Universal Rocks Custom Aquarium?

SkiCatTX · Sep 15, 2019

Anyone heard of Universal Rocks out of the Dallas area? They are a custom builder of high-end pools, spas, tank installs, etc. After spending a month trying to get what I want from Planet without success (they have recently switched over to factory pre-cut and drilled glass for everything, so anything custom is now 2x or 3x the cost...which at that point I might as well go with Reef Savvy or Elos), I was referred to Universal.

Skeptical at first, after talking to Tom over there, who spent several hours on the phone with me walking me through all the details, how they build by hand and why they do each thing (sounds like Tanked to me), I was impressed. References and online reviews are good, their quote was completely reasonable, and they say they can deliver in around 2 months.

What I want is a reasonably standard 60” x 30” x 25” ~180g rimless/frameless, 3/4” low-iron glass, drilled, no-smear/neat clear silicone, which I thought was pretty straight forward, but found out is surprisingly difficult to get built these days. There seems to always be one of those things that a builder can’t or doesn’t normally do, causing the price or build time to go up...

They are a relatively small outfit, and I didn’t find any references to them on the forums, so was wondering if anyone has one of their tanks, and could share thoughts or pictures.

SkiCatTX · Sep 25, 2019

Yeah, that's what I thought, not many have worked with them for reef tanks...

SkiCatTX · Oct 12, 2019

fishstix · Apr 24, 2020

Did

SkiCatTX said:
Anyone heard of Universal Rocks out of the Dallas area? They are a custom builder of high-end pools, spas, tank installs, etc. After spending a month trying to get what I want from Planet without success (they have recently switched over to factory pre-cut and drilled glass for everything, so anything custom is now 2x or 3x the cost...which at that point I might as well go with Reef Savvy or Elos), I was referred to Universal.

Skeptical at first, after talking to Tom over there, who spent several hours on the phone with me walking me through all the details, how they build by hand and why they do each thing (sounds like Tanked to me), I was impressed. References and online reviews are good, their quote was completely reasonable, and they say they can deliver in around 2 months.

What I want is a reasonably standard 60” x 30” x 25” ~180g rimless/frameless, 3/4” low-iron glass, drilled, no-smear/neat clear silicone, which I thought was pretty straight forward, but found out is surprisingly difficult to get built these days. There seems to always be one of those things that a builder can’t or doesn’t normally do, causing the price or build time to go up...

They are a relatively small outfit, and I didn’t find any references to them on the forums, so was wondering if anyone has one of their tanks, and could share thoughts or pictures.

Did you go with them for your tank, about to have them build me one.

SkiCatTX · Apr 25, 2020

fishstix said:
Did

Did you go with them for your tank, about to have them build me one.

I did not. After having a great initial phone conversation, I never heard from them again. After a couple more attempts to contact them for an updated quote, I gave up.

Ultimately, I went with Planet Aquariums and have been pretty happy so far with the quality of the custom tank they built. My initial problems dealing with Planet apparently stemmed from the LFS that I was dealing with. Once I found one that I could work with, everything went smoothly.

Myers · May 30, 2020

I went with them on my 450g, 120 x 30 x 30 in. Great tank and could not be happier. Some of the communication was a bit off at times (I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to big projects), but now that it is in and up and running, very impressed.