Hello MASC,
I have not been super active on here over the last several years. I've been mainly hanging out over at R2R and on the south CO club forums back when they were around. But with this new build I've been getting back into things here.
My first saltwater tank was a 60g Cube mixed reef that has been up and running for 3.5 years that I purchased off of Walter White back before he got out of the hobby. I've learned a lot from it, and it is still teaching me things to this day. One of the things it taught me was that I really wanted a bigger tank! Not only for the space inside the tank for more fish options, but for more room in the sump area as well. Having to contain your sump and all the equipment and electronics in a 2'x2' footprint is quite challenging and more than a little difficult to work on and clean. The other thing it taught me was that my family likes the critters in the tank more than the corals. This led me to wanting to do a FOWLR tank since it would allow us to keep any fish that we wanted to. I also wanted to reduce the amount of maintenance the tank would need, so the simplicity of a fish only tank was appealing as well.
Thus, the current build was born. Back in January I placed an order for a Planet Aquariums MEGA Matrix 270g (84x30x25) glass tank. It is one of their stock sized tanks, but I had them upsize the external overflow from their Tideline 16" to the 20". Not only did this give the tank more surface skimming, but it also increased the drain size from 1" to 1.5". The increase in drain size allows me to easily convert this tank to a reef tank in the future if I decide to go that route again.
Since the Wife and I are both particular on how our house looks, it was decided early on that I would be building the stand and canopy to best fit in with our interior. It would also save some money on the build, which is always good!
Researching on how to build a solid stand that would support this size tank, I came across the @RocketEngineer plans and decided to use those.
The initial plan was to have all the equipment and electronics under the stand, so I added the two center supports to help frame in a compartment for the Apex on the left side and a space for future expansion on the right if needed. The center supports also gave me a little piece of mind supporting this size tank. The opening is 46" to allow for a decent sized sump to fit in there. The plan is to use pocket screws and glue, eliminating the need for the "screw boards" in his design.
The Wife graciously agreed to turn our formal dining room into a sitting room so that we would have a dedicated area to enjoy the tank from. To get an idea on how the new tank would fit in the room and what type of new furniture she could get, I mocked it all up in Fusion 360. She looked at several couches and a few chaise lounges, but they were all to large for the room once the tank was in there. In the end she had to settle for getting two of our current chairs reupholstered in the fabric of her choice. Some where along the lines new drapes were added to the list of things needed as well.
Mocking it up on the computer also let us play around with color options on the stand easily.
In the end, she decided on an all-white stand with just plain trim and a simple style. Something we could have bought instead of me building, but we are still going to save a lot of money on the stand.
With the tank ordered and the stand designed, it was time to turn my attention to the equipment I was going to use on this build. Since this was going to be a FOWLR tank, I knew I would not need full blown reef lights, could go with a little less flow, and would not need to dose a lot. I wanted to do a Negative Space Aquascape (NSA) and probably a heavier bioload, so that meant I would need a good skimmer and probably a biopellet reactor. The Wife’s biggest pet peeve about aquariums is algae in the DT. To help combat that as much as possible, I’ll be installing a UV sterilizer and probably an algae turf scrubber as well.
After making a list of band and models of the equipment that I wanted, I started searching the various sites to see if I could find what I wanted used before buying it new. I had not made up my mind on which skimmer I wanted to go with, so when TheRealChrisBrown listed his Precision Marine Bullet 3 skimmer setup for sale, it really piqued my interest. He has it running on a DC pump (same as I wanted to do) with an Avast Marine Swabbie and attached to an Avast Marine Davy Jones’ Skimmate Superlocker. Both addons would reduce the amount of daily/weekly maintenance that I’d have to do, which fell in line with my desire to reduce maintenance. Buying his skimmer system seemed like a no brainer.
Such a large skimmer did pose an issue with getting it in the sump below the stand and working on it. With only a couple of inches from the top of the collection cup and the bottom of the stand top, I was not looking forward to having to clean it when the Davy Jones’ Locker was full. Water changes were also going to be more difficult with the sump under the stand then I wanted them to be. I would be back to putting a small submersible pump in the sump and dealing with running a hose outside to drain it and then another hose from the mixing station in the garage to fill it. The wall behind the tank is shared on the other side with our three-car attached garage. Since I was already going to be putting my mixing station in the garage, this got me to thinking about building a “fish closet” in there as well. Knowing that the harder the weekly maintenance is to do, the less likely I will be to do it, I decided that moving the sump and all equipment out there would be the best recipe for success.
I have not been super active on here over the last several years. I've been mainly hanging out over at R2R and on the south CO club forums back when they were around. But with this new build I've been getting back into things here.
