First Build: IM EXT 112 "Noob Lagoon"

[StickyThwomp]

Hello soon-to-be fellow Reefers!

I've been a long-time lurker of R2R, and after getting cold feet on starting a tank a few years ago, I've decided to revisit that decision with a dive straight into the deep end. I'm going big, and going slow, and would love advice from some of the more experienced reefers than I (which is likely everyone). I'm calling this the "Noob Lagoon" since I've never had a tank before. If I've listed a component with any degree of specificity, I probably already bought it!

I'd appreciate contributions from anyone with cautionary tales, encouragement, alternative strategies, identification of holes and/or overkill, etc... I've "soaked up" details from beginner reefing guides, ULM tank trials, 52-weeks of reefing, etc... on and off over the past few years, so I'm not looking for any more general getting started references, but very much interested in specific guides to certain aspects that anyone thinks would be helpful, or if it looks like I'm showing some weakness in my understanding of that area.

My Goals:
I want a living-room centerpiece tank, with a focus on the weird creatures. (The more "alien-like" the environment (colors/shape/movement), the better!)

• Softies/LPS primarily, because I like the movement and color variety, and don't (yet) want to deal with the more challenges that seem to be required with SPS. I'll probably dip my toes into a few SPS though, it seems inevitable, so I want this tank to be able to support a small amount.
• I'm not focusing too heavily on the fish, quantity-wise, or from the perspective of uniqueness. I have no specific fish in mind that is a "must have".
• Low Maintenance, plenty of automation. I'm failure paranoid, so I want to build in redundancy and monitoring where it makes the most sense without unnecessary over-complications. I have a tendency to over-complicate things, so I very much welcome any sanity checks on that!
  • Auto Water Changes (Mixing Station in the basement, Tank across the house and upstairs)
  • Auto Top-Off
  • Eventually auto-feeders for vacation and such.
• Willing to pay for convenience/maintenance reduction/and safety/monitoring (For my pets, and my floors!).

My Plans:
Display

• Tank & Stand: IM EXT 112 Lagoon (36" x 36" x 20") (Bean-animal style overflow)
• Aquascape/Habitat: ~3" Sand & Reefsaver dryrock (Would love aqua-scaping inspiriation/suggestions)
• Powerheads: 2x MP40s
• Lights: Neptune SKY (Hoping I can get away with just this w/o having to supplement)
• Location: Upstairs living room. Smack dab atop an I-beam, ontop of a support pole for said I-beam, so I think I'll be fairly safe, but will post the details so someone can scare me otherwise South facing room, and will get a hair of direct sunlight in winter, but its as deep in the room as it can be.
• Infrastructure:
  • I'll need to cut some holes for water tubing, but thankfully that I-beam under the tank means there's a nice channel for running all the way across the house to the mixing station that won't require much complication to set up.
  • Electrical wise, I don't yet know if I'm comfortable with the circuitry available. I've got one outlet nearby that shares a circuit with the overhead can lights in the living room and kitchen (not all LEDs yet), and another outlet that I haven't yet figured out which circuit it's on. I'm considering having an electrician hook me up with a dedicated circuit (or two?) for the tank.

Sump

• Sump: TBD
• Mechanical Filtration:
  • Socks
    • If socks become a PITA, would like to consider a rollermat, but not shooting for that from the start. I figure "Low-Maintenance" socks could be to have extras on hand, swap the dirties into a sealed container in the sump, and batch clean eventually when I'm running low (Saltwater Mixing Time). Utility sink is in basement, I know I'm not going to want to run down there to clean socks frequently.
  • No Skimmer (Desire, need to do more research to see how practical it is.)
    • Reason for avoidance would be the frequent recurring maintenance, and they seem to be something that go wrong (bubble over, leak, etc..) quite a bit.)
• Biological Filtration: Refugium of some kind. Sucking out excess Nutrients w/ Macroalgea is appealing to me, especially if I can "tune" its growth via lighting. The frequent maintenance being plucking some out and throwing it away doesn't seem intrusive enough to me to be a concern.
• Heating: TBD (Desire redundancy/failure tolerance)
• Cooling: None
• Return Pumps: TBD (Desire redundancy/failure tolerance)
• Manifold: TBD All the sexy sumps seem to have one, seems to be a good way to plan to expand. On the other hand, its more complexity in the plumbing, more points of failure, etc... Still considering fully what this enables and whether or not I want it.

