hooterhead
Sponsor
Wow. Can't believe I'm doing this. It's been a looooong time since I've even thought about doing a build thread. If you don't know me, I'm Brandon. I've been living the very overworked/under appreciated life of a fish store employee since late 2004. What started as a cool college job turned into a freaking bottomless obsession. My personal tanks have always had a "Frankentank" vibe about them. They were built with whatever I had lying around at the time and they weren't usually pretty as a whole, but dammit, they worked.
So, it's time for me to build one for myself. I've been planning and thinking and changing those plans and thinking and changing more plans for years. I got the tank from a good friend for a steal and it had never seen water. 27x24x20 Neo Nano style rimless... almost exactly what I had been planning for. So I pulled the trigger and here we are, two months later and starting a cycle.
Here is what I have decided to go with.
Tank - DSA 50 gallon rimless
Stand/canopy - Flex carpentry muscles
Sump - Trigger Systems 18x18x15 Refugium
Skimmer - Reef Octopus NW - 110
Lighting - Lumenbrite Reflector with 175 w XM 20K on a Lumatek Variable ballast. 2x Truelumen Pro Actinic LED strips.
Flow - Mag 5 Return. For now 3 Koralia 425's on a 3 way wave timer. Soon MP 10s...
A couple of different things I am incorporating into this system ...
My "refugium" will be a benthic zone with no light over it. Sponges, tunicates, and other various filter feeders will do the work that algaes normally fulfill. I have used one of these set-ups on a previous system and they work very well. The downside is that they do take a bit longer to get going. They tend to develop much more interesting inhabitants though.
Also, I'll be stocking this with many of my favorite tiny species. Those of you who know me know that I love small aquariums and all of the tiny interesting things that usually inhabit them. My goal here is to bring the same concept of tiny fish but to a larger aquarium. So, I might not see every fish every day. And I may have to work a bit to even see most of them, but that's half the fun to me. I get so tired of aquariums that have no surprises. I get bored with tanks that you can find everything in it within 10 minutes. My coral stocklist will be made up mostly of zoanthids and SPS. There are a few LPS and a leather I can't bring myself to get rid of that will be going in as well.
There are still a few kinks to work out. With all I do at the store, there is very little time or energy left to work on this so I still have some bugs to sort out. I'm having doors built (soon) and still haven't figured my electrical out quite yet. I don't want to go with power strips like normal. But didn't measure for DJ strips so they don't really fit anywhere. I also don't like having to go through a menu on a controller to turn my return pump off. So, I'll have to make a decision soon. All of my current livestock is in my 20 long still and will be moved over once my cycle is done.
Enough of that, I suppose it's time for pictures!!!
So, it's time for me to build one for myself. I've been planning and thinking and changing those plans and thinking and changing more plans for years. I got the tank from a good friend for a steal and it had never seen water. 27x24x20 Neo Nano style rimless... almost exactly what I had been planning for. So I pulled the trigger and here we are, two months later and starting a cycle.
Here is what I have decided to go with.
Tank - DSA 50 gallon rimless
Stand/canopy - Flex carpentry muscles
Sump - Trigger Systems 18x18x15 Refugium
Skimmer - Reef Octopus NW - 110
Lighting - Lumenbrite Reflector with 175 w XM 20K on a Lumatek Variable ballast. 2x Truelumen Pro Actinic LED strips.
Flow - Mag 5 Return. For now 3 Koralia 425's on a 3 way wave timer. Soon MP 10s...
A couple of different things I am incorporating into this system ...
My "refugium" will be a benthic zone with no light over it. Sponges, tunicates, and other various filter feeders will do the work that algaes normally fulfill. I have used one of these set-ups on a previous system and they work very well. The downside is that they do take a bit longer to get going. They tend to develop much more interesting inhabitants though.
Also, I'll be stocking this with many of my favorite tiny species. Those of you who know me know that I love small aquariums and all of the tiny interesting things that usually inhabit them. My goal here is to bring the same concept of tiny fish but to a larger aquarium. So, I might not see every fish every day. And I may have to work a bit to even see most of them, but that's half the fun to me. I get so tired of aquariums that have no surprises. I get bored with tanks that you can find everything in it within 10 minutes. My coral stocklist will be made up mostly of zoanthids and SPS. There are a few LPS and a leather I can't bring myself to get rid of that will be going in as well.
There are still a few kinks to work out. With all I do at the store, there is very little time or energy left to work on this so I still have some bugs to sort out. I'm having doors built (soon) and still haven't figured my electrical out quite yet. I don't want to go with power strips like normal. But didn't measure for DJ strips so they don't really fit anywhere. I also don't like having to go through a menu on a controller to turn my return pump off. So, I'll have to make a decision soon. All of my current livestock is in my 20 long still and will be moved over once my cycle is done.
Enough of that, I suppose it's time for pictures!!!
