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New 467 Gallon Reef Tank


Cdklos

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Hello All! I'm sure most you you don't remember be, I built a 240 Gallon a couple years ago. A bunch has changed since then and the 240 is gone. I have since moved from Austin to open a new branch of my company in Lubbock, Texas but I still return to Austin all the time for work. I am looking for suggestions on equipment and design help for my new tank. Here is a link to my first tank build.

Heres the story:

I'm building a new house and the new tank is going to be the focal point. I'm having a room built out for the tank to go in, with a cut out in the wall for viewing the tank. The tank dimensions will be 120"x30"x30". The room will be 8'x18', I added a picture.

I'm putting in a 4000 gallon/day R.O. system for the whole house and D.I. bottles for the tank. 

I'm looking for any ideas or input that anyone has. I am planning on doing 1 main 5000 GPH pump, and a second 3000 GPH circulation tank. I'm looking for at least 5000 GPH flow rate, including pump head pressure. 2 triangular shaped overflows on the back wall. I will have a metal frame built to support the tank with at least a 120 gallon usable sump beneath it. I'm going do 1.5"-2" sand bed in the tank, with a large remote deep sand bed that can be emptied in a few years, to avoid the problems down the road. 

I will be running a full Apex system, CO2 reactor, a few reactors for carbon and GFO, ATO, and the like.

I will also have 4-5 40 gallon breeders with divisions for fish quarantining, that will be on a totally different system running copper, plumped so that I can drain and refill the tanks automatically. 

Where can I get a high quality custom made sump? How should I have the sump made? I want a refugium, but also want the flexibility to run a triton system in the future if I decide to. 

What skimmer or Skimmers should I use? The tank will be pretty heavily stocked eventually, I will do LPS and SPS, so I assume the bio load will eventually be pretty heavy. 

Who is the best tank maker? I want the best quality I can get.

I have attached a picture of where the tank will be going. We will be breaking ground on the house in January, I will probably order the glass and sump the middle of March, I assume it takes 6 weeks to get the tank made and shipped.

What are yall's ideas!!?? I don't want to miss anything, looking for suggestions!
 

 

 

 

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I have both a Reef Savvy and a Planet Aquarium.  Both are high quality.  The Reef Savvy wait time is ridiculous, I waited 18  months.  The planet wait time was much better.  They can do a matching steel stand which then gives a really good warranty to the combo I believe.  My only issue with planet is their overflow hardware is  not great.  So I put a Reef Savvy ghost overflow on my planet tank.  It's an awesome combo!

I really like my elite aquatics sumps too: https://www.facebook.com/Elite-Aquatics-241732935839455/

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Looking forward to this build!  I've been very happy with my PA tank, definitely check them out as part of your research.  I believe  lead times for a custom PA tank will be around 8 weeks, but possibly longer for a tank this size. Check with RCA or Aquadome.

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  • 3 months later...

**UPDATE**

We have broken ground on the new house and made a few changes to the tank and the room design. I have decided to increase the tank size to a 10'W x 36"T x 30" deep. Making the tank 561 gallons. The tank room can now be accessed from the house and not the garage. We have added a mini-split AC unit to the room to keep it cool and an AC return from the main house with a damper and humidistat to control humidity in the house. The average humidity where I live is around 30% so I figured we could use the tank to help increase humidity in the house. We added a floor drain to the room and a sink, the RO system will be in my mechanical room adjacent to the tank room so I will have extra room for a 15 tank quarantine set up. I figure once everything is up a running in a year or so, I will start quarantining fish and selling them. I am going to use an external skimmer, and make 2 custom sumps, one with a large fuge and one with a remote DSB. I am trying to figure out what lights to go with. I am thinking metal halide with T5. Is this still the absolute best option? Cost doesn't matter, I just want the absolute best lighting possible. I used Kessils with t5 on my last tank and they worked well, but I think I could have better coral growth with a better light set up. I am also thinking the Radion XR30 G5 PRO. I do like the idea of less heat output than halides, I am not putting a chiller on the tank. What do you all think?

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Looks like a nice build!   I would put an emphasis on redundancy, look at each component of your setup and ask yourself what happens if it fails wen you're out of town?  Do you have someone(s) who can troubleshoot and fix/replace critical components?   I like the idea of controllers but have seen them fail in some fashion or another and kill livestock or causee lots of headaches fixing/replacing them.   As far as lights go whatever you choose there will be animals that don't like it.  This paper done by Ken Feldman and Joshi Sanjey show species specific responses to different lights (see fig. 7-17).   Lighting spectra also has effects skeletal growth as seen in this paper.

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Bashsea built my custom sump for a 6' x 30" x 30" tank. Great experience with them.  Skimmer built to suit as well. Wish I could tell you how it's worked but alas they sit in storage at the moment. Tank was acrylic and built by James at Envision acrylics.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's good to see you got Regal Tangs of different sizes (ages) and 561 gallons may be big enough for three but you should still be ready to rehome one or two in the future as they settle in. 😄

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