Kodski's 190 gallon Custom Dentist Office Tank

[Kodski]

Hello Everyone! After searching for quite a while for my next tank I finally found one that I'm happy with. While I would love to go custom, its just not it the budget with a wedding come up. So I've been keeping my eye out until I find a tank and deal that I'm happy with. I came across a custom 190 gallon acrylic tank and decided to pick it up. It needs a lot of TLC but I lied to myself and told myself that it wouldn't be that bad to convince myself to buy it.


Existing Tank
My Current tank is an 80 gal Deep Blue tank that measures 48"x24"x16" that is set up as a peninsula in my office with the filtration in the basement. I really love the peninsula but unfortunately I just don't have the space for a peninsula that is any larger than my current tank. So the plan is to replace my 80 gal with the new 190 and have the new tank up against the wall and reuse the existing filtration. I designed the filtration to be able to upgrade to something around 180 gallons as I knew I'd eventually want to go that route.



The guy I bought the new tank from said he set it up in a Dentist's office and after about a year the Dentist office closed and gifted him the tank as payment. Hence the build name. So while the tank itself is very dirty, it has relatively little use time. This also explains the unique shape of the tank with one corner being rounded. I think once its all cleaned up and I polish it up, it will be a gorgeous tank. I also got really lucky that the rounded corner of the tank will actually face the entry to my office where it will be visible from my dinning room.

Equipment List
Tank: Custom Acrylic tank 60"x24"x30"
Stand: DIY Wooden stand
Lighting: 48" 6 bulb ATI Sunpower with two Kessil A360X's to supplement
Sump: DIY 40 breeder
Flow: Currently I have two Jebao gyre's but I'm considering a closed loop system as well
Dosing: BRS 2 part
Return Pump: 9.0 Sicce SDC WiFi pump
Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 250-EXT
ATO: Tunze 3155

Existing Stocking:
Female Spot Breast Swallowtail Angle Fish
Coral Beauty
Sail Fin Tang
Purple Tang
Gold Rim Tang
Gold Lined RabbitFish
Royal Gramma
4x Lyre Tail Anthias
Pink Spot Gobby
Christmas Wrasse
Pintail Fairy Wrasse
Mandarin
Pair of Half Naked Mochaccino Clownfish
Midas Blenny


Build Plan:
I currently keep a good mix of corals and intend on keeping it that way with the new build. One of the major pains with my existing tank is that its so shallow. I really enjoy the tank overall, but I can't ever seem to keep corals happy. I've narrowed it down to lighting. With such a shallow tank its difficult to create high light areas and low light areas within the tank. If this was an SPS only or LPS only tank, it would be super easy to dial in. Since I love all corals though, it makes it really tough to make some of my LPS happy with higher light that I require for my SPS. So while I didn't want a 30" tall tank, I am looking forward to having a taller tank in general. The new tank will pose its own challenges though. To start, 30" deep is gonna make it difficult to maintain and I'm not looking forward to that. Also related to the height, is how to light a tank that deep. I've only had three reef tanks total, the 80 gallon being the largest and deepest so far. So I knew I'd need quite a bit of light to make sure I can get the levels I want at the bottom. I picked up a 48" 6-bulb ATI for a steal that I had intended to put over the top of the 80 gallon in an attempt at fixing my issues with lighting. Plus I've never used T5 lighting and wanted to give it a try. However, before I got that far I decided to just upgrade tanks. So I knew I'd like to use that light if possible, I was worried about coverage on a 60" tank with only a 48" light fixture though. As I thought about it, I realized that I could add a few kessil's to the ends of the fixture and I'll still be able to have the shimmer that I love in my tank, and I'd have plenty of coverage and power to get down to 30". So I'm really looking forward to getting the lights setup. Before I can really even think about that though, I've got a lot of work ahead of me. First of all, I'm in the process of cleaning up all the algae in the tank so that I can give it a good sanding and polishing. Once I've got that done, it will be time to build a stand for the tank. I've got a few neat ideas that I'd like to incorporate for this to make this build truly unique but I'll save those to share later when the time comes. Another concern I have is my existing sump, I don't believe that it's large enough to hold all the water that will drain to it when the power is shut off even now. So I will need to address that by upgrading sumps. Not sure what I'll do with that yet, but I'll figure it out. For now some pictures of the "new" tank.

