I wanted to share a tank project I am working on in hopes for a bit of advice, most specifically in regards to lighting.
I have a pretty large mangrove that I have had for a number of years. The mangrove is about 6 years old and I have had it for the last 3 years. I have kept a few moderately successful reef tanks a few years back but most of my experience was in freshwater. I knew I wanted the tank to be centered around the mangrove and didn't have any intention of keeping corals. I live in Indialantic, FL right by the Indian River Lagoon and wanted to create a biome of the area which is brackish. I didn't take any construction pictures of my first tank build but here is the tank running.
I kept the mangrove by itself for quite a while playing with different water salinities while trying to figure out a brackish set up that I liked as that is most like the IRL. I was just running the tank with the mangrove and a couple of wild caught crabs on a canister filter. Then one day while at my LFS, I saw some porkfish that a diver had brought up from the keys. I thought that they would look very natural in the biome so I converted the tank to full marine to be able to start keeping more livestock. I even had a small horseshoe crab for awhile. Note that the pneumatophores are actually come from black mangroves not red mangroves. They are totally dead and just there for decoration.
As for lighting I used a simple pendant light fixture and a cheap LED grow bulb from the hardware store. The mangrove responded really well to the cheap light. As keeping the mangrove happy was my priority since this was working I didn't really mess with it. Same situation with the canister filter.
I was really happy with how the tank looked and it was ridiculously low maintenance. However, once I started trying to keep livestock, I sort of struggled and I'll admit that I'm not really sure why. The porkfish would do fine but if I tried to add anything more exotic, they seemed to die fairly quickly. All of my water parameters seemed fine based on my cheap test kits and the LFS tested the water and couldn't see anything weird. It's been a while but I seem to remember zeroing in on DKH as a possible problem?
Anyway we ended up moving so I had to break down the tank. I moved the tank and the mangrove to my office because we started a kitchen renovation. So for a few months the mangrove was in the tank with just and inch or two of water and the light overhead. I added fresh water as needed but feel bad for kind of neglecting the plant the last few months. I don't think I realized how much the flow, little bit of feeding/nutrients from the saltwater helped keep the plant happy. I also think that the natural light the plant was getting from our house made a big difference. It was not getting near as much light at the shop.
Over the last few months, I've been planning a new build for the mangrove and I would like to get this system set up to run much more smoothly. I was really inspired by Brad908's tank both initially when I got the mangrove and again as I began planning this build. I would like to be able to keep some macroalgea this go around and am planning on upgrading all my systems to handle that.
Our new house is a 1920's Spanish Colonial style and my wife and I wanted the tank to be a showpiece on our front porch. We had purchased an old chest to be used as a piece of furniture because we liked the style but it was not very functional as it is very tall and skinny. Fortunately, I got her approval to modify the piece to become the stand for a new tank.
Based on the dimensions of this piece of furniture, I designed the tank to be 48 in long x 17.5 in wide x 12 in tall. (Eerily similar to Brab908's dimensions but mostly coincidental.) I own a plastics manufacturing business, specific expertise in plastic welding, and have done a lot of work with acrylic in the past including having made quite a few aquariums. This tank was made from 0.375" clear cast acrylic. I rough cut the acrylic on the table saw using a special acrylic cutting blade and then prepared the edges for welding using a router. I also cut the eurobrace for the top out on the router.
Part of the requirement for this tank is that it look super clean in the room. As such I wanted all equipment and plumbing as hidden as possible. I am going to be re-using the old tank as a sump for this new tank so I needed to sort out an overflow for the new tank. I spent a long time thinking and researching how overflows worked and came up with what I feel is a pretty interesting and unique concept.
For this style of tank, the ability to see through the tank (no dark background) is imperative. I think that having the tank back be clear is really important for the aesthetic. I like my tanks to be viewable from all angles and because this tank is especially interactive with the mangrove growing out the top, the clear back adds to that. It makes the tank feel very much like a touch tank at an aquarium.
So my challenge was to design the tank in such a way that I can hide the overflow and return plumbing without detracting from the look. One thing that I have been working on in my business is laminating of plastic sheets. The concept I settled on was to pre-laminate a sheet of white acrylic to a small section of the tank back so that I could create an overflow that is integrated directly into the tank with no internal space lost. The lamination is fairly tough so I wasn't able to take any pictures of that but here is the cutting of the overflow weir and return port. You can see the laminated sheet was left large and trimmed flush after.
