100 Gallon Open Top Mixed Reef

[ToxicPoison]

Hello! Welcome to those of you who begin reading threads from the start. For those of you who scroll through to check out pictures, then come back to read if it looks interesting, thanks for deeming my tank worthy! ;-)

 

So as requested in my "Introduce Yourself" thread, this is my tank setup. It was set up in August of last year (2009) in it's current location. It's pretty sparsely populated at the moment, but I'm hoping to change that soon. Equipment list is in my signature, but if you have any questions, just ask..and now, the pictures! =)

 

As stated in the subject, my tank is a 100 Gallon Open Top tank. With the sump/skimmer/plumbing, I estimate approximately 135 total gallons of water in my setup. Theres 75 pounds of reef rock in the main tank, and 30 pounds of reef rubble in the refugium, along with a DSB. Lifestock at the moment are simply snails, a brittle star, a peppermint shrimp, and 1 Acropora coral.

 

This is the main tank:

 

 

Here you can see the tank doors open and the plumbing that leads to the basement. The water jug to the left is Kalkwasser. The plugs are controlled by a Neptune Systems Apex controller:

 

A closer shot of the tank. (Pay no attention to the creepy guy in the reflection, he is totally harmless.)

 

My only Acropora to (barely) survive the move. It's actually much more colorful in person:

 

Top down shot of the tank. I turned the pump to "feed mode" for this shot. The water is normally much more turbulent than this.

 

And now we move to my "fish room". The basement oddly laid out and the area in the basement under the tank prevented me from creating a hard-walled fishroom. So I got some panda film (White on one side, Black on the other) and "screened" in a fish room. I used a tarp zipper for the door. It's worked well so far, and the flexible walls makes it a lot easier to move stuff around. The clear plastic tube to the left leads to a 20gallon brute container which holds the replacement freshwater for top-off. The exploding white stuff on the skimmer is a bottle of Joe's Juice that got away from me. That stuff is a serious pain in the patoot to clean off...

 

To help with water changes, and to keep water from overflowing into the main tank in case the skimmer gets blocked (It's gravity-fed), I tee-d off the drain line and created overflow plumbing into the sump. When I need to do a water change, I turn off the return pump and attach a hose with a union valve to the end of the overflow plumbing, which leads into a bucket. I then close the ballvalve to the skimmer. When I restart the return pump, the water gets forced through the overflow piping, into the bucket.

 

Here you can see the other end of the "fish room". The grey brute barrels hold 80 gallons of Salt water. They are connected underneath the table they sit on. That long plastic tube reaches across the room to refill the refugium when I do water changes. The blue barrels are old water storage barrels that I keep for emergencies.

 

Here you can see how the grey barrels are connected underneath the "table". The ball valve is a safety measure to prevent any sort of massive spills. I keep it closed most of the time, and only open it when I'm doing water changes.

 

*WHEW!* That was much more then I was planning to write. Thanks for sticking with the whole thing.

 

Looking forward to seeing what people have to say..

[stylaster]

looks nice very clean too!

[Emerald525]

Nice tank Toxic! Thanks for sharing!(clap) I like how you have it running through to the basement!

 

You need more corals!

[Mandinga]

Man, I love that stand and canopy! Also, the tank dimensions are ideal.

 

 

Not crazy about the aquascaping though...too wall-ish. Thats easy to fix though.

 

Who built the stand and canopy?

[newfisher]

Nice, clean set up.

[Michael7979]

Very nice!

Would like to see it after it is stocked.

[R-3]

Who built the tank??? Looks nice!

[ToxicPoison]

Man, I love that stand and canopy! Also, the tank dimensions are ideal.

 

 

Not crazy about the aquascaping though...too wall-ish. Thats easy to fix though.

 

Who built the stand and canopy?

 

 

Thanks!

 

I completely agree about the aquascaping. However, due to the overflow and where the Vortech needs to be, theres no way to move the rock around without blocking the flow completely to half the tank, or having rocks fall over a lot. It's actually a lot more open then it looks. Here's a side shot that shows this a bit better. In retrospect, I should've gone with corner overflows instead of a long one along the back. Next time perhaps

 

 

The tank/stand was designed by myself. It was custom built by a company that now appears to be out of business. It's not that surprising since their company service seemed to consist of "I have your money, you have your tank, now leave me alone". The quality of work is very good though.

 

(Shameless plug: Anyone looking to get into the tank building business? Let me know! (whistle) )

 

 

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words. Apparently I need more Corals cuz Emerald is mad at me (scary)

So I'll get on that shortly.

[R-3]

Thanks!

 

I completely agree about the aquascaping. However, due to the overflow and where the Vortech needs to be, theres no way to move the rock around without blocking the flow completely to half the tank, or having rocks fall over a lot. It's actually a lot more open then it looks. Here's a side shot that shows this a bit better. In retrospect, I should've gone with corner overflows instead of a long one along the back. Next time perhaps

 

 

The tank/stand was designed by myself. It was custom built by a company that now appears to be out of business. It's not that surprising since their company service seemed to consist of "I have your money, you have your tank, now leave me alone". The quality of work is very good though.

 

(Shameless plug: Anyone looking to get into the tank building business? Let me know! (whistle) )

 

 

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words. Apparently I need more Corals cuz Emerald is mad at me (scary)

So I'll get on that shortly.

 

Yeah it sucks trying to find anything custom glass. It just doesnt exist around here. We do have one of the best acrylic tank builders in the world though!!

[undrtkr_00]

Slick setup. Looks like a pretty well thought-out water change system and such. Very cool.