Dolpators 150 Tank Build

dolpator · Apr 2, 2014

Pictures to Follow>
First I would like to dedicated this Tank Build to Mom, Sharlene Adams, her love and support throughout her life will carry me on until we meet again. You are loved and missed terribly.

Just wanted get a thread started for all my fellow reefers to follow along with the new tank build. No pictures right now, but will give everyone a run down on the equipment I will be using and will take any suggestions. So here we go::

150 Gallon Glass Cages (60" x 24" X 25") with Starfire Glass for front panel Mixed Reef (Softies, LPS, and SPS)
150 pounds of Live Rock
120 Pounds of Live Sand
36" R&J Enterprises Black Oak Stand and 13" Canopy
36 Gallon Acrylic Sump with refugium (live sand, live rock, and Chaeto)
2 Ecotech MP40's (Might run the JAEBO WP40 on the back wall forward or behind the reef to eliminate dead spots)
Mag Supreme 12
3 Aqua Illumination Sol Blues
Reef Keeper Lite Controlling Ecotech's, refugium light (Will be upgrading to an Neptune APEX)
Vertex IN180 in-sump Protein Skimmer (rated at 180 gallon)
Dual Media Reactor running Carbon and GFO
JBL ATO Setup with 15 gallon Reservoir
Bubble Magnus Dosing Pumps dosing Alkalinity and Calcium
300 watt Aquastick Heater. May need another one in the tank we will do a test run)

Tank will be housing 51 different varieties of LPS and SPS along with a couple of leathers and 31 different varieties of Zoanthids. It has been a challenge in the past of keeping such a vast variety of corals in the tank. Tank stand came in damaged today so I had to send it back delaying the tank build yet again.

skinz78 · Apr 2, 2014

Did somebody say pic's?:tongue:

dolpator · Apr 3, 2014

OK OK first picture

150 gallon with black oak canopy. It's all I can do right now. Going to use photo bucket for pictures. Hope it works out. Jon_M_Gammon's Library | Photobucket

dolpator · Apr 3, 2014

OK aqua scapping ideas. I have done the wall look and it has served me well. With this being my dream add how tank for the home I was looking to spice things up a bit. I saw a few ideas on line doing a trench look. I like it, however I am not that artistic. I don't want to loose real estate in the new tank. So was thinking of an island on the left side if the overflow box and a cascading wall look from left to right to the top of the tank. Any ideas?

wrfreeman · Apr 3, 2014

I've seen some fantastic back wall designs where they create a rock wall against the back glass and then more rock work out in front of it. Adds a lot of depth to a tank and works really well on a deep tank like yours. I'll see if I can find some links. It takes some artsy fartsyness, but once done it's pretty amazing looking.

wrfreeman · Apr 3, 2014

I think he used some kind of foam to cover all or part of the back glass. I don't think that's going to be possible for most folks to do. When I redid my aquascaping I used the 5-3 rule. Here's a good article on it Reefs Magazine - Aesthetics of Aquascaping It allows you to be as creative as you like without sacrificing aesthetics.

wrfreeman · Apr 3, 2014

Here's some pictures of the foam wall. Cool as hell, but I wouldn't have a clue how to do it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=foa...owthread.php%3Ft%3D1437901%26page%3D4;640;480

wrfreeman · Apr 3, 2014

And here's the post I remember reading that shows how the guy did it. Like I said, a certain amount of artsy fartsyness. OK, maybe a large amount of artsy fartsyness. Still, pretty dramatic look.

wrfreeman · Apr 3, 2014

I guess it would have been good to include the link

My DIY Rock/Foam Reef - Reef Central Online Community

dolpator · Apr 3, 2014

wow

OK all I can say is wow. That's not going to happen. Lol. Cool awesome concept, but nope can't say I will be doing that. I do like the 5-3 rule. So will look into that. Thanks.

dolpator · Apr 4, 2014

Tank build on hold until further notice

Well, came home at lunch today where my father was sitting in the drive way with the new tank stand in the pack of his truck. Only to find out the stand was built wrong. This is the second attempt at getting srand. The first one was damaged by FedEx and was sent back. The second one was built wrong so I am headed down to Florida now to get the stand myself. Hasn't been a great adventure. So build has been put off for two weeks. Headed to Vegas next weekend. So out of luck and out of time.