I have been meaning to start a build thread since I started this system 11 months ago but I have been scraping time just to work on the tank. I am finally here and this is my build thread. I will both update on what I have built and completed and what I am doing going forward. This system is primarily built on three key ingredients:
1) 15 years of learning from my very first saltwater tank around 2002 to all the other systems I have in the house today. This is the culmination of every lesson learned, every wet floor, every carried bucket of water and negative outcome of a short term or impulse decision
2) Patience & research. I have learned in life and in reefs that only bad things happen quickly, good things take time and things work best if you know what you are doing. I have not rushed any part of this and won't going forward. I want this system running awesome 15 years from now. I have read a high percentage of R2R, watched just about every fish video on YouTube and even read books - you know the internet on paper! - in the last decade as I built other systems and learned the latest from others.
3) Black Friday, double points, open box and DIY creativity that maximized the return on my budget. I have spent plenty of money on this build and my others - we all do or at least wind up doing so - but I tried my best to make that money go farther buy circling the open box items on BRS, watching for sales, doubling points when possible and doing/making a lot of the items myself and/or reusing items from the non reefing world.
Next Post will be the tanks and sizes/specs along with what I love/don't love about them. There are two display tanks, a frag tank and a 'back tank' wherein I can do whatever I want without worrying what it looks like , they are interconnected with sumps and an external skimmer all in a fish room in our basement. The display tanks are visible outside the room and the wrap on the stands completes the outside 'walls' of the room.
1) 15 years of learning from my very first saltwater tank around 2002 to all the other systems I have in the house today. This is the culmination of every lesson learned, every wet floor, every carried bucket of water and negative outcome of a short term or impulse decision
2) Patience & research. I have learned in life and in reefs that only bad things happen quickly, good things take time and things work best if you know what you are doing. I have not rushed any part of this and won't going forward. I want this system running awesome 15 years from now. I have read a high percentage of R2R, watched just about every fish video on YouTube and even read books - you know the internet on paper! - in the last decade as I built other systems and learned the latest from others.
3) Black Friday, double points, open box and DIY creativity that maximized the return on my budget. I have spent plenty of money on this build and my others - we all do or at least wind up doing so - but I tried my best to make that money go farther buy circling the open box items on BRS, watching for sales, doubling points when possible and doing/making a lot of the items myself and/or reusing items from the non reefing world.
Next Post will be the tanks and sizes/specs along with what I love/don't love about them. There are two display tanks, a frag tank and a 'back tank' wherein I can do whatever I want without worrying what it looks like , they are interconnected with sumps and an external skimmer all in a fish room in our basement. The display tanks are visible outside the room and the wrap on the stands completes the outside 'walls' of the room.