Mixing Station

• RO/DI: Old system a co-worker gifted me, need to do more research to see if it'll be sufficient and/or what I need to add to it. I know I've got chloromine instead of chlorine to filter out, unknown what my current water pressure is to know if I need a booster pump, but I hear some of those auto-flush the RO/DI Membranes, so that sounds like a desirable thing to do to eliminate some regular maintenance maybe?
• Storage: 2x 50g Rectangular Plastic containers, 5" fill port, 3/4" drain. RO/DI will gravity feed into Salt Tank
• Heat/Circulation: TBD (With a gravity feed from RO/DI -> SaltTank, and a dosing system from Salt Tank to Pump? I don't think I need any external PVC circulation that seems so common in other Mixing station designs? Is dropping a power-head and heater through the 5" top port at mixing time good enough? or will I want to strongly consider circulating out the drain valve and back in the fill port just for the purposes of mixing?
• AWC fluid transport: Leaning towards daily removal/refill via dosing pump.
• ATO fluid transport: Manual for beginning, but desire automating it. Undecided between on dosing pump or direct from pressurized RO line.
• Location: Basement concrete next to floor drain and laundry basin. Not too concerned about leaks.

Quarantine

• Not too much thought into this yet, but I'm thinking 20-30g tanks with HOB filters, heater, placed next to the mixing station.
  • Q: Are any medicines severe enough to permanently "claim" a tank? i.e. I figure two will allow me to observe frags and fish, frags and inverts, fish and inverts, etc... without much concern over treating one killing the other so long as I clean thoroughly between species swaps? Still very much in the research aspect of this, but learned enough to know that quarantining fits my style.

Automation/Monitoring

• Automatic Water Changes via dosing pumps (Frequency undetermined)
• Automatic Top Off (Looking for suggestions here. If I'm doing AWC to the tank with RO line and dosing pumps, seems like topping off w/ the same style might be easiest?)
• Leak detection on/around display/Sump (Design TBD, but recently heard of "leak rope" which sounds promising if it works well?)
• Temp/Salinity/Nutrient Monitoring (I love watching numbers on graphs, even if they're constant)
• Auto-fill of RO/DI Storage in mixing station. (Manual Salt Mixing)
• Salinity monitoring of Salt Storage? (Unless dirt cheap, there's probably better ways like redundant valves to mitigate leaks from fresh to salt screwing up the Saltwater used for AWCs?)
• Probably going to get an Apex (cause toys), but I'm not opposed to handling these with discrete systems either.

Inhabitants

• Fish:
  • Pair of Clowns (I think its illegal to have a tank without them )
  • Yellow Tang
  • Sand Sifting Goby
  • TBD Others
  • Desired, but not convinced its practical so probably not going to get any: Engineer Goby
• Coral:
  • Softy/LPS, no specific must-haves in mind.
  • Pulsing Xenia is on the want-list, since I love the movement, but it seems like this is more of a weed so unless I can be convinced its manageable, I might skip.
• Inverts:
  • Crabs/Hermits/Shrimp/Starfish, I gotta catch 'em all.

My Timeline
The tank is due Jan/Feb of '23, so I have plenty of time to think and plan. I'm looking forward to posting some updates and getting feedback on the things I will likely start up earlier, like the mixing station, QT tanks, sump design and any high-level plans for automation!

Thanks for reading! and thanks in advance for constructive commentary!!

-Sticky

 

[StickyThwomp]

Mixing Station Shelving
I'm attempting to balance my lazyness w/ my desire for a clean setup here.... I have an existing, unused large shelf made from 2x4s and plywood that I'm planning on cannibalizing for the mixing station shelving. I've got two rough designs in place. Both attempt to make use of some "dead space" between a sewage stack and a water heater, so they're a bit tight placement wise.


