2manytanks

This has to be the most well thought out tank I've seen. I sure wish I would have spent the attention to detail that you are. With all the heater talk a page or two back, have you thought of putting an in-line heater in?

Are you looking at that price for just the tank, stand and refugium? Or were you hoping to get everything for that budget ? It's possible you might me able to get the tank, stand and refugium for $1500 - likely not custom made though, but after that there will be much more money to put in to it. You could be looking at almost that much money for lighting alone.

Since you live in Calgary, check out Gold's. They have some nice T5 HO TEK-Light fixtures that would do you just fine. About 1/3 of the price you'd be looking at for a MH fixture.

Sorry, having to hard a time making out what we're looking at.

Ya, more SW in Red Deer. Your pic's didn't come through though.

Thanks. One stop shopping.

Another place to try is UFA.

I'd be very happy to have more of them right now, since moving everything from my smaller tanks to my new one my pod population has plummeted. It took several years to get a really thriving pod population happening and I hope it doesn't take that long to build up again. They are a great source of food for fish and inverts (in fact there are some fish such as Mandarins that are virtually impossible to keep without a large and stable population of amphipods and copipods for them to feed on), and are an important part of the clean up crew like Jason said. That being said, if they're amphipods rather than copepods, there are some amphipods that can be trouble for fish, but it is apparently not too common. If you really want to get rid of them or control them there are sites on the internet with ideas, and just a good regimented cleaning schedule should help if it's a bare bottom tank that can be thoroughly vacuumed.

I discovered, too late, that a plumbing company here in town (Red Deer), Bruins Plumbing and Heating, carried everything I had needed for my plumbing. Too bad I didn't know about them sooner, it would have saved me a lot of time and money running around to a half dozen places. You must have something like Bruins near you.

Ya, it could save some people a lot of internet searching, and maybe give others of us some ideas to improve our own set ups.

Like Firestorm said, just wash it really well since there will be a lot of organic matter that will pollute your water.

Its 1/2 " fir plywood. It still isn't as great as I thought it'd be. The velcro sticks really well to itself but the adhesive backing doesn't stick too well to the plywood. Should I use gorilla glue to get the velcro to stick to the wood better or should I scrap the whole thing and cut doors and use self tapping screws to attach it to the steel frame? You could always just staple the velcro to the wood instead of useing adhesive. I think I'm going to do a false front too, a bit of a pain to get in to the sump and stuff, but a whole lot simpler to make and nicer looking too, I think.

Nice to see another local.

Thanks, got it used off of Canreef from a Calgary user.

Thanks. I am really proud of it (cause I did it all by myself - except for some help with lifting). I am really excited, but I think the fish are even more so - they use every inch of the tank :w00t: Feels good doesn't it?

Thanks everybody, it's my pride and joy. As for the Cowfish, he's one of my favourite's, he has a great personality - follows you like a dog, prefers to be handfed, and always has to be a part of anything that might be going on. His name's Beetle since I thought he looked like a VW before he started growing his horns.

Man, that tank makes me want a bigger house. I just LOVE the length of it. Fantastic job, you must be very proud and excited.

Just about done setting up my new tank. it's a 210g acrylic tank. My livestock was outgrowing their other tanks so I moved them all to this one and shut down my other 3 tanks. The tank came with a stand and cabinet, but the stand was too short to put a sump under, and my wife didn't like the looks of the cabinetry, so I had to start from scratch. I built the stand, have everything pretty much installed, just have to neaten it all up, and have all the fish, corals and rocks moved in. So all I really have left to do is build the cabinetry around it now. The fish are all doing great together, some of their personalities have changed considerably now that they have more room, the Tangs in particular are much more outgoing, they used to hide a lot. I had a dragon goby in each tank, I was afraid they'd fight when introduced to each other, but 2 of them have paired up. Unfortunately, I'll probably never see my lobster again, there's just too many places for him to hide.

Done renovating? A novel concept, but I don't think it exists. At least not when you're married.

Even without livestock it's a work of art. I just love it when somebody pays so much attention to detail. Little things like the varied rock and pebble sizes placed in what appears to be a random fashion add so much to making it look natural. And the design of the background is fantastic, there seems to be much more depth to it than I know there is, maybe it's the way the light plays on it. The shimmer of metal halides in there would be stunning.

This is fascinating. I'm anxiously waiting for part 2.

I've had all kinds of heaters, but my favourites so far are the Hydor inline and Stealth. I really like the Hydor inline to keep the tank less cluttered looking, and it's way easy to tell when it's on and easier to adjust since you don't have to fish around in the tank for it. Besides, I have an anemone who loves to roam around and burn himself frequently on the submersible heaters.

Sorry, you mentioned you were going to use a standpipe, but I forgot. Yup, you'd be safe. But I'm not sure how effective it would be, I think you'd probably wind up with a bunch of debris building up in the bottom of the overflow where it may be harder to vaccum up than in the tank. On the other hand, if you're building the Durso standpipe yourself and build it so that it can be easily pulled straight up out of the bulkhead, you'd be able to just pull it out and flush away all the debris REALLY fast. Then just stick the standpipe back in. Might work really nice. I'm still learning all the plumbing myself, in fact I just built a Durso standpipe for myself today. Boy it's sweet, tank is dead quite now. It can be a pain trying to find all the plumbing you need, especially bulkheads that will work easily with the other parts you get. So I'd suggest since you're lucky enough to be starting right from scratch, to get all your plumbing in advance before drilling your tank, that way you can drill to the size of the bulkhead you are going to use instead of trying to find the right bulkhead for your plumbing in the size you need for the hole you've drilled. I'd go for a 1 1/2 bulkhead, maybe 2 - but I'm sure 1 1/2 would handle what you want to do. If you haven't seen it yet, check out Durso's website, great info not only on standpipes but bulkheads and sizing too : Durso Standpipes

DO NOT attempt that. In the event of a power failure or your return pump failing you are going to drain the whole tank all over your floor. If you're going to do an overflow with the huge flowrate (for freshwater) that you've mentioned, you'd be better off to just try and get some of that flow at the bottom of the tank to keep the waste in suspension so that it can be drawn out of the overflow, or use additional powerheads to stir up the debris.

Nice Jonah, especially the Ricordia, I'm going to have to get some. I'm setting up a new tank now, I'll have to post some pictures when I get it running.