Micksfish customized 180 gal Marineland tank build

Micksfish

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Well, I have been waiting for awhile to do this. Now, being stuck at home due to Covid-19, it seemed like the best time to start it.
I picked up a Marineland 180 about a year ago to upgrade my 60 gallon cube that is full of coral at this point. I didn't think it would take me a year to get the tank in my house. But it happens.

Lets start from the beginning.
Here is the tank the day I got it. Its about a year and a half old. The lady I got it from upgraded to a custom 400 gallon. Came with the stand, canopy, sump and a few other bits and pieces.
(ignore the 125 in the background. I flip tanks to make extra cash when my garage space allows me to)
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After initial cleaning of the tank
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I HATE the internal overflows that these come with. Pain to clean and I don't like the plumbing dumping into the bottom of the tank. So my first step was to rip these out and patch the wholes with half inch glass.
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After patching with half in glass

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Next step was to figure out my overflow situation. So I decided to go with Crystal Reef Aquatics ghost overflow. It is beefy and well built.

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Next up was the stand. I don't have any before pics of the stand. But it was your typical wood finish Marineland stand. I refinished it to match the colors of our house a bit better. As well as modernize it a bit.

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Alright, so tank and stand are moving along. Now for plumbing.

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Was not a fan of the Eshopps sump layout, so sold it and picked up a Skimz up39 sump instead. This meant, second iteration of plumbing needed to happen.

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The gate valve I picked up initially ended up sucking. So went with Spears (obviously should have just done this in the first place). Here is after plumbing was up and done.

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I am going to run a Geo's Calcium Reactor off one line, a UV off another. Eventually I will have a turf scrubber on there for the last one.

While I leak tested this in my garage, I started to mess with my rockscape. Using Marco shelf and foundation rock.

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This is all just stacked together. My final iteration will be much more tiered for SPS predominately. With some LPS towards the bottom of the tank.

Finally, after a year, got the tank in the house!

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So whats next?
I need to refinish the canopy. Which I will do what the tank is up and running. I need to finalize the rockscape and get it in the tank. Then I will start to fill it up.
The tank will be lit with 3 xr30 gen 3 pros and 4 t5s.
Skimmer is a Vertex Alpha 200.

Any other questions on the setup happy to answer! Will try to keep posting pics as often as possible.

Cheers,
Mick aka Micksfish
 
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Micksfish

Micksfish

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Very nice! Not transferring your established rock from the 60 into this one?

Thanks! Naw, I wanted more flat Rock to grow spa on. I'll be cutting it all off the rocks. Might put the extra to rock into the sump. Also have a big bag of biohome media that has been maturing in my tank for over a year to help cycle the tank.
 

kalare

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Nice. Didn't you find that the silicone left marks or was the glass clear? I'm thinking about removing the center overflow on a tank and using the back glass as the front side the existing front had some damage.

Thanks
 
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Micksfish

Micksfish

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Nice. Didn't you find that the silicone left marks or was the glass clear? I'm thinking about removing the center overflow on a tank and using the back glass as the front side the existing front had some damage.

Thanks

Thanks. If you take a flat razorblad to the silicone once you have it off you can get pretty much all of it off. If you have a black background, any leftovers will blend in over time.
 
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Micksfish

Micksfish

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Rock scape is done! Time to start filling this bad boy up.
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