Brand newbie here! Just getting started in the hobby, and already biting off a pretty heavy tank customization. My girlfriend and I are super excited about getting into reefing, watching ALL of the BRS 160 vids and soaking up info.
We picked out a RedSea 300 XL setup they had in stock at our LFS after hunting around a bit and deciding it was the right size for a room-divider type spot in our basement. The spot lends itself really well to a look-through tank, but the RS Peninsula 500 is way to big for the space, so... we decided to go with the 300 XL and just pull off the black liner. The overflow tower would be in the way, but it would be better than nothing.
We brought the tank home, set it in place and pretty much immediately pulled off the black background film. We were thrilled with the result! The tank looked awesome in its new position and the look-through style fit super well in the room. But... I'm a relentless tinkerer, and the tank looked so good I already that I couldn't fight off the the thought that fully converting it to a custom peninsula tank was something that just HAD to happen.
I got started the other night, and spent a few hours VERY carefully cutting the overflow tower out of the tank armed with a razor blade, and a healthy dose of moxy. Went really well overall, and the glass cleaned up very nicely with the razor and some patience.
Plan from here is to drill the glass on the wall end for overflow, return, and a half-depth strainer drain for easy water changes. Been waiting a few days now to hear back from RS to verify that the glass is not tempered, and is therefore drillable. If it turns out to be tempered, we'll just have to settle for a hang-on pumped syphon overflow despite the drawbacks, we're just too in love with the look through peninsula at this point to consider turning back.
I've got all the plumbing parts picked out in schedule 80 for that nice dark grey professional look, and either purchased or en-route. Found the pipe and most of the fittings at a local Lowe's, but they were pretty hit or miss on which locations stocked the materials, so you may have to search around. Gate valve and bulk-head fittings I got from another LFS, along with the Eshopps Prodigy overflow.
Next steps are to plug the plumbing holes in the bottom left over from the original tower, and drill the back wall once my new drill guide and an (at-your-risk) go-ahead from RedSea arrive. Then we'll apply some blackout film to the new back of the tank and plumb it all down to the sump from there!
A couple of thoughts and discoveries from this process so far in case anyone else decides they want their own custom RS "Mini-Pen":
- It did feel a bit heinous to cut into the beautiful work that RS did building this system, but when you want what you want bad enough... lol
- The pre-built plumbing from RS will end up being totally useless. This is a bit of a bummer, but from what I've read the plumbing hardware was a pretty low point in the design of these systems anyway, so this will probably not be something I cry over at the end of the day.
-All the new plumbing is pretty cheap compared to the start-up cost of the rest of this system, certainly less than the protein skimmer I'll be picking up in the next few days.
- The Reefer tanks use different qualities of glass between the front, sides, and back of the tank. This makes absolutely perfect sense given the use-case the tank is designed for. Why waste expensive optical glass on a tank wall destined to be blacked out anyway? That said, all of the glass on this aquarium is beautifully made and assembled, and for the money, I suspect it would be tough to get as nice of a peninsula tank, cabinet, and sump system combo for anywhere near this price-point any other way. One side of this system will end up a little prettier than the other, but I think that's an overall worthy trade, and I'm not sure a casual observer would even notice.
- Extracting the overflow tower was not terribly difficult, but it was a bit nerve-wracking to cut anywhere near the tank seals at the bottom. Take your time, and be patient. I was able to work the razor blade down between the aquarium glass and the tower walls with a bit of care, and from there it was fairly easy to push the razor along smoothly down the seam. With the tower out, cleaning up the glass was just a matter of patient razoring, and the results look pretty good IMHO
That's all for now! Fingers crossed that the glass isn't tempered, I'll post an update back here either way.
We picked out a RedSea 300 XL setup they had in stock at our LFS after hunting around a bit and deciding it was the right size for a room-divider type spot in our basement. The spot lends itself really well to a look-through tank, but the RS Peninsula 500 is way to big for the space, so... we decided to go with the 300 XL and just pull off the black liner. The overflow tower would be in the way, but it would be better than nothing.
We brought the tank home, set it in place and pretty much immediately pulled off the black background film. We were thrilled with the result! The tank looked awesome in its new position and the look-through style fit super well in the room. But... I'm a relentless tinkerer, and the tank looked so good I already that I couldn't fight off the the thought that fully converting it to a custom peninsula tank was something that just HAD to happen.
I got started the other night, and spent a few hours VERY carefully cutting the overflow tower out of the tank armed with a razor blade, and a healthy dose of moxy. Went really well overall, and the glass cleaned up very nicely with the razor and some patience.
Plan from here is to drill the glass on the wall end for overflow, return, and a half-depth strainer drain for easy water changes. Been waiting a few days now to hear back from RS to verify that the glass is not tempered, and is therefore drillable. If it turns out to be tempered, we'll just have to settle for a hang-on pumped syphon overflow despite the drawbacks, we're just too in love with the look through peninsula at this point to consider turning back.
I've got all the plumbing parts picked out in schedule 80 for that nice dark grey professional look, and either purchased or en-route. Found the pipe and most of the fittings at a local Lowe's, but they were pretty hit or miss on which locations stocked the materials, so you may have to search around. Gate valve and bulk-head fittings I got from another LFS, along with the Eshopps Prodigy overflow.
Next steps are to plug the plumbing holes in the bottom left over from the original tower, and drill the back wall once my new drill guide and an (at-your-risk) go-ahead from RedSea arrive. Then we'll apply some blackout film to the new back of the tank and plumb it all down to the sump from there!
A couple of thoughts and discoveries from this process so far in case anyone else decides they want their own custom RS "Mini-Pen":
- It did feel a bit heinous to cut into the beautiful work that RS did building this system, but when you want what you want bad enough... lol
- The pre-built plumbing from RS will end up being totally useless. This is a bit of a bummer, but from what I've read the plumbing hardware was a pretty low point in the design of these systems anyway, so this will probably not be something I cry over at the end of the day.
-All the new plumbing is pretty cheap compared to the start-up cost of the rest of this system, certainly less than the protein skimmer I'll be picking up in the next few days.
- The Reefer tanks use different qualities of glass between the front, sides, and back of the tank. This makes absolutely perfect sense given the use-case the tank is designed for. Why waste expensive optical glass on a tank wall destined to be blacked out anyway? That said, all of the glass on this aquarium is beautifully made and assembled, and for the money, I suspect it would be tough to get as nice of a peninsula tank, cabinet, and sump system combo for anywhere near this price-point any other way. One side of this system will end up a little prettier than the other, but I think that's an overall worthy trade, and I'm not sure a casual observer would even notice.
- Extracting the overflow tower was not terribly difficult, but it was a bit nerve-wracking to cut anywhere near the tank seals at the bottom. Take your time, and be patient. I was able to work the razor blade down between the aquarium glass and the tower walls with a bit of care, and from there it was fairly easy to push the razor along smoothly down the seam. With the tower out, cleaning up the glass was just a matter of patient razoring, and the results look pretty good IMHO
That's all for now! Fingers crossed that the glass isn't tempered, I'll post an update back here either way.