I guess it's not a true plenum). The top about 2" of the tank is covered up by the cabinet doors, so almost nothing will be seen from the front of the tank, even with jets and diffusers 1" below the surface of the water.
The sump will either be the previously used 40 Breeder with new baffles cut from an old 55g tank with a crack in it, or a custom acrylic sump. I haven't figured that out yet. One of the issues I'm running into is head clearance inthe cabinet. The system runs an Algae Scrubber, and it won't fit in the new sump cabinet. So it looks like I will have to build a new one. Fortunately, I had already planned on doing that, so this just catapulted the need to the forefront.
I would also like to incorporate an auto-top-off system, Kalkwasser either in the top-off or in a stirrer, and eventually LED lighting to replace the current 8 lamp T5HO fixture. I would like to get an aquarium controller, probably an Arduino so I can program LED dimming and a host of other functions, but a pre-packaged system like a Reef Angel might be good, since I won't be there to babysit the controller.
Miracles should be sending me pictures of the tank build in progress by next week. Stay tuned!
It was an acrylic tank, about 120 gallons. Over the course of a little over a year, I got it looking like this:
Around May of this year, near tragedy struck. I noticed a crack had developed through the bottom panel along the front edge.
I determined that it was improper stand construction. In my opinion, the cabinet maker and LFS that specified the stand should be sued, but that's another discussion!
The only thing supporting the tank was these two 2" square steel tubes, which were not cross-braced, and were just dead-ended into the laminated particle board cabinet, with a 1x4 glued and screwed to the particle board.
To make matters worse, the front tube is not level with the back tube - it's about 1/4" to 1/8" lower. To make it even worse, the cabinet section the tank sits on is laminated particle board. You can see the resulting gap in the picture of the crack above. That's nearly about a 3/16" gap under the tank. So the bottom was bowed out and the front was bowed out, which caused a fracture through the bottom panel, parallel with the plane of the inside of the front panel. As it turns out, there was a similar crack along the back seam.
I set up a temporary tank at my house and transferred everything to it. Then I started the search for a new tank. I came across Rev's thread about a tank built by Miracles in Canada, contacted them, and got the ball rolling. The tank will arrive in town near the end of September.
The new tank will be rimless, 66" L x 21" W x 24" H. The external dimensions add up to 144 gallons, but the internal actual volume of the new tank will be just short of 125 gallons (with water 1 inch from rim).
The tank will sit in a recessed wall section, so it is only viewable from the front. The front will be 3/4" Starphire, the right, back and bottom will be 5/8", and the left side will be 5/8" tempered glass with a notch for an external overflow. The external overflow will be a BeanAnimal 3-pipe system, 18" x 6", and 8" deep with 3 holes for 1.5" bulkheads. I estimate the weight of the empty tank to be 350 pounds. So the funnest part will be getting it into the recessed wall.
I am having a reputable LFS buld the stand - one of their employees has 20 years of furniture making experience, and the build is a beefed-up version of RocketEngineer's stand design. The stand will be 2x6 and 2x4 construction.
I have decided to get a Reefflo Barracuda external pump and 1.5" return plumbing so that I can max out the overflow and siphon pipe at or near 3000 GPH (including head). My plan is to not have any power heads in the DT at all. Instead, I will build a plenum return with custom nozzles. The plenum will likely only run along the back and right side of the tank (so I guess it's not a true plenum). The top about 2" of the tank is covered up by the cabinet doors, so almost nothing will be seen from the front of the tank, even with jets and diffusers 1" below the surface of the water.
The sump will either be the previously used 40 Breeder with new baffles cut from an old 55g tank with a crack in it, or a custom acrylic sump. I haven't figured that out yet. One of the issues I'm running into is head clearance inthe cabinet. The system runs an Algae Scrubber, and it won't fit in the new sump cabinet. So it looks like I will have to build a new one. Fortunately, I had already planned on doing that, so this just catapulted the need to the forefront.
I would also like to incorporate an auto-top-off system, Kalkwasser either in the top-off or in a stirrer, and eventually LED lighting to replace the current 8 lamp T5HO fixture. I would like to get an aquarium controller, probably an Arduino so I can program LED dimming and a host of other functions, but a pre-packaged system like a Reef Angel might be good, since I won't be there to babysit the controller.
Miracles should be sending me pictures of the tank build in progress by next week. Stay tuned!
