Hi Everyone - here's my first saltwater tank build. We have a long narrow living room, and there was tight space for a tank. It had to be contained within about 21" from the wall
Got a Landen tank off Amazon 39x18x18. It comes in a wood crate on a mini pallet:
here's the cabinet where everything had to fit.
To get everything to fit, I used slip bulkheads, cut them down to just fit thru the glass and hold the back nut, and then had to lap the inside with sandpaper until my 1" drains would fit
when I powered everything up, the water came 3/16 from the top(!!), so I used a dremel to cut deeper teeth in the overflow
here's how it looks a few months later:
I was worried the fluval light would be distracting when looking at the tank from the couch, but the light fixture just disappears. It's a terrific light:
I had trouble 2 weeks ago from putting in too many baby brine shrimp. I think they ate most of my pods. Any way, I had a bad algae /bacteria bloom and cleared it up by adding a 7watt nuclear blaster to my sump:
up next: replace vinyl hose from Sicca 2.0 pump to hard return line with silicone tubing. If that doesn't stop the 60Hz drone, I will try a nice dc pump. (Tried a jebao dcw 2500. It was quieter, but less flow and stopped after 12 hrs, so I sent it back). The sicca pumps are almost completely silent if I suspend one underwater by the power cord. But once it touches anything, the drone is activated. It's not that bad of a drone, but it'd be nicer without...
also thinking about restocking with pods and turning off the UV blaster. It is very nice to have crystal clear water!
looking forward to adding some larger corals this winter.
very glad we decided to go the saltwater route- This is a blast!
Got a Landen tank off Amazon 39x18x18. It comes in a wood crate on a mini pallet:
here's the cabinet where everything had to fit.
To get everything to fit, I used slip bulkheads, cut them down to just fit thru the glass and hold the back nut, and then had to lap the inside with sandpaper until my 1" drains would fit
when I powered everything up, the water came 3/16 from the top(!!), so I used a dremel to cut deeper teeth in the overflow
here's how it looks a few months later:
I was worried the fluval light would be distracting when looking at the tank from the couch, but the light fixture just disappears. It's a terrific light:
I had trouble 2 weeks ago from putting in too many baby brine shrimp. I think they ate most of my pods. Any way, I had a bad algae /bacteria bloom and cleared it up by adding a 7watt nuclear blaster to my sump:
up next: replace vinyl hose from Sicca 2.0 pump to hard return line with silicone tubing. If that doesn't stop the 60Hz drone, I will try a nice dc pump. (Tried a jebao dcw 2500. It was quieter, but less flow and stopped after 12 hrs, so I sent it back). The sicca pumps are almost completely silent if I suspend one underwater by the power cord. But once it touches anything, the drone is activated. It's not that bad of a drone, but it'd be nicer without...
also thinking about restocking with pods and turning off the UV blaster. It is very nice to have crystal clear water!
looking forward to adding some larger corals this winter.
very glad we decided to go the saltwater route- This is a blast!
