Back in 2015, I moved into a new, much bigger house. So, bigger house means bigger tank right? (It was my wife's idea)...
My first plan was to just get an off the shelf MarineLand Corner-flo. I was going to put it in the as a primary display piece in the main room of our new house. The goal was to put it on an outside wall and brace the floor underneath (conveniently building myself a fish room right below). However, in the house we actually purchased, the only suitable wall is right above the garage doors (lol). Anyway, long story short, I have decided to put the tank in a wall as a room divider. This of course meant I had to pull a wall down and run a fantastic build project. I had an engineer come to reassure me, and give me an official report, so I could do the installation without the house caving in on itself!
Note: This was originally written as I went, as I posted it on another forum at the time (I feel so dirty)... Please forgive any weird tenses that I may have missed.
Here are some decisions I had made before actually purchasing the tank:
2 return pumps, I purchased two Mag12 pumps, I chose two for redundancy.
4 Hydor 1500 powerheads for the DT, I picked up four of these on sale, I already have a 600 and two 850s which seem to work well in my 65 Gallon. With the return pumps, this gave me just over 30x the flow (to volume).
I wanted to Switch to Eheim heaters, I purchased a 250W to augment my 100W, and I have two 200W Hydors (which seemed to be horrible heaters) to use as backup. I have enough wattage to get started, once I get a feel for heating the system, I will likely switch entirely to Eheim. After a while, they all stuck on, so I just use two of them and a $50 temperature controller. The temperature has been rock solid ever since.
At first, I was going to go with 5 Arctic-S026 LED lights, I have one already on my 65G (not exactly, but same specs w/same LEDs), and my corals love it. However, the Canadian dollar tanked right before I bought them and ended up going with some that are closer to SB lights. Eventually I will swap some diodes, as they do not have enough UV spectrum.
Migrated my existing 55G sump/refugium system, I removed all the bubble trap baffles, essentially leaving only dividing walls. This is a very small sump for this system, but it fit perfectly in the space I had to put it. You will see later on...
I wanted to keep my RS-80 skimmer for a while, it was 'rated' for a large tank, and I only had five fish from my 65 gallon. However, it died about a month before I ordered the tank, so I got an Aquamaxx ConeS Co-3.
The sump went in the basement, directly below the DT.
For rocks, I probably had 100lbs in my 65G, and I cured close to 100lbs of rubble for the refugium and another 100lbs of DT rock. I also had about 50lbs of rubble in cold (room temp) water and 40lbs of dry rock (ready to be cured). I was hoping, this will give me enough 'base' rock for the system to minimize the initial cycle. That said, I was not trying to rush things, as I was planning to have enough time to ensure a proper cycle when I fire this thing up. BUT! and a big but, I wanted to minimize the time the 65G runs without a sump/fuge/skimmer.
Aside from the 1" bulkheads, all the exterior plumbing was done in 1.5" PVC.
I went with a BeanAnimal style overflow as part of a custom Miracles Aquarium, shipped to my house. It was technically a custom tank, drilled to my spec (three holes), tempering on the bottom and drilled end. I also went with euro-bracing to eliminate the need for the cross bar. I will never go back to a plastic braced display tank, the euro-bracing is just fantastic! That said, it was a painful purchase, as I have mentioned on a couple other threads. For example, it took three days to reply to my email. 1 year warranty. Due to the communication issues I decided to put the overflow in myself, as I could not get decent advice about the sizing - and I needed to be sure I could fit my hand into the overflow (i.e. with the euro-brace in the way).
My first plan was to just get an off the shelf MarineLand Corner-flo. I was going to put it in the as a primary display piece in the main room of our new house. The goal was to put it on an outside wall and brace the floor underneath (conveniently building myself a fish room right below). However, in the house we actually purchased, the only suitable wall is right above the garage doors (lol). Anyway, long story short, I have decided to put the tank in a wall as a room divider. This of course meant I had to pull a wall down and run a fantastic build project. I had an engineer come to reassure me, and give me an official report, so I could do the installation without the house caving in on itself!
Note: This was originally written as I went, as I posted it on another forum at the time (I feel so dirty)... Please forgive any weird tenses that I may have missed.
Here are some decisions I had made before actually purchasing the tank:
2 return pumps, I purchased two Mag12 pumps, I chose two for redundancy.
4 Hydor 1500 powerheads for the DT, I picked up four of these on sale, I already have a 600 and two 850s which seem to work well in my 65 Gallon. With the return pumps, this gave me just over 30x the flow (to volume).
I wanted to Switch to Eheim heaters, I purchased a 250W to augment my 100W, and I have two 200W Hydors (which seemed to be horrible heaters) to use as backup. I have enough wattage to get started, once I get a feel for heating the system, I will likely switch entirely to Eheim. After a while, they all stuck on, so I just use two of them and a $50 temperature controller. The temperature has been rock solid ever since.
At first, I was going to go with 5 Arctic-S026 LED lights, I have one already on my 65G (not exactly, but same specs w/same LEDs), and my corals love it. However, the Canadian dollar tanked right before I bought them and ended up going with some that are closer to SB lights. Eventually I will swap some diodes, as they do not have enough UV spectrum.
Migrated my existing 55G sump/refugium system, I removed all the bubble trap baffles, essentially leaving only dividing walls. This is a very small sump for this system, but it fit perfectly in the space I had to put it. You will see later on...
I wanted to keep my RS-80 skimmer for a while, it was 'rated' for a large tank, and I only had five fish from my 65 gallon. However, it died about a month before I ordered the tank, so I got an Aquamaxx ConeS Co-3.
The sump went in the basement, directly below the DT.
For rocks, I probably had 100lbs in my 65G, and I cured close to 100lbs of rubble for the refugium and another 100lbs of DT rock. I also had about 50lbs of rubble in cold (room temp) water and 40lbs of dry rock (ready to be cured). I was hoping, this will give me enough 'base' rock for the system to minimize the initial cycle. That said, I was not trying to rush things, as I was planning to have enough time to ensure a proper cycle when I fire this thing up. BUT! and a big but, I wanted to minimize the time the 65G runs without a sump/fuge/skimmer.
Aside from the 1" bulkheads, all the exterior plumbing was done in 1.5" PVC.
I went with a BeanAnimal style overflow as part of a custom Miracles Aquarium, shipped to my house. It was technically a custom tank, drilled to my spec (three holes), tempering on the bottom and drilled end. I also went with euro-bracing to eliminate the need for the cross bar. I will never go back to a plastic braced display tank, the euro-bracing is just fantastic! That said, it was a painful purchase, as I have mentioned on a couple other threads. For example, it took three days to reply to my email. 1 year warranty. Due to the communication issues I decided to put the overflow in myself, as I could not get decent advice about the sizing - and I needed to be sure I could fit my hand into the overflow (i.e. with the euro-brace in the way).