richarddeweerd
Active Member
Hi,
I'm in the progress to give my fish a bigger home.
This will be my 3rd salt water tank and my 6th aquarium in total since I started with them about 15 years ago. So, as most of us here, I've learned a few things the hard way.
I started with a small 15 gallon freshwater tank and after a year orso I upgraded that one to about 30 gallon or so. Of course these were the simple tanks with the filter in the tank. When I wanted to upgrade that tank I made the "mistake" to walk into a shop that mainly had saltwater. I instantly fell in love with it, but everything was at that time for me too expensive. After a year or so I bought a secondhand Sera cube with a mini skimmer in the back. Looking back buying this has been my biggest mistake ever in this hobby. This skimmer never really worked and the lights were a bit too low.
After a few months I upgraded it with a new DIY hood, bigger T5 lights and a hang-on skimmer.
This was that tank at that time:
I've had this tank for about 5 years until during my holiday's the skimmer overflowed and it damaged my laminate floor. I sold the fish and the corals and threw away the aquarium.
Im my head I always had a dream tank. My LFS had a display tank in the shop of about 48x24x24 inch and I really liked that size. I new I wanted that too, but I also knew that I needed to move first. In the meantime I really missed a few fish in the house so I bought a 8 gallon cube for some freshwater shrimps. And I had that for about 1 year and then three years ago I got the opportunity to u buy a bigger house.
The house and the refurbishment were a bit more expensive than expected so I knew I had to wait a bit more for my dream tank. But what I did after the move was converting my fresh water shrimp tank to saltwater. I put a DIY led fixture on it and added a Tunze DOC skimmer and put in some live rock. At least there was a reef in the house again. Of course this tank has had a few upgrades along the way, a different streamer, and i added a dosing pump for ATI essentials pro.
Currently I have a Orchid dottyback and 2 clown fish living in the 8 gallon cube. (together with a Peppermint shrimp a cleaner shrimp, a Tuxedo Urchin and a red legged hermit)
Further some soft corals, a hammer coral and a anemone (actually 2 since it split a few weeks ago)
This is my current tank
But now the best part, due to the Corona outbreak my girlfriend and I decided not to go on holiday this summer but spend the money on a new tank
So a few weeks ago I opened the folder "Dream aquarium" on my computer again. There has a lot changed since I started designing so I had to rethink a few things. For example LED lighting is more affordable, electronics have changed, DC pumps are more affordable and so on.
I started with a few basic requirements:
No more hang-on equipment, it should all go in the sump (except the streamers of course)
ATO setup
Rimless
LED lighting
White cabinet/stand
No "Made in China" aquarium
Equipment is planned around mainly LPS and soft corals.
My plan is to order my new tank at the end of May and with the current lead times I expect it to be delivered about 3 weeks later or so.
The tank will be build by a local tank builder who normally builds custom tanks. About a year ago he started a line of standard tanks and because the sizes are standardized the prices are about 30% more affordable and the lead time is 2-3 weeks instead of 10-12 months compared to his custom work.
It will be a extra clear rimless display tank with the dimensions 130 x 55 x 55 cm (51.2 x 21.6 x 21.6 inch) containing 395 liter (105 gal). The sump will be 140 liter (37 gal) and 24 liter (6.5 gal) fresh water compartment for ATO.
So what is currently the plan for the equipment:
Feed pump: Aqua Medic DC Runner 5.2
Skimmer: Aqua Medic K2
Streamers: 2 Aqua Medic Ecodrift 4.2
200W heating
8 fans for cooling
ATO Tunze osmolator 3155
about 110 lbs Real Reefrock
For the lights I'm doubting between 2 AI Hydra 32's or 3 AI Prime HD16's the latter are a bit sleeker, even with 3 lamps and I can upgrade them to 4 later.
In autumn I will probably add a Neptune Apex to it for monitoring.
I'm in the progress to give my fish a bigger home.
This will be my 3rd salt water tank and my 6th aquarium in total since I started with them about 15 years ago. So, as most of us here, I've learned a few things the hard way.
I started with a small 15 gallon freshwater tank and after a year orso I upgraded that one to about 30 gallon or so. Of course these were the simple tanks with the filter in the tank. When I wanted to upgrade that tank I made the "mistake" to walk into a shop that mainly had saltwater. I instantly fell in love with it, but everything was at that time for me too expensive. After a year or so I bought a secondhand Sera cube with a mini skimmer in the back. Looking back buying this has been my biggest mistake ever in this hobby. This skimmer never really worked and the lights were a bit too low.
After a few months I upgraded it with a new DIY hood, bigger T5 lights and a hang-on skimmer.
This was that tank at that time:
I've had this tank for about 5 years until during my holiday's the skimmer overflowed and it damaged my laminate floor. I sold the fish and the corals and threw away the aquarium.
Im my head I always had a dream tank. My LFS had a display tank in the shop of about 48x24x24 inch and I really liked that size. I new I wanted that too, but I also knew that I needed to move first. In the meantime I really missed a few fish in the house so I bought a 8 gallon cube for some freshwater shrimps. And I had that for about 1 year and then three years ago I got the opportunity to u buy a bigger house.
The house and the refurbishment were a bit more expensive than expected so I knew I had to wait a bit more for my dream tank. But what I did after the move was converting my fresh water shrimp tank to saltwater. I put a DIY led fixture on it and added a Tunze DOC skimmer and put in some live rock. At least there was a reef in the house again. Of course this tank has had a few upgrades along the way, a different streamer, and i added a dosing pump for ATI essentials pro.
Currently I have a Orchid dottyback and 2 clown fish living in the 8 gallon cube. (together with a Peppermint shrimp a cleaner shrimp, a Tuxedo Urchin and a red legged hermit)
Further some soft corals, a hammer coral and a anemone (actually 2 since it split a few weeks ago)
This is my current tank
But now the best part, due to the Corona outbreak my girlfriend and I decided not to go on holiday this summer but spend the money on a new tank
So a few weeks ago I opened the folder "Dream aquarium" on my computer again. There has a lot changed since I started designing so I had to rethink a few things. For example LED lighting is more affordable, electronics have changed, DC pumps are more affordable and so on.
I started with a few basic requirements:
No more hang-on equipment, it should all go in the sump (except the streamers of course)
ATO setup
Rimless
LED lighting
White cabinet/stand
No "Made in China" aquarium
Equipment is planned around mainly LPS and soft corals.
My plan is to order my new tank at the end of May and with the current lead times I expect it to be delivered about 3 weeks later or so.
The tank will be build by a local tank builder who normally builds custom tanks. About a year ago he started a line of standard tanks and because the sizes are standardized the prices are about 30% more affordable and the lead time is 2-3 weeks instead of 10-12 months compared to his custom work.
It will be a extra clear rimless display tank with the dimensions 130 x 55 x 55 cm (51.2 x 21.6 x 21.6 inch) containing 395 liter (105 gal). The sump will be 140 liter (37 gal) and 24 liter (6.5 gal) fresh water compartment for ATO.
So what is currently the plan for the equipment:
Feed pump: Aqua Medic DC Runner 5.2
Skimmer: Aqua Medic K2
Streamers: 2 Aqua Medic Ecodrift 4.2
200W heating
8 fans for cooling
ATO Tunze osmolator 3155
about 110 lbs Real Reefrock
For the lights I'm doubting between 2 AI Hydra 32's or 3 AI Prime HD16's the latter are a bit sleeker, even with 3 lamps and I can upgrade them to 4 later.
In autumn I will probably add a Neptune Apex to it for monitoring.
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