Alright, the time has come to start this build thread! Back in October '25 I bought an IM SR 80 (impulse buy) and planned to start getting that setup. While I was waiting for Black Friday deals, I got to thinking, a sump would be nice for extra activities. So I started looking around and saw a video from a RAP with the Eshopps Mariner M130 and instantly fell in love with the Mariner series tanks. I decided to wait to see if there would be any deals on the tanks for BF. Well, they had a 20% discount on all their tanks so I decided to go ahead and get the M180! It arrived late November and has been sitting in my garage patiently waiting for me to get working on it.
A little backstory: I had a saltwater tank when I was around 9 years old but my dad and I never really had any clue what we were doing back then. Its been close to 30 years now and ever since then I've dreamed of having a saltwater reef tank. Life has finally gotten to the point where I can fully commit to the hobby so I decided to I wanted to fulfill my dream! To be honest, when the tank first arrived it was almost overwhelming as the thing was MASSIVE! But, I think I'm ready so here it goes!
Equipment:
Tank/stand: Eshopps Mariner M180
Wavemakers: 2 Ecotech MP40QDs (also have 2 AI Orbit 4 that I might use)
Return: Ecotech Vectra L2
Filtration: Red Sea Reefmat 1200 and Nyos Quantum 220EQ Protein Skimmer
Heating: 2 Aqua Logics with 2 BRS 600W Titanium heaters
ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3 with 15 gallon res
Lid: Top Lids - Luxury Lid
Lighting: Dalua Illumagic X4 with Vitamini Strips (haven't purchased yet)
Control: Neptune Apex A3 Pro and supporting modules
UV: Lifeguard Aquatics Pro-Max 55W
RO/DI: BRS 7 stage 150g/day
Salt: Tropic Marin Pro
Rock: Ecoscape Rock and TBS base or rubble rock to seed the tank
Sand: Tropic Eden Miniflakes and TBS sand to seed the tank
Since this will be my first tank in about 30 years I will be trying to take things slowly and be fish only for a bit while I get the hang of things and eventually be doing softies and LPS, and maybe SPS farther down the line.
Fish goals:
Mocha DaVinci Clownfish Pair (are DaVincis and Gladiators the same?)
3 Yellow Tangs
Sailfin Tang
Biota Mandarin Dragonette pair (absolutely my dream fish)
Give me suggestions on what else to add!
Here are some pics so far.
11/21/25 Tank was delivered! (Don't look at my grass)
A couple of weeks later this shipment came (most of the equipment):
Decided to get the stand put together and put it in the room I thought I wanted to put the tank in... Turns out I didn't really like it in there.
I have a front room in my house that I have never used, basically only used it to store random stuff. This will be my new office with the tank in there. This room has a large entry way which will be nice when it comes to doing maintenance on the tank.
This weekend (02/15/26) I had an electrician come and run two 20 amp circuits. I had him put in a 4gang box so 8 outlets in total, can never have enough outlets right? Not sure if he misunderstood me or something but ended up with 1 weather resistant gfci outlet on each circuit and 1 normal outlet. I will probably change out the two normal outlets myself before the tank is ready to be cycled. Unless y'all think its over kill I can use the normal outlets for something not going in the tank? My plan is to split everything between the two circuits to have some redundancy. I guess my only gripe so far is about the plumbing of the M180, there is really no option to add a redundant return pump or a manifold unless I modify the pipes.
I guess that's about it so far. The tank is hopefully getting moved to the stand on Feb. 27th with the help of some friends, once that happens, I should be able to get the ball rolling and start getting this massive tank filled and cycling!
If y'all have any suggestions or opinions, I'd love to hear them!
A little backstory: I had a saltwater tank when I was around 9 years old but my dad and I never really had any clue what we were doing back then. Its been close to 30 years now and ever since then I've dreamed of having a saltwater reef tank. Life has finally gotten to the point where I can fully commit to the hobby so I decided to I wanted to fulfill my dream! To be honest, when the tank first arrived it was almost overwhelming as the thing was MASSIVE! But, I think I'm ready so here it goes!
Equipment:
Tank/stand: Eshopps Mariner M180
Wavemakers: 2 Ecotech MP40QDs (also have 2 AI Orbit 4 that I might use)
Return: Ecotech Vectra L2
Filtration: Red Sea Reefmat 1200 and Nyos Quantum 220EQ Protein Skimmer
Heating: 2 Aqua Logics with 2 BRS 600W Titanium heaters
ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3 with 15 gallon res
Lid: Top Lids - Luxury Lid
Lighting: Dalua Illumagic X4 with Vitamini Strips (haven't purchased yet)
Control: Neptune Apex A3 Pro and supporting modules
UV: Lifeguard Aquatics Pro-Max 55W
RO/DI: BRS 7 stage 150g/day
Salt: Tropic Marin Pro
Rock: Ecoscape Rock and TBS base or rubble rock to seed the tank
Sand: Tropic Eden Miniflakes and TBS sand to seed the tank
Since this will be my first tank in about 30 years I will be trying to take things slowly and be fish only for a bit while I get the hang of things and eventually be doing softies and LPS, and maybe SPS farther down the line.
Fish goals:
Mocha DaVinci Clownfish Pair (are DaVincis and Gladiators the same?)
3 Yellow Tangs
Sailfin Tang
Biota Mandarin Dragonette pair (absolutely my dream fish)
Give me suggestions on what else to add!
Here are some pics so far.
11/21/25 Tank was delivered! (Don't look at my grass)
A couple of weeks later this shipment came (most of the equipment):
Decided to get the stand put together and put it in the room I thought I wanted to put the tank in... Turns out I didn't really like it in there.
I have a front room in my house that I have never used, basically only used it to store random stuff. This will be my new office with the tank in there. This room has a large entry way which will be nice when it comes to doing maintenance on the tank.
This weekend (02/15/26) I had an electrician come and run two 20 amp circuits. I had him put in a 4gang box so 8 outlets in total, can never have enough outlets right? Not sure if he misunderstood me or something but ended up with 1 weather resistant gfci outlet on each circuit and 1 normal outlet. I will probably change out the two normal outlets myself before the tank is ready to be cycled. Unless y'all think its over kill I can use the normal outlets for something not going in the tank? My plan is to split everything between the two circuits to have some redundancy. I guess my only gripe so far is about the plumbing of the M180, there is really no option to add a redundant return pump or a manifold unless I modify the pipes.
I guess that's about it so far. The tank is hopefully getting moved to the stand on Feb. 27th with the help of some friends, once that happens, I should be able to get the ball rolling and start getting this massive tank filled and cycling!
If y'all have any suggestions or opinions, I'd love to hear them!
)
