Bob and Judy's Aquarium

[Bob Lauson]

Here is our 180 gallon aqaurium that we are in the process of populating with corals (also trying to de-populate of diatoms.

 

[Bob Lauson]

Display Tank: 180 Gallons (manufactured by Glasscages)
Sump Tank: 75 Gallons (located a floor below in the basement)
Fresh saltwater tank: 50 gallons (ready to go at all times for water changes or other issues)
Lighting: Four Radion XR30w Pro
Display tank circulation pumps: Two Vortech MP40w
Lighting and pump control via Ecotech Marine Reeflink
Return Pump: Coralife 1740P
Heaters: Two Eheim 300W
Skimmer: AquaC EV-400
Kalk Dosing Pump: MityFlex 907-101-3014-64
DIY Kalk Stirrer in 5 gallon Stainless Steel tank
Phosban 550 Reactor with GFO
18 gallon DIY acrylic refugium with macro algae
Neptune Apex Controller with pH and Temperature probes

Approximately 100 lb of rock
Approximately 100 lb of live sand

Fish:
4 x Ocellairus Clownfish
9 x blue-green chromis
1 x yellow tang
1 x sailfin tang
4 x lyretail anthias
1 x flame hawkfish
1 x Hippo Tang
1 x Magnificent Foxface Rabbitfish

Corals:
Euphyllia ancora (Hammer Coral)
Purple Acanthastrea (Acan)
Green Favites
Euphyllia yaeyamaensis (Frogspawn)
Pavono coral (potato chip)

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R!! Great looking tank!

 

[sneub]

Welcome and following

 

[Bob Lauson]

Glad I found this forum. I will be posting pics as I do battle against diatoms. It very encouraging to realize the issues I am going thru are typical of many others.

 

[Dystinction]

Welcome Bob and Judy!
Great looking setup. Looks like you have that bad-boy view-able from all four sides.
I think I already know the answer, however, need to ask: Do you have your light power run down through the bottom of the tank as well? If so, that's some major cool and style points!

 

[Bob Lauson]

The aquarium was originally designed and in a house which had a location to have it view-able from all four sides. It had a center overflow which was made of a 8" PVC pipe section I got off Ebay. The lights are supported by a center tube in which all the wires run and they exit out the bottom in the center of the tank. I hate wires hanging out so designed the light support to minimize how much of them you see. Unfortunately, in our current house I had to have the aquarium up against one wall so I move the overflow to the one side but kept the center post for the light support and for running the wires. The Google Sketchup version of the original aquarium layout looked like this:

 

[Clayton Jessup]

What are the measurements of the aquarium ? Following along !

 

[Bob Lauson]

The aquarium measures 42 x 42 x 24. It has 3/4" starphire glass on all four sides and black silicone on the joints which looks pretty sharp. The whole thing weighs about 700 lbs and I had a structural engineer look at the location and I ended up doubling up four of the floor joists to accommodate the final total weight. I made the frame out of 2 x 4's and then added shiplap around the perimeter. Pretty happy with how it turned out. Just wish the diatoms would go away and let me sit back and enjoy it more. I don't have anything in the base except storage for dry food, cleaning equipment, some towels, and the Apex Energy 8 bar for the lights and circulation pumps. I also have a Apex display module wired to it so I can control everything from either my the aquarium or in the basement were the sump room is. The Apex controller and all the rest of the electronics are in the basement. I will post a picture of the sump room in the next couple of days.

 

[Clayton Jessup]

Wow I am so jealous this sounds like a amazing set up , I love the giant cube , deep down inside I am a huge fan for cube Aquariums...[emoji317]

 

[chefjpaul]

Great design.
Show us more, we love pictures.

 

[Bob Lauson]

The sump room is in the basement and is approximately a 8' x 12' area which gets a little tight but allows me an isolate area to keep the sump and all the associated equipment. It also affords some storage for all the miscellaneous pumps, filters, chemicals, fittings, etc that are accumulated over the years. The main sump is a 75 gallon acrylic aquarium that used to be a display tank I made many years ago. As you can see from the pics below the room is isolated by a couple of sliding doors and the Apex equipment is outside the room which keeps it from being exposed to any of the humidity in the sump room itself. An advantage to a sump room in the basement is the ease of working on everything from an ergonomic point of view as well as the fact the noise generated by the equipment is far away from the display tank. A challenge is the need for a high head - high flow feed pump since the pump has to overcome about 20 feet of head pressure when adding up the various fittings and the actual height difference.

 

[Clayton Jessup]

That room looks very nice [emoji1303]

 

[Bob Lauson]

A couple recent pics after my most recent offensive against my dino war.

 

[Bob Lauson]

Added an anemone about a month ago and two of my clown fish finally found it.

 

[needbiggertanks]

Very pretty tank!

 

[Bob Lauson]

A few more pictures as of today. We have survived and move past (I hope) a dino outbreak which plagued me for nearly 8 months and the aquarium is starting to really thrive. The corals are growing, my RTB anemone has gone from one to three, and I recently joined the WWW Coral Club to get a few more corals growing.

 

[Crabs McJones]

A few more pictures as of today. We have survived and move past (I hope) a dino outbreak which plagued me for nearly 8 months and the aquarium is starting to really thrive. The corals are growing, my RTB anemone has gone from one to three, and I recently joined the WWW Coral Club to get a few more corals growing.

Looking awesome!!

 

[Bob Lauson]

Thanks. The dino outbreak really sucked the life out of me and I am finally getting back to not only taking more time to just watch it but also enjoy the maintenance/upkeep/growing part of it.

 

[Bob Lauson]

I thought I would go back it time a bit and show some of the original construction of the tank. The tank was originally designed to go in our house in West Virginia such that it was viewable from all four sides. As such, the overflow was designed from the middle of the tank. It was contstructed of a piece of 8"diameter PVC that I found on Ebay. I used spray foam to attempt to simulate some sort of aquascape. I was not very happy with the results and end up adding small pieces of live rock around it to better conceal it.