Goni Bananas
New Member
Hey everyone,
I'm super excited to start this build thread to document the beginning of my first huge fish tank! If anyone gets anything out of this great! Odds are It'll just be me talking to myself as some weird way to document this whole journey for myself to look back on.
I started my first saltwater fish tank in high school just over 10 years ago after falling in love with coral reefs in St Johns USVI. It was a naïve Petco crash and burn 10 gallon failure. Instead of quitting right there and then I decided I needed to do way more research. Several books and countless hours on wetwebmedia later I regrouped and solidified my love for this hobby with my biggest tank to date; a 120 gallon.
Theres been some successes and tons of failures along the way but I try to experiment and learn with each challenge. Currently I live in Missouri with two fish tanks. a 55gallon with a jury rigged massively undersized 5gal sump ran off a maxijet so it doesn't flood. It really only keeps rainbow bubble tip anemones alive as far as coral goes but it houses all my favorite fish that Ive had for years and have moved across the state with me. The other tank is a 28gal biocube peacock mantis reef tank. It was doing a great job keeping corals for a while but ultimately ive decided that its on the decline as it is too hard to keep the ecosystem in check as the mantis has gotten bigger and started eating larger snails.
The Plan
I'm moving from St Louis MO to Charlotte NC and instead of moving the 55 gallon ive decided that Ill move the livestock and rocks to a new, upgraded fish tank. I'm not new to moving fish tanks. During college I made the 2 hour trip back and forth to my parents home in the summer time with my bio cube buckled in as my shotgun passenger every year but this trip will be a different beast entirely since its a 12 hour drive. I know the last thing ill want to do after that gauntlet is immediately setting up the aquarium and hoping it doesn't crash and kill all my favorite fish. Instead, I decided that I would buy and set up a tank in NC and get it cycling and then I can dump the fish from the 55 and the corals from the biocube into the new tank.
At first I was planning on buying a "modest" 180. I love surgeonfish and back when I had the 120 I always wanted the 6ft length... Next thing I knew I was rationalizing A 220 because it would be just as much of a PITA to move as a 180. It was fourth of July weekend and so it was going to be a pain to find a truck rental let alone labor.
Then I stumbled across this monstrosity
On a trailer available to be delivered...
And that's how I became the owner of an 8 foot 300 gallon fish tank that my girlfriend called "a little wider than expected" (but the fact that that's all I got means either she's a keeper or I've worn her down)
The tank was dropped off and taken off the trailer without a problem thanks to two hydraulic rolling jacks he had it on which got it to my driveway but there was no way directly into the house without steps so we would have to lift it. I employed the help of two neighbors to try and move it, thinking it was acrylic and therefore couldn't weigh too much.. Boy was I wrong we couldn't make the thing budge let alone lift it up steps. At this point I was thinking Ive made a huge expensive mistake buying something id never be able to get inside.
The next morning my neighbors and I regrouped knowing we would need extra help... Now its my first house and we're very blessed to own a house at our age but, how do I put it, we don't live in the most upscale neighborhood in Charlotte. The ONE perk to this was that we were able to pile into my car and drive down the street to the closest dope house (without electricity and water, a reefers worst nightmare) and pay two big guys 20 bucks each to help us move the tank inside. Turns out, one of them was even a former moving guy! Because we were worried about dropping the tank itself and avoid issues with separating the tank and stand (they were never separated during the move or storage), we moved the tank and stand together. At least in my head that's what I thought but in reality they probably were just in a rush to get back to the house with the money.
As you can see, we had to get it up two steps. We shimmied it over to the first step and then it took 4 of us lifting and one pushing to get it on the first step. The stand was creaking a ton but thank goodness it held only touching at two points. We then got it over the door ledge and slid it inside. I still cant believe that we got the thing in the house let alone without it breaking. If it was glass I'm sure it would have cracked.
The tank itself is in pretty good shape after a little cleaning and polishing, but the sump and plumbing was an absolute mess (if you look at the earlier pic you'll notice the wet/dry filter).
Its kind of hard to see it but there is literally a metal hose clamp inside the overflow. I'm going to keep the plumbing in the overflow the way it is and just swap out the metal clamp for a plastic one. As for the underneath plumbing I decided I'm going to completely overhaul it. Ive done rudimentary plumbing in the past on my tanks but I've always wanted to get legit with it and build out a service line for reactors and stuff so I decided now's the time to go all out and do it! As you can see in that bottom picture I prematurely cut the return line super short thinking i was going to have to pull the tank off the stand to move it. As such, I had to order specialty plumbing parts online. I had to head back to STL and the tank is so massive I decided to just fill the display almost to the weirs and start the cycle.
So that's pretty much where I am so far in the process. Ive ordered all the plumbing parts I need, my current Missouri job ends Friday and then I plan on going back out there and plumbing it all. I will turn the wet dry filter into the fuge pictured below.
The external return pump that the tank came with was trash, the drive shaft was completely rusted and seized. I bought a coral box DCA 12,000 to replace it but I cant decide whether I plumb it externally or internally.
