My 500 display tank

[fishybudguy]

Been in the hobby for 30 plus years and finally built a big tank. Let me know what you think

 

[P-Dub]

I think it's outstanding! Would be great to see the build progress.

 

[fishybudguy]

This is where it all started. My wife and I just finished doing an addiction on our house and I found a great use of this would be wasted wall lol. We also had to deal with the bulkhead above which hid the additions new plumbing and Hvac stuff. I never removed the door cause it added access to part of the rear of the tank.

 

[fishybudguy]

Next on the list was to pickup the tank and get it in the walkout basement. So here’s to a long cold journey to my buddies house in Lexington Kentucky. Thank god I’ve got buddies that will help me just like I help them

 

[fishybudguy]

Who’s ready for me to keep going, one thing not shown is the fact that I had to wait a few weeks between moving from the barn to the house. This is a problem because I had to get the tank around the house and down a hill in the winter and not slide into my lake next to the house. After a few weeks and super cold temps, the ground was frozen enough to load the tank back onto the trailer and make the move around the house. My wife made sure she was gone while we moved because she thought for sure it would go south

 

[fishybudguy]

Next comes installing the sump and the monster skimmer and then plumbing

 

[fishybudguy]

My wife came home and thought I was nuts when she saw some of my plumbing supplies scattered across the floor

 

[fishybudguy]

The next day she caught me inside plumbing my returns for closed loop

 

[fishybudguy]

I finally finished the plumbing and now it was the long process of making the water and filling the tank for the next week

 

[fishybudguy]

Now I mixed my salt and let the tank stabilize for a few days

 

[fishybudguy]

For all those wondering, tank dimensions are 9’ long x 3’ wide x 30” tall

 

[fishybudguy]

Time to make the transfer from my old 110 to the new big boy tank

 

[fishybudguy]

Next was building the new skin to cover the Steel stand

 

[fishybudguy]

Not a lot of pictures because most of this was done in the evenings in my barn. My wife loved moving the stand back and forth after I would build a section to make sure it fit

 

[McPuff]

My first thought... DANG! I like the way you built it into the wall. What's your stocking in there now? And will you be adding more fish?

 

[fishybudguy]

Fish livestock is
5 cardinals
4 tangs
2 firefish
1 mandarin
1 sixline wrasse
1 cleaner wrasse
600 snails
1000 crabs
4 sand sifters
1 huge brittle star
2 cleaner shrimp
I’m sure I’m missing more but this is a start lol

 

[fishybudguy]

Oh yea, 2 clowns lol

 

[revhtree]

I think I love it!

 

[fishybudguy]

I do too lol. This hobby has to be a labor of love

 

[BostonReefer300]

Really awesome! Thanks for sharing! Question (probably a stupid one because I'm not a plumbing expert): What are the two vertical pipes inside the DT for? It looks like they're connected to the return jets, but the jets also look like they're connected through the overflow partitions.