- Joined
- Jun 16, 2018
- Messages
- 291
- Reaction score
- 269
Hello, fellow reefers.
I decided to start a tank build thread on my 150g mixed reef cube tank. " Jaws " is one of the best films ever made IMO so i'll pay some hommage by designing my tank to resemble the ORCA ...Captain Quint's iconic fishing boat from the movie.
First a background info. My last reef tank was nearly 15 years ago. I had a 55 bow front acylic and 30g nano. My heart was broken when they crashed. Not long after we bought a new home and never got back into the hobby until now.
Now this thread is more of a flashback than present day update ...but ill get there.
It all started about 2 years ago. My wife said she wanted hardwood floors and i said i wanted a another fish tank. It was a hooby we both enjoyed and i love DIY projects. So we picked out new flooring and found a brand new cube tank on a classifed listing.
The guy selling it owned a LFS that i supported when i first got into reefing. He retired after 35years and was liquidating out of his home garage. So i bought a Marineland 150g reef ready tank with starfire glass and welded metal frame stand for $1000. Which seemed cheap compared to what in business lfs had. It sat in my spare bedroom while we did the remodel in living room.
So i got started on the floor. 3/4" solid mahogany. $1300 later it was done. Next up was a new GFCI with 6 outlets that would be behind tank. No outlet existed there so i had to cut out drywall and drill through frame and run new romex cable to breaker box.
Next up water. My last tank required weekly trip to LFS to get RODI water but i wasnt doing that again. On Ebay i bought a Liquagen 5 stage RODI system. I found that while i was getting 0TDS water there was alot of waste water and it takes for ever to get 50g like 2 days. Put on a booster pump and pressure guage but it only boosted my pressure up to 35psi. Before the pump it was only 20psi. I found that i had a incoming regulator with max psi rating of only 25psi....so i taped into the pipe before the regulator with a 3/8" line and feed that to my RODI by pasding the booster pump i dont need any more. Now my pressure is 70psi. I have since upgraded my system to 2 DI chambers and 150g water saver from BRS. I can now produce 50g in 6 hours. I bought two 50g drums to store my water.
Ok well i'll let you guys chew on this for awhile, ask a couple Qs if like and tomorrow i'll post about live rock, dry rock and how i cycled mine. Thanks for following along and happy reefing.
I decided to start a tank build thread on my 150g mixed reef cube tank. " Jaws " is one of the best films ever made IMO so i'll pay some hommage by designing my tank to resemble the ORCA ...Captain Quint's iconic fishing boat from the movie.
First a background info. My last reef tank was nearly 15 years ago. I had a 55 bow front acylic and 30g nano. My heart was broken when they crashed. Not long after we bought a new home and never got back into the hobby until now.
Now this thread is more of a flashback than present day update ...but ill get there.
It all started about 2 years ago. My wife said she wanted hardwood floors and i said i wanted a another fish tank. It was a hooby we both enjoyed and i love DIY projects. So we picked out new flooring and found a brand new cube tank on a classifed listing.
The guy selling it owned a LFS that i supported when i first got into reefing. He retired after 35years and was liquidating out of his home garage. So i bought a Marineland 150g reef ready tank with starfire glass and welded metal frame stand for $1000. Which seemed cheap compared to what in business lfs had. It sat in my spare bedroom while we did the remodel in living room.
So i got started on the floor. 3/4" solid mahogany. $1300 later it was done. Next up was a new GFCI with 6 outlets that would be behind tank. No outlet existed there so i had to cut out drywall and drill through frame and run new romex cable to breaker box.
Next up water. My last tank required weekly trip to LFS to get RODI water but i wasnt doing that again. On Ebay i bought a Liquagen 5 stage RODI system. I found that while i was getting 0TDS water there was alot of waste water and it takes for ever to get 50g like 2 days. Put on a booster pump and pressure guage but it only boosted my pressure up to 35psi. Before the pump it was only 20psi. I found that i had a incoming regulator with max psi rating of only 25psi....so i taped into the pipe before the regulator with a 3/8" line and feed that to my RODI by pasding the booster pump i dont need any more. Now my pressure is 70psi. I have since upgraded my system to 2 DI chambers and 150g water saver from BRS. I can now produce 50g in 6 hours. I bought two 50g drums to store my water.
Ok well i'll let you guys chew on this for awhile, ask a couple Qs if like and tomorrow i'll post about live rock, dry rock and how i cycled mine. Thanks for following along and happy reefing.