Hey guys! My name is David, and I live in the west Fort Worth area. This will be my first post here, as I'm new to the forums. I plan on joining DFWMAS soon, as well. I'm relatively new to saltwater aquariums, having only had some experience with 1 other tank that I ran with my father when I was younger (and had no clue what I was doing...). Since the reef tank bug hit me, I've been doing a lot of research, and I think I'm ready to take the plunge! In this thread, I'll be presenting the plans for my new micro/nano reef tank, as well as pictures of my progress on the build. So, let's start off with a little background information:
While I would absolutely love to have a 150 or 200 gallon tank, my wife and I live in an apartment with limited space, and our budget is equally limited! For this reason, I have decided to go with a nano/micro 30 gallon reef tank. I know that I'll have to be diligent about monitoring my water parameters and doing my regular water changes, but I'm confident that I'm up to the task. I plan to have a maximum of 5 or 6 fish (1 or 2 Ocellaris clowns, a goby/shrimp pair, a six-line wrasse, a Helfrich's firefish, and perhaps a Midas blenny), with an assortment of soft and LPS corals. I'll be using about 35-40 pounds of porous base rock in the tank, with a nice piece of healthy live rock to get the coralline algae seeded.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I want this tank to have an absolute minimum of clutter. This means that anything that hangs off the back of the tank (overflow, refugium, skimmer, etc.) is out of the question. I also don't have a lot of space for a large cabinet to house an external sump. For these reasons, I have decided to go about building an AIO tank. I have seen a few designs where the sump is located on one side of the tank and blacked out, but I'm not keen on the symmetry of that look, so I have decided to use a 40 gallon breeder tank that is a little bit deeper (36"x18"x16" LxDxH) and create a false wall which will form a 6"-deep sump located in the rear of the tank. Given that the tank is slightly more than 40 gallons, my plans result in a 30 gallon display tank (36"x12"x16") and a 13 gallon sump (36"x6"x16"). I'm using black acrylic for the false wall, and I'll be blacking out the portions of the glass that will comprise the sump. Below is my original sump design (drawn to scale and pictured as if you were facing the back of the tank, looking toward the front; some dimensions and details have been changed and will be discussed later):
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As you can see, the sump section is set up so that all the equipment will fit inside, and nothing will be sticking out over the lip of the top trim. I have the standard overflow section with teeth to reduce the chance of my inhabitants making their way into the overflow/intake area. I will be constructing a removable media "tower" from eggcrate and plastic rods. This tower will contain a sponge (for mechanical filtration), as well as filter bags filled with carbon and GFO. This way, I can easily replace the filter media in the sump. The water will flow through the teeth in the overflow, pass through the sponge, and then over the filter bags. I have included a bubble trap so that no large bubbles make it into the skimmer portion of the sump. I chose to go with an "under-over-under" design for the bubble traps because I felt that it would promote a better flow of water through the filter media, and it will fit in better with this design. I'm going with a Tunze Comline DOC 9004 skimmer for this setup. I've read good things about it, and its small size should work well for this sump design. The skimmer includes 2 magnets for mounting, and I plan to mount it to the bubble trap baffle that separates the skimmer and return sections of the sump, against the back wall of the sump and facing the intake section. The skimmer requires about 9" of water height, so my baffles are 10.5" tall and the skimmer will sit about 1.5" above the bottom of the tank. The heater, a 100-watt Eheim Jager, will be housed in the skimmer section of the sump, along the back wall. I'm going to go with a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5 (357 GPH) pump as my return pump, as it will provide plenty of flow for the tank and I can adjust the output rate to my liking. My ATO sensor will be set up in the return section, and the top-off water will flow into the skimmer section.
Some of the dimensions have been changed since I drew up this rough design for the sump, as I did not originally account for the thickness of the 1/4" acrylic baffles. Also, I realized that the check valve in my drawing is useless, so I will not be including it in the build. My return bulkhead has also been moved to the return section of the back wall, which will make for easier plumbing and more room in the sump, while also allowing the use of a single return nozzle instead of a Y-fitting, which would just take up space in the display tank. Finally, I had an acrylic cover cut for the sump section, with a 4"x2" cutout so that I can route my cords out of the sump and behind the tank.
As far as powerheads go, I decided on 2 Hydor Koralia Evolution 600s, with the controller module. These 2 pumps, each putting out around 600 GPH, should provide me with enough flow for a tank of this size with the various coral types I'm considering. I'm thinking of attaching them to the back wall of the display tank (so that the cords can be as far out of sight as possible) toward the center and pointing outward, or parallel with the back wall and pointing in opposite directions. I still haven't decided which will work best for my tank and rock work. Any advice is appreciated.
For lighting, I have decided to go with Reefbrite LEDs. I'll be using a blue XHO and a white XHO. I might get dimmers for them later, but for now, I'm just going to put them on timers, with the blue coming on about an hour before the white, then both blue and white running for about 9 hours, and finally 2 more hours of blue light only.
