Gobi-Wan
Active Member
Hi everyone. I am most of the way through building a 125 setup and figured I should finally start a build thread. I have been in the hobby coming up on 3 years, and my 75g setup is going to get upgraded.
The aquarium- standard 125 from petsmart. Couldn't find a better deal on one without a stand, so I sold the junk particleboard stand as a TV stand lol. I drilled the aquarium and installed 2 eclipse M overflows. (2 x 1" drains each) I love the minimal clean boxes inside the tank and this is my biggest regret from my 75g build on which I have a siphon overflow.
The stand- 3 years of shoulda' woulda' coulda' has lead to what I hope will keep me satisfied for the foreseeable future.
I used the popular @RocketEngineer design for the stand and dressed it the best I could with my barely-adequate woodworking skills. I also wanted 3 doors but didn't want to burn the "open front stand" bridge, so I created a false magnetic support that the center door hinges from. It worked out really well I think, except the 4 incredibly strong magnets I used make the 2x4 more difficult to remove than I anticipated. I doubt I will need to remove it much though, since the 40b can slide in and out of the middle/right door section if I need to for some reason. It'll be a nice party trick if nothing else.
I knew I wanted a canopy and after months of internal debate I finally decided on a wall mounted floating canopy with its own outlet to house the lighting.
The lighting- since the petsmart 125 has 2 braces across the top, i wanted to go with 3 led fixtures. My 75g setup has a 300w black box that creates a shadow in the middle of the tank because of the brace. Another regret I set out to remedy with this build. So I decided on 3 AI Hydra 26s. I have some birds nests, orange digi, red monti caps, all doing OK under the black box. The most difficult thing i have is a rainbows in Spain acro, which is growing steadily over about a year but not flourishing. Hoping to get some better coloration with nicer lighting. Also hate when the timer snaps on so looking forward to ramping and spectrum control.
I installed a dedicated 20A breaker with 4 outlets behind the stand, and 2 outlets behind the canopy so no wires will hang from the lighting. (Pretty proud of myself lol) my house was built in 57 and the circuit my 75g is on is frequently overloaded by trying to run the microwave. Pathetic, I know, and probably not real safe.
Filtration- I made a sump out of a 40 breeder, your standard fare. I built my own ATS in the 75g and had such great success i decided to create a sort of built-in ATS system this time. The acrylic box hangs from 2 screws above where a pile of rock rubble will sit on lighting grid in the sump. Hopefully this will generate copepods. I had a copepod die-off and dinoflaggelate bloom in my 75 when I allowed nutrients to go near zero, so hopefully I can avoid repeating that mistake in the future. I would like to have a mandarin eventually but I also have a 6 line already so we will see what levels of pods I can maintain in this system.
If I left anything out let me know. Today is plumbing day.
The aquarium- standard 125 from petsmart. Couldn't find a better deal on one without a stand, so I sold the junk particleboard stand as a TV stand lol. I drilled the aquarium and installed 2 eclipse M overflows. (2 x 1" drains each) I love the minimal clean boxes inside the tank and this is my biggest regret from my 75g build on which I have a siphon overflow.
The stand- 3 years of shoulda' woulda' coulda' has lead to what I hope will keep me satisfied for the foreseeable future.
I used the popular @RocketEngineer design for the stand and dressed it the best I could with my barely-adequate woodworking skills. I also wanted 3 doors but didn't want to burn the "open front stand" bridge, so I created a false magnetic support that the center door hinges from. It worked out really well I think, except the 4 incredibly strong magnets I used make the 2x4 more difficult to remove than I anticipated. I doubt I will need to remove it much though, since the 40b can slide in and out of the middle/right door section if I need to for some reason. It'll be a nice party trick if nothing else.
I knew I wanted a canopy and after months of internal debate I finally decided on a wall mounted floating canopy with its own outlet to house the lighting.
The lighting- since the petsmart 125 has 2 braces across the top, i wanted to go with 3 led fixtures. My 75g setup has a 300w black box that creates a shadow in the middle of the tank because of the brace. Another regret I set out to remedy with this build. So I decided on 3 AI Hydra 26s. I have some birds nests, orange digi, red monti caps, all doing OK under the black box. The most difficult thing i have is a rainbows in Spain acro, which is growing steadily over about a year but not flourishing. Hoping to get some better coloration with nicer lighting. Also hate when the timer snaps on so looking forward to ramping and spectrum control.
I installed a dedicated 20A breaker with 4 outlets behind the stand, and 2 outlets behind the canopy so no wires will hang from the lighting. (Pretty proud of myself lol) my house was built in 57 and the circuit my 75g is on is frequently overloaded by trying to run the microwave. Pathetic, I know, and probably not real safe.
Filtration- I made a sump out of a 40 breeder, your standard fare. I built my own ATS in the 75g and had such great success i decided to create a sort of built-in ATS system this time. The acrylic box hangs from 2 screws above where a pile of rock rubble will sit on lighting grid in the sump. Hopefully this will generate copepods. I had a copepod die-off and dinoflaggelate bloom in my 75 when I allowed nutrients to go near zero, so hopefully I can avoid repeating that mistake in the future. I would like to have a mandarin eventually but I also have a 6 line already so we will see what levels of pods I can maintain in this system.
If I left anything out let me know. Today is plumbing day.
Last edited:
