Aaron's 1,000+ gallon reef build

melev · Feb 17, 2019

I like the light rack. No concern of it rusting and dripping stuff into the tank?

melev · Feb 17, 2019

The sump came out nicely. It must have been a lot of work coating all the walls, base and baffles to keep them saltwater safe.

melev · Feb 17, 2019

Somehow I ended up with 5 posts, so I'm editing my extras with content.

Can you show us how you hooked up the Pex to your water heater? That wasn't in any of the pictures.

melev · Feb 17, 2019

What a fascinating build you've done so far. I must have missed it somewhere on page one, but how did you assure the walls of the tank would stay flush to the floor to avoid any leaks? I saw you textured in some filler, and then you applied liquid pond liner in layers? So the layers do all the work?

melev · Feb 17, 2019

I liked your overflow box solution. Why did you want to put rock in that part?

Alexreefer · Feb 17, 2019

Wow absolutely amazing!! When you get the tank up and running I need to see that skimmer in action! How are you going to get that cup off. "hey honey pass me my 12 foot ladder I gotta clean the skimmer cup the size of a small car tire!"

MimicOcto8 · Feb 17, 2019

melev said:
I liked your overflow box solution. Why did you want to put rock in that part?

Lots of good questions.

I used cement to blend the gaps of the frame to floor. Also used fiberglass and pond armor. Pond armor with fiberglass is stronger than cement.

No worries about the light fixture. It’s painted and protected.

Sump baffles are trex which are safe to use.

Rocks in the high flow overflow are beneficial for good biological bacteria

Out of the water heater up (red line)
Back down in to the drain of the water heater (insulated line)

Deftones2015 · Feb 17, 2019

550 gallons looks like a few buckets of water in that tank

. How are you planning on cycling that monster?

MimicOcto8 · Feb 17, 2019

Deftones2015 said:
550 gallons looks like a few buckets of water in that tank . How are you planning on cycling that monster?

Lol yeah it’s crazy how big it is.

Plan on using time to cycle it lol. Added a raw shrimp and only 16 oz of dr Tim’s one and only which isn’t nearly enough. But I do have plenty of time. Plus I’m using NSW

MimicOcto8 · Feb 17, 2019

Alexreefer said:
Wow absolutely amazing!! When you get the tank up and running I need to see that skimmer in action! How are you going to get that cup off. "hey honey pass me my 12 foot ladder I gotta clean the skimmer cup the size of a small car tire!"

Haha so true! That cup is not gonna be fun to clean. I guess this kind of maintenance just comes with this size of a tank.

AquaLifeStudio · Feb 17, 2019

So like 2 or 3 days till everything is running right? With the sump full, how many gallons will you have in this system?

MimicOcto8 · Feb 17, 2019

sntmods said:
So like 2 or 3 days till everything is running right? With the sump full, how many gallons will you have in this system?

Yes that’s correct. 2 more days till it’s full with 1,100 gallons total for now.

Utahsaltnoob · Feb 17, 2019

Wow this is awesome to watch! I hope you put some signs out front of your house and charge people to come see your amazing tank!

Deftones2015 · Feb 17, 2019

MimicOcto8 said:
Lol yeah it’s crazy how big it is.

Plan on using time to cycle it lol. Added a raw shrimp and only 16 oz of dr Tim’s one and only which isn’t nearly enough. But I do have plenty of time. Plus I’m using NSW

Lol better toss out the shrimp and buy a whole cod.

Makes sense though. I couldn't imagine cycling with Dr Tim's ammonium nitrate lol. 4 drops per gallon, that would take a while to do 4,000 drops. Have to chuck in a few cups haha.

It's definitely going to be an amazing tank.

Are you going to start with frags or are you putting in colonies?

Crested · Feb 18, 2019

This is insane! I'm loving it so far and can't wait to see where it goes from here!

Ready4Launch · Feb 18, 2019

I probably missed it somewhere in all the posts in this thread, but where are you getting your water from???

MimicOcto8 · Feb 18, 2019

Deftones2015 said:
Lol better toss out the shrimp and buy a whole cod.

Makes sense though. I couldn't imagine cycling with Dr Tim's ammonium nitrate lol. 4 drops per gallon, that would take a while to do 4,000 drops. Have to chuck in a few cups haha.

It's definitely going to be an amazing tank.

Are you going to start with frags or are you putting in colonies?

I’ll be using frags and the smallest fish I can find. I loving the husbandry part of the hobby and watching everything grow

dbraun15 · Feb 18, 2019

MimicOcto8 said:
A local University that has access to natural sea water

That’s awesome...just curious, do you have to pay for the water and are you limited on the amount you can pick up? I wish I had a NSW source!

MimicOcto8 · Feb 18, 2019

dbraun15 said:
That’s awesome...just curious, do you have to pay for the water and are you limited on the amount you can pick up? I wish I had a NSW source!

Free to the public. Pretty fortunate

doc_b · Feb 18, 2019

dbraun15 · Feb 18, 2019

Are you going to stain/seal the wood on the outside? Add faux stone etc? I’d be afraid of the long term damage on the wood from spills/splashing etc. You’ve done a really great job to this point!

MimicOcto8 · Feb 18, 2019

dbraun15 said:
Are you going to stain/seal the wood on the outside? Add faux stone etc? I’d be afraid of the long term damage on the wood from spills/splashing etc. You’ve done a really great job to this point!

Yes I’m looking into doing faux stone on the outside