If you guys have any advice or comments on this build, please don't hesitate to let me know! I'm open to suggestions on livestock options, lighting, etc. I greatly appreciate the knowledge and experience that all of you have, and I look forward to hearing from you. My next post will have some nice pictures of the build. Thanks, and happy reefing!
While I would absolutely love to have a 150 or 200 gallon tank, my wife and I live in an apartment with limited space, and our budget is equally limited! For this reason, I have decided to go with a nano/micro 30 gallon reef tank. I know that I'll have to be diligent about monitoring my water parameters and doing my regular water changes, but I'm confident that I'm up to the task. I plan to have a maximum of 5 or 6 fish (1 or 2 Ocellaris clowns, a goby/shrimp pair, a six-line wrasse, a Helfrich's firefish, and perhaps a Midas blenny), with an assortment of soft and LPS corals. I'll be using about 35-40 pounds of porous base rock in the tank, with a nice piece of healthy live rock to get the coralline algae seeded.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I want this tank to have an absolute minimum of clutter. This means that anything that hangs off the back of the tank (overflow, refugium, skimmer, etc.) is out of the question. I also don't have a lot of space for a large cabinet to house an external sump. For these reasons, I have decided to go about building an AIO tank. I have seen a few designs where the sump is located on one side of the tank and blacked out, but I'm not keen on the symmetry of that look, so I have decided to use a 40 gallon breeder tank that is a little bit deeper (36"x18"x16" LxDxH) and create a false wall which will form a 6"-deep sump located in the rear of the tank. Given that the tank is slightly more than 40 gallons, my plans result in a 30 gallon display tank (36"x12"x16") and a 13 gallon sump (36"x6"x16"). I'm using black acrylic for the false wall, and I'll be blacking out the portions of the glass that will comprise the sump. Below is my original sump design (drawn to scale and pictured as if you were facing the back of the tank, looking toward the front; some dimensions and details have been changed and will be discussed later):
As you can see, the sump section is set up so that all the equipment will fit inside, and nothing will be sticking out over the lip of the top trim. I have the standard overflow section with teeth to reduce the chance of my inhabitants making their way into the overflow/intake area. I will be constructing a removable media "tower" from eggcrate and plastic rods. This tower will contain a sponge (for mechanical filtration), as well as filter bags filled with carbon and GFO. This way, I can easily replace the filter media in the sump. The water will flow through the teeth in the overflow, pass through the sponge, and then over the filter bags. I have included a bubble trap so that no large bubbles make it into the skimmer portion of the sump. I chose to go with an "under-over-under" design for the bubble traps because I felt that it would promote a better flow of water through the filter media, and it will fit in better with this design. I'm going with a Tunze Comline DOC 9004 skimmer for this setup. I've read good things about it, and its small size should work well for this sump design. The skimmer includes 2 magnets for mounting, and I plan to mount it to the bubble trap baffle that separates the skimmer and return sections of the sump, against the back wall of the sump and facing the intake section. The skimmer requires about 9" of water height, so my baffles are 10.5" tall and the skimmer will sit about 1.5" above the bottom of the tank. The heater, a 100-watt Eheim Jager, will be housed in the skimmer section of the sump, along the back wall. I'm going to go with a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5 (357 GPH) pump as my return pump, as it will provide plenty of flow for the tank and I can adjust the output rate to my liking. My ATO sensor will be set up in the return section, and the top-off water will flow into the skimmer section.
Some of the dimensions have been changed since I drew up this rough design for the sump, as I did not originally account for the thickness of the 1/4" acrylic baffles. Also, I realized that the check valve in my drawing is useless, so I will not be including it in the build. My return bulkhead has also been moved to the return section of the back wall, which will make for easier plumbing and more room in the sump, while also allowing the use of a single return nozzle instead of a Y-fitting, which would just take up space in the display tank. Finally, I had an acrylic cover cut for the sump section, with a 4"x2" cutout so that I can route my cords out of the sump and behind the tank.
As far as powerheads go, I decided on 2 Hydor Koralia Evolution 600s, with the controller module. These 2 pumps, each putting out around 600 GPH, should provide me with enough flow for a tank of this size with the various coral types I'm considering. I'm thinking of attaching them to the back wall of the display tank (so that the cords can be as far out of sight as possible) toward the center and pointing outward, or parallel with the back wall and pointing in opposite directions. I still haven't decided which will work best for my tank and rock work. Any advice is appreciated.
For lighting, I have decided to go with Reefbrite LEDs. I'll be using a blue XHO and a white XHO. I might get dimmers for them later, but for now, I'm just going to put them on timers, with the blue coming on about an hour before the white, then both blue and white running for about 9 hours, and finally 2 more hours of blue light only.
If you guys have any advice or comments on this build, please don't hesitate to let me know! I'm open to suggestions on livestock options, lighting, etc. I greatly appreciate the knowledge and experience that all of you have, and I look forward to hearing from you. My next post will have some nice pictures of the build. Thanks, and happy reefing!
Here are a few shots of the back wall (with the protective paper still on it) mocked up in the tank:
