Miracles Do Happen! Bill's (Sawcjack00/Epic Aquaculture) 460 Gallon Custom Miracles Aquarium Build!

[Epic Aquaculture]

Jimmy is correct these are not the super cheapo ones from HF. In addition, we were able to roll the tank into the house on furniture dolly's, so the only actual lift was from the dolly's to the stand.

 

[Ef4life]

Very nice tank, it’s too crowded in there though you should move it to my house

 

[TX_Punisher]

any updates?

 

[KenO]

We should have had it dropped off at my place. I think I could fit a tank of that size. Now lets see where I could put it. lol Following along Bill.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

I will do an update very soon. I've been super busy working on it...

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

OK, so it's been a while. I have been very busy between setting up the tank, maintaining my others systems, and cutting frags for orders, so I apologize for the delay on updates. Anyway while I was waiting for delivery of the tank, I happened to have a friend that is in my bowling league who was tearing down his tank and knew that I was a reefer. He just wanted to get it out of his basement so offered it to me for free along with all of his equipment. It is an older reef ready 90 gallon which is perfect for quarantine, so I took it along with all of the 15 year old real ocean live rock and set it up in my garage.


Live rock from the 90 cooking

90 gallon quarantine set up in garage

Next it was time to work on the aquascape. The plan is to move everything from the RS DT to the new tank, but this tank is twice as big, so I needed to add some "coral real estate" fortunately I am friends with the owner of Carib Sea as she has a place down in the FL Keys, and she had said to contact her when I am ready to set up my new tank. She sent me a bunch of CS Life Rock including a pillar structure, and a 24" arch, so this is what I had to work with.

Life rock ready to assemble with E-Marco 400. I laid out the dimensions of the tank using painters tape on the floor of the garage.

Here is what I came up with. It's difficult to tell, but the two structures on the right slope gently towards the middle of the tank providing a lot of places to mount corals. There are also a lot of swim throughs, and they form a canyon that goes down the middle if viewed from the end.

One of the other things I needed to do was replace the lighting in the room. We had a type of track lighting which actually extended beyond where the wall is to go, so I removed it, and changed it out for a ceiling fan/light which gives some nice airflow in the room and will help with evaporative cooling when needed.

Next I needed to get the rock into the tank. With the whole pandemic thing going on, I wanted to do it myself if possible so no one would have to come in the house to help. The pieces were very heavy up to 60 pounds on some of them, so I did it in stages.

Stage 1 in from the garage and onto a 3/4" wooden shelf placed on top of my scaffold.

Stage 2 moved it to a 48" x 24" plywood piece on top of the tank

Stage 3 carefully lowered the rock into the tank while sweating profusely and praying that it did not slip or break apart.

Same process for each piece.

And this is the end result. It's difficult to tell, but there is a ton of open space and swim room for the fishies. I will get better pictures from the end eventually, but I can't do that until the old tank is out... The left side of the tank is where the rock and corals will go from the current RS DT. The lone rock that is over there now will be used for something else.

Once the rock was in, I then installed the Algae Turf Scrubber. It is not currently running as there is no need for it while the tank starts to mature.

 

[LRT]

Totally jealous but following along. Lol

 

[HairyGary]

Looking great Bill! Are you seeding those new rocks in the tank to help out for when you add the 750XXL existing rock and livestock? I did when I went from 20 gallon to my 93 cube but am also planning to do the same in the next month or two when I get my new 150 up and running. Just curious. Keep the pics coming!

 

[adrianr514]

Looking sweet!!!

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Looking great Bill! Are you seeding those new rocks in the tank to help out for when you add the 750XXL existing rock and livestock? I did when I went from 20 gallon to my 93 cube but am also planning to do the same in the next month or two when I get my new 150 up and running. Just curious. Keep the pics coming!

Hey Gary, yes I did, I have added products from Indo Pacific Sea Farms as well as MB7, Dr Tims, and I also added some of the LR that I got with the 90 gallon.

 

[Peach02]

Looking great, gonna be sad to see the 750 go though but I'm sure this tank will look even better. Have you got a planned stocklist?

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Looking great, gonna be sad to see the 750 go though but I'm sure this tank will look even better. Have you got a planned stocklist?

Yes, in fact I have purchased and quarantined most of the fish. Currently in the 460 are:

5 Yellow Tangs
1 Purple Tang
1 Hippo Tang
1 Sohal Tang
14 Springeri Damsels
1 Helfrichi Fire Fish
1 Flame Wrasse
1 Exquisite Fairy Wrasse
2 Bangai Cardinals
1 Solar Wrasse
1 Blue throat flasher Wrasse
1 Sunburst Anthias
1 Blonde Naso Tang
2 Ruby Red Scooter Dragonettes
1 Watchman Goby
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 White tail Bristle Tooth Tang
1 Fox Face
1 Blue Striped Tamarin Wrasse
1 Lineatus Wrasse
1 Pintail Fairy Wrasse
1 Bella Goby


Coming over from the RS DT is
2 Watanabei Angels
1 Regal Angel
1 Powder Blue Tang
1 yellow Coris Wrasse
1 Mystery Wrasse
1 Neon Blue cleaner Wrasse (captive bred)
1 Bella Gobies
1 Neon Dottyback
2 Ocellaris Clowns
1 Golden Dwarf moray Eel

 

[Peach02]

Sounds amaizing, can’t wait to see this progress

 

[AZMSGT]

Wow, 61 fish, gonna call your new tank the Atlanta aquarium

 

[Wrangy]

Hot diggity dang! Can't wait to watch this one grow and hit it's strides

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Looks incredible Bill! I look forward to watching this piece of art grow and mature!

Thank you! It's been a lot of work, but I'm getting there!

 

[Jarvisffc]

Totally following this

 

[AZMSGT]

Anything new?

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Anything new?

Yes

 

[AZMSGT]

Yes

I’m so impressed at the progress. I can’t imagine tearing the roof off the house to lower a whale shark into that tank. Those duel boom cranes must have cost a fortune to lower that big fish in.

Also, how did you get the Australian government to give you a quarter of the grear barrier reef? I thought it was protected. You must have friends in high places.

;Clown