230 Gallon In-Wall Acropora Build

[salt.and.sticks]

I've been in the hobby off-and-on since I graduated high school in 1999. After taking a long break, I wandered back into the hobby in 2021 as a "COVID Reefer". Working from home, I stared at a blank wall in the office and said "this wall in my office would be great for a reef tank!" My wife reluctantly agreed because I had an aquarium when we met. And so the 100G IM EXT was built. This was a very successful tank, with ups and downs, and was amazing at helping me re-learn how to keep reefs and level-up with SPS. I wanted to start here because it is part of the journey of the build process of the Planet 230 EXT built into our remodeled movie room that I will document here.

I started the process many months ago and documented progress along the way, but waited to post it. So this will be a reflection on the build as it happened over the past several months, but as we all know the build is never over!

The process started a year ago with the first demo of the existing movie room, slowly progressed to the room being finished months later, to life getting in the way and delaying the actual reef build, to today... at which point it has been running for 5 months.

Before we get into the build... I want to share what was torn down. This reef was a 100G Innovative Marine EXT, that was established for about 5 years.

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[salt.and.sticks]

Room Remodel:

The room was built as a theater room, with a projector screen, surround sound, recliners, etc. I envisioned watching so many movies as a family in that room.... but we never used it. Additionally, our kids go to a private school where they are at home part of the time doing homework. So there was a desire to remodel that room and make it more functional for the family.

I had also always talked about my dream of a in-wall reef tank with a room that housed the tank and all the equipment. I never thought about it, but my amazing wife with her ability to design layouts recognized that 1: we needed to remodel the "movie room"; and 2: The garage was on the other side of the far wall. So she spoke the words, which she may or may not regret now, "You could cut a hole in that wall and put a tank there, and build in the room behind it in the garage"... Let's go. She's amazing, let's do it.

Here is the process of the room transition.

 

[JAMBR231]

What a great transformation and space you created. You’ll enjoy the separate fish room n built in tank to showcase your reef.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Room Remodel:

The room was built as a theater room, with a projector screen, surround sound, recliners, etc. I envisioned watching so many movies as a family in that room.... but we never used it. Additionally, our kids go to a private school where they are at home part of the time doing homework. So there was a desire to remodel that room and make it more functional for the family.

I had also always talked about my dream of a in-wall reef tank with a room that housed the tank and all the equipment. I never thought about it, but my amazing wife with her ability to design layouts recognized that 1: we needed to remodel the "movie room"; and 2: The garage was on the other side of the far wall. So she spoke the words, which she may or may not regret now, "You could cut a hole in that wall and put a tank there, and build in the room behind it in the garage"... Let's go. She's amazing, let's do it.

Here is the process of the room transition.

Man, that tank is going to fit in there perfectly!

 

[thelonereefer1]

Looking great!

 

[hatfielj]

What are the details on the new tank? Will that surrounding wall have access to the top of the tank?
Green is my favorite color so I love the decor.

 

[salt.and.sticks]

What are the details on the new tank? Will that surrounding wall have access to the top of the tank?
Green is my favorite color so I love the decor.

Yes, I have access all around. I plan to post more updates this afternoon.

 

[sharkbait1000]

Looking good! Great having a back fish room for all your equipment. Will be following your build

 

[salt.and.sticks]

Filtration:
I knew I wanted redundancy as much as possible. Dual heaters, dual returns, and ability to divert to socks or a filter roller. So I talked to a couple of sump builders and settled on Poseidon's Creations to build a sump with 7" filter socks, a single large filter area in the middle, and a return section that was big enough for 2 large returns. Very pleased with their work, and I recommend them to anyone willing to wait for their build time.

I also knew that I wanted to utilize a LifeReef skimmer and some sort of turf scrubber. Initially I wanted to integrate the AquaIllumination scrubber, but after researching more, I went with a Santa Monica Rain 4 scrubber. Both the LifeReef and Santa Monica are hand made by the owners, and they are very responsive to questions and amazing to work with... and best of all, their products rock!

Poseidon's Creations
LifeReef Skimmers
Rain4 Turf Scrubber by Santa Monica

 

[salt.and.sticks]

Rockwork and Structure:

I wanted to pre-build the rock scape so that I could have more control over the structure of the reef, so I decided to use Marco Rock + SuperGlue + InstantOcean Epoxy to build "towers", and mix in EcoScape artificial branch rock (this stuff is great: very light and porous, looks very real, and easy to connect into structures).

I played with the layout and built the aqua scape in the garage, and then let it "marinate" in a 100 gallon trough with seeded rock from my existing tank, plus live sand from Aquabiomics. I also performed water tests, ghost feeding, and water changes from the existing tank for 3 months. This has, so far 5 months in, avoided the ugly stages of a new reef.

This was successful, and now I will never set up a new tank again without "cooking the rock" in a bin/tank that has the proper nutrients, and zero light. It did take time, but the time it took developing a biome in the garage out of sight is way better than the additional time and stress it would have extracted from me growing gnarly algae and crud in my display if I had not taken this step.

 

[Decamicron Labs Verified Sponsor]

I love that color palette of that room. The way the room flows and blends from that wooden accent to the teal is quite pleasing. I don't know much about music, but the guitars are a very nice touch visually. What are they?

 

[salt.and.sticks]

I love that color palette of that room. The way the room flows and blends from that wooden accent to the teal is quite pleasing. I don't know much about music, but the guitars are a very nice touch visually. What are they?

Thank you! My wife is an interior decorator and she did an amazing job with the room. I grew up playing guitar, and switched to bass 10+ years ago when some friends and I started a 90’s cover band in Dallas/Ft. Worth called “The Dick Beldings”. Haha. So those are just Fender and Music Man bass guitars.