225g CDA SPS dream build

[AaronFReef]

Soon I expect to receive a 72”x30”x24” Crystal Dynamic Aquarium 225 gallon tank with steel stand with a custom bar top built into the front of the stand on which I hope my family and I will eat breakfast often or have a drink with family and friends. I saw stands with bars once or twice and always thought it would be the last thing needed to take my dream reef from my dream to my family’s as well when we could all sit with our scaly or slimy pets many mornings or evenings.

For background on my construction preparation for the tank or my own personal story see my other thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/225g-cda-sps-dream-build-construction-background.888267/

For bait to continue on, here is a picture of my current lagoon of 24g.

Stealing an idea I saw @LVReef do in his build thread here‘s a table of all the components I will keep updated as I invariably change equipment.

On stand

Tank	72”x30”x24” CDA starphire with fully reinforced starboard bottom and holes drilled for powerhead cable pass through in corners
Overflow	30” modular marine external with beananimal plumbing
Power heads	2x MP40wQD and 2x Maxspect Gyre XF350. Perhaps 2x AI Nero 3 for spot flow
Rock	Marco rocks in NSA styling. Lots of branching mimicking a wild staghorn coral reef loosely

Above tank

Canopy	CDA matching 16” flip up front canopy in Malibu style
Lights	6x Radion XR15w and 2x 1x Reef Brite 72” XHO Actinic Blue and 1x Reef Brite 72” XHO daylight (edit)
Fans	TBD

In stand

Stand	CDA Malibu style wood-wrapped steel stand, custom bar top built into front extending 13”, 40-3/4” tall, acrylic drip tray with high contrast interior and electrical panel
Sump	Trigger Systems CR44 Sapphire 44” filter sock refugium sump
Skimmer	Reef Octopus 200 INT
Refugium	no plans to use at first but either frag system on reverse photoperiod or chaeto if nutrients rise
Return pumps	Dual COR20s

CaCO3 maintenance

Dosing pumps	Neptune DOS for alk and Ca Kamoer X1 for Mg
CO2 reactor	Not decided but may employ as system matures
Kalk stirrer	Not decided but leaning heavily for pH boost edit: leaning towards a kalk drip from a large brute

In shed outside

Auto Water Change	DOS hooked up to 100g Norwesco tank and draining straight to sewer
ATO	Tunze 3155 running out of large but low to ground water storage TBD
Saltwater mixing	Dual 100g Norwesco 28”, one for RODI one for salt and an Iwaki MD-40RXT to mix and do manual water changes

Below is CDA‘s current plans to build the stand. It will be steel with a Malibu-style wood wrap in a grayish brown color. You’ll notice it’s tall as I dont want to crouch to look at the tank and this fits bar stools well.

As for the tank, I selected starphire with a fully reinforced starboard bottom as I plan to go bare bottom, though I may add sand if I can’t bear the look. Alternatively I may add tiles of encrusting corals.

More on livestock and anything else I’ve missed to come another day.

 

[AaronFReef]

The aquascape has been a project ongoing for quite a long time since probably July. We probably put 20 hours into it between my wife and I over 10-15 days because we just start gluing pieces down without planning when we get bored or tired. I had planned to soak it for months in a Rubbermaid trough but I’ve given up for schedule and convinced myself that’s good because I want some nutrients so I don’t get dinoflagellates again like my last tank. Here’s the progress we’ve made. Structures that go up and out are the aquascape and everything else is just rock to pick from.

I’ve put marks on the mock-up tank that show the halfway height mark where I want my tallest point to end and below that I have a mark where I want the majority of the structure. I’m going for lots of spots to place acro colonies that I plan to space well and let fully grow out over years. I’m playing the long game with the coral of this tank and it may not hit “pretty” for years. Hopefully they grow fast and fill in but I’m prepared after my lagoon and the speed at which some coral has grown and the troubles I’ve had with it. Conversely I’m well acquainted with overcrowding. See above in first post for overcrowding acros.

 

[chipchipbro]

Holy Moly! This will be a good one - I can feel it! Looking forward to see it wet brother!

 

[AaronFReef]

This is my full-scale mock-up of the tank, and stand with bar.

 

[AaronFReef]

Got word from Zoya that my stand is built! Tank is delayed a few weeks with delays on glass shipments. Still crazy how close they were able to estimate the completion after everything I’d read in builds last year. They said 5 months and that’s where we will probably end up.

 

[Billldg]

Got word from Zoya that my stand is built! Tank is delayed a few weeks with delays on glass shipments. Still crazy how close they were able to estimate the completion after everything I’d read in builds last year. They said 5 months and that’s where we will probably end up.

Mine took longer, but, I do not blame them as the epidemic was still in full swing. Zoya is great to deal with. I love the dimensions of the 225. This looks like it's gonna be a great build, can't wait to see it come together.

