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Jeeps Gone Reef On 300g Build


JasReef

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Hello and welcome to my build. As the title states I have decided to let go of one hobby for another. I loved my Jeep and will miss it, this tank will be in its honor.wave.gif

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I have had the 160g up and running since November of 2015. I should have resealed the tank when I got it but it was a job I just couldn’t tackle at the time so I decided to fill it up. It was a mistake.doh.gif

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Long story short I just don’t 100% trust it so I made the decision to buy a new tank and in typical reefer fashion I made it bigger.whistle.gif

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I have an A.G.E 300 gallon tank being built. It is 96x30x24 inch and I can be happy with it for many years to come. I can relax about leaks and have confidence in this tank. I spoke with Roger from A.G.E. in person and came away feeling very confident in my purchase. Bryan at the Fish Gallery in Austin took over from there and he has been keeping in contact with me on the build.

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It has black silicone and will have a black vinyl back. If you are not familiar with A.G.E they feature a stainless steel powder coated frame, it will be black. They are also made right here in Texas. They came to C4 and had a beautiful tank set up.

I also ordered a steel black powder coated stand. I made it 42" tall so I don't have to bend over so much to see it. I plan on skinning it myself.

I have about 4 weeks left to get things ready to move.

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For a sump I have asked Terry at Fishy Business in San Antonio to build me a custom 118g sump. It will be 60x25x18. His guy does really nice work. I pretty much took features that I liked from other sumps and incorporated them into this. I will run the Vectra L1 as my return pump. I will hook it into an Oceans Motion and return it to the four 1 inch returns to the display. Should be a nice random flow return. I will run a Jaebo 4000 that I have to a manifold

For the flow I have 2 Maxspect Gyre 280's on the way. I will run both these off the new controller. Maxspect plans on adding an Integrated Controller V6 for managing both pumps and LED lights and the new controller will be able to run wirelessly to it. I am thinking it will be a web based IU like the Ecotech reef link.

For now I will run my External Reef Octopus on the system but I may need to upgrade if I increase the bio load too much.

Lighting will be a little odd but I like what I have and wanted to try out something new. I have a 60" Hamilton with 2x80 watt T5's and 2x250 Halides, I have also attached 3 AI Primes to the fixture. I also have an ATI Sunpower 36" 8bulb T5. The tank may look a little uneven but it will be interesting to see how corals do in different parts of the tank. I will start out with 4 Blue+, 2 Coral+ and 2 True Actinics.

The tank chemistry will be maintained by my GeosReef 618 CaRx. So far I love this rig and it works perfectly on the 160g.

The whole thing will be monitored by the "old" Apex Gold with 2 EB8's, breakout box, PM2, and ALD.

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I will be building this into my existing fish room, which is a room in a larger room.

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The plan is to carve out 31" to settle the 96" in there. The part on the right end will get taken off and made even with the rest of the opening. I really like having room behind to put all my stuff for the tank. I will be plumbing a 40 Breeder into the system as well to eventually have for a frag tank.

Here is the current situation in the room. I really let it get away from me with the wiring. I will keep the mixing station where it is for now with the two 35 gallon tanks. Everything else comes out. It's not as bad as it looks but I did start figuring out wires and making a moving plan so it is extra messy today.nopity.gif

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I am glad I did the way I did to start, I learned a lot of what I need to do to be successful with lots of room to not be crammed. Now I know what to plan for when moving everything under a stand. I have been inspired by some truly awesome attention to detail under cabinet designs here and on other forums and would like to make this as clean looking as possible. Access and ease of use it most important to me. If I can get to it easy I will clean it.

The 40 will go on a much smaller steel frame stand.

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I plan on some kind of table or desk in the corner to do all my testing at.

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Wow, those are like my dream dimensions for a tank. I'll just have to live vicariously through you! It's going to be awesome!

I thought a lot about dimensions. I knew I wanted at least 8' long 30" seems like an ideal width and 24" tall is what I have now and I think it is perfect. If you scape it right it won't feel like there is no room to grow up. I don't plan on sand so that nice grey pvc bottom will look good when its covered with encrusting montis and coraline.