A: This design is fatter, since it re-uses the original width of shelving for the double-stacked section. I have to adjust the total hight and shelving hight a bit, but otherwise the framing stays mostly intact. This one wins on the lazy scale! There's a convenient "panel" that I could mount the RODI unit on (I don't much want to drill it into the concrete wall).

B: This design thins out the shelving to be the size of the tanks itself, so vertical columns go under the corners of the storage tanks. That, and more room at the spigot of the saltwater tank is a big plus. The RODI panel needs more thought, at the moment its just leftover from Design A.

Not shown, but both designs would gravity feed from the RODI -> Salt tank. Still unsure if the saltwater tank would circulate/heat with an external pump, or just drop-ins through the top-access.

 

[kevgib67]

Well, I don’t think that you have really thought this out. Omg, you have to be the most researched, prepared and planned noob Ive come across. There’s no doubt in my mind you are going to be very successful in this hobby and I look forward to following along this journey. Go with your gut and skip the xenia, perhaps a nice island of gsp that is always flowing in the current and it won’t leave the island and seed other parts of your tank. Save yourself some headaches and skip the dry rock and get good quality live rock your tank will mature much faster and have so much biodiversity. Good luck and you may want to get evaluated for OCD! Ha

 

[RocketEngineer]

Nice choice of tank, even better having room for a tank room. I would get in trouble with that much space.

I do have a few thoughts for your consideration. Remember, these are just things to think about, your mileage may vary.

Those shelves make me nervous, especially for holding upwards of 800 pounds of water. Reason? They rely on the screws to take the weight. If there were supports directly under each shelf frame, it would be much stronger. Here is a picture of a different setup with the added supports:

The magenta/pink boards in that diagram should be in your build IMO.

Regarding the skimmer: I personally like a skimmer. My last one removed all sorts of crud from the tank and once my new tank is online, that skimmer is getting a good cleaning and a new pump before going back in. The only real “maintenance” it needs is a cup cleaning now and then, and once a year I removed it for a full cleaning and pump inspection. For something that removed detritus and compounds before they turned into nutrients, it worked rather well.

Return pumps, I agree with two. I’m using Sicce DC pumps as they have a long proven track record and I use two in tank and one on the water system so I have backups.

Heaters are the same: I use Ehiem because they have a long track record. I use multiples set at staggered temperatures and will replace them every couple years. After millions of cycles, most things break. Better to replace before that happens.

And last: I’ve done rock work several different ways. Stacked LR boulders, pukani both whole and drilled, dry rock, gulf rock. Never was really happy with the result. This time around, I used Real Reef rock, smashed it to pieces, and built my own structures. I can honestly say, I’ve never had a more dynamic, interesting, and just plain unique looking aquascape. It took a lot of time and effort, plenty of superglue and quick set, and a full box of gloves. But the result is amazing. Now I just have to cycle it (my current research is ongoing here).

Looking forward to seeing this mature.

 

[StickyThwomp]

Omg, you have to be the most researched, prepared and planned noob Ive come across... ...Good luck and you may want to get evaluated for OCD! Ha

Thanks! I tend to "over-engineer" when I'm learning new things, then once I have the experience I can tone it down a bit once I realize which things are critical and which are not. As to the OCD thing, I think I'm in the clear, but thanks for the concern!!

Those shelves make me nervous...

My woodworking friends agreed! Given that I've probably got the wood to spare already, it can't hurt to re-enforce it a bit more. New plan is essentially the design you posted, and attaching any leftover plywood from the cannibalized shelf to the sides that I won't be accessing for some extra stability. Plywood on some of the sides instead of solely for the platforms will probably also give me a good spot for the RODI.

This time around, I used Real Reef rock, smashed it to pieces, and built my own structures...

Save yourself some headaches and skip the dry rock...

