iReefers 700 Gallon Peninsula

blaxsun · Jul 1, 2023

Out of curiosity, are you keeping your other tank (the black one in the background) or is getting migrated into the new one?

iReefer12 · Jul 1, 2023

I’ll sell that tank, and most of the equipment, all the livestock will be making the move into the new tank. Cannot wait to give my blue tang some extra swimming room :)

blaxsun · Jul 1, 2023

iReefer12 said:
I’ll sell that tank, and most of the equipment, all the livestock will be making the move into the new tank. Cannot wait to give my blue tang some extra swimming room :)

Guessing he's a good size? (all the blue tangs my friends have insist on cramming themselves into these tiny rock crevices)

iReefer12 · Jul 1, 2023

Oh yeah, he did that for the longest time, but too big for that now, has a proper sized cave he hangs out in. He’s about 6” but my current tank, while plenty big, is overgrown with coral and it’s really cut down his swimming room

blaxsun · Jul 1, 2023

iReefer12 said:
Oh yeah, he did that for the longest time, but too big for that now, has a proper sized cave he hangs out in. He’s about 6” but my current tank, while plenty big, is overgrown with coral and it’s really cut down his swimming room

How many fish do you have in your current tank? I gather the plan is to add more in addition to increasing swimming room?

iReefer12 · Jul 1, 2023

I probably have close to 30 fish in this tank. Oh yeah, plan to add a lot more to the new tank. More butterflies and angelfish, and I’d like to add a lot more Chromis, I have a school of 10 right now, but I want a really large school of Chromis

blaxsun · Jul 1, 2023

iReefer12 said:
I probably have close to 30 fish in this tank. Oh yeah, plan to add a lot more to the new tank. More butterflies and angelfish, and I’d like to add a lot more Chromis, I have a school of 10 right now, but I want a really large school of Chromis

If you want some really neat (and different) chromis, check out the grey/black lyretail ones. They enjoy staking out barnacles and similarly-sized caves to hang out in/around.

lubeck · Jul 2, 2023

Sweet looking build. Following along for the ride.

iReefer12 · Jul 3, 2023

Skimmer
My current skimmer is internal and under the stand and it’s just a massive pain in the butt to work on, clean etc and it was one area that I was very keen on improving with this build. So, this time around I decided to go external for the skimmer. There’s so many skimmers on the market, but the RK2 Systems 5AC skimmer had that industrial feel to it. I splurged, but I’m hoping this will do the job very well and also last me a very long time - so the cost broken down over time + doing a great job of keeping the tank cleaner = I’m hoping is gonna be worth it.

UV
The nice thing is that I combined shipping on the RK2 150W UV and saved a little bit of money over the pentair UV I was originally looking at.

I’m planning on mounting it under the stand horizontally like this. Using 5” pipe brackets and mounting to the cross brackets with the T-Slot.

This is above where the sump will go, so I do have some concern about how close it will be to top of the sump, I’ve got a plan to modify the pipe bracket and raise it up a couple of extra inches, but need to see it once the sump is in place first.

blaxsun · Jul 3, 2023

As long as you leave enough room to get in and change out the UV bulb(s) you should be fine. I like the look of your heavy duty skimmer.

archercorals · Jul 3, 2023

very cool. Thank you for sharing.

iReefer12 · Jul 3, 2023

Yeah, I had to consider that, with the length of the housing, and length of the bulb, it was not possible to mount it vertically, the bulb would have hit the ceiling. Horizontally, I can slide it out of the end of the stand fortunately

iReefer12 · Jul 4, 2023

Happy 4th.

Was able to do a bit of work on the build today.

Got my hands on some 1/8” white acrylic and made some dividers for down the middle of the stand. With one side housing a Frag tank, I didn’t want any light spill into the sump area.

For lighting the stand, I used this rope light that is built for exterior use and is waterproof.

I had to cut some acrylic blocks to utilize the mounting hardware.

Really pleased with how it turned out.

I also had some time to modify the bracket for the UV. This raised it up about 1”, I can raise it up another inch, but this then brings it forward 1”, so once I get the sump in, I’ll need to make a decision whether I keep it as is or raise it more.