Akutila
Community Member
Welcome to the project thread of my 1000 liter, or 265 gallon reef tank! Before I go any further let me introduce myself:
I'm Aku, a passionate reefer from Finland. My past includes lot's of different freshwater tanks since the 90's, but since 2012 I've dedicated my beloved aquarium hobby for saltwater tanks. This is my third and so far the biggest aquarium project, and I'm happy to have you following it.
A basic concept for this tank has been in my mind since 2014, but on spring 2016 I had an opportunity to start making the concept real. The live rock was added on October 2016 and the tank has been running since.
The tank is a rimless glass tank made of 12 mm float glass with measures of 170 cm (67") x 110 cm (43") x 55 cm (22"). Funny part is that the rear glass is actually optiwhite, but since this is a second hand aquarium designed to be other way around (overflow on the left hand side), I had to make a compromise.
The livestock is a random selection of SPS and LPS corals (frags for now, LOL) and various selection of invertebrates, like shrimps, sea cucumber, snails, serpentine stars etc... I tend to keep quite easy and basic fish, like Zebrasoma scopas, Chromis viridis, Ampriphion ocellaris and so on. When the tank matures a bit, I might have some more interesting animals.
The stand is a DIY made steel frame with adjustable legs and powder coating to prevent (hopefully) corrosion. With the legs and the plywood on the stand, the aquarium stands in height of 110 cm (43") from the floor.
My friend masters the welding better than me, so he got to do the dirty job.
I think my neighbors had fun time watching me and my friends to carry the stand inside. The fence gate was too narrow to carry it through, so we were left with only one option
I'm the one with white shirt.
The tank weighs 165 kg (364 lbs), so we had a nice exercise lifting it through the living room window.
Here's my previous 100 liter (26 g) tank with animals waiting to move to a bigger one.
One of the most important part of the concept is to have a bar counter (beer with the fish!) going around the tank. This was done with a custom made 50 mm thick CNC-machined birch plywood. The counter also serves as a maintenance level.
We shot a time lapse video of lifting the tank on the stand and rolling the whole package into the corner of the tank room. Before lifting, we taped a blue contact plastic sheet on two sides of the tank for background.
Then some rockwork with dry live rock:
The canopy is a mixture of plywood, laminated wood and paint. It's going to be fully covered with lifting doors, but for now it's just plain open.
Again I had to call my friends for help:
Now the tank was finally set up and I got to fill it up. The remaining live rock in my smaller tank worked as a seed for the dry rock during start up, so I didn't have to purchase any new live rock.
Then some sand, salt, corals, fish, backpains, wet floors, moths of waiting and there you have! The tank is set up and the livestock from the smaller tank moved. The sump is still a temporary one and it's going to be replace with ones made from PVC plastic. Also the stand and the canopy are to be covered to hide all the equipment.
The fish are hiding due to some adjusting (OK, playing...) with the new Maxpect Ethereal lights. Usually the Chromis tend to shoal in open water.
Thank you for rolling all the way down. I'm trying to make some regular updates when things are moving forward. There's still lot be done.
All the best,
Aku
I'm Aku, a passionate reefer from Finland. My past includes lot's of different freshwater tanks since the 90's, but since 2012 I've dedicated my beloved aquarium hobby for saltwater tanks. This is my third and so far the biggest aquarium project, and I'm happy to have you following it.
A basic concept for this tank has been in my mind since 2014, but on spring 2016 I had an opportunity to start making the concept real. The live rock was added on October 2016 and the tank has been running since.
The tank is a rimless glass tank made of 12 mm float glass with measures of 170 cm (67") x 110 cm (43") x 55 cm (22"). Funny part is that the rear glass is actually optiwhite, but since this is a second hand aquarium designed to be other way around (overflow on the left hand side), I had to make a compromise.
The livestock is a random selection of SPS and LPS corals (frags for now, LOL) and various selection of invertebrates, like shrimps, sea cucumber, snails, serpentine stars etc... I tend to keep quite easy and basic fish, like Zebrasoma scopas, Chromis viridis, Ampriphion ocellaris and so on. When the tank matures a bit, I might have some more interesting animals.
The stand is a DIY made steel frame with adjustable legs and powder coating to prevent (hopefully) corrosion. With the legs and the plywood on the stand, the aquarium stands in height of 110 cm (43") from the floor.
My friend masters the welding better than me, so he got to do the dirty job.
I think my neighbors had fun time watching me and my friends to carry the stand inside. The fence gate was too narrow to carry it through, so we were left with only one option
I'm the one with white shirt.
The tank weighs 165 kg (364 lbs), so we had a nice exercise lifting it through the living room window.
Here's my previous 100 liter (26 g) tank with animals waiting to move to a bigger one.
One of the most important part of the concept is to have a bar counter (beer with the fish!) going around the tank. This was done with a custom made 50 mm thick CNC-machined birch plywood. The counter also serves as a maintenance level.
We shot a time lapse video of lifting the tank on the stand and rolling the whole package into the corner of the tank room. Before lifting, we taped a blue contact plastic sheet on two sides of the tank for background.
Then some rockwork with dry live rock:
The canopy is a mixture of plywood, laminated wood and paint. It's going to be fully covered with lifting doors, but for now it's just plain open.
Again I had to call my friends for help:
Now the tank was finally set up and I got to fill it up. The remaining live rock in my smaller tank worked as a seed for the dry rock during start up, so I didn't have to purchase any new live rock.
Then some sand, salt, corals, fish, backpains, wet floors, moths of waiting and there you have! The tank is set up and the livestock from the smaller tank moved. The sump is still a temporary one and it's going to be replace with ones made from PVC plastic. Also the stand and the canopy are to be covered to hide all the equipment.
The fish are hiding due to some adjusting (OK, playing...
) with the new Maxpect Ethereal lights. Usually the Chromis tend to shoal in open water.Thank you for rolling all the way down. I'm trying to make some regular updates when things are moving forward. There's still lot be done.
All the best,
Aku