I'm super excited to start this build thread to document the beginning of my first huge fish tank! If anyone gets anything out of this great! Odds are It'll just be me talking to myself as some weird way to document this whole journey for myself to look back on.
I started my first saltwater fish tank in high school just over 10 years ago after falling in love with coral reefs in St Johns USVI. It was a naïve Petco crash and burn 10 gallon failure. Instead of quitting right there and then I decided I needed to do way more research. Several books and countless hours on wetwebmedia later I regrouped and solidified my love for this hobby with my biggest tank to date; a 120 gallon.
Theres been some successes and tons of failures along the way but I try to experiment and learn with each challenge. Currently I live in Missouri with two fish tanks. a 55gallon with a jury rigged massively undersized 5gal sump ran off a maxijet so it doesn't flood. It really only keeps rainbow bubble tip anemones alive as far as coral goes but it houses all my favorite fish that Ive had for years and have moved across the state with me. The other tank is a 28gal biocube peacock mantis reef tank. It was doing a great job keeping corals for a while but ultimately ive decided that its on the decline as it is too hard to keep the ecosystem in check as the mantis has gotten bigger and started eating larger snails.
The Plan
I'm moving from St Louis MO to Charlotte NC and instead of moving the 55 gallon ive decided that Ill move the livestock and rocks to a new, upgraded fish tank. I'm not new to moving fish tanks. During college I made the 2 hour trip back and forth to my parents home in the summer time with my bio cube buckled in as my shotgun passenger every year but this trip will be a different beast entirely since its a 12 hour drive. I know the last thing ill want to do after that gauntlet is immediately setting up the aquarium and hoping it doesn't crash and kill all my favorite fish. Instead, I decided that I would buy and set up a tank in NC and get it cycling and then I can dump the fish from the 55 and the corals from the biocube into the new tank.
At first I was planning on buying a "modest" 180. I love surgeonfish and back when I had the 120 I always wanted the 6ft length... Next thing I knew I was rationalizing A 220 because it would be just as much of a PITA to move as a 180. It was fourth of July weekend and so it was going to be a pain to find a truck rental let alone labor.
Then I stumbled across this monstrosity
On a trailer available to be delivered...
And that's how I became the owner of an 8 foot 300 gallon fish tank that my girlfriend called "a little wider than expected" (but the fact that that's all I got means either she's a keeper or I've worn her down)
The tank was dropped off and taken off the trailer without a problem thanks to two hydraulic rolling jacks he had it on which got it to my driveway but there was no way directly into the house without steps so we would have to lift it. I employed the help of two neighbors to try and move it, thinking it was acrylic and therefore couldn't weigh too much.. Boy was I wrong we couldn't make the thing budge let alone lift it up steps. At this point I was thinking Ive made a huge expensive mistake buying something id never be able to get inside.
The next morning my neighbors and I regrouped knowing we would need extra help... Now its my first house and we're very blessed to own a house at our age but, how do I put it, we don't live in the most upscale neighborhood in Charlotte. The ONE perk to this was that we were able to pile into my car and drive down the street to the closest dope house (without electricity and water, a reefers worst nightmare) and pay two big guys 20 bucks each to help us move the tank inside. Turns out, one of them was even a former moving guy! Because we were worried about dropping the tank itself and avoid issues with separating the tank and stand (they were never separated during the move or storage), we moved the tank and stand together. At least in my head that's what I thought but in reality they probably were just in a rush to get back to the house with the money.
As you can see, we had to get it up two steps. We shimmied it over to the first step and then it took 4 of us lifting and one pushing to get it on the first step. The stand was creaking a ton but thank goodness it held only touching at two points. We then got it over the door ledge and slid it inside. I still cant believe that we got the thing in the house let alone without it breaking. If it was glass I'm sure it would have cracked.
The tank itself is in pretty good shape after a little cleaning and polishing, but the sump and plumbing was an absolute mess (if you look at the earlier pic you'll notice the wet/dry filter).
Its kind of hard to see it but there is literally a metal hose clamp inside the overflow. I'm going to keep the plumbing in the overflow the way it is and just swap out the metal clamp for a plastic one. As for the underneath plumbing I decided I'm going to completely overhaul it. Ive done rudimentary plumbing in the past on my tanks but I've always wanted to get legit with it and build out a service line for reactors and stuff so I decided now's the time to go all out and do it! As you can see in that bottom picture I prematurely cut the return line super short thinking i was going to have to pull the tank off the stand to move it. As such, I had to order specialty plumbing parts online. I had to head back to STL and the tank is so massive I decided to just fill the display almost to the weirs and start the cycle.
So that's pretty much where I am so far in the process. Ive ordered all the plumbing parts I need, my current Missouri job ends Friday and then I plan on going back out there and plumbing it all. I will turn the wet dry filter into the fuge pictured below.
The external return pump that the tank came with was trash, the drive shaft was completely rusted and seized. I bought a coral box DCA 12,000 to replace it but I cant decide whether I plumb it externally or internally.
