Hey everyone, long time reefer and lurker. I've had a saltwater or reef tank of some sort since I was 13 years old. 31years later and I still barely feel like I know what I'm doing! Haha
After 9 years of knocking on wood with my Red Sea 525xl which has been rock solid, I figured it was time to stop dodging bullets and upgrade while moving my tank at the same time.
This go around I settled on an Innovative Marine 150EXT. I really liked the lagoon layout and eurobraced tank. It was kind of an impulse buy and after starting to set it up I realized this is alot more of an undertaking than a complete red sea setup. I'm comfortable with piping and as an engineer by trade, tend to overengineer everything. I really hate doing things twice.
That being said, the tank and stand look awesome but bring with them a few difficulties. As an aluminum stand it's very strong, but doesn't really have a dry area for housing my apex controller and I really didn't want to deal with a separate cabinet next to the tank. I ended up having Bashsea build me a custom pro series sump with a deeper front to back dimension to account for the extra water, while still giving me a narrow footprint so that I have room to the side for mounting the apex and protecting from splashing.
I'm looking for some of your expertise though as I don't really know where in the sump I should place it. The under tank area is large and deep so I'd normally try to put it in the back right, with my controller board area on the left, but then access to to the sump becomes slightly difficult through the narrow front doors.
Where would you guys mount this if it was your tank? Any ideas?
After 9 years of knocking on wood with my Red Sea 525xl which has been rock solid, I figured it was time to stop dodging bullets and upgrade while moving my tank at the same time.
This go around I settled on an Innovative Marine 150EXT. I really liked the lagoon layout and eurobraced tank. It was kind of an impulse buy and after starting to set it up I realized this is alot more of an undertaking than a complete red sea setup. I'm comfortable with piping and as an engineer by trade, tend to overengineer everything. I really hate doing things twice.
That being said, the tank and stand look awesome but bring with them a few difficulties. As an aluminum stand it's very strong, but doesn't really have a dry area for housing my apex controller and I really didn't want to deal with a separate cabinet next to the tank. I ended up having Bashsea build me a custom pro series sump with a deeper front to back dimension to account for the extra water, while still giving me a narrow footprint so that I have room to the side for mounting the apex and protecting from splashing.
I'm looking for some of your expertise though as I don't really know where in the sump I should place it. The under tank area is large and deep so I'd normally try to put it in the back right, with my controller board area on the left, but then access to to the sump becomes slightly difficult through the narrow front doors.
Where would you guys mount this if it was your tank? Any ideas?