I then built the overflow to accommodate both a Herbie style drain and the return plumbing.
Because there is no front access to the stand, I was either going to have to cut a door or figure out a way to easily move the whole system. I liked the look of the empty tank sitting on the stand so I went for the challenge of the latter.
I cut an opening in the back of the trunk, reinforced as needed and drilled out the feet to receive these flush mount ball bearing casters. Each is rated for 500 lbs and are very smooth so they move this set up easily. They add about an 1/8" of height to the whole set up.
Okay so with that all done here are a few more angles of the tank, I was pretty happy with things at this point.
Okay so the sump...like I said, I am re-using the old tank for the sump for this system. One thing I always suspected is that I needed the greater gas exchange and nutrient export of a protein skimmer. I picked up a used Vertex Omega 150 at a great price. I think it may be bigger than necessary but I couldn't pass on the deal. My sump plan is to Herbie drain into a 8-9in compartment for the skimmer. I have been considering a refugium but don't know if it'll be necessary with macros or seagrasses.
I got the mangrove moved to the new tank. It has a pretty sprawling root structure so that was kind of challenging to deal with. The grove is planted in a pretty hefty amount of live mud which really has a stink to it. Then there is just simply some cleaned and cycled pool filter sand from another saltwater tank on top of that.
This shot kind of gives you an idea of what the tank will look like. I actually am pretty bummed by how gangly the mangrove is looking. I didn't really realize it until writing this and looking back at the old pictures. About a month ago, I went out of town for a week and forgot to water the mangrove before I left. I came back and it had dropped a bunch of leaves. It's just now starting to grow significantly again.
Anyway, this is about where I am at this point. I really want to get the lighting right for this whole set up but am struggling and that is what has inspired this post. I would like to get the plant some more intense light but am getting info overload. I also want a lighting system capable of growing macros and seagrasses. This room gets natural light pretty much all day. There is a part of me that just wants to stick with the lighting I had for the mangrove in the other setup and just add a second light for the rest of the tank. And another part thinks I need to upgrade the mangrove's light.
I am looking right now at the Tuna Sun options from Kessil but need help picking an option from them or possibly going a different direction if advisable. The tank is just hanging out with the mangrove and some flow and I hope to finalize the sump plumbing and get that online over the weekend. Any ideas or thoughts on the sump are also appreciated.
I have a pretty large mangrove that I have had for a number of years. The mangrove is about 6 years old and I have had it for the last 3 years. I have kept a few moderately successful reef tanks a few years back but most of my experience was in freshwater. I knew I wanted the tank to be centered around the mangrove and didn't have any intention of keeping corals. I live in Indialantic, FL right by the Indian River Lagoon and wanted to create a biome of the area which is brackish. I didn't take any construction pictures of my first tank build but here is the tank running.
I kept the mangrove by itself for quite a while playing with different water salinities while trying to figure out a brackish set up that I liked as that is most like the IRL. I was just running the tank with the mangrove and a couple of wild caught crabs on a canister filter. Then one day while at my LFS, I saw some porkfish that a diver had brought up from the keys. I thought that they would look very natural in the biome so I converted the tank to full marine to be able to start keeping more livestock. I even had a small horseshoe crab for awhile. Note that the pneumatophores are actually come from black mangroves not red mangroves. They are totally dead and just there for decoration.
As for lighting I used a simple pendant light fixture and a cheap LED grow bulb from the hardware store. The mangrove responded really well to the cheap light. As keeping the mangrove happy was my priority since this was working I didn't really mess with it. Same situation with the canister filter.
I was really happy with how the tank looked and it was ridiculously low maintenance. However, once I started trying to keep livestock, I sort of struggled and I'll admit that I'm not really sure why. The porkfish would do fine but if I tried to add anything more exotic, they seemed to die fairly quickly. All of my water parameters seemed fine based on my cheap test kits and the LFS tested the water and couldn't see anything weird. It's been a while but I seem to remember zeroing in on DKH as a possible problem?
Anyway we ended up moving so I had to break down the tank. I moved the tank and the mangrove to my office because we started a kitchen renovation. So for a few months the mangrove was in the tank with just and inch or two of water and the light overhead. I added fresh water as needed but feel bad for kind of neglecting the plant the last few months. I don't think I realized how much the flow, little bit of feeding/nutrients from the saltwater helped keep the plant happy. I also think that the natural light the plant was getting from our house made a big difference. It was not getting near as much light at the shop.
