new 475 gallon build

charlestonreefer · Mar 15, 2020

Guys, been out of the hobby for about 10 years and diving back in head first. Just finished up some tank design details with Derek at Miracles as they will be building the tank. It will be a 102" x 30" x 36" room divider (475 gallon) with the 2, 8+ foot panels being the only visible glass. He suggested for a build of this size a closed loop system is the way to go, maybe add in a powerhead if needed somewhere. We'll have 8 holes drilled in the bottom of the tank to feed returns and hopefully obtain good flow throughout. What I'd love to ask for your help with is if you had a "strong" budget to play with on a tank this size what would some of the non-negotiable purchases be? Basically if you were having some fun with a new 475 gallon build and had a blank check what would YOU do?!? All of the equipment for the tank (sump, refugium, chiller, UV sterilizer, calcium reactor) can all be housed in a room under the house. We plan to pipe into a small closet at the one 30" end of the tank and then down below into the equipment room under the house. It's been so long since I've been around the hobby and when I was 10 years ago funds were pretty tight so I was strictly looking for value components. This one is a build that's going in a new home and will really be a part of the home design rather than popping it in one of the rooms I have. Super excited about getting it going.

Billldg · Mar 15, 2020

If I had a blank check I would go BROKE!!! ;Hilarious

mrlavalamp · Mar 15, 2020

getting back in myself and my goodness it seems to have become more expensive and equipment intensive.

I like some of the new developments though that go against the norms.

BRS has some great videos on low maintenance setups and most of them seem to have best success with less complexity.

Now the major question becomes what do you want to stock in the tank? If you are going fish with some soft corals, you will have a much diffferent setup than going to a heavy SPS based livestock.

Fish only is very simple at nearly every size.

So what do you want to keep in it?

charlestonreefer · Mar 15, 2020

I recall SPS heavy tanks being far more fickle as far as water quality, temp swings, what fish you could keep etc. I think we’d like to do a set up that’s not over the top as far as maintenance goes but definitely a reef tank with a variety of coral friendly fish. In the last tank we were able to keep a blue jaw trigger relatively happy and he didn’t mess much with the corals we had. I’ll definitely go through the videos BRS has set up. If you were to have any “must have” equipment recommendations please fire away!

charlestonreefer · Mar 15, 2020

To be a little more specific I’d imagine we’ll keep a variety of zoos, some frogspawn, brain corals, trumpets, moon and leather corals. Pretty much any hardy LPS corals that we can keep in some level of harmony with some fish.