kentrob11
Premium Member
Well, I've been kicking this around for nearly 5 years and I'm finally starting work on it. I figured starting this build thread would help keep me on track and give me a place to document progress ;-) I've been a part of these forums for nearly 14 years and had a great tank and many reefing buddies to "hobby" with years ago but life changes put me out of the hobby for a while. I had a great time building things related to this hobby so I'm excited to get back into it on a scale I haven't had the resources to in the past. I've always been an avid DIY'er and used to build my own tank equipment:
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I initially intended on building every single element of this system but after lots of time drawing up details build plans for everything, I realized that I would have such a monumental task ahead of me, I would most likely still be staring at an empty tank 2 years from now! As such, I decided to focus on building the tank/filtration room and leave the major filtration components to a high end large system professional.
We built our current home 5 years ago, and before pouring the basement concrete I had a large 12" thick footing poured beneath the tank location to prevent any foundation issues down the road:
Fast forward to today, Here is the area above the footing:
As you can see the basement has been a playground of sorts for the kids and I intend to keep it that way for another year or so.
The approximate size of this tank will be roughly 3000 gallons give or take. I neither trust nor care to spend the financial resources to buy a tank this size made of acrylic so after a bit or research, decided to to with a lumber frame, plywood and acrylic lined tank with a large acrylic viewing pane:
The frame will be reinforced with 1/4" steel angle iron and the viewing pane will be a sheet of 5' x 10' x 2" thick Polycast. The inside of the tank will be lined with 1/4" black cast acrylic, with all corner seams sealed with thick formed beads of Dow 795. The room around the tank will be sealed and waterproofed, with an air exchanging system to handle humidity issues.
This system will be a bit atypical...The filter room will be built in the garage on the main floor. The skimmer will be fed upward from the main tank overflow, then flow into a nearby sump which will supply feeds to the calcium/sulfur reactors and then overflow back down to the main tank.
The protein skimmer, calcium reactor and sulfur reactors are being made my Aquarium Engineering as we speak:
At the moment, the plan is to use an APEX controller to automate as much as possible, though I am open to suggestions in that area. For basic tank parameter monitoring, I will use GF+ Signet Flow, PH, Temp and Orp monitors:
That's the jist of it from an intro standpoint. I start on the base/stand framing next week so I'll continue to update as I move forward with things...
I initially intended on building every single element of this system but after lots of time drawing up details build plans for everything, I realized that I would have such a monumental task ahead of me, I would most likely still be staring at an empty tank 2 years from now! As such, I decided to focus on building the tank/filtration room and leave the major filtration components to a high end large system professional.
We built our current home 5 years ago, and before pouring the basement concrete I had a large 12" thick footing poured beneath the tank location to prevent any foundation issues down the road:
Fast forward to today, Here is the area above the footing:
As you can see the basement has been a playground of sorts for the kids and I intend to keep it that way for another year or so.
The approximate size of this tank will be roughly 3000 gallons give or take. I neither trust nor care to spend the financial resources to buy a tank this size made of acrylic so after a bit or research, decided to to with a lumber frame, plywood and acrylic lined tank with a large acrylic viewing pane:
The frame will be reinforced with 1/4" steel angle iron and the viewing pane will be a sheet of 5' x 10' x 2" thick Polycast. The inside of the tank will be lined with 1/4" black cast acrylic, with all corner seams sealed with thick formed beads of Dow 795. The room around the tank will be sealed and waterproofed, with an air exchanging system to handle humidity issues.
This system will be a bit atypical...The filter room will be built in the garage on the main floor. The skimmer will be fed upward from the main tank overflow, then flow into a nearby sump which will supply feeds to the calcium/sulfur reactors and then overflow back down to the main tank.
The protein skimmer, calcium reactor and sulfur reactors are being made my Aquarium Engineering as we speak:
At the moment, the plan is to use an APEX controller to automate as much as possible, though I am open to suggestions in that area. For basic tank parameter monitoring, I will use GF+ Signet Flow, PH, Temp and Orp monitors:
That's the jist of it from an intro standpoint. I start on the base/stand framing next week so I'll continue to update as I move forward with things...
I've known Bill for quite a while now and he's been a big help in designing this system. He's an incredibly smart guy and I've fortunate to have him in my corner on this 
