SC Aquariums and other custom tanks??

[Shadowcat]

Just joined the site today and I need some help..........Some background. Hobbyist for roughly 30 years and have a 26 yr old catfish to prove it, if you believe his drivers license, freshwater fish and plants only.......sorry folks, I know this is primarily a saltwater site, but you guys are the "it" kids. When you need advice always ask people that are ( hopefully) more knowledgeable than you are............OK, now that the brown nosing is out of the way, on to business.
I've had a lot of tanks over the years, everything from 10's to 125's, but all "store bought". Never had a problem with any of them. Now that I'm retired I'd like to go for it, sort of my tour de force, if you will and treat myself to a custom tank............Put out requests for quotes today to 3 different vendors, Coast to Coast, Reef Savy and SC Aquariums. Tank in question will be, if I follow through 72x18x18, roughly 85-90 gallons I think. That's not a huge tank, especially by saltwater standards I guess, but it would be large enough for my intended purpose.
To get to the point, anybody have experience with SC Aquariums?? Steve responded to my request in a matter of hours and gave me a delivered price of $1950, that's without bulkheads or overflows, just the tank, 15mm glass, euro-braced with a starfire front panel. Based on what info I could find I expect SC to be the most reasonable of the 3 vendors, but honestly having never spent more than $200-300 for a tank in my life, two grand is a LOT of money. Hell I can fill a room with "store bought" tanks for that kind of money.

Please give me your opinions on SC, as well as custom vendors in general and where you think $1950 delivered fits into the grand scheme of things..........To me it's a lot of money for something I could buy off-the-shelf for 10-15% of the price, but I know custom costs, so............

 

[jeffyhound]

I am building one of their 150's. I ordered on the black Friday sale, and got the 150, stand, canopy for 1700. I have the canopy on backward because I have cables just hanging over back while I am working on it. When I am done putting the stuff in, I can run the cables back through the holes. For now it just makes it easier to get the whole top off so I can work on moving stuff in.

 

[Shadowcat]

Thanks Jeff. Happy with the tank quality???......As I read elsewhere, glass is glass is glass, so I assume you mostly pay for workmanship and reputation. This tank will be in my family room on mahogany floors, so I thought, hoped, that by going custom with heavier glass and better workmanship that I'll be able to sleep easier at night.
Also discovered "Custom Aquariums" in my searches last night. They use anodized aluminum frames, which I'm OK with, stronger is better and I'm used to store bought plastic frames anyway. They have the exact tank I'm interested in for $903+ delivery. Half inch glass all the way around and they brag about their workmanship, but who doesn't?............That's closer to what I was hoping to pay, but again I have no experience with their tanks. This will likely be my last large tank since I'm 65, so I'm willing to pay custom prices, but I'd like to be able to afford food for the cats when I'm done, if possible.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

I would not recommend them. I've got the 50 cube-ish and it has a number of issues. There is a SCA owners thread on Reef Central where there are quite a few people with similar issues to mine you might want to read. For a custom glass tank you might consider AGE or Miracles. Either I would say are better options than SCA.

 

[Shadowcat]

Thanks BS39........sorry about your tank issues. A little sad really when we pay serious money, at least to ME it's serious money, for custom work and then have problems anyway. Always been lucky with the cheap mass production tanks, no leaks or failures, but I know they're built with relatively thin glass and workmanship has never impressed me. I'll check out Reef Central, AGE and Miracles.

 

[jeffyhound]

I can't speak for others, I know the seams were finished good. It is brand new, so only time will tell. SCA's managers were very nice to deal with for me, and my drilled tank was 999.00 on a black Friday special. The rest was the stand, canopy and plumbing kit for the overflow.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Have you looked at Glass Cages? They have an off the shelf 72x18x17 for $474....low iron on the front would add $92....also any other "additions" are added costs (such as their overflow, $75). Very easy to talk to to make sure you get what you want. Oh, and you'll also pay for shipping....in my case, $125.

I recently ordered a custom cut, and ended up paying the next size up.....wanted a 21 inch high tank, and paid for the 24 high tank. So for you, the next highest tank is 25 inches tall for $491...which they can cut down to 18 inches, if that extra inch is important.


HERE's a link to their glass tanks. Clicking on ordering, and you can see their added expenses. Now if you research reviews, you'll see mixed reviews. The only thing I can say is that I'm extremely happy with what I got from them. HERE's the beginning of new tank build, if you're interested.

 

[Scubafrog]

Waterbox Aquariums is announcing a bunch of new aquariums on Wednesday 3/28. Might wait to see what they are going to offer. Probably not a 72" tank offering but maybe something close.

 

[QuixoticReefer]

I have a 50 gallon cube from Sca no problems with it and would recommend them. Why 72x18x18? I would either get a 60x24x24 or a 72x24x28 the extra width is provides more space for corals and also helps with equipment under the cabinet.

 

[HolisticBear]

I'm working on getting a quote from Planet Aquariums, Coast to Coast, and Reef Savvy. You need to work thru a LFS for Planet. I was able to get a quote from Coast to Coast + Planet in a very short period. I'm leaning towards Planet, but I am curious what Waterbox announces on Wednesday.

 

[Shadowcat]

Thanks folks for all the replies...........I REALLY appreciate it.............learning a lot already and picking up some new names to check out. Planning to build my own stand. I've done a few and you could park a truck on them, much better than any of the store stands I've seen and way less expensive...........good carpentry isn't rocket science, you just have to design for load and stability. I'm not in a hurry, so I can take a few weeks, get several quotes and do some research before draining my retirement account;Greedy............I'll take all the info and recommendations I can get!!.............thanks again.

