My 300 gallon basement reef build

[Agrass1992]

Here's a few shots of the aquascape I have been working on. I wanted to go with a negative space aquascape for a few reasons. #1 for fish swimming room. There are still caves, though these pictures don't really do any of it justice. But they will have plenty of room to swim and hide. I also plan on going mixed reef. I think the tips of the structures should be perfect mounting spots for my sps corals and the rest of the rockwork provides room for my lps and softies. If anyone has feedback on the aquascape, good or bad, I would love to hear it. There's a lot to consider when setting up a fully functional piece of the ocean in your basement.

Also not pictured, I mounted my UV sterilizer to the stand the other day and am expecting my sump to show up any day now. Next weekend I plan to start plumbing. I also ordered my return pump. I went with the Syncra SDC 9.0. It puts out 2500 gpm under perfect conditions, which is allegedly what the synergy overflow I'm using can handle. I will have to do some trial and error to get everything dialed in but I think I have them sized appropriately. It's not going to be a full 10 turns per hour, more like 8, but that should be fine I think.

 

[Agrass1992]

Update, the sump is here! Started working on the plumbing last night. Unfortunately I had a few bumps but nothing too crazy. The first one being that I thought the overflow pipes were all going to be next to each other in the sump. Instead there are two on the end and one that goes to the skimmer section. This makes sense and I understand why it's like that, it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. So this led to some changes to my overflow design. Not bad just not what I had originally intended. I also need a few 90s and another union so I have to wait until next week sometime to finish the 3rd overflow. As for the return line, that went fairly well. It's completed up to the T that you can see in the picture. At that point it goes from 1 in to 3/4 and unfortunately I ordered the wrong reducer. The one I should have ordered is the one that sits inside the fitting, I have ones that reduce outside the fitting and I don't have enough space to use them and still make that left side overflow with my 90s. So I'm waiting for those as well. Everything else looks great. I'm only plumbing one return pump at this time. I may eventually add another and that will be easy enough to do even after it's running.

At this point it's going to be more waiting on the basement then anything. I've got a little bit of framing to do still and some more electrical to wire, then after that I'm happy to say I'm going to cut a check for drywall. I don't mind hanging it but to me mudding and taping is so tedious.

 

[Agrass1992]

Here's a shot of the completed plumbing.

 

[jepuskar]

Here's a shot of the completed plumbing.

I'm glad you went with Bear's Orange. good job.

 

[Agrass1992]

Drywall coming tomorrow! Planning to start filling the tank once they are done sanding. Should be within the next two weeks!

 

[Agrass1992]

The drywall is in, and both of my ATI fixtures are up. I also added 2 reefbrite Actinic Pro strips for the mornings and evenings. After seeing them I think I'll add two more eventually, but I want to get some par measurements once the tank is full before I make any more lighting purchases.

I'm using two 8 bulb ATI sunpower fixtures with 3 Blue plus, 2 coral plus, 2 actinic plus, and 1 purple plus bulb. The best way to describe the spectrum is mostly daytime with a tint of blue? Hard to put it into words but I like it for now, I may swap one blue for another coral plus but we'll see.

Please forgive the cable management. It's not my best, but that's the beauty of building it into the wall. Im using 4 amazon smart outlets that each have individually controlled plugs to control my lighting in order to save some space on my apex controller. I also added a fan that mounts to the wall for that space. It doesn't blow directly on the tank but it moves the air around in that room. I am planning to run a dehumidifier constantly so this should help with the humidity long term and also provide a bit of air movement for the tank as well.

Once the sanding is done I'm planning to paint the basement then get started with filling the tank and starting the cycle.

 

[Agrass1992]

I officially have some warm salty water in the tank! I added the sand yesterday so it's still fairly cloudy but its coming along. I'll be adding some ammonia this weekend along with some Dr Tim's to get the cycle started. Very excited to start adding fish. I ordered 30 blue green chromis from my LFS so those will be my first additions.

The basement in general is coming along nicely too. Painted all the walls and ceilings. Now I just need to do the hardwood by the tank and then start on the trim before the carpet goes in.

 

[Agrass1992]

Quick update. Having a very hard time getting chromis in alive. Currently I have about 5 in a QT with 6 more coming next week. Almost all my corals have been moved now. Can't wait to get a few fish added to this system.

 

[Agrass1992]

Did some par readings the other day. Looking good I think for a sps dominant mixed reef.

 

[Agrass1992]

I'm a little overdue for an update. I've added a good amount of livestock so far.

For fish ive added purple, white tail Cole and achilles tangs so far. 4 blue green chromis 1 lyretail anthias, a leopard wrasse, mandarin goby, diamond goby and starry blenny.

I've also started adding corals, 4 or 5 sps frags, plus some euphillia and zoas, 1 rocordia.

I am doing regular icp testing and so far everything seems OK. My calcium and alkalinity are a little low, so I'm slowly dosing to get those back up. Alk is finally dialed in at 8dkh and steady.

 

[Agrass1992]

Here's a few up close shots of some corals