Any tips or tricks are very much appreciated so let me know what you or anyone would do. Is no sand a mistake? My gut says no sand but my eyes tell me it can look good. Maybe something in the 3mm-5mm range, nice white no live crap.

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Awesome tank, I'm looking at a very similar size, and AGE is on of the vendors I'm looking at. Very interested in seeing your finished product when you get it!! I still have a handful of months before I'll be ready buy a new tank.

I have seen a few AGE tanks and they are incredible! I will post a lot of pics when I get it.

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Looks pretty exciting!

Thanks Seth. It is exciting like watching a car race and wondering if someone is going to crash. snack.gif I think I have a good plan and keep parameters where they need to be during the transition phase. We will see.

I really need to find some time to come look at your setup because your build is so tidy and I can obviously use some pointers.

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Looks pretty exciting!

Thanks Seth. It is exciting like watching a car race and wondering if someone is going to crash. :snack: I think I have a good plan and keep parameters where they need to be during the transition phase. We will see.

I really need to find some time to come look at your setup because your build is so tidy and I can obviously use some pointers.

Looks like you have a pretty good start to me :)

Your welcome to come whenever you like.

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Looks pretty exciting!

Thanks Seth. It is exciting like watching a car race and wondering if someone is going to crash. snack.gif I think I have a good plan and keep parameters where they need to be during the transition phase. We will see.

I really need to find some time to come look at your setup because your build is so tidy and I can obviously use some pointers.

Looks like you have a pretty good start to me smile.png

Your welcome to come whenever you like.

Don't do it, it's a trap!

Haha, good planning on that tank. I love the dimensions smile.png

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What kind of wheels did you have on that Jeep? I like them smile.png

Sent from my XT1045 using Tapatalk

I am not sure what the rims were, they were on it when I bought it. I think I saw them at discount tires once and I still see newer jeeps with the rims. The tires are BFG 35's Mud Terrains.

I would not have kept them though, I was looking for bead locks when I shifted priorities to an indoor sport. They did look good though, thanks! thumbsup.gif

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Looks pretty exciting!

Thanks Seth. It is exciting like watching a car race and wondering if someone is going to crash. snack.gif I think I have a good plan and keep parameters where they need to be during the transition phase. We will see.

I really need to find some time to come look at your setup because your build is so tidy and I can obviously use some pointers.

Looks like you have a pretty good start to me smile.png

Your welcome to come whenever you like.

Don't do it, it's a trap!

Haha, good planning on that tank. I love the dimensions smile.png

You mean like this?

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I made a list as I sat in the fish room. A Deconstruction sequence if you will. I have it numbered and came up with 21 steps to success. And that list doesn't include opening up the wall a little more to fit everything.

I have the next two weekends to accomplish this as I need the 160 out on Saturday Oct 1. Codyja is planning to bring his truck down that morning to pick it up. After that I have a few half days here and there to enlarge the wall and be ready.

The rock I have cooking in the garage is doing great, phosfree pretty immediately settles to bottom, I plan on getting a Po4 reading tomorrow. If it's good I would like to start getting some rock formations going.

Parts are starting to order, pipes, cable management, the detail stuff that will be nice to have on hand.

Once I get more things moving I will do so before and after pics. I know that is what the masses want. hairy.png

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I love it when folks do these big time builds. Completely living vicariously through you as well, and hoping I can do it myself some day!

Thanks Bobcat, This is not my ideal conditions for setting up. I feel I'm under the gun to get it set up almost immediately. I really want to take some time with the scape but I have to keep it all wet and live until then. I am going order some emarco cement and Try to build something functional while keeping as much off the bottom as possible. I made a mistake of large flat pieces that are hard to get flow through so changing things up a little this time. I like bare bottom minimal scaping so that's what I am going for.

I'm going to start taking some things off line this weekend. Get the garage in shape for a staging area. I also need to take frags off rock and put them on new plugs.

Bob, I am sure you will get there sooner than you think.

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