I've already decided on and purchased the Dry Rock. Being able to break it and sculpt it was my main concern. I can take all the time in the world to design the rock-scape the way I want it. Not sure what that is yet, but I'll get there eventually! I'm assuming that the biodiversity deficit from starting with dry can be made up for w/ the various cycle-starting supplements. I want the only things in the tank to be those which I intentionally put in it, and hopefully the science is far along enough to replicate "natural" enough for stability.

Thanks for the interest! I hope to not disappoint!

 

[RocketEngineer]

If you haven’t, check out BRSTV habitat NSA video. I used that for my inspiration. The one change I made was to avoid needing much epoxy as I fitted pieces with multiple contact points. Took more adjusting and trying to find the right rock for a given spot but there were only a few joints that needed reinforcing.

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

I almost bought that tank since I prefer "square" tanks, but went with the 100 ext instead and it's been pretty decent. The one thing I don't care for is the lack of a platform inside the stand, so I had some wood cut. Should be a good setup for you.

 

[dstockwell]

Welcome to the Reef

 

[StickyThwomp]

Small Update:
The water storage tanks arrived way ahead of schedule (Today instead of Dec 6th)! Ordered online from Global Industrial for a total of $430 including Tax/Shipping. Seems crazy for water tanks, but the local Tractor Supply prices for similar sizes looked to be about the same if not more... Oh well, hope I won't wind up regretting dropping that much cash on tanks instead of some Brutes .

Rocks are also here now, 100lbs worth. Looks like way more than I expected! I know a picture of some tanks and a box of rocks isn't exactly exciting stuff, but I had no clue what "100 lbs of rock" looked like until now, so maybe that helps someone!

If I can beat my laziness into submission, I'll have a shelf built up over the weekend! If not, I should at least have the old shelf torn-down over the weekend, and ready to be built-up over the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm curious to see how my shelf plans translate to reality. The last thing I modeled in sketch-up and then built turned out quite nice, so heres hoping that this shelf works out the same way!

 

[StickyThwomp]

Detour into the realm of Power / Controller design...

My tentative plan thus far:

• Two GFCIs on Tank (TBD whether its two separate circuits or not)
• Two power bars, Splitting the Heaters and return pumps between the two.
• Battery backup on the Apex Pro, to keep monitoring alive (Network already has a battery backup).
• Skimmer monitoring! Being able to dump its cup into a collector, AND monitor the cup for overflow makes me much less reluctant to get a skimmer, so I'll probably go that route.

Pieces I'm still actively learning/researching:

• Vortech PowerHead battery backup interaction with the Apex
  • Seems like separate control via WXM module is needed to truly turn off the powerheads when on battery backup, but that seems to be discontinued.
  • Need to determine if one or both should have backup. (i.e. is one at 30 enough base life support?)
• Need to figure out emergency (or hot summer) cooling needs.
  • Thinking cooling fan across the top, but don't yet know.
• Auto Top Off design still TBD.
• Failure modes of these Energy bars... i.e. Redundancy is deminished if failures cascade through the common aquabus network. I hope there's isolation of some sort?

Edit: Image didn't attach on first post for some reason...

 

[Maximitsurugi]

Yeah I don’t think this dude is ready for reefing. Doesn’t take it seriously enough I think. Cutting so many corners already. Tsk tsk

 

[StickyThwomp]

The mixing station shelving has been completed! Thanks @RocketEngineer for the building tip! Next stage of this part of the project is to get an RODI system set up and getting those tanks filled! Unknown to me at the time of buying, but the tanks are built to be secured with ratchet straps, so the top tank is likely going to get tied down for those times when it might be light enough to be bumped out of place. Pretty cool! Aside from the sewage pipe right down the center, this is seems like it'll work out pretty slick!

 

[RocketEngineer]

Looks good.

 

[Beckbacca]

Following along, I have same tank coming same time (mine is INT) love all the thought you have put into this so far

 

[FishFriend11]

Pretty impressive setup! I'll be watching the progress. Good luck!

 

[Ryans Reef]

Hi there! I'm just starting a build of my own with the IM Lagoon 112 EXT. Can't wait to see what you do!

