iLLWills display frag / propagation money pit

[iLLwiLL]

I've been planning this for a while and have made some half-way decent progress so far so I thought I'd share.

I didn't take any pictures of the boring stuff in the beginning, but it's a pretty straight forward design. I have come to really like my deep blue 80 and it's filling up fast. SPS is growing and coloring up better in this tank than any I've had prior. The current display is in a front living-room that's about to be remodeled, so it's gotta be moved to a back bedroom. What better time to upgrade a little?

I really wanted a frag tank plumbed into my main tank so I picked up a deep blue 30 and started aquiring similar but smaller equipment.

Lighting - 2x ATI 8 bulb sunpowers in 48" and 24" varieties both with their own blue reefbrite xhos.

Flow - 2 gyre 150s in the display and a 130 for the frag tank all with their own ice cap controllers

Control - new apex with a bunch of addons

Return - a varios 8 will return water to both tanks and feed 3 reactors through a manifold

Sump - found a 36" MRC bio sump for sale locally for a steal and had to have it. I've since modified and painted it to fit in better with how I want this project to turn out. Will hold 10L of siporax to start.

Skimmer - some big reef octopus cone I again got used and it's been working amazing for well over a year.

Aquascape - I love west mariculture, have some live rock and 3 reef bonsai pieces in the display now, will add in another bonsai piece or 2 to the frag tank eventually

Tonight I finally finished up the under cabinet lighting and hopefully tomorrow I'll have enough time to get the plumbing done.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

I love that you're honest with yourself about it being a money pit

 

[iLLwiLL]

It was supposed to be a just a simple new stand because the deep blue one sucks that just spiraled out of control.

- Ooo, I can add in a frag tank
- Apex is on sale? Sign me up
- Might as well buy a whole new display tank too
- everything in the sump compartment now has to be red and white because screw my bank account.

I tried my best to save cash by buying things slowly and preferably used or on sale but still. I'm really glad I didn't keep a running tab on everything for my sanitys sake.

 

[iLLwiLL]

Reactors arrived this weekend and I just had to mess around with them. This is a preview into my poor mans vertex/dreambox clone sump compartment.

Also managed to get the tank backgrounds painted blue, under cabinet lighting installed and did a little plumbing. Hoping to get it leak tested by next weekend.

 

[Dsnakes]

Looking good. Going to be an awesome set up

 

[iLLwiLL]

Got all but the reactor lines dry fitted tonight. Should be able to glue up everything this evening and get her wet.

 

[iLLwiLL]

And we have water! Started the leak test a few days ago and all is well. Just waiting on the (hopefully) last box from BRS so i can get the reactor lines how i want them and leak checked. Next comes the tear down and move to the tanks temporary location while i start remodeling the half if the house where this setup will eventually wind up.

Kinda not looking forward to being done building and having to dive into endless hours of apex programming and home renovations. Hopefully it'll pay off in the end.

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

Wow this is awesome. I dreamed of something very similar to this. A deep blue 60g cube and a 30g cube next to it as a frag tank plumbed together. Following along. I'm over in the Titusville area.

 

[iLLwiLL]

It's been a while but i got a ton of work done over the weekend. I made a set of upper cabinets to hang the lights from. Got them installed and the tank swap finished.

The apex was a steep learning curve but I got the essentials worked out and am really loving this thing. Cant show off the install yet as its a giant spaghetti mess, but for the moment its function over form.