Mitchell

Just a little concerned about that skimmer of yours fitting in there - now just needs water

It's a good thing you did that extra half inch, I don't know if it would fit otherwise! Thanks again for such a nice tank and sump!

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A nice macro garden with a cool mantis would be awesome (rock2)

I was thinking about doing something like that! I could even put a piece of acrylic in the front of the stand, so it could be on display.

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Very nice! I also like the black silicone.

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I've got tons of ORA red sea Xenia

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It's 80 gallons (48x24x16). I have a 17"x 24" area in the middle that I'll use as a fuge. I'm not sure what I'll put in it; it's too big for just a ball of chaeto.

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Got the sump today! It's bigger than any of my previous tanks

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I thought it was a 55 gallon.

Here's a screenshot of it. It looks bigger than I originally thought.

Cool!

I've got a quarantine tank with a few frags of hair algae (laugh), but I don't have any coral to trade. How much would you like for them?

I'm looking for two 1" sea swirls. 1.5" could possibly work too.

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Who makes custom tanks? Do they do glass tanks? I'm looking into maybe getting one built.

 

Thanks.

Charles (wannareef) just made me a 250 gallon acrylic cube.

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I was thinking about using a scwd on my new tank. I wanted to use sea swirls, but I haven't been able to find used ones.

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My stand is 40" tall, so I'll probably have to go all Mission Impossible and suspend from the ceiling just to get to the center of the tank lol! I don't know how the people with the really big tanks do it!

Brad, if you'd like to borrow my recirculating hardware to see how it works just let me know. I'm at least a few weeks out from starting the tank, so it's just sitting in my equipment pile.

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I believe Travis' tank is 30" tall. I wouldn't want this tank any taller, I already can't reach in all the way. I could probably get away with two 400watts, but the way I am planning my aquascape I'll need good coverage.

Brad, I do have the recirculating hardware, do you need one? You don't happen to have an extra impellor/magnet assembly? If you do I'll trade you my recirculating hardware for your impellor/magnet assembly (laugh)

Thanks guys! I'm really excited!

It's going to be mostly SPS, so I'll be using four 250watt halides.

Garrett is real close, the tank is 48"x48"x25". It was a bit more to go with the 25" height, but I think that extra inch will make a big difference.

Since I got my tank today, I thought it was time to start my build thread. Thank you Charles for making it!

Here are a couple pictures of the tank:

36" external overflow:

My protein skimmer SWC Xtreme 250 1A:

Frame for the stand:

I don't think you're off topic at all Brad. Even if you were, I wouldn't care. And I think you would fall into the SPS tank category (laugh)

Everyone has brought up some good points. I never even thought about the loss of water volume.

I was planning on using the seafloor special sand, but after some research it sounds like Tropic Of Eden Reeflakes are around the same size, but cleaner and whiter.

I don't know if this is true at all, but I was wondering if using the standard 2-3 inches of sand would give you the worst aspects of both a shallow sand bed and a DSB. My thought here is that with that amount of sand, you lack the depth necessary to create a useful anaerobic zone, but it is plenty deep to collect detritus. Now I know any amount of sand can and will collect detritus, but it seems like the deeper the sand, the harder it is to keep clean.

What I am planning on doing with my sand is: using 90 lbs of sand for my 48"x48" tank, this should give me a depth of about .85" since the sand weighs about 80 lbs/cubic foot. With that depth I should have no anaerobic bacteria and just aerobic. What normally happens when you vacuum your sand is that the sand that has aerobic bacteria mixes with the sand with the anaerobic bacteria. Some of the aerobic bacteria ends up in the anaerobic zone and since it needs oxygen and doesn’t have it, it dies. The same is true for the anaerobic bacteria, some of it ends up in the aerobic zone, cannot tolerate oxygen and dies. This is the die off associated with vacuuming/disturbing a normal sand bed. The goal of my shallow sand bed is to eliminate this die off, allowing me to vacuum my sand bed as much as it's needed to remove detritus.

Saw this growing in a parking lot today and couldn't help but notice the resemblance to GSP. I knew green star polyps could grow in dirt (laugh)

You know you're a reef addict when you see moss and think of coral.

Was the salt sealed in the bucket and free of clumps? If it is, it should be just fine. I've used the old formula of Kent and the new one. When they originally changed over to the new formula I mixed the two together with no problems.

What do you recommend? I have: Rod's Food original' date=' Frozen cyclopeeze and mysis, Hikari marine S pellets, Instant Ocean brine in gel, and ReefCleaners.org's filter food on hand.[/quote']

 

All of those are kind of small foods. Even though the star will eat them, it may be hard to get the food to the star. You could go to the grocery store and buy a couple raw table shrimp. Cut them into a few chunks and place a chunk next to the star and just freeze the rest.

 

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I am thinking about using a shallow sand bed (< 1") in my new tank. I've always had at least a couple inches of sand in my other tanks, but I haven't been happy with it. It always seems to collect so much detritus. I would go bare bottom, but I dislike the bare bottom look. What depth of sand bed do you have and how do you like it?

I believe dsoz made his own. You can see some of it here

Ive found this link to be very helpful.

Ok' date=' I feed quite randomly (on purpose) but I can add quantity and try to target food to it's cave/arms.[/quote']

 

I wouldn't feed the whole tank more. The star probably wouldn't get much of the extra food and it could cause nutrient issues. Try to target feed the star. Even if it's hiding, once you add food near it it should come out.

 

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You could hand feed it. I doubt there is enough food in your nano to support it.

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Looks great! Cubes are my favorite style of tank.

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