I am building a new setup to replace my non-drilled, 8 gallon tank in my office here in Japan. Since this is in a Navy Building and I have office mates, I can't just build a 90 gallon tank and go nuts. Need to be a good colleague and all plus reef keeping in Japan is expensive! Fortunately, I can get shipments at reasonable shipping rates and times via Fleet Post Office from the states, but alas all my live stock comes from one tiny store in my town because I haven't been able to navigate the Japanese internet very well (I don't speak/read Japanese. I am a very bad Gaijin).
I am using this Kotobuki LEGLASS F-600S tank to start. Instead of using the combined drain/return I am going to neck the drain down to 25mm pipe (from 50) so it fits into the bulkhead on the blemished Sapphire 26 I am trying to finalize with Trigger Systems. Normally, I would try to do a a dual or triple drain (Herbie or Bean Animal method), but I only have the one hole and I think its going to be hard to crap up a 50mm hole. Noise isn't an issue since our office has huge vents overhead that are constantly blowing air making the tank seem silent (at least my current one). One I am going to do is make a new overflow cover insert. I have access to a laser and decent plexi/acrylic so I'll just make two pieces, weld-on together and remove the white part. I want more teeth at the top for the overflow, and a different pattern at the bottom (I may just omit them completely).
I picked up a ton on plumbing parts from BRS and a new skimmer including a Syncra Silent 5.0 Pump and a SN143-QP Monzter Mini Protein Skimmer. General diagram of my plumbing down below. If you like the graphic and want to use any of the parts inside to plan plumbing, let me know. I have it saved as an illustrator file and will be happy to share it.
For the stand, I reached out to Framingtech to get a quote. The sump is definitely the limiting factor since the tank is only 600mm x 300mm x 45mm so the stand will be a bit overkill. I do plan on moving home again in the future so I will reuse a lot of this for a bigger tank in 2023 when I retire/return.
Plan: Setup the new system at home and validate no leaks. Break it all down, move to the office. Set it up and move 1/2 of my media in my Eheim canister to the refugium section of the sump to kick start it all while maintaining the current system running. Once the new tank is ready to accept the old tank's inhabitants they will move over, or at least get fragged out so I can minimize any problems in the display.
For rockwork, I may look more at Than from Tidal Gardens recent projects with sand, CA, and rocks to build a neat structure that's open and offers something a bit nicer than my current place and pray rockwork.
I am using this Kotobuki LEGLASS F-600S tank to start. Instead of using the combined drain/return I am going to neck the drain down to 25mm pipe (from 50) so it fits into the bulkhead on the blemished Sapphire 26 I am trying to finalize with Trigger Systems. Normally, I would try to do a a dual or triple drain (Herbie or Bean Animal method), but I only have the one hole and I think its going to be hard to crap up a 50mm hole. Noise isn't an issue since our office has huge vents overhead that are constantly blowing air making the tank seem silent (at least my current one). One I am going to do is make a new overflow cover insert. I have access to a laser and decent plexi/acrylic so I'll just make two pieces, weld-on together and remove the white part. I want more teeth at the top for the overflow, and a different pattern at the bottom (I may just omit them completely).
I picked up a ton on plumbing parts from BRS and a new skimmer including a Syncra Silent 5.0 Pump and a SN143-QP Monzter Mini Protein Skimmer. General diagram of my plumbing down below. If you like the graphic and want to use any of the parts inside to plan plumbing, let me know. I have it saved as an illustrator file and will be happy to share it.
For the stand, I reached out to Framingtech to get a quote. The sump is definitely the limiting factor since the tank is only 600mm x 300mm x 45mm so the stand will be a bit overkill. I do plan on moving home again in the future so I will reuse a lot of this for a bigger tank in 2023 when I retire/return.
Plan: Setup the new system at home and validate no leaks. Break it all down, move to the office. Set it up and move 1/2 of my media in my Eheim canister to the refugium section of the sump to kick start it all while maintaining the current system running. Once the new tank is ready to accept the old tank's inhabitants they will move over, or at least get fragged out so I can minimize any problems in the display.
For rockwork, I may look more at Than from Tidal Gardens recent projects with sand, CA, and rocks to build a neat structure that's open and offers something a bit nicer than my current place and pray rockwork.
