ReefSlice
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone, this will be my first build thread in 10+ years, and I'm looking forward to documenting the life of my tank here.
This build started in November of 2017. For 5 years prior I had gone through college and many different housing situations in a new place (South Florida), none of them long term enough to even considering setting up a large reef. My 40b kept me happy and moved with me 3 times, however I never put much thought into it and it basically became a fish only tank for my clownfish pair (they survived for a week without power after Hurricane Irma!). A good opportunity came up to purchase my first home, and with that came the idea of a new reef. I immediately began researching tank sizes, and decided I didn't want a standard tank and overflow, as I hated the layout of my 90g years ago. I found SCA not long into my search and got in contact with them. It just so happened that they were taking pre-orders on their new 150 drilled for a 16" synergy overflow, and for the price I couldn't turn it down. I ended up ordering the tank well before I moved into the new place. After delivery in March of last year, life got hectic (new house, new boat and business, etc.) and the project got pushed back for a few months. I learned that the spot I decided on for the tank has very unlevel floors (concrete), so I decided on ordering an aluminum stand with 6 leveling feet instead of jacking up a wooden stand 2" on one side! This was a major cost I hadn't factored in. I did slowly acquire gear over the last year, and just last month I finally got the time and funds to get some larger items, including my Framingtech stand. I love the stand, made leveling a breeze and looks very nice, plus gives me more room inside the stand for equipment. Would highly recommend Framingtech. Getting the tank on the stand gave me the shove I needed to get everything finished up, and I plan on ordering myself my light fixture for my birthday in 3 days, which is the last major piece of equipment I need to get going.
Equipment and other goodies I've gathered up to this point:
So now that I've bored you to death, what you came for, some pictures!
Tank on stand, drains plumbed today and return will be done tomorrow.
My mountain of junk. My girlfriend is looking forward to getting her bench back!
Some samples of my established TBS rock. That white colony started as just 1 polyp.
Hard to find time for this build in the last year when you do this for a living!
Thanks to anyone reading for stopping by and tagging along, I hope to have this thing up and running in the next 2 weeks! Stay tuned.
This build started in November of 2017. For 5 years prior I had gone through college and many different housing situations in a new place (South Florida), none of them long term enough to even considering setting up a large reef. My 40b kept me happy and moved with me 3 times, however I never put much thought into it and it basically became a fish only tank for my clownfish pair (they survived for a week without power after Hurricane Irma!). A good opportunity came up to purchase my first home, and with that came the idea of a new reef. I immediately began researching tank sizes, and decided I didn't want a standard tank and overflow, as I hated the layout of my 90g years ago. I found SCA not long into my search and got in contact with them. It just so happened that they were taking pre-orders on their new 150 drilled for a 16" synergy overflow, and for the price I couldn't turn it down. I ended up ordering the tank well before I moved into the new place. After delivery in March of last year, life got hectic (new house, new boat and business, etc.) and the project got pushed back for a few months. I learned that the spot I decided on for the tank has very unlevel floors (concrete), so I decided on ordering an aluminum stand with 6 leveling feet instead of jacking up a wooden stand 2" on one side! This was a major cost I hadn't factored in. I did slowly acquire gear over the last year, and just last month I finally got the time and funds to get some larger items, including my Framingtech stand. I love the stand, made leveling a breeze and looks very nice, plus gives me more room inside the stand for equipment. Would highly recommend Framingtech. Getting the tank on the stand gave me the shove I needed to get everything finished up, and I plan on ordering myself my light fixture for my birthday in 3 days, which is the last major piece of equipment I need to get going.
Equipment and other goodies I've gathered up to this point:
- 150 gallon 60x24x24 SCA tank
- Fluval SP4 return pump
- Nyos 160 skimmer - Won at RAP Orlando 2018 raffle! Was super psyched about this, great event and look forward to this years.
- 40b DIY sump
- 16" Synergy Shadow overflow
- Gyre xf250 w/ advanced controller - Bought this 6 months ago and was disappointed to hear they have already upgraded. May sell this NIB and buy the 300 series before getting it wet
- 2x Jebao PP8 - Love these, have had them for 3 years and they haven't missed a beat
- Tunze 3155 ATO
- 115 lbs Marco rock w/ e-marco 400 - 100 lbs base, 15 lbs flat cut
- 25 lbs TBS live rock - This stuff only spent 3 hours in the mail to get to me and has been curing in its own 20g tank for about a year now, never touched air. Fed reef roids to keep filter feeders and bacteria going. Should help my cycle quite a bit.
- 90 lbs Reefflakes
- Black and grey PVC
- 2x 200w Eheim Jager heaters w/ Ranco controller
- 2x 20g fish QT's, 1 10g coral QT with all meds
- 20 amp dedicated circuit run to the tank equipped with 2 GFCI outlets, plus another on a separate circuit to plug a few pumps into.
So now that I've bored you to death, what you came for, some pictures!
Tank on stand, drains plumbed today and return will be done tomorrow.
My mountain of junk. My girlfriend is looking forward to getting her bench back!
Some samples of my established TBS rock. That white colony started as just 1 polyp.
Hard to find time for this build in the last year when you do this for a living!
Thanks to anyone reading for stopping by and tagging along, I hope to have this thing up and running in the next 2 weeks! Stay tuned.
