First tank - 150 peninsula from crystal dynamic

[mrcole76]

This is my first time posting in the forum, too, so bear with me as I get this figured out. I’ve probably been seriously considering a tank for the last couple of years and really started getting serious about the planning a year ago. It’s interesting to look back and see how my ideas have evolved.

At first, I thought I had a great location to put a 4’ tank up against a wall where I’d have access behind the wall for sump and equipment. However, that location got vetoed by the Chief Decorator. And I must admit, her concerns were valid but I was too excited about behind-the-wall access for a mini fish room. The best tanks I’ve seen “fit” a room and it’s obvious the time and energy that went into making that happen. Hmm. Ok, plan B.

Well,there is one other location that would be pretty sweet. Between my kitchen and family room there is a 2 foot drop to the family room. What about a PENINSULA in between?! Set it high enough to be viewable from both rooms. Aww yeah, now we’re talkin’ and the Chief Decorator is fully on board!

Next, I’ll share some drawings of the setup, tank specs, and a pic of where this is going. Thanks for following along!

 

[nagreen]

Sounds awesome! I've been dreaming of a peninsula tank. I'll definitely follow along. You can help me plan my future peninsula haha.

Are you going with a custom tank or one of the Red Sea / Waterbox brand names?

 

[Devaji]

1st off welcome to R2R! its a great group of reefers here.
Hell yeah! dude great idea to go peninsula. its like having 3 tanks in one. my fav. I dont have one yet..but some day.

fallowing the build!

 

[mrcole76]

You’ll see in the picture I’ll be attaching a bit later that the perfect length for the tank would be 7’ to fit nicely between some railings but I just couldn’t deal with what that would cost me. And for a first tank, I was worried that it would just be too much. So here’s what we decided on:
5’ long, 22” front to back, and 27” tall.

I absolutely love the look of a slightly taller tank. I’m hoping 27 will be a decent compromise. Time will tell. Here’s a sketch of the complete system. The doors will match what we have in the kitchen. In this sketch (to scale), I also don’t totally have the vision for the canopy yet but it’s a start.

 

[mrcole76]

Sounds awesome! I've been dreaming of a peninsula tank. I'll definitely follow along. You can help me plan my future peninsula haha.

Are you going with a custom tank or one of the Red Sea / Waterbox brand names?

Thanks! It’s going to be a custom glass build. Details coming shortly!

 

[dbl]

Signing up to follow along. I'm a sucker for a peninsula and absolutely love mine. I too used it as a room divider between dining and living areas. My chief decorator also came up with the idea and I couldn't be happier. Those decorators are very smart...lol.

 

[Devaji]

yeah my lady is totally down for a peninsula room divider..we just have no where to put one
so I get to live through all you fine folks

how long are your arms? 27" is pretty tall I have trouble reaching to bottom in my 24"
IMHO I would do 27" side to side and 22" high...but thats just me...haha

I am sure you thought this out, but have you considered the SCA 150 peninsula? under 1K shipped to your door.
3 side low iron glass to...

 

[mrcole76]

Next up was to really dive into the tank specifics and figure out who I wanted to work with. I was surprised to find only a handful of custom glass builders in the country. Is that your experience too?

I checked out glasscages, crystal dynamics, reef savvy. They all bring their unique capabilities to the table. Glasscages was cost, reef savvy was quality, and I felt crystal dynamics offered a great mix of the two. Plus since I’m in the Phoenix area, I could drive to San Diego to pick up the tank and save on shipping.

We settled on:

• 60x22x27
• 1/2” starfire glass on three sides
• Overflow side painted black
• black silicone and armored seams
• Top and bottom braced
• Drilled for synergy overflow
• Top bracing drilled for over-the-top returns

I debated getting a steel stand through them as well but since I’m doing a custom built-in, I wanted the flexibility that wood gave me so if I had to nip off a corner somewhere (or whatever), I could.

I worked primarily with Zoya at CD and she was fantastic (and patient) as we went through several iterations of quotes and design tweaks.

 

[nagreen]

yeah my lady is totally down for a peninsula room divider..we just have no where to put one
so I get to live through all you fine folks

how long are your arms? 27" is pretty tall I have trouble reaching to bottom in my 24"
IMHO I would do 27" side to side and 22" high...but thats just me...haha

I am sure you thought this out, but have you considered the SCA 150 peninsula? under 1K shipped to your door.
3 side low iron glass to...

I'm curious about this! I'm looking on their site and haven't seen anything about a 150 peninsula? Can you send a link?

