Kodski's L-Shaped 240 gallon Reef

Kodski

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Hello fellow reefers!

I was browsing facebook marketplace a few months back when I saw this strangely unique tank. I knew immediately I had to have it, as I have a habit of needing to stand out and be different. But with a track record of buying new aquariums every few weeks, I had to strike a deal with the devil.. erm.. I mean Fiancé. 24hrs later and the new to me aquarium was sitting in my garage and the difficult part of holding up my end of the deal started. I was to not look, touch, or think about the aquarium until we had said our I do's. Well I'm happy to say, last weekend we said our I do's, and my best friend is now my wife. So with that being said, I can now begin to look, touch, and think about my new aquarium. So let me tell you a little bit about it.

Aquarium:
Custom acrylic inverted L-Shaped tank. It measures 60" in each direction along the front. Each "wing" is 24" deep and 24" tall with an overflow on each side. The volume is right around 240 gallons.

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Placement:
So because the shape is truly unique, I had to find the perfect place to put the tank. Unfortunately after a lot of thinking, I came to the conclusion that I have exactly nowhere to place this tank in my home without taking up an excessive amount of livable space. At this point I was ready to abandon this tank. A few days later and my wife asked me where we were going to put 3 new chameleon cages for our chameleons that will be hatching around Christmas time. After much debate, we came to the conclusion that we wanted more reptiles than what we already have so we need more room than just a few small chameleon cages. We decided to convert my office from being mainly a room with an aquarium and desk, to being a reptile room. However, seeing as how many of our friends and family love to look at the fish tank and it has since become a centerpiece of the house, we do plan on a smaller aquarium for my office. As for this tank, it will be located in my fish room in the unfinished basement where my filtration is for my current office tank. The basement itself is unfinished and being an old 1900 fieldstone foundation house, isn't ever going to look very nice, so this tank isn't really going to be for anyone except for me. Putting the tank in the basement will present several challenges for the tank though, which I hope to overcome with enough planning. While I loose a large display for guests, I'm happy about having more room for reptiles, as we do plan on getting a red ackie monitor and leachie gecko in the future. Plus we love our bearded dragon Hank so much that we have greatly considered getting another. I mean, who doesn't love a face like this!

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Sump:
For the sump I will be utilizing my existing DIY 40 gal breeder, but connecting a 75 gallon tank to it via two 1 1/2" PVC lines. I also greatly considered placing the sump behind the tank, or separately from the tank as opposed to inside the stand, but came to the conclusion that it just takes up too much room that way. So I do plan on having the sump under the tank in the stand.

Stand:
The stand will be 2x4 construction and nothing fancy since the tank will be in the basement. I don't know that I'm even going to do much more than just paint the 2x4's to seal them since there isn't much a point in making it look nice. I may end up doing some kind of hood or cladding the stand but it would be purely to help retain heat in the tank. I did a quick sketup for the stand construction. I'm thinking this will be more than sturdy enough, even without a plywood cladding, due to the fact its an L-shape and not a rectangle. Meaning, there is little worry of racking on this stand compared to a rectangular stand.

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Lighting:
Once again the shape of the tank presents a unique problem for placement of lights. Or at least traditional LED's where you can expect a 24"x24" spread. I'm undecided at this point but I am highly considering to use either T5's with LED supplements, or Metal Halide. Both of these lighting solutions just seem to fit the tank much better without under or over lighting the tank. I do currently have a 48" 6 Bulb ATI Sunpower that I could use as well. I would just need to find a 36" 6 bulb fixture to match. I do have two kessil A360x's that I plan on supplementing with if I go that route, mostly for color pop and shimmer.

Skimmer:
My 80 gallon tank that is running now has a Reef Octopus Regal 250-EXT on it now. I had always planned on upgrading to a tank around the 200ish gallon size so I had bought a skimmer to handle that.
 
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Kodski

Kodski

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Well I pulled the trigger on a 36” ATI 6 bulb fixture for the tank to match up with my existing 48” 6 bulb fixture. So looks like T5 is the lighting choice for the tank. I do plan on using two Kessil A360x’s for some extra color pop and shimmer throughout the tank.


How I’m going to keep the tank warm has been on my mind today as it’s cold and rainy in central Wisconsin today. It’s cold in the basement, like annually 60-65*F. So I’m going to need a lot of heating power for this volume. I already use 550watts of heaters on my 80 gallon tank. So I can only imagine what I would need on this tank. I’d rather not see my electric bill go up once again. So I’m thinking I’ll be utilizing my hot water heater to heat the tank. But with the cost of titanium high right now, I think I’ll have to get creative. I’m thinking a pex coil in the sump or bin of some sort.
 
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Kodski

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Awesome. Always wanted an L tank
Thank you! L-Shaped tanks are quite rare. Also, what I found most interesting about this particular tank is that it is inverted. Meaning most L-Shaped tanks are meant to fit into an inside corner, where this tank is meant to fit an outside corner. To me, this is more ideal, as the viewing panels are longer overall. In fact, I cannot find a single example of an inverted L-Shaped aquarium anywhere! I would love to see if someone knows of one. Heck if someone knows of a regular L-Shaped aquarium build I'd love to read through it for inspiration!
 
