The Journey Continues - Mike & Terry's 280g Reef Savvy

Lowell Lemon · Apr 13, 2016

I have never seen a Reef Savvy tank outside of pictures. Sent them an email to inquire about their tanks...no response. I guess I am to far away and their business seems to be going great. I hear great things on this forum and your build and attention to detail is amazing. Hope the third attempt is a charm sorry about the problems with Marineland.

billw · Apr 13, 2016

Lowell Lemon said:
The guy with the 1100 gallon flood in Canada might not agree that they are the best. Pretty sure that is not ATM's only failure. Just saying.

I was referring to Reef Savvy. BTW, ATM tanks are acrylic.

revhtree · Apr 13, 2016

smtwinn said:
I totally understand your problem with Marineland tanks. I had a 250g DD did fine for 1 year 364 days on exactly the 2 year anniversary it had massive seam failure. Luckily I had water sensors installed on my home alarm system. When the tank started leaking it set my home alarm off at 1:30 in the morning. I caught it with about 20-30g of water on floor. Immediately went into drain mode. It's a huge decision to stay in the hobby once something like this happens. I, like you went with a custom build from Planet Aquariums. I also upgraded from 250 to 300. Good luck in the new build.

Man that's a crazy leak! Glad you stuck it out! How do you like your tank?

Lowell Lemon · Apr 13, 2016

billw said:
I was referring to Reef Savvy. BTW, ATM tanks are acrylic.

Thanks...I completely mis-understood and thought you were a customer of ATM...so I tempered my response.

I do love acrylic for several reasons. One being I am fully equiped to make any size tank I want. Two, except for the tank mentioned I have never had a failure of the thousands my company built. Three, they are much stronger and resist impact failure. Four, insurance was very cheap for manufacturing coverage for many years. Five, one person can move a very large tank unassisted. Six, the panels are much clearer than even low iron glass. Seven, the seams are water clear and easy to inspect. Eight, easy to drill and modify and will hold bonded overflows with no seperation like glass tanks with acrylic internal overflows. Nine,Varity of colors for background choices. Ten, Easy to thermally form. And the list could go on.

Things I don't love. They scratch easier. They require thicker panels for a rimless design than glass. I no longer have a source for U.S. made acrylic...no one on the west coast stocks Poly Cast by Polyone. Acrylic absorbes about 2 to 3 percent from the water and can lead to panel deformation...only at a low level if you use the formulas for panel thickness calculation found on various on line sources. Cannot compete with a dollar a gallon sale at Petco or Petsmart! (you get what you pay for there).

Mike&Terry · Apr 16, 2016

Lowell Lemon said:
I have never seen a Reef Savvy tank outside of pictures. Sent them an email to inquire about their tanks...no response. I guess I am to far away and their business seems to be going great. I hear great things on this forum and your build and attention to detail is amazing. Hope the third attempt is a charm sorry about the problems with Marineland.

Thank You Lowell! There just is no comparison between the "custom" Marineland tank and our new Reef Savvy. We had to exercise a lot of patience while waiting for the tank to be built, but it was definitely worth it!

Mike&Terry · Apr 16, 2016

Thought we'd share...
We recently had to replace our gas hot water heater for the house which sits back in the far left corner of our garage. This would normally have been a fairly easy swap out of the old for the new, but with our 200g temporary tank in the garage which is connected to our existing sumps, it was quite a challenge. Here's a short video clip that gives a little perspective.

Mike&Terry · Apr 18, 2016

After months of waiting, the tank finally arrives - Woot! So I run out and greet the guy as he steps down from the cab, show him where we want the crate inside our garage and let him know that I will have to open the crate up to inspect the tank before I can sign for it. He says something along the lines that they normally deliver "curbside". I said I understand, but that I had talked with a rep from the freight company who assured me it would NOT be a problem since we have a paved driveway that butts up against the garage. He said, "that's right, we do make that exception". He then proceeds to carefully unload the crate (it was a close fit on the lift gate), brings it down the driveway and with some effort, manages to "park" it inside our garage just where we wanted it.

After he removes the pallet jack and I get a look at the front of the crate, I see a good sized hole in the front left portion. Needless to say, my heart skipped a couple of beats and I started to feel a bit queasy. I should mention that Mike was supposed to get off work early to be here when the tank arrived. Unfortunately, he just couldn't make that happen which left me in charge (gulp) ... I looked at the guy and said, OMG is that what I think it is? And he said "Yeah, I was a little concerned about that when I saw it - probably got hit with a forklift". What?!?!

So, not having a clue of what to expect and knowing I needed to get the top of the crate off ASAP, I run and grab the DeWalt drill and attempt to start removing screws... But, of course the battery is nearly dead. The delivery guy knows I'm on the verge of "freaking out" and calmly asks me if there's another battery pack and I say "yes" and run and grab it off the charger. I get 2 screws out (being a Reef Savvy crate - the screws are HUGE) when the guy generously offers to take over (and yeah, I'm sure he figured it would save a LOT of his time, to do it himself, but he was really nice about it). Rather than standing there, idly watching him, I grabbed a screw driver and managed to remove 3 additional screws while he zipped thru the rest. He then helped me lift and carry the lid outside to get it out of the way (it was fairly heavy) along with the styrofoam.

Here's a pic showing the front of the crate after removing the lid:

And a closeup:

And a top down of the inside of the crate:

The delivery guy was very patient while I snapped the quick photos and continued to help me with the crate so that I could thoroughly inspect the glass.

Thank Goodness Reef Savvy's crates are built like their tanks - The 4" perimeter of space between the crate and tank and the plastic sheeting saved the day!

Jimbo_Slice · Apr 18, 2016

Wow that was a close one glad it was packaged nicely.

Black Pearl · Apr 18, 2016

My Goodness, I would have done it in my pants right there especially after such a long wait and anticipation and the last trama you had to endure just would have been too much for me. Thankfully all is well and Reef savvy Builds an excellent crate. Wait till you examine the rest of the tank, thats art in that box

Daniel@R2R · Apr 19, 2016

Geez! What a scare!! So glad it was ok! Can't wait to see this one get wet!

revhtree · Apr 19, 2016

That's crazy!

hybridazn · Apr 19, 2016

Oh man, I would have literally pooped my pants if I saw that hole in the crate. Glad it's ok!

jolt · Apr 19, 2016

So glad it was OK!

renato120 · Apr 19, 2016

Just reading it made me nervous! Glad its all good!

Jackcarp · Apr 19, 2016

I just received my tank as well and although there were no holes in the crate I was still nervous. Felix was concerned enough about the shipping to wyoming so he nailed on 3/4" plywood on the exterior just to make sure there were no forklift mishaps. Talk about a tank for a crate. Relieved to see there was no damage to your tank!

Gasman · Apr 19, 2016

Why cant packages be handled a little bit more gently, especially when it had "Fragile" stickers all over the crate? Is that code to handler it rougher?