 

[Devaji]

I'm curious about this! I'm looking on their site and haven't seen anything about a 150 peninsula? Can you send a link?

i'll PM you so not to be off topic on his build thread.

 

[mrcole76]

I had considered some of the “standard” sized tanks but I had some design considerations to deal with. The first of which is that the Chief Decorator was adamant about the tank not being more than 22” front to back. She didn’t want it to protrude too far into the room. And I also wanted it to be taller than 24. So that pretty much put me on the path to a custom tank.

For those getting started with this process - and I totally learned this along the way - getting spouse/SO buy-in is critical. I wanted her to feel like she had genuine input to the build. And she had great ideas and felt involved with the process. Because of her, I’m doing a peninsula. I compromised by going a bit narrower than I might have on my own accord. She also suggested three doors across the stand instead of my original design that just had two doors. AND as an extra bonus, we had fun going back and forth with our ideas.

As far as the depth of the tank goes, I know I’ll be spending a lot of time with tongs/grabbers. I hope I don’t regret that but I just had to have a tall tank.

Ok, so here’s where it’s going to go. You can see I’ve already started some pre-work with trim removal, etc. Remember, this going to be built-in so I want to get it as close to wall as possible.

 

[Devaji]

I love that you involved your wife. great idea soon she will be picking fish for you
that's gonna look really cool in that spot.

 

[mrcole76]

Top down sketch of the stand. The open area on the left will be the plumbing/electrical chase. That’s the part that will go against the wall.

Also, maybe others do this but I used LVL beams for the top. Lvl’s are an engineered beam that are exceptionally strong, super straight, and won’t warp. I had to get them from my local lumber yard and they sold it by the linear foot. I ended up using 2x6 lvls all around instead of 2x8 like my sketch indicates.

 

[mrcole76]

Here’s the stand coming together. Plywood will go on the back to help with side to side shear and the whole thing will also get secured to the wall to help with front to back shear. I had originally planned for some center bracing but as I saw it coming together, I realized that wouldn’t be necessary. Don’t worry, I beefed up the vertical parts but I just didn’t catch that in a pic.

 

[mrcole76]

In the previous pictures you can see there’s a lone outlet where the tank is going to go. That circuit is the main family room circuit with the big screen tv, stereo, room lights, and all that fun stuff. Probably not a great circuit to put fish tank stuff on. I got rid of most of that load by being a little creative with the electrical. The room behind where the tv goes is on a different circuit so I punched a hole in the wall behind the entertainment center and plugged everything in to that room. Haha. I’m a problem solver.

I also wanted an additional outlet under the tank from a different circuit. The outlet in the kitchen is on the same circuit that feeds the countertop appliances and is a 20A circuit. Score! So I extended that one down. The framing was a bit squirrelly so I had to put a few extra holes in the drywall to get the wiring through. Came out pretty good, tho.

 

[mrcole76]

TANK PICS!!

 

[mrcole76]

Tank is in the house! I drove to San Diego (Oceanside, technically) to pick up the tank. Trent, the chief designer and builder, was there working so that was cool that I got to meet him. I think he may be the owner, too? Maybe everyone already knew this but I was kinda surprised to find they don’t outsource any of the metal work or cabinetry. Not that I am complaining, I would want that complete control as well. I opted to order just the tank from then but I wouldn’t hesitate to let them put together a whole system for you. I was incredibly impressed with the quality of my tank and all the other work that I saw in progress there.

I had a couple of friends come by to help me unload and they had no idea what they were in for. Lol. They did not appreciate how heavy these things were. We THOUGHT we had a good idea to run some 2x4s through the bottom of the crate and carry it that way. Had to pop a door off the hinges, too. We made it work but did not realize how top heavy it would be and the narrowness exacerbated it. We just about lost control of it. I can’t even imagine. So please, don’t run 2x4s through the bottom of your crate. ;Facepalm

 

[mrcole76]

Tank in place with the stand basically skinned. I made pocket-jointed face frames to wrap the stand with. Mitered the corner. I used poplar as it’s a great paint-grade hardwood.

 

[danreefman]

Looks good. That third panel gonna be hard to clean?

 

[mrcole76]

Looks good. That third panel gonna be hard to clean?

t

Thanks Dan. It’s been a ton of work but also very fulfilling work. It’s kinda hard to tell with the pics but there is 2-3 inches between the wrought iron and the glass. So it won’t be impossible to clean but certainly a pain in the rear. As i continue to evaluate “the look” of the tank I’m starting to come to the conclusion that I need to remove the wrought iron in that section. It’s just too distracting. It will ultimately be up to the Chief Decorator to make that call!