 

[TaylorPilot]

+1 for https://www.planetaquariums.com/

They are pretty popular down here in the Houston area, and they seem to be of good quality and decent pricing. They aren't Reef Savvy quality, but they aren't
Reef Savvy priced either

 

[redfishbluefish]

And @Shadowcat , I neglected to welcome you to R2R.....WELCOME! Whatever you decide to do, please start a Member's Tank thread so that we can follow your build.

 

[davocean]

SCA is what I have and think is absolutely the best bang for the buck, tanks are very clean quality builds.

Their customer service is awesome.

I'm surprised to see any negative on them, especially regarding the long running thread on rc, it's probably 99% positive, the only negatives I've seen would be shipping issues, and there was a period where they were having problems w/ some of their cabinets or seeking builders.

I'm not crazy about their MDF stands, but I'm not crazy about MDF period(I'm a carpenter)

They do custom overflows and drilling now as well

I sure love mine!

 

[Dodgersfan]

Just joined the site today and I need some help..........Some background. Hobbyist for roughly 30 years and have a 26 yr old catfish to prove it, if you believe his drivers license, freshwater fish and plants only.......sorry folks, I know this is primarily a saltwater site, but you guys are the "it" kids. When you need advice always ask people that are ( hopefully) more knowledgeable than you are............OK, now that the brown nosing is out of the way, on to business.
I've had a lot of tanks over the years, everything from 10's to 125's, but all "store bought". Never had a problem with any of them. Now that I'm retired I'd like to go for it, sort of my tour de force, if you will and treat myself to a custom tank............Put out requests for quotes today to 3 different vendors, Coast to Coast, Reef Savy and SC Aquariums. Tank in question will be, if I follow through 72x18x18, roughly 85-90 gallons I think. That's not a huge tank, especially by saltwater standards I guess, but it would be large enough for my intended purpose.
To get to the point, anybody have experience with SC Aquariums?? Steve responded to my request in a matter of hours and gave me a delivered price of $1950, that's without bulkheads or overflows, just the tank, 15mm glass, euro-braced with a starfire front panel. Based on what info I could find I expect SC to be the most reasonable of the 3 vendors, but honestly having never spent more than $200-300 for a tank in my life, two grand is a LOT of money. Hell I can fill a room with "store bought" tanks for that kind of money.

Please give me your opinions on SC, as well as custom vendors in general and where you think $1950 delivered fits into the grand scheme of things..........To me it's a lot of money for something I could buy off-the-shelf for 10-15% of the price, but I know custom costs, so............

SCA is going to be the most affordable of the high end builders IMO. Miracles is another one that will fall into that range. (i priced out about a dozen builders around the end of last year) i ended up going with Glass Cages out of Tennessee, they have mixed reviews online but i am completely happy with mine. mine was a standard 90 gallon (48x24x18) and cost $515 without bulkheads or drilling, but with low iron glass on 3 sides. Glass Cages also got my tank to me in under a month when SCA and several others were quoting 3 and reef savvy was quoting longer thank that. Reef Savvy took a long time to get back to me, my impression was that they are more focused on the big hundreds of gallons builds, and not so much on the smaller builds. for the tank i ended up getting from Glass Cages shipping was $94 of the $515 total but I'm only 1 state over from them so ymmv with shipping. i posted all of the quotes i got in my build thread if you want a list of other builders to check out.

another thing to be aware of is if you can find a "stock" size on SCA's website that is close enough to what you want, they run daily deals on different tanks, sometimes 40-50% off. you've just gotta be patient and check regularly for the one you want to go on sale, but its a great way to snag a deal.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

I'm surprised to see any negative on them, especially regarding the long running thread on rc, it's probably 99% positive, the only negatives I've seen would be shipping issues, and there was a period where they were having problems w/ some of their cabinets or seeking builders.

You should check that thread again as there are several recent posts regarding silicone issues.

 

[Jimbo662]

I've had 3 SCA tanks. The last was a custom 36"x24"x14" that I'm now planning to use for a frag tank. Like someone above said best bang for your buck. Great quality for an affordable price.

 

[davocean]

You should check that thread again as there are several recent posts regarding silicone issues.

I will check it, have not read there in a few weeks

I know I did see some things questioned not long ago, I know no company is perfect or w/out errors ever, but one thing I will say about SCA is they are usually very quick to resolve any issues, so their handling of anything customer service wise keeps them at top of my list, along w/ prices.

But bottom line,from start to finish on that very long thread, they've had a pretty outstanding run IMO

 

[DQM5]

Likewise! imo sca tank affordable without breaking your bank.

 

[KJoFan]

I'm on my second SCA tank. I first had the 66g and upgraded to the 150 w/ stand and canopy. I was one that if you look at the SCA owners thread on Reefcentral, raised some questions about the silicone job on my 150. I also emailed Steve with pictures etc. He assured me the perceived issues I was seeing were cosmetic only. As he stated, it would not be in his best interest to pass off a poorly constructed aquarium as being fine only to find failure later. It would put him out of business very quickly. I was reassured by him and the input of some others' in that thread and proceeded with my build. A few months in and no issues.

You have to keep in mind with SCA that while they will do custom tanks, as the OP is inquiring about, the majority of the standard sizes readily available are mass produced. There's bound to be a cosmetic flaw here and there. I don't know if the custom tanks folks buy from SCA are better since they aren't mass produced or not as I've never purchased one.

Long story short, I would not hesitate to purchase from SCA as they are reasonably priced and you can typically work with Steve a bit to get the best price. I got my 150, solid wood stand and canopy for $1550 around Black Friday this past year.