 

[ScottD]

Hi Sticky,

I just recently purchased a 135 gallon cube same foot print as yours just 24” tall instead of 20”. I was looking at the im 112 but got a great deal on the one I bought so went with that instead. I’ll be following along your build and probably bounce some ideas around if you don’t mind. Need to get my build thread going here soon.

Scott

 

[StickyThwomp]

Hi all. Its been a while since an update! Holidays have been a bit busy, taking some much needed time off of work to relax Hope you all were able to do the same!

Since the last update, I've acquired a few things, taking as much advantage of the holiday sales as I could!

PVC Piping for the Sump​

Nothing really noteworthy here, other than I bought various colors and used rough-measurements/guesstimates to determine how much to get.

The Sump Itself (Fiji-30 Advanced Reef Sump)​

This thing really is slick. I've got nothing to compare it to really, but it looks neat and clean. Seems to be well made. A few of the top cap pieces are a bit of a rough fit, so that part was a little disappointing, but other than that, A++.

Protein Skimmer (Curve 7 Elite Protein Skimmer)​

I've resigned to accepting that a skimmer is probably advisable, despite my desire to avoid one. At least it gives me one more toy to play with! Sad to say that I broke the darn thing right away when assembling it... When attaching the pump to the base, it looked a little crooked. I attempted to adjust it in place, and broke on of the little feet/clamps that holds the pump in place. The break was able to be fixed with epoxy, so i don't think that'll wind up being a long-term problem, just a little hick-up during assembly.

RO Stuff!​

- Disassembled, cleaned, and sanitized a second-hand 5-stage RO drinking water kit that I had sitting in the basement for years. Probably could use some O-ring replacements and obviously fresh filters, but other than that it should be good to go.
- BRS Triple DI Saver and water saver upgrade kit. I don't know I'll need a triple DI system, and my water bill isn't all that expensive that I'm worried about the water usage, but hey, fun new toys, right? Learning about how the things work is half the fun, designing/implementing the system is the other half!


And last but not least...

The Tank and Stand came early!​

It was shipped on a pallet, and encased in plywood (Not pictured, other than the remaining piece up against the back wall). While there was only a few feet to go between the spot shown here, and its temporary resting place (next picture), moving this thing was a PAIN! The garage door is narrow, and nestled in a corner where there's not much room for extra helping hands to lift/steady/guide. I'm not the strongest individual (6' 195 lb sedentary computer nerd), and neither are my friends unfortunately, but moving it roughly required the following...

• Four people for the initial lift off the pallet
• One person to get the pallet out of the way so we didn't trip on it.
• Two of the four plus some helping hands to get it tilted up on its side.
• Two people to carry it through the doorway.
• Four people to "un-tilt" and position it on the stand.

We didn't use any glass suction cups or anything like that to hold it, just a 4 pack of grip gloves from home depot. I would note though that bringing this from a cold northern US garage (was around 0 deg F at the time) to an indoor setting resulted in instant condensation which made it a pain to grip... There were two "extra" people standing by that gave us a bit more confidence. All about that redundancy to mitigate failures, am I right

Here's the tank/stand in all of its glory. Apologies, I didn't take any pictures of the assembly process, but it was nice and easy to do. The only thing I wish the instructions had was measurements or markers on the frame about where to place the various support beams for even spacing. You have to measure and place them yourself if you want anything other than "eyeball" accuracy. Other than that, this thing was IKEA simple to assemble. Insert thing in slot, turn lock, move to next thing in slot combo. The pictured placement below was just to get it out of the garage, while leaving the area where it is actually going (roughly the black board in the background) open for figuring what to do with flooring.

Partially set-up stand, in its final location. I'm thinking its best to remove the carpet (either whole room, or just under/around the tank) but I haven't yet settled on what to do there. As you can see by my puke-orange armchairs, my decorating skills leave much to be desired, so I've got no clue how to lay out this room, much-less what semi-permanent flooring changes to make.

So... Next update from me will probably be related to the RODI and Saltwater mixing setup, as that seems to be the easiest to make progress on since it doesn't have to "look good". If anyone is curious about anything (tank/stand/sump/etc) and wants more detailed pictures, just let me know!