My first saltwater tank was a 60g Cube mixed reef that has been up and running for 3.5 years that I purchased off of Walter White back before he got out of the hobby. I've learned a lot from it, and it is still teaching me things to this day. One of the things it taught me was that I really wanted a bigger tank! Not only for the space inside the tank for more fish options, but for more room in the sump area as well. Having to contain your sump and all the equipment and electronics in a 2'x2' footprint is quite challenging and more than a little difficult to work on and clean. The other thing it taught me was that my family likes the critters in the tank more than the corals. This led me to wanting to do a FOWLR tank since it would allow us to keep any fish that we wanted to. I also wanted to reduce the amount of maintenance the tank would need, so the simplicity of a fish only tank was appealing as well.
Thus, the current build was born. Back in January I placed an order for a Planet Aquariums MEGA Matrix 270g (84x30x25) glass tank. It is one of their stock sized tanks, but I had them upsize the external overflow from their Tideline 16" to the 20". Not only did this give the tank more surface skimming, but it also increased the drain size from 1" to 1.5". The increase in drain size allows me to easily convert this tank to a reef tank in the future if I decide to go that route again.
Since the Wife and I are both particular on how our house looks, it was decided early on that I would be building the stand and canopy to best fit in with our interior. It would also save some money on the build, which is always good!
Researching on how to build a solid stand that would support this size tank, I came across the @RocketEngineer plans and decided to use those.
The initial plan was to have all the equipment and electronics under the stand, so I added the two center supports to help frame in a compartment for the Apex on the left side and a space for future expansion on the right if needed. The center supports also gave me a little piece of mind supporting this size tank. The opening is 46" to allow for a decent sized sump to fit in there. The plan is to use pocket screws and glue, eliminating the need for the "screw boards" in his design.
The Wife graciously agreed to turn our formal dining room into a sitting room so that we would have a dedicated area to enjoy the tank from. To get an idea on how the new tank would fit in the room and what type of new furniture she could get, I mocked it all up in Fusion 360. She looked at several couches and a few chaise lounges, but they were all to large for the room once the tank was in there. In the end she had to settle for getting two of our current chairs reupholstered in the fabric of her choice. Some where along the lines new drapes were added to the list of things needed as well.
Mocking it up on the computer also let us play around with color options on the stand easily.
In the end, she decided on an all-white stand with just plain trim and a simple style. Something we could have bought instead of me building, but we are still going to save a lot of money on the stand.
With the tank ordered and the stand designed, it was time to turn my attention to the equipment I was going to use on this build. Since this was going to be a FOWLR tank, I knew I would not need full blown reef lights, could go with a little less flow, and would not need to dose a lot. I wanted to do a Negative Space Aquascape (NSA) and probably a heavier bioload, so that meant I would need a good skimmer and probably a biopellet reactor. The Wife’s biggest pet peeve about aquariums is algae in the DT. To help combat that as much as possible, I’ll be installing a UV sterilizer and probably an algae turf scrubber as well.
After making a list of band and models of the equipment that I wanted, I started searching the various sites to see if I could find what I wanted used before buying it new. I had not made up my mind on which skimmer I wanted to go with, so when TheRealChrisBrown listed his Precision Marine Bullet 3 skimmer setup for sale, it really piqued my interest. He has it running on a DC pump (same as I wanted to do) with an Avast Marine Swabbie and attached to an Avast Marine Davy Jones’ Skimmate Superlocker. Both addons would reduce the amount of daily/weekly maintenance that I’d have to do, which fell in line with my desire to reduce maintenance. Buying his skimmer system seemed like a no brainer.
Such a large skimmer did pose an issue with getting it in the sump below the stand and working on it. With only a couple of inches from the top of the collection cup and the bottom of the stand top, I was not looking forward to having to clean it when the Davy Jones’ Locker was full. Water changes were also going to be more difficult with the sump under the stand then I wanted them to be. I would be back to putting a small submersible pump in the sump and dealing with running a hose outside to drain it and then another hose from the mixing station in the garage to fill it. The wall behind the tank is shared on the other side with our three-car attached garage. Since I was already going to be putting my mixing station in the garage, this got me to thinking about building a “fish closet” in there as well. Knowing that the harder the weekly maintenance is to do, the less likely I will be to do it, I decided that moving the sump and all equipment out there would be the best recipe for success.
I plan on priming and paint the conduit and boxes when I paint the inside of the fish room. You can also see all the wood for framing in the room. The one recessed outlet you can see is the house GFI. It will not be used to run anything in the fish room. Once the walls are up (shown as the blue tape), I'll add a third outlet on the short wall for the mixing station and my exhaust fan.
