Don’s New CDA 225 Build

Donseas

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Hi my name is Don.
A little background.
20 ish years ago I had a 240 reef sitting next to a 300 gal shark tank. Well we had a third kid and bought a bigger house. The tanks had to go. Fast forward, kids are all out as of right now ,LOL.

I bought a used RSR 170. Man times have changed. Reefing is totally a new world now. About 5 months ago on a Saturday morning. My wife was enjoying the tank. She looked at me and said, We need a bigger tank.
So now I started doing more research on an System like Waterbox or Red Sea etc. I decided I want to have more control of parts and sumps etc. so I decided I would order a tank . I wanted 5 foot by 30 inches by 24 tall. Did some research on Glasscages,CDA,Planet Aquarium and I even got a price on a reef Savoy.
Lead times were long and prices all over the map. I found a 72x30x26 CDA on the showroom floor at a local fish store. It has double eurobraced on top, PVC bottom and armor edges with a Synergy Reef V2 over flow. It is made of starphire glass. Just was I was looking for but 1 foot bigger.
So I order a Framing tech stand and started order parts for the build.
I will post pics as I go along
 
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Donseas

Donseas

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I laid out the stand and tank on my workbench. If you look hard enough at this point I was still thinking about a 5 foot tank
 

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Donseas

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Next I made paper cutouts of the equipment I ordered
 

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Donseas

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Now the exciting part stuff starts showing up
I am doing a Trigger 39 platinum. 2 COR 20 pumps. Octo Varios 4 for the mainfold. Two Apex DOS and 2 DDR. Reef Ocot skimmer. I am doing a dual Pentair 40 watt UV. One at low rate for fish and one a high for algae

More build pics to come soon
 

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Hi my name is Don.
A little background.
20 ish years ago I had a 240 reef sitting next to a 300 gal shark tank. Well we had a third kid and bought a bigger house. The tanks had to go. Fast forward, kids are all out as of right now ,LOL.

I bought a used RSR 170. Man times have changed. Reefing is totally a new world now. About 5 months ago on a Saturday morning. My wife was enjoying the tank. She looked at me and said, We need a bigger tank.
So now I started doing more research on an System like Waterbox or Red Sea etc. I decided I want to have more control of parts and sumps etc. so I decided I would order a tank . I wanted 5 foot by 30 inches by 24 tall. Did some research on Glasscages,CDA,Planet Aquarium and I even got a price on a reef Savoy.
Lead times were long and prices all over the map. I found a 72x30x26 CDA on the showroom floor at a local fish store. It has double eurobraced on top, PVC bottom and armor edges with a Synergy Reef V2 over flow. It is made of starphire glass. Just was I was looking for but 1 foot bigger.
So I order a Framing tech stand and started order parts for the build.
I will post pics as I go along
exciting @Donseas. Thanks so much for the consideration! Looking forward to seeing your build and how your journey evolves. Thanks again. Here to help if needed.
 
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Donseas

Donseas

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Did a paper drawing and ordered all my plumbing fittings. Doing schedule 80 fitting and blue pipe. UV’s are ordered. I also ordered all my rock. Getting very excited.
Finalizing my stand with Framing Tech. Just a few tweaks
Picking up tank soon
 

Billldg

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Look forward to seeing this come together. I have the same tank. You can look at my build thread in my signatures. I am not so sure on the Cor 20's though, as I also run 2. ;)

I am in the process to totally redoing my returns as a result.
 
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Donseas

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Sorry for the long delay. I had some health issues I had to take care of. All good now. Surgery was yesterday. Now I have some light duty for a few weeks.
I made a lot of progress. I got the stand built then I got the tank plumbed and leak tested. The drained and moved into final location. Filled with saltwater 20 days ago. It has cycled. I am going to put copepods and CUC in this week. Then transfer my 6 fish from my RSR 170 next week. Here is stand pixs . I used HDPE for bottom of stand. I routed all edges and cut out for verticals in back. It extends 4 inches out the back to hold the two UVs
 

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Donseas

Donseas

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Next was onto plumbing.
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I used blue pipe and schedule 80 fittings. I setup my chop saw on the front porch. It looked like a Smurf threw up everywhere
 
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Donseas

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I will get more images this weekend. I have left board with some electronics on it. I hope to move the Trident from my other tank this weekend
 

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Holy moly! Great progress. Watching along and planning my same tank build. I had just considered doing exactly what you did with the dual externally plumbed COR20s. How are you liking that setup? I don’t think I’ve seen them used externally before.
 
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Donseas

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Holy moly! Great progress. Watching along and planning my same tank build. I had just considered doing exactly what you did with the dual externally plumbed COR20s. How are you liking that setup? I don’t think I’ve seen them used externally before.
I like the external. They are quiet plus won’t get covered in coralline. I added foam under sump and pumps to make sure no vibration
 

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