Thanks to those that are following along! If you're starting up the same-ish thing, please let me know when your build thread gets started so I can steal your ideas!!

 

[ScottD]

Hi all. Its been a while since an update! Holidays have been a bit busy, taking some much needed time off of work to relax Hope you all were able to do the same!

Since the last update, I've acquired a few things, taking as much advantage of the holiday sales as I could!

PVC Piping for the Sump​

Nothing really noteworthy here, other than I bought various colors and used rough-measurements/guesstimates to determine how much to get.

The Sump Itself (Fiji-30 Advanced Reef Sump)​

This thing really is slick. I've got nothing to compare it to really, but it looks neat and clean. Seems to be well made. A few of the top cap pieces are a bit of a rough fit, so that part was a little disappointing, but other than that, A++.

Protein Skimmer (Curve 7 Elite Protein Skimmer)​

I've resigned to accepting that a skimmer is probably advisable, despite my desire to avoid one. At least it gives me one more toy to play with! Sad to say that I broke the darn thing right away when assembling it... When attaching the pump to the base, it looked a little crooked. I attempted to adjust it in place, and broke on of the little feet/clamps that holds the pump in place. The break was able to be fixed with epoxy, so i don't think that'll wind up being a long-term problem, just a little hick-up during assembly.

RO Stuff!​

- Disassembled, cleaned, and sanitized a second-hand 5-stage RO drinking water kit that I had sitting in the basement for years. Probably could use some O-ring replacements and obviously fresh filters, but other than that it should be good to go.
- BRS Triple DI Saver and water saver upgrade kit. I don't know I'll need a triple DI system, and my water bill isn't all that expensive that I'm worried about the water usage, but hey, fun new toys, right? Learning about how the things work is half the fun, designing/implementing the system is the other half!


And last but not least...

The Tank and Stand came early!​

It was shipped on a pallet, and encased in plywood (Not pictured, other than the remaining piece up against the back wall). While there was only a few feet to go between the spot shown here, and its temporary resting place (next picture), moving this thing was a PAIN! The garage door is narrow, and nestled in a corner where there's not much room for extra helping hands to lift/steady/guide. I'm not the strongest individual (6' 195 lb sedentary computer nerd), and neither are my friends unfortunately, but moving it roughly required the following...

• Four people for the initial lift off the pallet
• One person to get the pallet out of the way so we didn't trip on it.
• Two of the four plus some helping hands to get it tilted up on its side.
• Two people to carry it through the doorway.
• Four people to "un-tilt" and position it on the stand.

We didn't use any glass suction cups or anything like that to hold it, just a 4 pack of grip gloves from home depot. I would note though that bringing this from a cold northern US garage (was around 0 deg F at the time) to an indoor setting resulted in instant condensation which made it a pain to grip... There were two "extra" people standing by that gave us a bit more confidence. All about that redundancy to mitigate failures, am I right

Here's the tank/stand in all of its glory. Apologies, I didn't take any pictures of the assembly process, but it was nice and easy to do. The only thing I wish the instructions had was measurements or markers on the frame about where to place the various support beams for even spacing. You have to measure and place them yourself if you want anything other than "eyeball" accuracy. Other than that, this thing was IKEA simple to assemble. Insert thing in slot, turn lock, move to next thing in slot combo. The pictured placement below was just to get it out of the garage, while leaving the area where it is actually going (roughly the black board in the background) open for figuring what to do with flooring.

Partially set-up stand, in its final location. I'm thinking its best to remove the carpet (either whole room, or just under/around the tank) but I haven't yet settled on what to do there. As you can see by my puke-orange armchairs, my decorating skills leave much to be desired, so I've got no clue how to lay out this room, much-less what semi-permanent flooring changes to make.

So... Next update from me will probably be related to the RODI and Saltwater mixing setup, as that seems to be the easiest to make progress on since it doesn't have to "look good". If anyone is curious about anything (tank/stand/sump/etc) and wants more detailed pictures, just let me know!

