vanpire
Valuable Member
I have really loved and admired the work and attention to detail of the tanks built by some local reefers like @Sisterlimonpot, @jporter17, @SawCJack00 and others. I have also seen so many gorgeous tank builds here on R2R that I would love to emulate.
This current build will be my second tank, and I was inspired to build it after seeing jporter17's tank (and my wife telling me I could have a second tank). I want to emulate that Jimmy's, Jeff's and Bill's builds, but I do not have their skilset or budgets. I do aspire to someday. But for today, I am going to see if try to build a tank quality tank inspired by them but on a budget that I can afford. Of I will have to make compromises, but still striving to have similar quality, and if not quality, similar functions. Note that I said similar but not the same. I think there are at least some on this forum that are in the same boat so I thought I would document this journey.
My budget is $2,500. Let's see how close I can get to the quality and budget goal.
I got the tank from another local reefer. He had it on sale for a while but no one bought so I bought it for about $300 (from memory) and stored it in my garage. I actually hid it from my wife and she didn't even know it was there a year or so. It is a LeeMar 120 with 48" wide, 20" tall and 30" deep. Just happened to be a similar dimensions to jporter17's tank, which is the tank that inspired to do this build. Normal LeeMar quality, standard glass with black silicon. But nicely done and most importantly it holds water.
Here, tank is not much to look at but then, I got it cheap.
The steel for the stand I got from a neighbor's work table with old wood and some rust on the steel and she was throwing it away. I cleared away everything except for the steel cage. See below. Steel cage: free
This current build will be my second tank, and I was inspired to build it after seeing jporter17's tank (and my wife telling me I could have a second tank). I want to emulate that Jimmy's, Jeff's and Bill's builds, but I do not have their skilset or budgets. I do aspire to someday. But for today, I am going to see if try to build a tank quality tank inspired by them but on a budget that I can afford. Of I will have to make compromises, but still striving to have similar quality, and if not quality, similar functions. Note that I said similar but not the same. I think there are at least some on this forum that are in the same boat so I thought I would document this journey.
My budget is $2,500. Let's see how close I can get to the quality and budget goal.
I got the tank from another local reefer. He had it on sale for a while but no one bought so I bought it for about $300 (from memory) and stored it in my garage. I actually hid it from my wife and she didn't even know it was there a year or so. It is a LeeMar 120 with 48" wide, 20" tall and 30" deep. Just happened to be a similar dimensions to jporter17's tank, which is the tank that inspired to do this build. Normal LeeMar quality, standard glass with black silicon. But nicely done and most importantly it holds water.
Here, tank is not much to look at but then, I got it cheap.
The steel for the stand I got from a neighbor's work table with old wood and some rust on the steel and she was throwing it away. I cleared away everything except for the steel cage. See below. Steel cage: free
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