300 gallon l shape - start to finish PT1

[skng2011]

Hi Everyone, I am new to the site but love the fact that there is a dedicated forum to big tanks! I have been in the hobby for a few years but up until this build I have been doing freshwater, well I bought a house and had a huge corner of open space and the first thing that came to my mind was a huge saltwater tank, started looking into it,costs,shapes,equipment and decided to take the plunge . . . I wanted to show the steps I took and how it looks now after 1 month of a build and receive feedback and suggestions! So here goes . . .

First step find an amazing L Shaped tank (happened faster than expected)
I found this on Craigslist(ironic enough) on the other side of the state . .

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My original thought was "this is gonna be a lot of work" Its all Glass and is insanely heavy, took 7 guys to move it.

The first thing I did was take out the rigged up overflow boxes they had in that to me made no sense as the Tank is not drilled! After that I had to make the wife happy and fix it up, so I sanded,painted,built crown molding and laid tile and came out with this . . .

After all this work I filled it up one more time just to be safe and make sure there was no leaks and no problems, after a few days I drained the water and hooked up the filtration system, as I am doing Fish only I went with a pretty big Wet/Dry BioBall System and a monster pump! I have since added a Protein Skimmer but here is the filter system, since there was no pre-drilled holes I went with a hang-on overflow .. .

I then pushed the tank with 4 other people into place!!!

The next step was sand and rock, I used 400lbs of Natures Ocean Bio-Active Aragonite Sand (mixture of white and Pink) I then found a local guy selling Dry Rock, which I bought about 500lbs worth that looked like this . . .

That was the mock set up in my garage . . . I put the sand in and then I went in to put the rock down . . .

 

[skng2011]

It was a lot of work so I had some help and we had some fun along the way . . .After this the tank looked like this without any water in it . . .

Then with water . . .

I bought two 49" T5's with LEDs,timer and built in fans that look like this . .

So here is the FINAL outcome!!

I waited about two weeks all the levels were perfect and now about a month later and lots of water level checking I added some livestock . .

4 - Clowns , 3 - Yellow Tangs , 1 - Blue Angel and some Turbo Snails . . .Once I get back from Vacation I am going to start adding more fish!!1

I hoped you enjoyed my build and my LOOONG first post!!! LOL

 

[cdrewferd]

Wow, very cool system. Uniqueness at it's finest.

 

[skng2011]

Thanks!!!

 

[Northside Reef]

I really like it. that tile work looks cool you did an awesome job there

the tank looks way bigger than 300 gallons though. what are the dims?

 

[skng2011]

I really like it. that tile work looks cool you did an awesome job there

the tank looks way bigger than 300 gallons though. what are the dims?

Thanks a lot!!!

I thought it looked bigger as well, when the guy came and filled it up his meter said 282, so It might be just a little bigger since the rock and sand was already in . . .

The tank goes 5' in one direction and 4' in the other and the actual height of the tank is about 30" and the water stops about 4" from the top of the actual tank itself.

It was my first time ever laying tile but it was a lot of fun!!!

 

[Northside Reef]

How deep is it?

the formula is real easy in inches Height * Width * Depth/231 = gallons

so a 5' tank that was 30" tall and say 30" deep would be 60*30*30= 54000/231= 233 gallons.

a 4' tank that was 30" tall and 30" deep would be 187 gallons for a total of 420 gallons

But I am guessing on that 30" depth, and you would have to break the tank up into two even rectangles not just the front glass because the back glass goes further.

my tank is only 72x30x30 and it looks a lot smaller than yours and is only 280 gallons.

 

[packman90]

nice looking tank. How much did it cost you for it?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yes bravo on the tank size. I don't know if I'd go that far to get a tank like that but definitely love the "It's not a damn rectangle" feel to it! When I saw the title I read "I shaped tank" and I thought, I thought most tanks are in the shape of an I? as opposed to L shaped

 

[skng2011]

Thanks, i found the tank and the guy was selling frags out of it, which he said was a pain to get in and out of. At first he was asking 1,000 i talked him down to 800 knowing the amount of money i was going to be putting into it to and he accepted!

I tried to change to a capital L but it would not let me change the title!! Its def unique and one of a kind!!