Thanks to those that are following along! If you're starting up the same-ish thing, please let me know when your build thread gets started so I can steal your ideas!!

I’d be curious to see some pictures of what your stand looks like on the inside. I spent a lot of time agonizing over my design and just curious how yours compares to mine.
I’ve got a build thread going now so feel free to check it out and you’re more than welcome to bounce some ideas off of me.

 

[quentin17110]

Hello soon-to-be fellow Reefers!

I've been a long-time lurker of R2R, and after getting cold feet on starting a tank a few years ago, I've decided to revisit that decision with a dive straight into the deep end. I'm going big, and going slow, and would love advice from some of the more experienced reefers than I (which is likely everyone). I'm calling this the "Noob Lagoon" since I've never had a tank before. If I've listed a component with any degree of specificity, I probably already bought it!

I'd appreciate contributions from anyone with cautionary tales, encouragement, alternative strategies, identification of holes and/or overkill, etc... I've "soaked up" details from beginner reefing guides, ULM tank trials, 52-weeks of reefing, etc... on and off over the past few years, so I'm not looking for any more general getting started references, but very much interested in specific guides to certain aspects that anyone thinks would be helpful, or if it looks like I'm showing some weakness in my understanding of that area.

My Goals:
I want a living-room centerpiece tank, with a focus on the weird creatures. (The more "alien-like" the environment (colors/shape/movement), the better!)

• Softies/LPS primarily, because I like the movement and color variety, and don't (yet) want to deal with the more challenges that seem to be required with SPS. I'll probably dip my toes into a few SPS though, it seems inevitable, so I want this tank to be able to support a small amount.
• I'm not focusing too heavily on the fish, quantity-wise, or from the perspective of uniqueness. I have no specific fish in mind that is a "must have".
• Low Maintenance, plenty of automation. I'm failure paranoid, so I want to build in redundancy and monitoring where it makes the most sense without unnecessary over-complications. I have a tendency to over-complicate things, so I very much welcome any sanity checks on that!
  • Auto Water Changes (Mixing Station in the basement, Tank across the house and upstairs)
  • Auto Top-Off
  • Eventually auto-feeders for vacation and such.
• Willing to pay for convenience/maintenance reduction/and safety/monitoring (For my pets, and my floors!).

My Plans:
Display

• Tank & Stand: IM EXT 112 Lagoon (36" x 36" x 20") (Bean-animal style overflow)
• Aquascape/Habitat: ~3" Sand & Reefsaver dryrock (Would love aqua-scaping inspiriation/suggestions)
• Powerheads: 2x MP40s
• Lights: Neptune SKY (Hoping I can get away with just this w/o having to supplement)
• Location: Upstairs living room. Smack dab atop an I-beam, ontop of a support pole for said I-beam, so I think I'll be fairly safe, but will post the details so someone can scare me otherwise South facing room, and will get a hair of direct sunlight in winter, but its as deep in the room as it can be.
• Infrastructure:
  • I'll need to cut some holes for water tubing, but thankfully that I-beam under the tank means there's a nice channel for running all the way across the house to the mixing station that won't require much complication to set up.
  • Electrical wise, I don't yet know if I'm comfortable with the circuitry available. I've got one outlet nearby that shares a circuit with the overhead can lights in the living room and kitchen (not all LEDs yet), and another outlet that I haven't yet figured out which circuit it's on. I'm considering having an electrician hook me up with a dedicated circuit (or two?) for the tank.