Over the last few months, I've been planning a new build for the mangrove and I would like to get this system set up to run much more smoothly. I was really inspired by Brad908's tank both initially when I got the mangrove and again as I began planning this build. I would like to be able to keep some macroalgea this go around and am planning on upgrading all my systems to handle that.
Our new house is a 1920's Spanish Colonial style and my wife and I wanted the tank to be a showpiece on our front porch. We had purchased an old chest to be used as a piece of furniture because we liked the style but it was not very functional as it is very tall and skinny. Fortunately, I got her approval to modify the piece to become the stand for a new tank.
Based on the dimensions of this piece of furniture, I designed the tank to be 48 in long x 17.5 in wide x 12 in tall. (Eerily similar to Brab908's dimensions but mostly coincidental.) I own a plastics manufacturing business, specific expertise in plastic welding, and have done a lot of work with acrylic in the past including having made quite a few aquariums. This tank was made from 0.375" clear cast acrylic. I rough cut the acrylic on the table saw using a special acrylic cutting blade and then prepared the edges for welding using a router. I also cut the eurobrace for the top out on the router.
Part of the requirement for this tank is that it look super clean in the room. As such I wanted all equipment and plumbing as hidden as possible. I am going to be re-using the old tank as a sump for this new tank so I needed to sort out an overflow for the new tank. I spent a long time thinking and researching how overflows worked and came up with what I feel is a pretty interesting and unique concept.
For this style of tank, the ability to see through the tank (no dark background) is imperative. I think that having the tank back be clear is really important for the aesthetic. I like my tanks to be viewable from all angles and because this tank is especially interactive with the mangrove growing out the top, the clear back adds to that. It makes the tank feel very much like a touch tank at an aquarium.
So my challenge was to design the tank in such a way that I can hide the overflow and return plumbing without detracting from the look. One thing that I have been working on in my business is laminating of plastic sheets. The concept I settled on was to pre-laminate a sheet of white acrylic to a small section of the tank back so that I could create an overflow that is integrated directly into the tank with no internal space lost. The lamination is fairly tough so I wasn't able to take any pictures of that but here is the cutting of the overflow weir and return port. You can see the laminated sheet was left large and trimmed flush after.
I then built the overflow to accommodate both a Herbie style drain and the return plumbing.
Because there is no front access to the stand, I was either going to have to cut a door or figure out a way to easily move the whole system. I liked the look of the empty tank sitting on the stand so I went for the challenge of the latter.
I cut an opening in the back of the trunk, reinforced as needed and drilled out the feet to receive these flush mount ball bearing casters. Each is rated for 500 lbs and are very smooth so they move this set up easily. They add about an 1/8" of height to the whole set up.
Okay so with that all done here are a few more angles of the tank, I was pretty happy with things at this point.
Okay so the sump...like I said, I am re-using the old tank for the sump for this system. One thing I always suspected is that I needed the greater gas exchange and nutrient export of a protein skimmer. I picked up a used Vertex Omega 150 at a great price. I think it may be bigger than necessary but I couldn't pass on the deal. My sump plan is to Herbie drain into a 8-9in compartment for the skimmer. I have been considering a refugium but don't know if it'll be necessary with macros or seagrasses.
I got the mangrove moved to the new tank. It has a pretty sprawling root structure so that was kind of challenging to deal with. The grove is planted in a pretty hefty amount of live mud which really has a stink to it. Then there is just simply some cleaned and cycled pool filter sand from another saltwater tank on top of that.
This shot kind of gives you an idea of what the tank will look like. I actually am pretty bummed by how gangly the mangrove is looking. I didn't really realize it until writing this and looking back at the old pictures. About a month ago, I went out of town for a week and forgot to water the mangrove before I left. I came back and it had dropped a bunch of leaves. It's just now starting to grow significantly again.
Anyway, this is about where I am at this point. I really want to get the lighting right for this whole set up but am struggling and that is what has inspired this post. I would like to get the plant some more intense light but am getting info overload. I also want a lighting system capable of growing macros and seagrasses. This room gets natural light pretty much all day. There is a part of me that just wants to stick with the lighting I had for the mangrove in the other setup and just add a second light for the rest of the tank. And another part thinks I need to upgrade the mangrove's light.
I am looking right now at the Tuna Sun options from Kessil but need help picking an option from them or possibly going a different direction if advisable. The tank is just hanging out with the mangrove and some flow and I hope to finalize the sump plumbing and get that online over the weekend. Any ideas or thoughts on the sump are also appreciated.