Guess I better get to work cleaning this thing up...

 

[blaxsun]

How long was the tank sitting empty like this? It looks like it's caked with dry mud on the sides...

 

[Kodski]

How long was the tank sitting empty like this? It looks like it's caked with dry mud on the sides...

Not sure how long it was sitting for. It does look like mud, but it’s actually just coralline algae and regular film algae with some sand dried to the inside of the tank. The outside is just really dusty. I’d guess it has been sitting for a few years. I have started to clean it up. The front pane is soaking with citric acid tonight. Got most of it scrapped off but it needs to sit overnight for the final bits. Then I’ll flip it and soak the other side.

 

[Kodski]

Well I got The front panel cleaned up. Amazing what some citric acid can do when it sits for a few hours.

Unfortunately there is a lot of small areas of what I think is called crazing on the inside of the tank. So I’d will definitely require some sanding. Luckily though, it’s very shallow and should come out easily enough. I don’t think this affects the structural integrity of the acrylic at all. Or at least I hope Not

I flipped the tank over and started soaking the back side with citric acid. I’ll give it a scrub later today once the citric acid has had time to work it’s magic.

 

[Kodski]

Slowly but surely getting the tank cleaned up. Basically all clean of algae now besides the overflow box. As you can see, I’ve got a lot of polishing ahead of myself

On another topic. I can’t decide what to do about the overflow box. I’d love to cut it out and do a ghost overflow to maximize space in the display but I worry about being able to finish the acrylic nicely after I cut it out. I’ve also been considering turning the overflow box into a wave box. But I’m not sure. I think the plan for flow is to do a closed loop system with random flow generator nozzles. A closed loop plus my return all with RFGs should create a good random flow without the need for power heads. So I’m not sure a wax box would really be necessary, or even one that large. I’d love to hear some opinions and thoughts on this.

 

[Kodski]

Well after much thought and pondering, I've decided to kill this build. Truth be told, I'm worried about the crazing and the acrylic is definitely permanently bowed outward. After much research about the topics, I'm not sure I could trust this tank in my house. I'm not sure what I'll do with the tank, maybe cut it up and turn it into a new sump for my existing tank. Its a bummer for sure, I was looking forward to upgrading to a larger tank, but I guess at heart I always knew I wanted a 6ft tank anyways. Not much point in upgrading if its not really what I want now is there.

 

[blaxsun]

Well after much thought and pondering, I've decided to kill this build. Truth be told, I'm worried about the crazing and the acrylic is definitely permanently bowed outward. After much research about the topics, I'm not sure I could trust this tank in my house. I'm not sure what I'll do with the tank, maybe cut it up and turn it into a new sump for my existing tank. Its a bummer for sure, I was looking forward to upgrading to a larger tank, but I guess at heart I always knew I wanted a 6ft tank anyways. Not much point in upgrading if its not really what I want now is there.

Well, that sucks. I was looking forward to seeing the end results of all your polishing. Terrarium for turtles or lizards?

 

[Kodski]

I was too, I wasn’t looking forward to putting all that work into it, but I was looking forward to the finished product. We do have 3 panther chameleon eggs set to hatch in December/January. I was thinking of turning into something for them. A terrarium with a small freshwater pond below with a school of small fish would be a neat setup.
Otherwise I really want to get an ackie monitor or lechie gecko. So who knows. Maybe it will become a habit for our Blue Tongue Skink when she gets bigger. So many options I’m sure it won’t go to waste.