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Kodski

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As of to prove my point that the cold is coming, I woke up to snow on the ground this morning. I decided to stop hemming and hawing about pex vs a titanium heat exchanger. I did a bit more searching and managed to find a titanium chilling coil for a good price and ordered one.

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I ordered the 1.5hp coil, I’m hoping that will be large enough. The shipping tripled for the 3hp coil due to the size. It’s costing more to ship the coil than the actual coil itself costs. Plus the 3hp I’m not sure would fit in the sump. I can always order one if need be down the road. Next is to find a circulation pump. I’m also considering replacing my water heater prior to plumbing this in. I know it’s getting up there in age and don’t want any issues in the future.

Edit: out of curiosity I did a conversion from hp to watts and 1.5hp is roughly 1100 watts. Im not exactly sure that translates the same way as saying an electric heater is 300watts of power. I don’t think it would since in this case you have to take into account the hot water temp, flow rates, etc. But either way I feel like this should be enough to heat a total volume of roughly 300-320 gallons. I’d love to hear from someone who knows a bit more than I do on this.
 
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Kodski

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Picked up a cheap random orbital sander and polisher from Harbor Freight and started the polishing process. The cheap sander is so if it dies from the water of wet sanding I won’t care. Starting with 800 grit and working my way up to 10,000 grit. There are a few heavy scratches on the outside of the tank where I may need to step it down to 400 grit. Hoping to finish this week but we will see how it goes.
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Picked up a cheap random orbital sander and polisher from Harbor Freight and started the polishing process. The cheap sander is so if it dies from the water of wet sanding I won’t care. Starting with 800 grit and working my way up to 10,000 grit. There are a few heavy scratches on the outside of the tank where I may need to step it down to 400 grit. Hoping to finish this week but we will see how it goes.
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such a cool tank! cant wait to see it all pimped-out!
 
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Kodski

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Oh don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this build just yet.. LOL

Been busy with life and the holidays so not nearly as much work has gotten done as I'd have liked. Been ordering and slowly collecting the pieces I need to get this bad boy up and running. Bulkheads, other odds and ends, and picked up a 75 gallon tank to pair with my 40 gallon tank for the sump.

My heating coil came in after a few weeks. I was a little worried because I got no shipping notification, but one day it just showed up. I'm pretty pleased with the quality overall. I'm still hoping that this thing will be large enough to heat the tank on its own but only time will tell.

As far as Black Friday deals went... I think like everyone I spent too much money. I ordered a few goodies. I ordered the whole shebang for upgrading my RO/DI unit. I currently have a BRS 75gpd 5 stage system paired with a Smart Buddie booster pump, but I burn through quite a bit of DI resin. So I've wanted to upgrade to a 7 stage for a while and finally decided to do so. While I was at it, I also decided to pick up the water saver kit, and all new filters and membranes. So now my RO/DI system will be top notch, which is good because I'll need it to be with my other new toy that I ordered.

I find myself always pushing off water changes and then they never get done. I know its bad husbandry, but its just something I just can't seem to help. I've always wanted to get an auto water change system, but could never justify the money. Lately though, I've had enough of beating myself up over not doing water changes. So for the last few months I've been searching for a used AWC system or looking for a good sale. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be many, if any available on the used market and they never seem to go on sale at any of the online retailers. Low and behold, BRS had a great sale on the Kamoer X2SR system for black friday and I decided to bite the bullet knowing that it will only help the tanks health. Words cannot tell you how excited I am for this. Now I just need to get a much bigger saltwater bin. Overall I'm aiming for 50 gallon water changes weekly which is about two of my current mixing bins. I'm hoping to find something around the 100 gallon area so that I only have to mix saltwater once every two weeks.
 

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You'll love the AutoWC system! even if you don't have it scheduled, its empowering to be able todo a water change by pushing a button. I found a used AutoAqua ~ wasn't my first choice as I was looking for something like yours but I needed to replace my top off too so it worked out. I can only do ~3 gallon max (return side of sump) at a time because its not synchronized pumps, uses sensors to drain down to one then fill to the other.
 
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Kodski

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You'll love the AutoWC system! even if you don't have it scheduled, its empowering to be able todo a water change by pushing a button. I found a used AutoAqua ~ wasn't my first choice as I was looking for something like yours but I needed to replace my top off too so it worked out. I can only do ~3 gallon max (return side of sump) at a time because its not synchronized pumps, uses sensors to drain down to one then fill to the other.
I looked at the auto aqua system as well. It seemed like it worked great for smaller tanks but I didn’t like the fact that it would drain and then refill and that it relies on sensors. With my current setup it seemed likely that I’d run into issues. The Kamoer is pricey but I feel it’s the clear leader of the AWC systems with its features and flexibility. Plus, it seems like all the other options out there are just too slow to be effective with larger setups. Or like you said, even if I just push a button to do a water change, something like a DOS would take all day. Where the Kamoer will take a fraction of that time.
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

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