RoachnDart
New Member
Alright, let's dive into this.
Few years ago I decided I wanted a fish tank. Not knowing any sort of back ground to aquariums, naturally I decided saltwater offered the "prettiest" aquariums out there. Thus began my journey of reefing. I did NOT know what I was getting myself into, but no matter what, I don't back down from a challenge to often and this was no exception.
My first and only tank was a true budget build. 40 gallon breeder from big box store, small canister filter, hang-on protein skimmer, amazon lights.... so on so forth. Getting my toes wet was what I was telling myself. I did what I thought was pretty good with rock scape and what not(turned out to be a nightmare in a small tank).
First 2 fish, Roach and Dart, two clowns that have been absolute troopers since day 1.
This tank has done fairly well, given the complete inexperience. It survived a complete crash a few months in, bounced back and began to look like an actual tank someone could be proud of. Had its highs and lows of course but it's what spurred me on to say "I want bigger and better."
Continuing through time we land on the day I said "I'm gonna do it". This is a journey that still hasn't met its end. Buckle up, Buttercup.
To start, some background. Where the small tank lived was hard to describe.... A fireplace hearth/chimney with a shelf built in with it... Worked for the small tank but not for anything much bigger.
Our house is three stories, with the dream of the display tank living on the middle "main" floor. But, that meant that this chimney structure ran from the basement all the way up out of the roof. For the tank dream to come alive, that meant removing this entire chimney, and surrounding brick. I started in the basement, as it's an unfinished basement, ripping all the brick away from the main structure and supporting it temporally with 4x4s holding up the remaining hearth a floor above.
Then, it was on to keeping some functionality of the remainder of the house while I progressed. I started outside on the roof, tearing down the chimney from above. Removed the chimney, then patched the roof. Don't come after me about the roof shingles not being the same color.... it's hard to match 20 year old shingles.
In this time frame as well my wife gave me the green light to get a dog..... Meet Maxwell, another reason this has taken almost a year to get to where I am today. Don't let that cute little snow ball fool you.... he is now a 120 lbs tank..... and not slowing down growing any time soon.
Around this time I start neglecting pictures, and just focus on the work ahead. But the chimney had to be removed through 2 floors, down into the 3rd floor in the bedroom then down into the second floor, or what we call our main floor. This meant moving the fireplace and the small tank away from the work area. Here the small tank begins to be neglected badly.... It goes through a small crash and I lose a lot of progress, and fish in the process. But, I'll take one step back for the two forward. I was able to contain the work area in plastic to avoid most of the construction work from escaping, but that meant our living room was significantly encroached upon.
I come from construction, so this sort of thing doesn't scare me too much. All of this is done solo for the most part. I tore out the remaining chimney and hearth, down to bare studs and floor again. I replaced sheetrock, putting up moisture resistant sheetrock up around the tank, where possible moisture would be the highest chance. The new hearth/floor was something had to design build and spent a lot of time thinking about. I settled on a natural slate stone floor. The left half is actually slightly sloped towards the middle from all sides, to act as a shower pan bar the unforsaken chance of a major leak, some water would have somewhere to go. As that middle drain heads straight outside. The other half towards the right is where the old pellet stove will sit. That slat pad is roughly 8'x4', so fairly good size area.
At this point in time I was sitting on an first gen Red Sea 425XL that I thought was my next new to me tank..... Yeah, then I read the horror stories..... Decided I wouldn't play that game. Ended up settling on a Fiji Cube 108 INT, as it has roughly the same footprint as the Red Sea. That is on it's way as a contractor is finishing up the carpet fixes after removing the old chimney/hearth. It show up and the excitement of having a new tank hits hard. I have a couple of buddies over and we move the new tank in.
I am able to reuse the Red Sea cabinet, I do make a new top for it, as I was never a fan of the overhang the Red Sea had. I don't trust it, so the new tank is about an inch deeper and I just commit to making a new top for the cabinet to support it 100%.
This is about where we stand currently. I have made more progress than this, but that will be in the next post with a few more updates.
This build out will not be nearly as budget as the first one. I plan on having a water mixing station in the basement directly under the DT upstairs, acting as both easy water change/access as well as 50 gallon storage tanks that I will plumb into auto water changes and ATO systems.
I have put together almost all of the needed equipment to get the new tank going but waiting on a few other parts and pieces to show up, then it's time to let the dogs run....
Stick with me while we get through the build, cause I'm gonna need ya'll at some point.
Thanks for joining in and stay for the wild ride this will be!
