DIY 850 litre custom build almost complete

[Pete Hammersley]

I had a whole year working abroad last year, and as motivation to keep on going, I promised myself a treat to myself on my return with my dream reef tank. I researched, researched and did more research in all my downtime abroad all about reefkeeping. Now I’m home I’ve spent 2 months so far working on it, a few hrs here and there, a day or 2 most weekends, and it’s almost done. Cabinet doors to go on next, and a last coat of paint.

- it’s a 6 foot Red Sea reefer 750 display tank, (actually 600 litres)
- 5 foot sump tank which I designed and baffled myself, (250 litres)
- all the really old and well established live rock from my old tank in the sump,
- 3 new boxes of reef saver rock in display all aquascape by myself.
- a big refugium growing chaeto
- Red Sea skimmer
- 2 crossflow gyre pumps
- 3 x ai hydra 26 hd LED lights
- 1 x t8 blue bulb
- all built by myself on a solid hand made cabinet with up/over lighting pelmet.

I added enough colony to treat 2,000 litres of water, but still slowly added fish. Fish I’ve added a few at a time over the last 8 / 10 weeks,

- 5 x chromis
- lipstick tang
- Regal tang
- Yellow tang
- spotted rabbit fish
- striped rabbit fish
- dottyback
- 2 African clowns
- Bicoloured angel
- coral beauty
- cleaner wrasse
- Reef lobster
- 2 x cleaner shrimp
- A few hermits

it’s not ready for coral yet, i’ve got a few tester corals in for now Which seem fine but I want to get a couple more months of stability before I add more.

I didn’t switch any lights on for the first month, I’m now 10 weeks in and the blue lights are on 20% and whites 5%, red / green 1% but I’m starting to get a bit of new tank syndrome. Not too much, just a bit of green and red colouring to the surface of the rocks. I’ve just bought some prodibio biodigest which I hope will help. A question, do I need to add a carbon source along with biodigest? Or can The bacteria be used alone and just complement my refugium.

I hope you like the photos, its been really fun and a beautiful piece of art for my home.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Very nice looking set up! And welcome home!