Laguna_Reefer
New Member
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2026
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 21
- Location
- Orange County California
- What state or country do you live in
- California
Hello and welcome to my build thread!
I’ve been keeping fish for more than 20 years but only jumped into reefing in June 2025. Before starting my first saltwater tank—a 20-gallon Red Sea Max Nano G2—I spent about six months researching and learning everything I could. Reefing is considerably more technical than freshwater, and I was determined not to become part of the “out of the hobby within a year” statistic.
That preparation paid off. My first year+ has been relatively smooth, and somewhere along the way I developed a healthy obsession with coral and reefing in general. The first photo is my nano on its one-year anniversary.
Naturally, the appropriate response to successfully keeping a 20-gallon reef is to build a ~300-gallon split system.
The new system will consist of a 95-gallon frag/coral grow-out tank and a custom ~200-gallon display, located on opposite sides of a stairwell. The frag tank will be in my home office and the display in the living room, with the under-stairs closet serving as the filtration/equipment room. A covered outdoor mixing station will be plumbed directly through the wall.
I’m currently in the late planning/procurement stage. For this first post I’ve included the display rendering, frag-rack design, BOM, sump layout, plumbing plans and controller-board layouts.
Display: The custom tank will measure 64" × 30" × 24" and be integrated into a built-in shelving/cabinet system. The cabinet maker will build around the aluminum aquarium stand, and an external overflow will be accessible from the equipment room behind the tank. The wall above/behind the display will also be opened for access and airflow. An attic exhaust fan will pull air from both the equipment room and display area and vent it outside to help manage heat and humidity.
Frag system: I’m using a 95-gallon Fiji Cube INT, partly because I already have one in my office housing my indoor “koi pond” (fancy goldfish—don’t judge; they’re basically aquatic puppies). The matching tanks will sit on opposing walls, which should make for a pretty cool juxtaposition.
I ordered seven custom acrylic frag racks drilled in a continuous grid designed around 3" grow-out disks. This will be a collecting, grow-out and curation system—not a coral farm. The best colonies will eventually graduate to the display.
BOM: There is…a lot. I’m tracking retail versus actual cost and buying used equipment where it makes sense. So far that includes Vectra L2/S2/M2 pumps, MP40s and G5 Radions for the frag tank. For equipment I want new, I’ve been aggressively shopping sales. Labor Day/Reef-A-Palooza knocked 20% off nearly all of the plumbing and Neptune equipment, and my savings versus retail currently sit around 38%.
Green items on the BOM are purchased, yellow are backordered or additional quantities needed, and blue denotes display-specific plumbing.
Sump/equipment room: I chose the BashSea PRO 60 filter-roller sump, admittedly in part because I think the matching BioSpace reactor, media reactors and blue plumbing are going to look killer. The BioSpace will sit on a shelf roughly 30" above the sump, where the spinning blue media should be visible when entering the equipment room.
The current mock-up puts both media reactors in the sump, although I’m still debating moving them outside and preserving that chamber for a refugium.
Controls: The system will use two electrical circuits, and because the tanks are separated by roughly four feet of closet space, one giant controller board didn’t make sense. Instead, I’m building three custom HDPE controller boards. I considered Adaptive Reef boards, but their dimensions and cutouts weren’t ideal for this installation—and frankly, designing and building this stuff is half the fun.
A BioSpace shelf and Printed Reef Trident shelf will also be mounted above the sump.
That’s the plan as it stands today. A lot of equipment has already been purchased, the frag tank is next, and I’m hoping to get the frag side wet first while I finish the display and cabinetry.
Thanks for following along. Future posts will be shorter. Probably.
I’ve been keeping fish for more than 20 years but only jumped into reefing in June 2025. Before starting my first saltwater tank—a 20-gallon Red Sea Max Nano G2—I spent about six months researching and learning everything I could. Reefing is considerably more technical than freshwater, and I was determined not to become part of the “out of the hobby within a year” statistic.
That preparation paid off. My first year+ has been relatively smooth, and somewhere along the way I developed a healthy obsession with coral and reefing in general. The first photo is my nano on its one-year anniversary.
Naturally, the appropriate response to successfully keeping a 20-gallon reef is to build a ~300-gallon split system.
The new system will consist of a 95-gallon frag/coral grow-out tank and a custom ~200-gallon display, located on opposite sides of a stairwell. The frag tank will be in my home office and the display in the living room, with the under-stairs closet serving as the filtration/equipment room. A covered outdoor mixing station will be plumbed directly through the wall.
I’m currently in the late planning/procurement stage. For this first post I’ve included the display rendering, frag-rack design, BOM, sump layout, plumbing plans and controller-board layouts.
Display: The custom tank will measure 64" × 30" × 24" and be integrated into a built-in shelving/cabinet system. The cabinet maker will build around the aluminum aquarium stand, and an external overflow will be accessible from the equipment room behind the tank. The wall above/behind the display will also be opened for access and airflow. An attic exhaust fan will pull air from both the equipment room and display area and vent it outside to help manage heat and humidity.
Frag system: I’m using a 95-gallon Fiji Cube INT, partly because I already have one in my office housing my indoor “koi pond” (fancy goldfish—don’t judge; they’re basically aquatic puppies). The matching tanks will sit on opposing walls, which should make for a pretty cool juxtaposition.
I ordered seven custom acrylic frag racks drilled in a continuous grid designed around 3" grow-out disks. This will be a collecting, grow-out and curation system—not a coral farm. The best colonies will eventually graduate to the display.
BOM: There is…a lot. I’m tracking retail versus actual cost and buying used equipment where it makes sense. So far that includes Vectra L2/S2/M2 pumps, MP40s and G5 Radions for the frag tank. For equipment I want new, I’ve been aggressively shopping sales. Labor Day/Reef-A-Palooza knocked 20% off nearly all of the plumbing and Neptune equipment, and my savings versus retail currently sit around 38%.
Green items on the BOM are purchased, yellow are backordered or additional quantities needed, and blue denotes display-specific plumbing.
Sump/equipment room: I chose the BashSea PRO 60 filter-roller sump, admittedly in part because I think the matching BioSpace reactor, media reactors and blue plumbing are going to look killer. The BioSpace will sit on a shelf roughly 30" above the sump, where the spinning blue media should be visible when entering the equipment room.
The current mock-up puts both media reactors in the sump, although I’m still debating moving them outside and preserving that chamber for a refugium.
Controls: The system will use two electrical circuits, and because the tanks are separated by roughly four feet of closet space, one giant controller board didn’t make sense. Instead, I’m building three custom HDPE controller boards. I considered Adaptive Reef boards, but their dimensions and cutouts weren’t ideal for this installation—and frankly, designing and building this stuff is half the fun.
A BioSpace shelf and Printed Reef Trident shelf will also be mounted above the sump.
That’s the plan as it stands today. A lot of equipment has already been purchased, the frag tank is next, and I’m hoping to get the frag side wet first while I finish the display and cabinetry.
Thanks for following along. Future posts will be shorter. Probably.