Make sure you have PLENTY of people to help you lift it as they build tanks that are literally TANKS!!!;Hilarious

 

[AaronFReef]

Mine took longer, but, I do not blame them as the epidemic was still in full swing. Zoya is great to deal with. I love the dimensions of the 225. This looks like it's gonna be a great build, can't wait to see it come together.

Make sure you have PLENTY of people to help you lift it as they build tanks that are literally TANKS!!!;Hilarious

Hah! I was roping in my coworker not long ago. How many do you recommend moving this thing? I’ll be foreman with my sprained ankle!

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

This looks like its gonna be a good build! following along

 

[Billldg]

Hah! I was roping in my coworker not long ago. How many do you recommend moving this thing? I’ll be foreman with my sprained ankle!

I was able to use 4 strong people, but, 6 would have been better. Suction cups are a must as well, it made it so much more simpler.

 

[AaronFReef]

I put another hour into the aquascape tonight and I think it’s close enough to get some feedback so let me know what you guys think.

Video:


Here’s the front:

Looking down from the front:

Right side:

Above from the right end:

And channel behind everything:

The blue lines illustrate where I think the rock should stop. I believe it was about 6" from the glass. The glass is the shape of the table almost exactly. The cardboard would be the glass inner dimensions I believe.

Flow should be pretty much uninterrupted, but I will be limited on the quantity of SPS colonies I will be able to have. I currently feel that I'd rather have less colonies that are more mature and naturally shaped than a densely populated set of mini, or heavily manicured colonies. We will see how that decision fares in the long term.

What is still missing is about 3 total more branches or extensions of existing branches. Otherwise we feel like we are happy; my wife has worked on this heavily with me, aquascaping can be a great spot to pull in the spouse if they enjoy art which there is certainly some aspect of in aquascaping. I personally feel like for me it was more getting the "algorithm" of figuring out how rocks join to do interesting things and then rinse and repeat until you look at it and feel you've done what you wanted to see.

Let us know what you think and if you see issues or things to improve.

Edit: I neglected to mention that the arches are all actually not joined. Each base is a separate structure that rests in a nestled way into the other structures it connects to with its arches.

 

[Jackal799]

Excellent job on the scape! Can’t wait to see how this turns out.

 

[Jackal799]

Excellent job on the scape! Can’t wait to see how this turns out

 

[Tdoan]

Great job so fare. Following.

 

[AaronFReef]

Thanks all. I think I’m actually happy with where it’s at. I don’t plan to add anything to it except perhaps for a few small “floating” pieces of foundation rock that I can grow acros right off the ground with to fill in lower gaps to the eye. I would really like to select a small group of ultra nice acros grown into full colonies over however many years it takes. Just going to mortar next weekend and then soak them in some rubbermaids until tank time!!!

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

Thanks all. I think I’m actually happy with where it’s at. I don’t plan to add anything to it except perhaps for a few small “floating” pieces of foundation rock that I can grow acros right off the ground with to fill in lower gaps to the eye. I would really like to select a small group of ultra nice acros grown into full colonies over however many years it takes. Just going to mortar next weekend and then soak them in some rubbermaids until tank time!!!

Jealous of those scaping skills!

 

[Tdoan]

Nice Job!

 

[Janci]

Great start. Following.

 

[AaronFReef]

My alk and Ca requirements have been beginning to be a problem in my 24g lagoon. I dose 80 mL a day of soda ash and CaCl and 160 mL or Tm Part C to keep up and as you can see in five days I have a full point of salinity creep so I’m thinking I need to resolve this for the new tank. I think I will put a large kalkwasser vat outside in the fish shed and dose through the wall into the sump. This will reduce the salt addition and also boost pH even more I hope.

 

[AaronFReef]

I’ve been finishing up the aquascape, which should be wet in tubs by the end of the weekend it all goes well, adding mortar and liquid super glue with dust to hide the mortar. Had some breaks that I had to repair in that process but better now than later

Meanwhile I took all the fish out of my lagoon to start a 76 day fallow period so I can safely add anything over without bringing fish parasites in. They are in separate quarantines now and I’ll begin prophylactic treatment to rid them of any parasites before I start putting them in the tubs with the rocks to help cycle them after the rocks have cycled a bit.

In the process of catching the fish I utterly destroyed tons of my colonies lol. Hopefully they will reform a bit from their shattered but stacked pieces (I’m looking at you red dragon) before they have to be moved.

 

[AaronFReef]

Oh and CDA has had delays of my glass for quite some time so no updates on that but I hear it might happen this week. The stand meanwhile I got a sample of my semi-custom color I chose and selected which to go with so I believe the metal stand should be built and the wood should be getting stained any time.