RoachnDart
Few years ago I decided I wanted a fish tank. Not knowing any sort of back ground to aquariums, naturally I decided saltwater offered the "prettiest" aquariums out there. Thus began my journey of reefing. I did NOT know what I was getting myself into, but no matter what, I don't back down from a challenge to often and this was no exception.
My first and only tank was a true budget build. 40 gallon breeder from big box store, small canister filter, hang-on protein skimmer, amazon lights.... so on so forth. Getting my toes wet was what I was telling myself. I did what I thought was pretty good with rock scape and what not(turned out to be a nightmare in a small tank).
First 2 fish, Roach and Dart, two clowns that have been absolute troopers since day 1.
This tank has done fairly well, given the complete inexperience. It survived a complete crash a few months in, bounced back and began to look like an actual tank someone could be proud of. Had its highs and lows of course but it's what spurred me on to say "I want bigger and better."
Continuing through time we land on the day I said "I'm gonna do it". This is a journey that still hasn't met its end. Buckle up, Buttercup.
To start, some background. Where the small tank lived was hard to describe.... A fireplace hearth/chimney with a shelf built in with it... Worked for the small tank but not for anything much bigger.
Our house is three stories, with the dream of the display tank living on the middle "main" floor. But, that meant that this chimney structure ran from the basement all the way up out of the roof. For the tank dream to come alive, that meant removing this entire chimney, and surrounding brick. I started in the basement, as it's an unfinished basement, ripping all the brick away from the main structure and supporting it temporally with 4x4s holding up the remaining hearth a floor above.
Then, it was on to keeping some functionality of the remainder of the house while I progressed. I started outside on the roof, tearing down the chimney from above. Removed the chimney, then patched the roof. Don't come after me about the roof shingles not being the same color.... it's hard to match 20 year old shingles.
In this time frame as well my wife gave me the green light to get a dog..... Meet Maxwell, another reason this has taken almost a year to get to where I am today. Don't let that cute little snow ball fool you.... he is now a 120 lbs tank..... and not slowing down growing any time soon.
Around this time I start neglecting pictures, and just focus on the work ahead. But the chimney had to be removed through 2 floors, down into the 3rd floor in the bedroom then down into the second floor, or what we call our main floor. This meant moving the fireplace and the small tank away from the work area. Here the small tank begins to be neglected badly.... It goes through a small crash and I lose a lot of progress, and fish in the process. But, I'll take one step back for the two forward. I was able to contain the work area in plastic to avoid most of the construction work from escaping, but that meant our living room was significantly encroached upon.
I come from construction, so this sort of thing doesn't scare me too much. All of this is done solo for the most part. I tore out the remaining chimney and hearth, down to bare studs and floor again. I replaced sheetrock, putting up moisture resistant sheetrock up around the tank, where possible moisture would be the highest chance. The new hearth/floor was something had to design build and spent a lot of time thinking about. I settled on a natural slate stone floor. The left half is actually slightly sloped towards the middle from all sides, to act as a shower pan bar the unforsaken chance of a major leak, some water would have somewhere to go. As that middle drain heads straight outside. The other half towards the right is where the old pellet stove will sit. That slat pad is roughly 8'x4', so fairly good size area.
At this point in time I was sitting on an first gen Red Sea 425XL that I thought was my next new to me tank..... Yeah, then I read the horror stories..... Decided I wouldn't play that game. Ended up settling on a Fiji Cube 108 INT, as it has roughly the same footprint as the Red Sea. That is on it's way as a contractor is finishing up the carpet fixes after removing the old chimney/hearth. It show up and the excitement of having a new tank hits hard. I have a couple of buddies over and we move the new tank in.
I am able to reuse the Red Sea cabinet, I do make a new top for it, as I was never a fan of the overhang the Red Sea had. I don't trust it, so the new tank is about an inch deeper and I just commit to making a new top for the cabinet to support it 100%.
This is about where we stand currently. I have made more progress than this, but that will be in the next post with a few more updates.
This build out will not be nearly as budget as the first one. I plan on having a water mixing station in the basement directly under the DT upstairs, acting as both easy water change/access as well as 50 gallon storage tanks that I will plumb into auto water changes and ATO systems.
I have put together almost all of the needed equipment to get the new tank going but waiting on a few other parts and pieces to show up, then it's time to let the dogs run....
Stick with me while we get through the build, cause I'm gonna need ya'll at some point.
Thanks for joining in and stay for the wild ride this will be!
RoachnDart