Sump

• Sump: TBD
• Mechanical Filtration:
  • Socks
    • If socks become a PITA, would like to consider a rollermat, but not shooting for that from the start. I figure "Low-Maintenance" socks could be to have extras on hand, swap the dirties into a sealed container in the sump, and batch clean eventually when I'm running low (Saltwater Mixing Time). Utility sink is in basement, I know I'm not going to want to run down there to clean socks frequently.
  • No Skimmer (Desire, need to do more research to see how practical it is.)
    • Reason for avoidance would be the frequent recurring maintenance, and they seem to be something that go wrong (bubble over, leak, etc..) quite a bit.)
• Biological Filtration: Refugium of some kind. Sucking out excess Nutrients w/ Macroalgea is appealing to me, especially if I can "tune" its growth via lighting. The frequent maintenance being plucking some out and throwing it away doesn't seem intrusive enough to me to be a concern.
• Heating: TBD (Desire redundancy/failure tolerance)
• Cooling: None
• Return Pumps: TBD (Desire redundancy/failure tolerance)
• Manifold: TBD All the sexy sumps seem to have one, seems to be a good way to plan to expand. On the other hand, its more complexity in the plumbing, more points of failure, etc... Still considering fully what this enables and whether or not I want it.

Mixing Station

• RO/DI: Old system a co-worker gifted me, need to do more research to see if it'll be sufficient and/or what I need to add to it. I know I've got chloromine instead of chlorine to filter out, unknown what my current water pressure is to know if I need a booster pump, but I hear some of those auto-flush the RO/DI Membranes, so that sounds like a desirable thing to do to eliminate some regular maintenance maybe?
• Storage: 2x 50g Rectangular Plastic containers, 5" fill port, 3/4" drain. RO/DI will gravity feed into Salt Tank
• Heat/Circulation: TBD (With a gravity feed from RO/DI -> SaltTank, and a dosing system from Salt Tank to Pump? I don't think I need any external PVC circulation that seems so common in other Mixing station designs? Is dropping a power-head and heater through the 5" top port at mixing time good enough? or will I want to strongly consider circulating out the drain valve and back in the fill port just for the purposes of mixing?
• AWC fluid transport: Leaning towards daily removal/refill via dosing pump.
• ATO fluid transport: Manual for beginning, but desire automating it. Undecided between on dosing pump or direct from pressurized RO line.
• Location: Basement concrete next to floor drain and laundry basin. Not too concerned about leaks.

Quarantine

• Not too much thought into this yet, but I'm thinking 20-30g tanks with HOB filters, heater, placed next to the mixing station.
  • Q: Are any medicines severe enough to permanently "claim" a tank? i.e. I figure two will allow me to observe frags and fish, frags and inverts, fish and inverts, etc... without much concern over treating one killing the other so long as I clean thoroughly between species swaps? Still very much in the research aspect of this, but learned enough to know that quarantining fits my style.

Automation/Monitoring

• Automatic Water Changes via dosing pumps (Frequency undetermined)
• Automatic Top Off (Looking for suggestions here. If I'm doing AWC to the tank with RO line and dosing pumps, seems like topping off w/ the same style might be easiest?)
• Leak detection on/around display/Sump (Design TBD, but recently heard of "leak rope" which sounds promising if it works well?)
• Temp/Salinity/Nutrient Monitoring (I love watching numbers on graphs, even if they're constant)
• Auto-fill of RO/DI Storage in mixing station. (Manual Salt Mixing)
• Salinity monitoring of Salt Storage? (Unless dirt cheap, there's probably better ways like redundant valves to mitigate leaks from fresh to salt screwing up the Saltwater used for AWCs?)
• Probably going to get an Apex (cause toys), but I'm not opposed to handling these with discrete systems either.

Inhabitants

• Fish:
  • Pair of Clowns (I think its illegal to have a tank without them )
  • Yellow Tang
  • Sand Sifting Goby
  • TBD Others
  • Desired, but not convinced its practical so probably not going to get any: Engineer Goby
• Coral:
  • Softy/LPS, no specific must-haves in mind.
  • Pulsing Xenia is on the want-list, since I love the movement, but it seems like this is more of a weed so unless I can be convinced its manageable, I might skip.
• Inverts:
  • Crabs/Hermits/Shrimp/Starfish, I gotta catch 'em all.

My Timeline
The tank is due Jan/Feb of '23, so I have plenty of time to think and plan. I'm looking forward to posting some updates and getting feedback on the things I will likely start up earlier, like the mixing station, QT tanks, sump design and any high-level plans for automation!

Thanks for reading! and thanks in advance for constructive commentary!!

-Sticky

Super detailed live it